by Jessie Cooke
Jace had a lump in his throat. He never felt like he deserved anyone’s kindness, so when he got it, and they asked for nothing in return, he was never sure what to say or how to act. He mumbled another thank you and felt relieved when he looked up and saw his old junker car being driven into the parking lot.
14
Two Weeks Later
Jace woke up with a stiff neck and cramps in his legs. He used his toes to unlock and open the passenger door of the car and stretched out his legs. It had been two weeks since he got out of jail and he still hadn’t found a job. He had a feeling that aside from his criminal record, no one wanted to hire him because of the ugly, angry scar that encircled his throat. He knew that it only served to make him look creepier than he had before. He had to shave his beard, which had been hiding it. He hated to, but the first time he went to visit Rosie, she had freaked out. At first he thought she was just angry with him for being gone so long, but the therapist told him that she wouldn’t have anything to do with any of the staff that wore beards, so he’d shaved. Immediately, she was his sweet Rosie again, so he kept it shaved and did his best to wear shirts with high collars.
He pulled his legs back inside the car, sat up, and fished around in the glove compartment for the bottle of ibuprofen he kept there. He shook it and grimaced. Opening it up, he slid the last one onto his tongue, knowing it wouldn’t even begin to touch his pain, and he chewed it up. He looked around the rest area where he was parked, to make sure no one else was around before he grabbed his “cleanest” pair of jeans, a polo shirt, underwear, and a small paper sack filled with his toothbrush and toothpaste, razor and shaving cream, and headed into the bathroom. He went through his morning ritual of making himself look as presentable as possible. That was getting harder all the time. He didn’t have much to work with in the beginning and then when you added the new scars and the fact that none of his clothes had been laundered in weeks…well, he was a hot mess.
He had his second anger management class that day. He had made an agreement with them to make a payment at the end of the month, which was two weeks away. He had no idea how he was going to pay it. His phone was shut off already, which at least stopped the constant phone calls from the hospital wanting their payments as well. He had racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of bills there and he knew he’d never be able to pay them all. He was doing his level best not to dwell on what he couldn’t do, and concentrate on what he could…but getting to anger management on his last eighth of a tank of gas today was probably going to be the sum of that.
Once he finished his morning grooming, he drove to the county building where his class was held and parked in the furthest stall from the building. He was an hour early for class, but since he had nowhere else to go, and not enough gas to get anywhere, he figured he’d just park there and go through the help wanted ads in the paper he’d picked up the night before. As he sat there, his stomach rumbled and he had to fight to stay awake. He was always tired. He supposed that had something to do with always being hungry. His mouth watered when he thought about the donuts they’d put out in anger management class the week before. They had coffee and juice too, and he made breakfast and lunch out of them by sticking two in his pockets when no one was looking. He doubted they’d serve them donuts every time––it was probably just a first day thing––but a guy could hope.
A knock on the window of the car caused him to jump and his heart to race. He didn’t like people sneaking up on him. His life had made him a lot of things, and paranoid was at the top of that list. He looked up into the smiling face of a complete stranger. “Shit.” He rolled the window down about halfway and said, “Am I not supposed to park here?”
“No,” the older man said. Jace thought he looked slightly familiar, but he couldn’t place where he’d seen him before. He had one of those average faces, a ruddy complexion, blue eyes, and thinning blond hair that was shot through with gray. “I mean, I’m sure you’re okay to park here. I just wanted to say good morning.”
“Oh. Good morning.” The man still had that goofy smile on his face.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
“I’m sorry, no.” Jace saw the man’s eyes cut to his backseat and then land back on him. His face felt warm as he thought about how it must look back there. Everything he still owned was in his trunk or the back seat. He’d sold what was in storage, cheap, and in just over a week, he was broke again. He used some of the money to put a tank of gas in his car, pay the storage facility, and pay his back rent. He sent a small payment to the hospital, and the rest was spent on food.
“We met in class last week,” the man said, sticking his hand in the half-opened window. “Name’s Clay Donahue.”
“Oh yeah! Sorry,” he said, rolling the window down further and shaking the man’s hand. “I’m Jace.”
“I remember,” Clay said. “But don’t feel bad. I’ve got one of those minds for names. Matter of fact, I’ve got one of those minds that remember every damned thing whether I want to or not. I guess that’s what got me in trouble.” He took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and held them out in Jace’s direction. “Smoke?” Jace was going to say no, but then he thought about how cigarettes used to make him want to eat less when he smoked in prison.
“Sure, let me step out.”
