Long Way Home

by Katie McGarry

  Mom goes into one of those blinding smiles that reminds me how young she is—early forties. If she wanted, Mom could still marry and pop out a new, normal family. Create the American dream of two kids, a dog and a white picket fence. That is if the American dream means working at a bar and already having a soon-to-be eighteen-year-old son.

  She grabs hold of my chin and guides me down to her short height so she can kiss my cheek. “You’re one of the good ones, Chevy. Never forget that.”

  Mom sees enough bad ones to know the difference. That’s why I drive her to and from work on the weekends. Why I don’t just drop her off, but also come in and get the lay of the land. I eyeball a few guys so they can spread the word to the others who might be thinking of going too far with my mom that I’m their personal grim reaper.

  “Hell of a game tonight, Chevy!” Mike, the bouncer, bellows from across the room. A round of claps and cheers from the locals and then an echo from people who have no idea what we’re celebrating.

  “Nobody plays like my boy!” Mom shouts. She’s been to every game I’ve had since I started in third grade.

  I’m a running back for my high school team. Scored three touchdowns tonight, took a hell of a lot of hits, and I got a bruised shoulder to prove it. It’s October and we’re halfway through regular season games. With the team kicking ass like it has, we’ve got a decent shot at going to state. I don’t miss the fact that the reason we won, the reason I played was because Violet made a sacrifice.

  My cell pings twice and Mom’s proud smile morphs into a frown. From the number of pings, she knows it’s from Eli, my uncle, my father’s brother, and the most respected man in the Reign of Terror Motorcycle Club.

  Eli: You need to stay off the road tonight. Confirm receipt. This is my third text about this. Don’t make me text you again.

  Not what I need. I crack my neck to the side. When the club thinks there’s trouble from a rival club, they warn me off of being visible.

  I’m a senior in high school and not yet a full member of the MC, but being a child of the club, I often get crap from people in town and can have a target on me from other MC’s. But no way was I letting Mom drive herself. No way was I leaving her to be on her own.

  “Club stuff?” Mom asks like she’s not pissed as she rifles through her purse. The Reign of Terror and my mother have a complicated relationship. Between her and them, I’m constantly the knot in the middle of a tug-of-war rope.

  “Eli’s checking in.” I shrug my jacket on and dig out the keys to my motorcycle.

  “Sure he is,” she mumbles, then goes behind the bar. Mom’s black hair falls forward when she places her purse in the safe. When she stands, she tucks the strands behind her ears, showing off the hoop earrings I bought for her birthday last month.

  Mom and I don’t look much alike. She’s short with a small frame and has an olive complexion, while I’m built like a McKinley: tall, strong shoulders, brown hair and eyes. According to pictures, I favor my father. Mom never says much about him. The MC thinks he’s a saint. I do my best to stay neutral.

  Across from me, Mom taps her finger on the bar. “Have you thought about what I said?”

  The muscles in my back tense. I’m reaching a tipping point in the tug-of-war game. When I turn eighteen, the MC will expect me to continue the blood legacy of the Reign of Terror and become a prospect. Eli’s a key member of the club, my grandfather is the president and my father before his death was on the fast track to being a board member.

  There’s no doubt the board will take me, but there’s a rhythm to becoming a member and I’m expected to play along. My prospect period is the initiation time frame where the club decides whether or not I should be a full-fledged member. It’ll be a lot of me cleaning toilets and doing whatever the board says when they say it.

  “There’s no reason to rush this,” Mom continues. She’s asked me to push off becoming a prospect for the MC until I graduate from high school. “Once you’re in the Terror, you’ll always be in the Terror. Why not be a normal high school kid for a few months? Find a nice girl. Go to prom. Go to keggers like other boys your age, not clubhouses. Let me live the fantasy of being mom to the jock who has the high school sweetheart. If you’re bound and determined to hang out with outlaws, at least have the decency to be arrested for cow tipping the first time I have to bail you out of jail.”

