HARD KNOX

by Jaxson Kidman

  “You fucking like it, huh?” the old man asked, standing in the doorway, arms folded.

  I saw he had some fresh ink on his forearm too.

  “I like it,” I said. “I could make this work, Pop.”

  “Why don’t you get back to school and finish first.”

  “Fuck that. I’ll get booted in a week. I don’t tolerate bullshit.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m getting tired of tolerating you living here for free. Give me that cut back.”

  I gave it to him and he grabbed my shirt. He pulled me close and stuffed the leather cut in my face. “Listen here, son. Everything in life we earn. You fucking quit, at anything, and you’re dead to me. I earned this cut through shit I’ll never talk about. But this is mine now. You want to be part of this? Earn it.”

  The old man tossed me backwards and put his leather cut on. In that moment, he looked twice my size.

  So you know what I did that night?

  I did pushups until I couldn’t move. I did crunches until I couldn’t breathe. I lifted until I dropped the weights. Then I topped it off with a long ass run. I was going to become something greater than my life and family.

  By the time I got back home, Ma was back from work. She and the old man were fighting over his new career choice. Typical.

  I stole two more smokes from my grandmother and was out back enjoying them when I heard the clink of the gate. I turned my head and saw Abby crossing the lawn. I was hoping for Ana.

  She had a plate in her hand.

  “Knox?” she asked.

  “That’s me,” I said.

  I was taller than her and she looked afraid to be near me.

  “I brought you some leftovers,” she said. “A couple slices of pizza.”

  “Oh. Nice. Thanks.”

  I took the plate.

  “Mind if I have a drag?” she asked.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  How about that fuckery? A middle aged adult woman asking me for a smoke. Usually I got the fifth degree that smoking would stunt my growth and kill me or some shit. The rate I was growing, I’d be over seven feet tall when I finished up. So a few smokes here and there didn’t threaten me.

  Abby took a drag and smiled. “I quit two years ago. Jack insisted.”

  “Well, it’s a hard habit to kick,” I said.

  Abby laughed. “Yeah. I better be careful here.”

  She took another drag. Goddamn, she looked sexy doing it. I pictured her naked, us in her bed, she having a smoke after I got done fucking her.

  Then I thought about Ana and I chased that shit out of my mind right away.

  “Sorry about everything,” I said. “Your husband and all.”

  Abby shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not going to have that conversation with a teenager. Sorry, Knox.”

  “Then where is tonight going?” I asked.

  Yeah, a little douchey and flirty, but fuck it. If Abby wanted to fool around, I was game.

  Abby laughed again. “I’m going to take the cigarette and enjoy it at home.”

  “Sure. My homecoming gift to you.”

  “Right. I didn’t just come over to give you pizza, Knox.”

  “Again, what do you want?”

  Abby blew smoke from the corner of her mouth like an old pro. She then looked me dead in the eyes. “Stay away from Ana. This is not where I want to live. This is not what I want for her. The last thing I need is some thug like you to get into her head.”

  “Oh, trust me, I wasn’t hoping to get into her head.”

  Abby wound up and cracked me across the face. “Stay the fuck away from my daughter.”

  She turned and stormed away, getting eaten up by the darkness.

  I touched my cheek. It throbbed. I looked up and saw Ana’s bedroom light was on.

  I sat down right there and ate the two pieces of pizza. I had the second cigarette.

  And that was how the day went… the day I met the woman of my dreams. The woman who would raise hell in my heart. The woman who would end up carrying our first child. The woman I would forever die for… just to make her fucking smile one more time.

  chapter three

  (ana)

  *NOW*

  I touched the corners of my eyes and sucked in a deep breath.

  Where the hell did time go so fast?

  I asked that question in my mind because I learned a while ago that talking to the gravestone didn’t do a thing. If I did, my mother would have been back with me by now. Our relationship after my father left was nothing short of disastrous, but having her die this young from stupid cancer felt cruel. My father even had the nerve to send flowers with a card from him and his new wife. He couldn’t even show? Couldn’t even be there for me?