Clay stepped out of the way and Jace got out of the car. They leaned up against Jace’s old car and lit their cigarettes and then Clay said, “My old lady messed around on me five years after we got together. She ’fessed up about it, and I forgave her. She promised she’d never do it again. Twenty years later I found out that she’d never ended that affair.” He chuckled. “What kind of a pathetic idiot am I, huh? Worst part was, the guy she’d been screwing all those years…was my business partner. Honest to God, I have never been a violent man. But for all those years I’d taken shit, and taken it, and taken it, and I guess finding out she’d been making a fool of me all that time was the straw that broke the camel’s back and I just snapped and it boiled out all over everything.” He took a long drag off his cigarette and Jace waited. He had visions of the man killing his wife’s lover, or her. When Clay finally spoke again he said, “I took a baseball bat and I beat the custom Harley Davidson I built for him, with my own hands, to a pile of metal you could have fit in a shoebox.” Jace couldn’t help it, he laughed.
“That’s it? That’s why the judge mandated you to take these classes for a year?”
Clay smiled and said, “Not quite. I was so worked up when I got done with his bike that I also smashed all the windows in his house and then I climbed through one of those broken windows and I set his bed on fire…half the damned house burned up before the fire department got there.” Jace laughed again, but then felt bad.
“I’m sorry…”
“No, no, don’t be sorry. It’s kind of funny, I know. All you tough guys sent over here by the judge for rolling up your sleeves and fighting man to man…and then there’s me with a baseball bat and a pack of matches, trying to get back at the asshole who had been fucking my wife for twenty years while I was at work.” He shook his head and said, “I would have been better off taking the baseball bat and breaking his kneecaps, I guess, but like I said, I’m really not a violent man.”
Jace was listening to the story, but his mind stuck on the “custom Harley” part and he asked Clay, “You customize bikes?”
“Yes sir. I’m the best on the East Coast too.” He smiled. “I’m less arrogant than I am violent, but I really am good at what I do. I’ve customized bikes for everyone from celebrities to motorcycle gangs.”
Jace thought about that day when he was fourteen and he’d been given a ride home by the Skulls. “You ever do any work for the Southside Skulls?”
“Sure did. I customized a bike for Doc Marshall himself before he died.”
Jace felt a little sick as said, “Yes, I heard that Doc was dead.”
Clay nodded and said, “Too bad too, I liked him. He wa
s…unique. He had himself a heart attack, I hear. His son is in charge of things now––Dax. He still gives me plenty of business.”
“You don’t like Dax?”
“You know, I suppose he’s probably as likable as his daddy was when you get to know him. Doc used to be interested in sitting around, having a beer, and shooting the breeze. Dax is just always too busy for that, but you gotta give the kid credit, he’s building an empire. He don’t have time for old men. He brings his business to me and pays me well; that’s all I can expect, really.”
Jace smiled. “I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with you being ‘old,’ which I don’t think you are…”
“How old you think I am?”
Jace didn’t want to play that game but guessing slightly lower than he thought Clay was he said, “Forty-five?”
Clay threw his head back and roared. “You’re funny, boy.”
“How old are you?”
“Tell me how old you really think I am.”
Jace shrugged and said, “I guess about fifty, honestly.”
Clay laughed again. “I’ll be seventy years old on my next birthday in about seven months.”
“No way.”
“Yes sir. Clean living…up until the baseball bat, incident.”
Jace laughed again. “Well, just for the record, I met Doc and Dax once myself, a long time ago. Doc was really cool, Dax not so much, and I wasn’t an old codger.”
Clay chuckled. “Well, like I said, he’s a busy guy. Where did you meet up with the Southies?”
“I grew up in Boston and I was walking home one day in the rain. I saw Doc Marshall’s wallet fall out of his pocket and told him and he was thankful. Ended up giving me a ride home. I was only fourteen, had stars in my eyes. I’ve always had a thing for putting models together. I was into classic cars for a long time, but after that, I got into bikes. I did a lot of studying on the mechanics, the models, everything Harley Davidson.” He chuckled again and said, “And to this day I’ve still only even been on a Harley that one time.”
Clay glanced at Jace’s car again and with a thoughtful look on his face he said, “You know, boy…I think I might have just thought of a way that you and I could help each other out.”
15
Six Months Later
“Jace!” Jace was in the middle of taking apart a motorcycle engine. He was learning, in Clay’s words, “the old-fashioned way.” Clay told him if he wanted to know how to put something together, he had to start by taking it apart first. For half a year he had spent his free time taking apart engines, transmissions, gearboxes…if it was a part of a bike and it could be taken apart, Jace had done it. The guys made fun of him because he could put an engine together with his eyes closed now, but he was still taking them apart, “practicing.” He picked up the grease rag and wiped his hands before sticking his head out of the back room and into the shop. Mark was standing in the doorway between the parts counter and the busy mechanics shop. Jace had to yell so he could be heard over all the noise on the floor of the shop.
“Yeah, Mark, what’s up?”
“Need you up front.”
“Alright, let me wash up…”
“Nope. Now!” Mark Ferguson was a forty-something-year-old man who had been working the parts counter in Clay’s shop since the business opened twenty years earlier. Mark knew every part on every Harley Davidson, dating back to the 1950’s, but he wasn’t a mechanic and had no desire to be. He enjoyed working the counter, finding the hard-to-find parts people came in looking for, bullshitting with the bikers, and barking out orders to the mechanics.