  Haven’t told Mom yet the football coach is unhappy with me over the Terror. After that monologue, I’ll keep it to myself indefinitely.

  “Last I checked, it’s his life,” comes a familiar gravelly voice. “Not your life and not your call on how he makes his choices. And to clear up any misunderstandings, the club decides when we offer prospect, not Chevy.”

  My grandfather and president of the Reign of Terror, Cyrus, sidles up beside me at the bar. Mom tenses like a cat on the verge of attacking, and Cyrus merely strokes his long gray beard as he looks at me. “Club’s been trying to reach you.”

  “Must have never turned my phone back on after the game,” I lie and try to balance the power struggle between Mom and the club and that means deflection. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Just some bumps. Heard you had a hell of a game tonight.”

  I nod. If Cyrus heard I had a good game, that must mean something major is going down. Like Mom, he’s always there, unless something with the club is about to go to hell.

  “I heard Violet was at the game with Stone,” he says, and my head pops up. Despite knowing better, there’s a flicker of hope within me. I’ve got to cut that crap out or my heart will be hurting again.

  “Don’t guess you knew that,” Cyrus continues.

  No, I didn’t and it’s hard not to glance over at my mom to gauge her reaction. She, more than anyone, is aware how the breakup with Violet has gutted me.

  Cyrus tilts his head to the exit. “Why don’t we go back to the cabin, and you can fill me in on what I missed. Some guys might be at the clubhouse. Bet they’d want to hear about the game, too.”

  “Or he can go home,” Mom butts in, and she twists a dish towel as if she’s imagining strangling his neck. “His home. The one that has his room. His bed. His things. His home.”

  I hitch my thumbs into my jeans and wish I could disappear. Give me a mirror, the fine art of distraction, and I could make you believe I did fade into the nothingness, but right now, I’ve got nothing. “Give me a few minutes with Mom?”

  Cyrus is as big and bad as they come. Sixties. My height. Monster of a man. He proudly wears the Reign of Terror leather cut on his back: the half skull with fire blazing out of its eyes and balls of fire raining down around it.

  My grandfather scares the hell out of most people, and he’s put me in my place more than once. He’s raised me, just as much as Mom. Half my time has been spent with him. Half my time with her. I love him, just like I love my mom.

  He walks away, and before Mom begins to revel in her win, I lean onto the bar and say, “He’s right. It is my life and it is my call.”

  She slams her hand on the bar and sets her hardened green eyes on me. “Then start acting like it. You can’t keep walking this line between the real world and the club for much longer. It’s one or the other, Chevy. Turning eighteen, you know it means you can’t have both.”

  My jaw twitches. Before his death, before my birth, my father didn’t choose her. He slept with Mom, had some sort of relationship with her that neither she nor the club will talk about, but at the end of the day, he never claimed Mom as his girl and, because of that, my mother remains an outsider.

  Because of my blood, I’m an insider. The club, it’s a legit club. They don’t sell drugs, guns, or dabble in prostitution. Yeah, they color outside the lines at times, work well in gray areas, but we do our best to stay away from flat-out illegal.

  The club owns a legit security company that tra
vels alongside semi-loads of expensive goods to guarantee that the truck makes it to point B from point A without any problems. People don’t know it, but trucks being jacked for their loads happens more often than one would think. The security company is a ride-along bouncer.

  Most of the members of the Terror work for the security company. Other members, they work “normal” jobs within the community, but Mom’s right. Members and family members of the Terror, we stand out and we are our own world.

  As long as I stay underage, I’ve been able to walk the line, and when my birthday hits, I don’t know what I’m going to choose.

  “Chevy,” Cyrus calls near the entrance. “We need to talk.”

  Damned knot in the tug-of-war rope and I’m starting to feel frayed. Mom doesn’t blink as she waits for me to say something. To tell Cyrus he can wait. To tell her what she wants to hear. But as much as I love her, I’m also drawn to the club. She’s right, I do want both.

