by Voss, Deja
“I got here as fast as I could,” Olive says, her black high heel boots tapping loudly on the tile floor. She kisses Tank on the lips. “Ethan’s with Sloan.” The slender blonde wraps her arms around me as I stand there rigid. Olive is a sweet girl. She’s always been good to the club, and Esther was one of her best friends in the world. Ever since she died, even the smell of Olive’s perfume makes me want to throw up. She doesn’t deserve my wrath, but everything about her reminds me of my wife. Her and Tank, happy together, madly in love, their kid getting ready to start kindergarten, I hate it all. “What the hell is going on here?” she whispers in my ear.
I shake her off of me, her touch repulsive.
“She needs something for her eye. She doesn’t have hardly any clothes.”
“Okay,” Olive says, looking Josie up and down. “Brooks, I know that losing someone you care about makes you do strange things…”
“You don’t know shit, Olive,” I bark. “Can you help her or not?”
I want to feel bad for the tears welling up in her eyes. Red, her ex-boyfriend and a fellow brother, was murdered in their house less than five years ago while she watched. My logic tells me she knows exactly what I’m going through. My current mental state tells me that she doesn’t have a fucking clue. She didn’t love Red like I love Esther. Nobody in the history of time loved like the two of us. Nobody ever will.
She trots off and takes a seat next to Josie.
“Hi, I’m Olive,” she says. “Your name is Josie?” The girl nods, hanging on to her sandwich like it’s a prized possession. “Are you in school?”
“No,” she says. “I dropped out. Don’t worry. Nobody’s looking for me.”
“Honey, I’m not worried about that at all,” Olive says. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen?” Josie half asks with a shrug.
“Come on now,” Olive says, “don’t play me. At least when I lied about my age, I said I was twenty-one. Way more fun that way. You think I don’t know every trick in the book? I wrote the book.”
“I’ll be seventeen in two weeks,” Josie says.
“Well, maybe we’ll throw you a birthday party.” As much as I can’t stand the sight of Olive right now, I knew she would ‘get it’ as soon as she met Josie. Olive is one of those people who gets along with everyone; she makes everyone feel like they’re the only person in the world. The way she is showering Josie in attention, helping her with her eye and asking her what kind of clothes and make-up she likes like an older sister would is probably the only kindness she’s seen in a long time.
“Brooks,” a voice whispers from the hallway. “Brooks!” she whispers louder. I don’t need to look over my shoulder to see who it is. It’s Jasmine. She used to strip at my wife’s club before we shut the place down. Now she just hangs around the clubhouse, tending bar, and trying to keep her promise to Esther intact, even though I’m not making that any easier right now. “Come back here! I want to show you something.”
She’s a good-looking woman, hell, she’s downright hot, her caramel skin dotted with random tattoos and big thick thighs that I don’t mind having wrapped around my face, and big old plastic tits that barely move when I fuck her from behind. She’s so fucking opposite of Esther, and that’s the only reason why screwing her feels okay. Not good, but tolerable.
It’s what Esther wanted after all. She picked her out for me before she died. Said she didn’t want me letting some weak needy club ho taking her spot in our bed for more than one night. Jasmine was a tough chick. She demanded respect, even though everyone here had seen her in every possible state of undress. Maybe that was the only thing she had in common with Esther.
“Do you want some company tonight?” She’s grabbing at the waist of my jeans, pulling me into her soft body that’s pressed against the hallway wall. “What’s all this blood, baby?” She takes my bleeding knuckles and eyes them suspiciously.
“You know better.” She might be a nice warm place to stick my dick, but she’s not entitled to old lady stuff.
“Fine, fucking bleed out,” she says with a shrug. “Let’s go back to your house and get the sheets dirty.” Her breath is hot on my neck and she grinds her hips up against me. I know she’s trying her best to get me hard, but that just ain’t going to happen tonight.
“I can’t,” I say, pushing her away.
“Brooks,” she says, not quite whining, more like scolding. “You know you can.”
