by Paula Cox
“Say what you want about Grizzly . . .”
This is how she starts it, every time. I’ll be hanging up blouses, sorting shoes, counting cash, checking stock, labelling items, dragging in bags of donated clothes, or sitting in the back eating a cheese sandwich, and she’ll appear at my shoulder like some warped version of an angel and mutter, “Say what you want about Grizzly . . .”
When she says this, I know that some twisted, Slick-hating, life-hating argument is on its way.
“Say what you want about Grizzly,” she says one day, as I’m collecting clothes from the floor after helping a customer with a miniature fashion session, “but you have to admit, Brianna, he has a point on this one. I think so, at least. Think about it, give it some real thought. What is Slick, really? What are any of them? Come on, now. Let’s be real.” She lowers her voice. “He’s a killer, a—”
“Leather-wearing bandit. I know, Heather. I get it. You’ve said that before.”
She rolls her eyes. “Just because I’ve said it many times, it doesn’t mean it’s not true.” With this display of logic out of the way, she goes on, “So isn’t it really in your best interest for you to sever this—I suppose you would call it connection—with him? Is it really necessary to hold onto him like that, to pine and fuss?”
“I don’t pine,” I mutter, taking the clothes into the back, where she can’t follow me. I sort them, set Charlotte down for a nap in the cot, make sure the baby monitor is functioning, then return to the shop floor. When I walk back out, it’s like the conversation never stopped, even though around forty-five minutes have passed.
“You do pine,” Heather says, in her I-know-best tone. It seems everything she says this summer is in that tone. “You don’t think I see that look in your eye, Brianna? Every man that comes in here, fat or old, black or white, you think it’s Slick for a second. I see it.”
“You’re imagining things,” I say, making sure to keep my back to her and praying for a customer. She’s eerily right, and it freaks me out that she can read me like that. I’ll be watching the door and a man will enter, usually trailing his girlfriend or wife, and for a split-second, I’ll want to run over to him and wrap my arms around him. And then, out of the mirage, an old ginger guy will appear.
“I don’t think so,” Heather says.
Then a customer enters. Gratefully, I go and serve her. Working here, despite Heather’s constant yammering, I’m starting to realize that I might have a joy for fashion. I can’t say an eye for fashion or a skill in it, not yet, anyway, but there’s something strangely peaceful and fulfilling about looking at a woman and then at an assortment of clothes and asking myself, What would suit her best? The most fulfilling part is when someone comes in who isn’t a complete fashion model, who thinks that nothing will ever fit them. Seeing their face light up when I’ve found an outfit which accentuates their best features. It gets to the point that I begin to have repeat customers who come by at least once a week. Heather starts calling me the Little Fashionista (when she’s not berating me, that is). Sometimes, when the store is closed in the evenings, I’ll walk between the racks before going home and study the clothes, mentally compiling outfits. And sometimes, as I’m doing this, I’ll catch a glimpse of myself in the shop window: shoulder-length hair, summer dress, short heels, face enhanced with makeup. Is that really me, the tomboy who rode dirt bikes with Slick and spent most of her childhood flecked with oil?
I start to entertain the idea of a life outside of the club, a life in which I don’t spend my days in a garage, surrounded by killers and robbers. I love the club and I would never betray it, but when Heather says that it’s leather-wearing bandits who go there, she’s not wrong. I start to wonder if perhaps she’s right, if I should take Charlotte and find our own home, stop pretending that I’m just a temporary employee, and go to school at the community college. Maybe study fashion on the side. I have a taste for it; I could learn. I want to learn. Maybe, in a few years, I could open my own store. Or since Heather’s store is doing so well, she could open a second branch and I could manage that. I like choosing the outfits, layering the clothes, but I also like talking to the customers when they bring in donations. It’s a simple, easy, civilized life. A civilian life. I sometimes even dream about it—but then I dream about Slick far more.
It’s the same every time. I’ll be dreaming about this picturesque, simple life in which I am the manager of a consignment store, a fashion student, and a mother, and everything will be perfect. Life will be free of those huge, dramatic moments that fill up club life. There will be no explosions, no bike races, no patching up wounded club members. The dream will linger on this for a time, but then I’ll think of Slick, and it will all come crumbling down. Without Slick, it means nothing. Without the man I love—and I do love him, I’ve always loved him—without the father of my child, what’s the point? I could sink gracefully into this life if Slick was allowed to sink with me. But nobody wants that to happen. Heather thinks he’s too rough. Dad thinks he’s too—too what? Too much like him, perhaps? The world is determined that we can’t be together, and that just makes me all the more determined to be with him. Even if I wanted to forget about him, I couldn’t; every time I look into my daughter’s sky-blue eyes, I see my Sky.
“You pine,” Heather goes on, after I’ve dealt with the customer. “I see you staring off into space. And don’t think I don’t know about your phone calls and your trips to the clubhouse. I know all about them, missy.” She folds her arms, pouts at me. Heather’s the only woman I’ve ever met who can make a pout vicious. “I’ve talked to your father about it.”