  And my mother’s dying words to me…

  “Hey, are we almost done here?”

  I turned and looked at Porter. His nice shirt was neatly tucked into his nice pants. His black shoes shined like they’d just come off the shelf at the shoe store where he paid more for them than the cost of my first car. His hair was too perfect, along with his jaw, eyes, ears, teeth, and everything else about him.

  “Seriously?” I asked. I choked up. “Do you know what today means to me?”

  He sat on another gravestone, like a rude prick.

  He put his hands up and nodded. Then he grabbed his phone and started to click away.

  I faced the gravestone again.

  It really was kind of dumb, right? Nobody was here. My mother was gone. Maybe she was in heaven, but I didn’t buy into all that religion stuff. I was staring at a rock. A piece of stone that was cut with her name in it.

  The tears flooded my eyes again and I pinched the bridge of my nose.

  Porter didn’t like when I cried.

  I swallowed it all down and started to walk away.

  “Yo,” Porter yelled. “Are we done now?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We walked back to his fancy car and I sat in the passenger seat. He climbed into the driver’s seat and dropped his phone. “Hey, babe, come on. I know all that shit is sad and all. It’s not cool. You look better when you don’t cry. That’s all. Hey, we need to talk about Danny and shit. Okay?”

  “What now?” I asked.

  Each time I stared at Porter my mind asked, What the fuck are you doing?

  The answer was simple.

  I was surviving.

  Porter made that capable. He said he was part of a family owned car dealership but I knew that was a front for something else. The entire town and city seemed to run on crooked businesses. But Porter had some money, a car, and didn’t mind me. It wasn’t exactly love or lust, but rather acceptance. At least for me.

  What did he get out of it?

  Someone to come home to, no matter what.

  I had stepped right into the footprints of my mother.

  “He needs someone to cover at the club tonight,” Porter said. “It’s going to be packed. Some band is playing or some shit. Two of his girls never showed last night and still haven’t shown. Another two are sick or pregnant or something. I don’t know. He’s a mess down there. Jackie and Acey claim that the bartender is cleaning them out little by little.”

  “So what do I do?” I asked. “I’m not a detective.”

  I should have known better than to talk like that. But the emotion was raw inside me.

  Porter grabbed my jaw and I felt like it was going to snap off my face.

  “Don’t fucking give me attitude, woman,” he growled. “Do you need another lesson?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  Porter took his hand away. “That’s what I fucking thought. I’m not one of your dumb cunt friends. Now listen to me carefully. I need you to work the club tonight. End of discussion. Look half decent and sell some drinks and food. Keep an eye on Eddie, the bartender. You see anything funny you tell me. Don’t tell Danny. This is an internal thing. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,”
I said.

  I had plenty of waitress experience since it was the only thing I was qualified for in life. My dreams of pursuing a law degree or becoming a doctor were tossed out the window as soon as I moved into town. I had been under orders from my mother to stay away from my neighbor - Knoxville. Telling that to a teenager girl was stupid. It only made me want him more. So I spent years finding ways to sneak around and meet him. Hold his hand. Kiss him. Let him touch me in places…

  “Are you hearing me?” Porter asked.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ll be back in town tomorrow. I have a thing tonight.”

  “A thing,” I said.

  “Car auction.”

  I nodded.

  That was always his excuse.

  When Porter went to a car auction he never came back with cars and he always had a change of clothes on. I couldn’t figure out if he was murdering people or cheating on me. Maybe both.

  Maybe I didn’t care.

  No, that was a lie. I cared. I cared a lot.

  I hated what he did all the time.

  “Just don’t fuck this thing on me,” Porter said. “I’d hate for you to be sick again.”

  Sick.

  I swallowed hard.

  I didn’t want to be sick.