  “I’ll be back to pick you up later,” I say.

  Mom throws the towel she had expertly throttled into the sink behind her, walks to the other side of the bar, and the strobe light casts a red haze around her. If I didn’t know her better, I’d buy the flirty smile and the way she giggles in happiness as she leans on the bar to take a drink order. But that’s not her real smile and that’s not her real laugh. It’s part of her job, part of her act, because that’s what working here requires—performing.

  With a kick to a bar stool, I head for the exit. Cyrus walks out into the night and I follow. Once outside, Cyrus turns to me and his warm breath creates a cloud in the cool night. “We’ve had some trouble tonight with the Riot.”

  The Riot would be a motorcycle club north of us in Louisville. They’re pissed at the Terror for myriad reasons, the main one being we’re a legit club and they deal in illegal. They’re also angry at one of our main members, Eli. They feel he stole their daughter and granddaughter from them. Eli didn’t steal a thing. Can’t call someone’s free will in walking away from crazy a crime.

  Life sucks for the Riot and I’m fine with that. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Everyone’s safe, but we’ve had word that they’ve ridden past the boundary lines we set with them a few months back. It’s all rumor and no one on our side has confirmed it. Could be someone’s overactive imagination, but I’ll feel better knowing you’re off the road.”

  I’m under eighteen, still a kid to him. Cyrus used to act this way with my two best friends, Oz and Razor, but both are eighteen and full members of the club now. The babysitting twists my gut, but then again, I’m not ready for the decision eighteen will bring. “How about Violet?”

  “I’m on my way now to look for her. She’s also not answering her cell.”

  Yeah. A lot of that going around. “If she took Stone to the game, she would have headed straight home. I’ll check on her on my way to Mom’s if you want.”

  This gives me the excuse I need to see Violet. Because I won’t be able to sleep without knowing she’s okay. So I can thank her for what she did for me with the note. To gauge whether or not Violet is waving the white flag.

  Cyrus lays a hand on my shoulder. “I’d appreciate that. I need to head back to the clubhouse to take care of some business. I’m serious about what I said, though. Me and a lot of guys would love to hear about the game.”

  I know they would and I’d enjoy being with them, but Mom’s already sore that I walked out on her to talk to Cyrus. “I’m beat. After I check on Violet, I’m crashing.”

  Cyrus gives me a fast pat and a hug. We both mount our bikes and start our engines with a growl. My grandfather takes the lead and I follow him as long as I can before taking the path that leads away from him and toward where Violet lives.

  Violet

  DAD’S CROSS DANGLES over the engine of his Chevelle while my other necklaces stay tucked inside my shirt. I’ll admit, I don’t have a clue what I’m looking for and using the flashlight app from my cell has done nothing to help. Maybe if I stare at the inner workings of the car long enough a magic fairy will pop out and tell me to smack this, turn that, jump in a circle three times naked and then the engine will wondrously rev to life.

  I’d perform the act if that would make Dad’s car run again. Who am I kidding? I’d do it if it would make anything in my life work again.

  Behind me, Brandon paces and the rocks crunch under his footsteps. We’re two miles from home and off to the side of a quiet country road. Thank God there’s a full moon as my brother can be terrified of dark places. Dad used to tell Brandon that a full moon is nature’s night-light. I’m banking on Brandon remembering that tidbit of fatherly wisdom because, unless steam rising from my engine means my car is about to evolve into some next generation of superpower vehicle, we’re stuck.

  “We should call the club,” Brandon says. “They’d come. They’d help fix your car.”

  With strings made out of spiderwebs. The Reign of Terror would suck us in and then suck us dry. It’s how they work. You don’t get something for nothing with them. “If you remember, Eli and Pigpen tore off from the football game because they had business to take care of, meaning we wouldn’t be high on the priority list. Besides, Mom’s on her way.”