“Hitting on my dad again, were you?” I shoot back.
Heather grumbles, and falls quiet. Saying that she wants Dad is the only way to make her be quiet sometimes. Maybe it’s because she really does have an interest in him, which is complicated for a whole host of reasons. It would make her a hypocrite, wanting to be with the leather-wearing bandit. And it would be awkward, since she and my mother were best friends. It’s good ammunition to have.
But it doesn’t stop her.
Heather’s apartment is a three-bedroom with ample room for all of us. The living room is the crowning achievement: a huge open-plan space with hardwood flooring, a massive seventy-inch television, an even bigger bookshelf, and a ping pong table off to one side. It looks like the living room of a much younger person, but it turns out Heather loves ping pong, and loves cranking up the surround sound and watching big dumb action movies. We’ll be sitting in front of this massive TV, in the middle of some stupid action movie, and she’ll blurt out from nowhere: “You haven’t even played the field properly.”
I hate this argument, really despise it. It’s like, okay, so I haven’t fucked every man from California to New York. Does that now mean that I don’t have the right to choose who I want to be with, especially if the person I want to be with is the father of my child? Because I haven’t been out with Tim Programmer and Michael Editor and James Commuter, does that now mean that I can’t choose who I want to love? When I voice all this to Heather, she just gives me that same I-know-best look, a look I am quickly coming to associate with the urge to slap her across the face.
But the worst thing she ever says to me comes after almost two months of being parted from Slick, dreaming about him every night, missing him with an ache in my chest and seeing him in Charlotte’s gorgeous eyes. It’s late, the sun set and Heather’s tall lamps throwing overlapping shadows across the room, Charlotte asleep and moaning on the monitor. Heather is drinking wine, too much wine, but it’s a Saturday and the store is closed tomorrow.
We’re talking about fashion, and then Heather says, “But you used to be such a wild little animal. Now you’re a Little Fashionista. How does that happen?”
I shrug, smile, but there’s a searching look in her eyes. Now that I think about it, she’s been giving me that searching look all night. “What is it?” I ask.
“It’s just . . . Slick . . .
”
“What about him?”
“Listen, Brianna,” she says, voice low. “If you ever wanted to talk to me about anything that may have happened when you were younger, and he was older—”
“Stop,” I interrupt, voice firm. “Don’t go any further, Heather.” My tone is ice-cold.
“I’m just trying to help—”
“Listen to me, right now,” I say, holding her gaze. “When I was a teenager, I was the one who always wanted to be with Slick. I was always hinting to him, and even throwing myself at him sometimes, because my hormones were going crazy and I wanted him so badly. He was fire and I was a moth, or something like that. Another man might’ve just taken me and been done with it. But not Slick, never Slick. Slick never let me kiss him, or even be near him in that way until I was eighteen years old. He was adamant about it. Even when I was fourteen and, for the one and only time during those years, dressed up in the sexiest outfit I’d ever worn, he brushed me off.”
Heather looks wary, unsure, so I go on: “Let me put it in plain terms. I do not want Slick because he took advantage of me at a young age, or anything sick like that. I do not want Slick because he is an evil man; I want Slick because he is the best man I know. I can’t believe you would even suggest something like this, Heather.”
She sips her wine, and then says, “I’m sorry. I am. I just had to make sure.”
“Well, now you’re sure,” I say, anger bubbling up inside of me. I force it down, telling myself she just wants what’s best for me.
But that’s part of the problem. I’m the one person who doesn’t get a say in what’s best for me.
Chapter Sixteen
Slick
They lock me in one of the dormitory rooms like a goddamn animal. It ain’t as bad as when I was locked in the warehouse, ’cause at least here I have a bed, and a toilet, and it’s warm, and I don’t spend my days wondering when some masked bastard is going to come calling with a machete. In that way, it ain’t as bad, but in another way, it’s much worse. These are my people. This is my club, my father’s club. For years, I spent my life being the best damned courier for the Ragers I could be. And then when I do more for them than anyone’s done in years, wiping out a rival club, they throw me in here.
I spend the next few weeks trying to convince myself to wait it out, to be patient, to not rock the boat too much otherwise I’ll never be VP. But it gets more and more difficult the longer I’m locked up here. I tell myself to stay calm and wait Grizzly out. He won’t keep me in here forever, and if I haven’t caused a hassle, when I get out it’ll be easier to get back to work with the club. But I can’t let go of my anger; it builds each morning I look out of the barred window and see one of Clint’s asshole goons guarding me, each time I try and open my door and find it locked. I’m allowed in the bar, but only with an escort.
If I want to be a part of this club, I have to be a good boy. That’s the message I’m being sent. Spike and my old boys and their sons are useless to me, just like any band of men is useless without somebody to lead ’em. And I’m not doing much leading from inside this cell. I wake up, work out, get breakfast, work out, get lunch, read, get dinner, sit in the bar with the men, go to bed. Over and over, for almost two months, this is my routine. I think of Brat more than anybody else, think of how brave she was to come after me like that, think of how mad she was. I think about our daughter, and how I was going to get to know her before Grizzly fucked everything up. I don’t think of the Skulls, of their charred flesh, burning skin, stinking corpses. I try not to, at least.