  Hiding in a room, trying to let things heal up, scrambling for gallons of makeup to make things look normal if someone knocked on my apartment door.

  And to think, this all started because I was dumb enough to buy into Porter’s nice eyes and smooth words. I got him dinner and drinks, he tipped me huge, and then he waited for me outside. He was the only thing that took my mind off what I couldn’t have. Now he wouldn’t let me go. I couldn’t escape him unless it was through death.

  “Shit, woman, you look on edge bad,” he said. “You want a good pill or something?”

  “No,” I said. “I have to be straight for tonight.”

  “Good thinking. See, you’re not that dumb. Now come here.”

  Porter grabbed me and pulled me to him. He started to kiss me, slobbering his tongue in my mouth and to my neck. He grabbed my right hand and stuck it between his legs.

  “Not here,” I said.

  “Why the fuck not? Nobody is watching us.”

  His hand flicked open the button of my jeans. I felt his fingers slide into my panties and down and around. As soon as he touched me, I flinched, jumping at him. I hated his touch but the feeling was like a drug. It was all I had in life.

  “Oh, babe,” he said, kissing my neck. “Easy… just easy…”

  I quickly grabbed at the zipper of his pants. The only way I’d get off was if Porter got off too. God forbid he touched me without something in return. Usually it was always at the same time, just in case.

  I forced my hand into his boxers and pulled his dick out of his pants. I squeezed and stroked, knowing right where his weak spot was.

  Two of his fingers crammed into me, making me groan, not from pleasure. He then did it again and again. I put my head back and shut my eyes, slipping away. The second I shut my eyes, I forgot about Porter and I became wet.

  Then it felt good.

  Really good.

  But not explosive good.

  There I was, on the gravel road in a cemetery, Porter fingering me while I jerked him off. I always seemed to sink to a new level of low.

  He couldn’t find my clit if I highlighted it in bright pink, so I learned to move my hips and work his fingers to my needs.

  Pleasure was my addiction, I couldn’t save myself from it.

  But as I sat there, my dying mother’s last sentence popped into my mind. It hit me like a lightning bolt, from my heart down to between my legs.

  “Ana… I was wrong… you need someone like him to save you… you need a man… you need to find Knox…”

  chapter four

  (knox)

  *THEN*

  I stood while everyone else sat. I leaned against the garage wall and looked around at all the posters. From motorcycles to naked chicks, the place looked and reeked of man cave. Shit, that was before the idea of a man cave was cool. Me and the guys invented the idea. No woman would dare to enter the garage. They all knew better.

  The thing that got me the most was the silence.

  It was never quiet in the garage.

  Even if we were sitting and thinking, you could always hear the whir and buzz of the power tools, keeping the front of the place all legit. That was dead too. The fucking economy bombed out and our little piece of shit town was left off the give a damn map. Seemed those in charge were more interested in constructing a certain image to make the rest of the country feel like things were getting better.

  Fucking politicians.

  The head of the table was empty and that was wrong too.

  We had all the guys there. Half of them weren’t even wearing their leather cuts anymore. Yeah, the charter and the MC had taken its hits throughout the years, but wearing the cut still mattered. At least it did to me. It fucking mattered.

  There was a lot of Federal noise over the last couple years and a lot of guys were rattled. A lot hung up their cut. A lot were killed in street wars that should have never gotten to the point they did.

  And now…

  The garage door opened.

  Uncle Jakey stepped in. He was one of the original members of the MC. The idea born out of saying fuck you to the force fed idea of the real world. Finding guys who were struggling, getting their ass kicked by the system, knowing there had to be a better way to survive and lick the wind of freedom. They started out by riding through town to be loud and annoying. To the point where crime started to go down. I’m not sure who secured the first deal but at some point the MC started protecting the town. Better than the police could ever imagine. They grew and bled into the city to do the same. In fact, they ended up getting so close with the police that if something needed to be done that would tarnish the good nature, fair justice bullshit of the authorities they’d turn to the MC for help.