  She’s put out, but she’s on her way. Mom will take her time to prove how annoyed she is with my “careless behavior” of driving at night without the protection of a man. That’s how Mom thinks. Girls, to her, are the weaker and fairer sex waiting for a man to save them, and Mom is constantly annoyed that I don’t play up my femininity.

  Yeah, that’s complete bull.

  I straighten and the bracelets on my wrist clink together and hit Dad’s bulky Rolex. It’s one of the many things Mom was mad about today. She tolerates me wearing Dad’s cross, but she’s adamant that I leave the watch alone. Dad always wore the cross and the Rolex, and today I needed both so I could find the strength to keep breathing in and then out several times a minute.

  If I was alone, I’d head home on foot, but Brandon walking along the woods in the dark could cause problems I’m not giddy to deal with. At least he feels somewhat safe next to the car.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask. “I didn’t eat all my popcorn at the game and you can have what’s left. I should warn you, most of it is burnt.”

  “The club would send somebody if you called,” he mutters. “If you called Chevy, he’d come. At least he’d come for me.”

  Knife straight to where I’m weak, and I lose the ability to breathe. Yeah, Chevy would come, but what girl wants to play damsel in distress and then be saved by her ex-boyfriend? “I can’t call Chevy.”

  It wouldn’t be fair to Chevy, and it wouldn’t be fair to me. The love I had for him was consuming and powerful and raw. I briefly close my eyes as memories of Chevy’s hands on my body and his lips on mine cause warmth to curl in my bloodstream... Even when we fought, we never had problems with attraction.

  My breakup with Chevy hasn’t only hurt me, but my brother, and I’m not sure if he’ll ever forgive me. I’m not sure if a lot of people will forgive me, but none of that matters. My single goal in life is to get as far away from this town as I can, as fast as I can. Graduation. That’s my town of Snowflake expiration date.

  A motorcycle rumbles in the distance and it’s weird how my heart still flutters at the sound. When I was younger, I used to sit at the window in the living room and wait for that beautiful growl. The moment I heard Dad’s motorcycle, I used to skip through the house telling my mom and brother that Daddy was home.

  I’d burst out the front door in time for him to swing off his bike and then he’d catch me and toss me into the air. I’d squeal, then end up in a fit of giggles as he would tickle me in his big, crushing hug.

  Those days are long gone.

  The motorcycle engine grows louder. A single headlight breaks over the h
ill of the road that leads to town. Most sane people would be terrified at being alone on the side of the road at night with an approaching motorcycle, but I’m annoyed and slightly relieved.

  If someone from the Terror wants to stumble upon me and help make Dad’s car move, I’ll suck up the animosity long enough to get my brother home. But at the same time, accepting their help will only make them want to go dictator over everything else in my family’s life.

  Anything offered by the Terror comes at a price. My father paid with his life.

  I step back from the open hood and the motorcycle slows to a stop behind my car. I blow out a rush of air. Why does my life have to continually suck? I would have taken Eli or Pigpen over this. But I didn’t get Thing One or Thing Two. I got my ex because I’m that incredibly unlucky.

  Chevy slips off his bike and grimly assesses the car. More than once he’s been under the hood of this Chevelle. Chevy and my dad were close. A part of Chevy was also destroyed when Dad died.

  “Mom’s on her way,” I say. “You’re fine to move along, since she’ll be here soon.”

  Brandon rushes past me so quickly that his arm smacks mine. He doesn’t bother looking back to confirm I’m still standing; no, my brother is too busy welcoming Chevy like he’s a hero.

  Brandon is all words, most of them tripping and running into the other, as he attempts to express his excitement and undying love and loyalty. “We were at your game and Pigpen bought me a hot dog and Eli bought my ticket and I didn’t see your first touchdown, but I saw your second and third and you plowed right through that line and I’m so glad to see you.”

  Because Chevy is patient, more patient than most grown men, he stands in front of my brother with his thumbs hitched in his front pockets and that sexy slouch of his like he’s prepared to listen to every single word Brandon could ever say or think to say.