The man who guards the outside window is called Trevor. He’s the eight-fingered man who was with Clint when he brought me to Grizzly’s house a couple of months back. I can’t get out of the window because of the bars, but I can open the window by putting my hand through the bars.
“Trevor,” I say, when I’ve learnt his name. “Don’t you reckon it’s strange that a man like you—I know about you; I asked around—is sittin’ out here like this? Just sittin’ there, like a fuckin’ mall cop. You’ve killed people, man. You’re a damn soldier.”
That doesn’t work. He just sits there on his foldout chair with one earbud in, listening to the radio, ignoring me.
I try a few more tactics on him, to try and get him on my side, like playing Clint down or trying to get to his pride. It’s the shit they used on us back in the warehouse. But this man is loyal, and he’s been given orders, so he doesn’t reply. My objective was to get him on side so I could get news about Brat. Being in here not knowing what she’s up to is killing me. All over again, I’m left to question if she’s forgotten about me, if she even cares, if she’s found somebody else, only now it’s worse because I have the kid to think about. I’m all too aware that one month to an adult may not be that long, but to a kid it’s a century, and I’ve already missed a thousand years with my child.
That, and the fact that Grizzly and Clint are treating me like a chump even after I wiped out the Skulls, is what solidifies my decision to break out. I’m not about to sit here for two more months—hell, maybe it’ll be two years—while Clint pulls Grizzly’s strings and turns the whole club against me. The only problem is, once I’ve broken out, I’ll be a wanted man. Going against club orders is never a good idea. But I have a daughter to think of, and I reckon it’s a damn sight more stupid to leave her out there, alone, without her father.
I decide to do it at night, when the guard is taking me from my room to the bar area. In the days, I get myself ready. I don’t work out in the morning for the next few days, letting my muscles rest up, and I go into the bathroom and make a couple of shanks out of mirror glass, plastic, and tooth floss. Then, when I’m ready, I stuff the shanks in the pocket of my leather and wait for the guard to come and collect me for the evening. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I can’t help but reflect on the past two months and feel like a complete chump. I’ve sat here, like a good little prisoner, every evening waiting to be escorted to the bar of my own damned club. If Clint is there, he’ll sneer at me. If Grizzly is there, he’ll ignore me. I’m stewing on this when the knock comes at the door.
“You comin’ out here tonight?” the man asks.
“Yeah,” I reply.
I think it might be Gregory, but I can’t be sure; they change the inside guards regularly. When I open the door, I see that it’s a man I’ve never met. He has shaved bald and waxed his scalp. His face is covered with tattoos in geometric patterns, and the word KILL tattooed on his knuckles.
“You new?” I ask him.
I take my time pulling on my leather, doing it slowly, making it so he feels at ease and doesn’t think to look inside the jacket.
“Just been patched,” he says.
“I’m guessin’ it was Clint who patched you, eh?”
“How’d you know that?” the man asks, suspicious.
“Because then he can use you as one of his soldiers to take over the club, and kill Grizzly, or at least push him out.”
I stand tall, facing him, wondering how tough he feels with his tattoos and his new patch facing down the man who killed all the Skulls; everybody in the club knows about it. The man swallows as I stare him down. He looks like he wants to take a step back, but he would be failing in his job if he did that. Instead, he waves a hand at the door. “Come on. Let’s get going.”
“Nah.” I shrug, and then sit on the edge of the bed. “I’ve changed my mind. Might just hang out here.”
“Fine,” he says. “Don’t mean a thing to me.”
When he turns around, I make my move. In one fluid motion, I reach inside my pocket, jump across the room, and clamp my hand over his mouth and drag him back into the room, the shank pressed into the back of his neck. I kick the door closed and shove him onto his belly.
“So,” I say, knee jammed into his lower back, “I don’t reckon I’m gonna be here much longer, so I need you to tell me where Grizzly has sent Bri.” The man tries to speak, but I still have my hand on his mouth. “
I’m gonna take my hand away now. You oughtta know that if you scream, I’ll do you like I did the Skulls, every damn one of ’em. You think you’re a real tough killer, eh? Just get between me and Bri and see how tough you are. Nod if you understand.” He nods, and I release his mouth.
“I don’t know nothin’ about the Boss’s daughter, man.”
“The Boss,” I say, musing. “Are you talking about the club’s Boss, or your Boss?”
“It’s the same thing,” the man says, in a pleading tone.
“Whatever.” I push his face into the floor, squashing his nose. He groans, but knows to keep his voice low. “I need you to listen to me now, and listen fuckin’ close. I’m getting out of here tonight, and if you try and stop me, I will make sure you die. I don’t care when, or how, but one day, I’ll kill you. You understand? Nod.”