“No, I actually fucking can’t. I got shit to do tomorrow and I got a kidnapped girl I need to take care of.”
“The fuck was that last part?” she stammers, pushing me away.
“Never mind.”
“She out there?” She peeks her head around the corner. “Brooks, she looks like she’s fourteen. Did you give her a fucking black eye?” She’s shaking her head and holding her hand over her mouth like she’s going to throw up. “I know you’re going through some shit, but…”
“Her dad’s a scumbag. He didn’t deserve to have her anymore.”
“So you adopted a teenage daughter?”
“No,” I say.
“Listen, you know I like fucking with you Brooks, but I’m not trying to co-parent some random kid with you. I didn’t sign up for that shit.”
I look over her irresistible body, but the thought of her being anything more than a woman I take my urges out on is revolting. I don’t care if Esther “approved” of her before she died. She’s just like the rest of them, and will never be a part of my world.
“Good,” I say, pushing her out of the way. “It’s none of your business anyway. Don’t you have somewhere to be? Shouldn’t you be out looking for a street corner or something so you can support yourself?” She scrunches her nose up like she is going to spit in my face, but I know she won’t. She has it good. Esther left her a nice chunk of change, and she gets to fuck the president of the most powerful motorcycle club in the entire state. She doesn’t get to ask for anything, and I don’t have to give her anything. Not a future. Not an explanation. I don’t even have to acknowledge her existence if I don’t feel like it.
And that is all there is to that.
Never in my life did I see myself becoming that guy. I’d always had a good relationship with the ladies, even before I finally ended up with the woman of my dreams. My dad taught me to treat them with respect, and even if I was just screwing around with a girl, it was always in good fun for the both of us.
This thing with Jasmine though… I feel like I do it because it’s what Esther wanted. I know she just wanted what was best for me, but all I want is to still feel connected to her. Jasmine doesn’t scratch that itch. She just makes me feel like a dirty animal.
I walk out into the bar, and everyone goes silent again. It’s nothing unusual as of late.
“Time to go,” I say to Josie, grabbing her by the sleeve of her shirt. “I’m tired.”
“Why doesn’t Josie just stay at my house?” Olive says sternly. She’s looking at me like I’m a crazy person, but I’m starting to get used to that look. “I promise I won’t let her run away.”
“Come on, Josie,” I say. “Get your shit.”
She doesn’t say anything, just shoves the rest of her sandwich in her mouth in one bite before jumping up from the barstool. She slings her backpack over her shoulder and looks up at me with frightened eyes.
I hear everyone whispering as we walk out the door together. I know I’ve been erratic lately. They can whisper as much as they want. This is as much me protecting this girl as it is showing my club who’s in charge. This is as much me asserting my power as president as it is doing a good deed that my dead wife would’ve wanted me to. Two birds, one stone.
“Let’s just walk,” I say. I had a couple beers and normally wouldn’t think twice about riding my bike the quarter mile home, but I don’t want to do it with the kid on the back. It’s dark as hell out, but I know these roads up and down. This is the place I was raised, and the place I’ll die. I try to kee
p focused on the road ahead when we walk past the trailer Esther used to live in for all those years, now occupied by my brother, Micah, and his fiancée Amber.
In my mind, that will always be Esther’s trailer.
I notice I’ve lost the kid. Maybe I’m walking a little fast for her to keep up. She is probably half my size.
“Where’d you go?” I ask, stopping to look behind my shoulder. She’s crouched down in the driveway to the trailer.
“This isn’t an outside kitty,” she says. She’s petting Mr. Gingerbread, Esther’s geriatric orange cat. He’s taken to breaking out of the house lately and going to the trailer. I’m sure he’s looking for her, too. He’s just as lost as I am without her in his life.
Josie scoops him up in her arms. “You’re a big boy, huh?” she says, hugging him tight. He purrs, pawing at her face.
“That’s my wife’s cat,” I say. “You wanna carry him home?”
We continue the walk down the dirt road, Gingerbread in tote.
“Mister Brooks?” she asks in a sad little voice as I start up the steps to my porch.