  It was a good thing.

  Yeah, sometimes things got out of hand, but it never got too far.

  Now it was way too fucking far.

  Uncle Jakey walked forward. He paused at me, patting my shoulder. Then he went to the head of the table. The sight wasn’t good at all. It should’ve been the VP sitting there. Or better yet, a new vote. Call in all the charters and discuss what to do.

  But Uncle Jakey took it all for himself. It was his way of trying to kill what he had helped to create.

  “I stand today with a heavy heart,” Uncle Jakey said. “Our President, Hammer, is on the inside now. The rumors you all heard are true.”

  That caused a little bit of a stir.

  Everyone looked at me.

  Yeah, yeah, I was now the abandoned guy. My mother split and was never heard from again. And now my old man was in prison.

  “We have funds for lawyers, right?” one of the guys asked.

  “We don’t have funds for electricity,” Uncle Jakey snapped. “It doesn’t matter. He took our votes and decided on his own path. There’s nothing we can do. If we insert ourselves, we become part of it. I talked to Devin and he agrees. Distance saves the rest of us. I know we don’t split on the cut, but look at us. Half of you don’t even wear the cut anymore. You’re all a bunch of grease monkey motherfuckers, running straight, paying your bills on time, fucking your wives twice a week, jerking off in the shower for the rest of the days. What do you want to do here? You want to stand up and fight this? He was caught up in a sting. It’s done. It’s over. The only option Hammer has now is to turn on the rest of us. That’s only if we’re active in the life. If he tries to turn now and the Feds want to come here, they’ll find a rundown garage and nothing else.”

  “What’s the verdict, Uncle Jakey?” I finally asked.

  “The verdict?” he said. “Hammer is in prison and will stay there for the rest of his goddamn life. The more they dig the more they find. On our own, we can survive. We can hold to
gether the rules that kept this club moving forward. That’s all I can offer.”

  Uncle Jakey got to smack the gavel one time in his life and it was right then.

  The garage cleared out except for me and Uncle Jakey.

  I was at one end of the table, he on the other.

  We both stared at each other.

  Here was a guy who bought me my first bicycle. Here was a guy who slipped me my first porno mag where I saw two chicks going down on each other and forever changed my life. Here was a guy who was not my uncle by blood or family, but by brotherhood. The loyalty was only as real as the patch on our leather cuts.

  “I’m sorry about your old man, kid,” Uncle Jakey said. “He was always crazy. He always took it too far. But, shit, kid, that’s what got him the patch, you know? When we had that roll over and shook up the MC, he led the charge.”

  “And now he’s going to rot in prison,” I said.

  Uncle Jakey nodded. “Yeah, he is.”

  I backed away from the table. “I bet he’ll still keep the club in his heart. I won’t give this up. Ever. I don’t give a shit what happens. This… this is all I have.”

  I walked out of the garage, wearing my leather cut.

  I’d keep the cut but would stop wearing it shortly after that.

  We all still rode motorcycles but the pack thinned out a lot. It ended up as a handful of us that would still meet up, raise some hell, and earn when we had to do so.

  That didn’t mean we stayed out of trouble.

  One of us ended up in prison for murder. On death-fucking-row.

  But that… that’s a whole other story.

  This story, right now, is about me and Ana.

  I thought she would be smart and move the fuck on from this town. From this bullshit.

  But I was wrong.

  She was still in town.

  And things between me and her were about to get as wild as ever.

  chapter five

  (knox)

  *NOW*

  Sow Child was nothing short of a bullshit project to help me waste time away. Who knew that being cut free of freedom would give me a sense of mindfulness. What the fuck did that mean? It meant I had notebooks full of ideas, stories, and words that were somehow strung into songs. If that wasn’t crazy enough, people gave a damn when I played shows and I actually managed to earn a straight living. Clearing way too much money each weekend cruising from bar to bar and club to club, I had teetered on the line of outlaw and rockstar.