“It’s just Brooks,” I say, fumbling around in my pocket for my keys.
“What happened to your wife?” The way that little redhead is standing there hugging Esther’s cat with her black eye and bruised neck makes me feel like I could throw up. Gavin was right. She is a little mini Esther.
“She got cancer. Then she got shot.”
She follows me into the house and Gingerbread leaps from her arms straight to the kitchen countertop, pawing at the cupboard where I keep his food. I dig around in the fridge, looking for something that a teenager could drink, and realize I’m going to have to send Trixie downtown for groceries tomorrow.
I open up the cupboard while Gingerbread howls and paws at me, waiting for me to fix his disgusting canned food. He can’t eat anything else because he’s lost half his teeth. I swear he’s older than I am, and he’s probably going to outlive us all.
“Is this when we have sex?” she asks.
I drop the can of the food to the floor and spin around to stare at the sheepish girl standing there in my kitchen.
“Are you out of your mind?” I ask. “First of all, you’re a child. I’m old enough to be your father, and I’m not into that shit. Second of all, if I want to do that, I don’t have to kidnap someone.”
“I’m not a kid,” she says. “I’m nearly legal.”
“Get this in your head, Josie. We will never have sex. I don’t care if you’re forty and I’m eighty. That’s not why I brought you here.”
“Are you going to kill me?” she asks, picking up the can of food from the floor and scooping it into Gingerbread’s bowl while he tries to knock it from her hands.
“No.”
“Why did you bring me here, then?” she asks. “Usually guys don’t talk to me unless they want something from me.”
“Because your dad is a piece of shit, and I wanted to hurt him,” I say. “He took from my family, and I wanted to make him suffer.”
“You know he won’t care, right?” She sits on the floor next to Gingerbread while he eats, glued to that damn cat like it’s the only thing she has in the world. The same way I imagine Esther did when she was living at her sick grandma’s house all those years ago. Except I wasn’t planning on selling this girl into a life of sexual slavery. I wasn’t going to turn her into a pawn for my motorcycle club.
“Did he do that to you?” I ask, pointing at her black eye.
“Why didn’t you just kill him?” Tears start to run down her face. “You could’ve killed him and you didn’t.” I don’t know why I didn’t just finish the fucker off when I had the chance. I guess I wanted him to have to live knowing what a piece of shit he was. I have a feeling by the way she’s talking, the sentiment was probably going to be lost on him, though.
“Don’t cry,” I say. “You’re safe here. We won’t make you go back there, but if you’re going to live in my house, you gotta live by my rules.”
She stares up at me, unblinking, still hugging that damn cat.
“No boyfriends unless they’re your own age. You don’t know what these men up here are like, and I’m not dealing with the mess. Stay out of Esther’s stuff. Don’t ask too many questions, and keep your mouth shut. And you need to go back to school and finish. Stay out of my beer, stay out of my drugs.”
“I don’t want to go back to school. The kids are mean to me, and you know they’ll ask a lot of questions.” That, and I didn’t feel like driving her to school every day. I’m not exactly drop-off dad material.
“You can do cyber school. You gotta do school, though.” Knowing where this girl came from, she’s destined for a life on the stripper pole otherwise.
“Can I use your phone?” she asks. “I need to call my sister or she’ll be worried.”
“You got a sister?”
“She’s old. She doesn’t live around here. I just talk to her every night. Don’t worry, I won’t tell her anything. I’ll just tell her the phone got shut off and I had to use the neighbor’s phone.” I know this girl isn’t trying to leave. I know she’s not trying to call the cops. If her sister was that concerned about her well-being, she wouldn’t have been living in that shithole trailer with that douchebag dad, anyway.
I hand her my cell phone and I stand there and watch, just to be on the safe side.
“Helena, it’s me, Josie. I’m sorry I’m calling so late. I just wanted to say I’m okay and I love you! I had to borrow a phone because ours got shut off, but I’ll try and call you tomorrow. Bye.” She hangs up and hands the phone back to me. “She doesn’t answer random numbers.”
I grab some blankets from the hallway closet and toss them on the couch.
“Bathroom is over there, help yourself to anything in the kitchen, watch whatever you want. I’m going to bed.” I double-check the lock on the front door, and she’s already wrapped up in a pile of blankets on the couch, her eyes closed. I wonder when was the last time she had a good night’s sleep. Part of me wants to leave right now and finish what I started with her dad. Her piece of shit sister has something coming too. I’d never put my hands on a woman, but I know plenty of people who will. It was time these people learned a little bit about family, Mountain Misfits MC style.
I go up to my bedroom and lock the door. It’s time for my nightly dose of staring at the ceiling, rambling out loud to Esther, trying to summon her by praying, smelling the pillow I refused to wash since the day she died. Only tonight, I know she’s here with me. I don’t need to say a word. I can feel her. Maybe she’s happy that Gingerbread has a friend. It makes me smile for the first time in a long time, thinking about her watching us from wherever she is, urging me to kidnap kids so they’ll play with her nasty old cat.
That’s so Esther, though.
Always taking in strays. Always looking out for the weak. Always making me do crazy things just to make her happy. She always had this big master plan that never made sense, but I’d follow her down any rabbit hole she wanted to take me. For some reason, I feel like today is just one more piece of that puzzle that she’d always been trying to build. In the darkness, I can see that patch of freckles on her shoulder that I loved to get lost in when I spooned her close at night. I close my eyes, and for the first time in as long as I remember, I don’t even have to pray for sleep to come.
Chapter 6
Helena
First thing in the morning, I pack up my suitcases and take one last look around the apartment. The little spare bedroom I have set up for Josie sits there untouched, the dresser gathering dust. I don’t know why I didn’t just force her to come with me when I moved down south. She’s just a kid after all. She shouldn’t have a say in stuff like that. I know what’s in her best interest, better than what our father knows at the very least. I don’t know if I’ll ever come back here again, but if I do, it won’t be alone.
My phone has been ringing off the hook since the second I woke up. The sher
iff wants me to come down and talk to him. The girls at the station are making sure I’m alright. I’ve gotten some anonymous text messages filled with hateful slurs towards women that I hope these little boys at the station have the balls to use in the wrong one’s face. A beanbag to the crotch will probably look like a love tap.
I turn my phone off and toss it in my purse and put my music on shuffle. Driving north always sucks all the wind out of me. It is so much easier to avoid my past and pretend like it doesn’t exist, but every time I hop on that highway and head home, my senses are overloaded, I feel this overwhelm, like I am drowning in a sea of bad memories. I spent my life hiding in books and just trying to blend in. Kids were cruel, but I purposely didn’t let anyone get close to me. If they knew what was going on in my home, they’d make it even worse. There’s so many people up north that I don’t want to run into ever again. Even now, now that I’m ‘successful.’
Except, I’m not successful anymore. I’m unemployed and not sure what my next move is. I should be looking ahead, not taking a drive down memory lane. I just need to go get Josie and we can decide what our next move is together. Neither one of us needs to be alone in this world. I need her as much as she needs me.
The trailer park looks the same as when I left it, about thirty years behind the times. I wonder how many people have taken their last breaths in these very trailers since I left. Most people who move here never leave. It’s not because it’s such a lovely place to live, it’s just that when you hit rock bottom, it’s a lot easier to make your life around that than it is to move up. The people who live there aren’t aware of that, though. They’re ignorantly blissful, building their lives around this community of scumbag neighbors who are quick to lend you a cup of sugar in exchange for a rock of crack.
I’m glad the sun has set. Word travels fast around here, and I’m not really interested in getting barraged by the welcome wagon. I don’t feel like answering questions. I just want to grab Josie, take her to a hotel with me for the night, and sort out the details from there. I’m fully prepared to grovel. If that doesn’t work, I’m hoping I can bribe her with a cell phone and a pair of those two-hundred-dollar jeans that have the rhinestones on the ass. I think teenagers like those these days. Whatever it takes, I’m not leaving this town without her.