It was after 4 p.m. and Jace was officially off the clock. Clay had hired him six months earlier, their second day in the anger management class. That in and of itself Jace thought of as a miracle, but when Clay also offered him the room upstairs as a place to live, it took everything in the big man’s body not to cry. Jace still struggled with being able to accept that kind of kindness, from anyone. He felt like he didn’t deserve it and that he had to give something back in return. Because he didn’t feel like he had anything worth giving, he worked harder and longer hours than any of the other six guys who worked in the shop for Clay, and he never said no, about anything, even when Mark yelled at him to come up front on his time off. He dropped the grease towel and made his way through the busy shop to the front of the store. When he saw who was standing at the front counter, his jaw dropped. Dax Marshall hadn’t changed a lot in twelve years, but he was broader across the chest and he looked more like his father than the last time Jace had seen him. Those intense blue eyes fell on Jace’s face, traveled down to the nasty scar around his neck, and then locked back into Jace’s own dark eyes. “Dax Marshall, this is Jace Bell,” Mark said.
Before Jace could say anything Dax said, “I think we’ve met.”
Jace nodded. “Long time ago. I’m surprised you remember.”
A smile played at Dax’s lips and he said, “I never forget anyone that rides bitch on my bike.”
Jace laughed, Mark’s eyebrows twitched, and then quickly sobering Jace said, “I was sorry to hear about your old man.”
“Thanks,” Dax said. “He passed away not long after we met you that day.” Dax cleared his throat and Jace could tell he wasn’t comfortable talking about his father’s death. “Anyway, I wanted to meet the man that designed that touring motorcycle for the nomad from New York.”
“Bagger?” Jace asked. It was his first almost-solo project. He had a lot of ideas when the guy told them what he was looking for and Clay had let him run with them. The end result was something Jace was unbelievably proud of, and the shop made a lot of money out of the deal, so Clay was proud as hell too.
“Yep. He stopped by the ranch a few days back. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Dax’s face didn’t hold much expression and Jace couldn’t tell if he meant that in a good way or not. Nervously he asked, “You liked it?”
Dax chuckled. “Hell, yeah. I wouldn’t have driven all the way to Connecticut to talk to a guy about doing a shitty job, unless it was my bike. It’s fucking awesome. It’s something my nomads need. They ride close to a thousand miles a day sometimes and they need the storage space. They’re resistant to driving dressers, though, because of the extra weight, not to mention the less than aesthetic appeal. Fuck, I’d ride Bagger’s bike myself and be damned proud of it.” Jace was having a hard time keeping his face neutral. Inside he was grinning from ear to ear. A compliment like that from Dax Marshall meant more to him than…well, hell, more than anything had in a long time. “How about I buy you a beer and you tell me what all you did to that bike?”
Jace felt his eyes widen and his hands begin to shake. He hid his hands behind the counter and forced his eyes back to a normal size before looking at Mark. Mark shrugged and said, “You’re not on the clock. Go.”
Jace couldn’t keep the smile from his face then. He was going to have a beer with the crown prince of the Southside Skulls! Shit like that didn’t happen to him. He happened to glance down at his hands and see how greasy they were and that’s when it dawned on him that he was filthy from working all day. He looked back at Dax and said, “How about I clean up and meet you at Donner’s Tavern up the street in a few?”
“You got it,” Dax said. He nodded at Mark, and the two men watched him leave. Jace wasn’t surprised to hear the roar of at least four bikes. The president of an MC wouldn’t be riding around alone, especially all the way down in Connecticut. As soon as they heard the bikes start Mark said:
“What did he mean about you riding bitch on his bike?”
Jace shrugged. “I met him and his old man probably about twelve years ago…briefly. Dax gave me a ride. That was it.”
“Well, they’re good customers, but be careful about hanging around them too much.”
“Why’s that?” Jace asked.
“Rumor is that they’re warring with a club out of New York that Hawk, Doc Marshall’s old VP, is running these d
ays.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard about all that,” Jace said. He’d have to live underneath a rock if he hadn’t. The body count rose daily and the Boston PD had organized a task force specifically for the purpose of putting the Skulls away. Jace supposed that should make him at least pause before going out for a drink with Dax, especially with his own legal problems, but there was no way he could convince himself to say no. It was like being the ugly dork in middle school who was suddenly invited to eat lunch with the cool kids. He might end up regretting it, but he had to give it a shot. “I’m just gonna have a beer,” he told Mark. “Clay can call if he needs me.”
Mark shook his head and laughed. “You’re off the clock!”
“I know, but he can still call if he needs me.” He left a chuckling Mark and headed toward the back stairs that led up to his room above the shop. He was grinning like an idiot as he took the steps two at a time. He showered and changed in record time, putting on a long-sleeved t-shirt with a crew collar that at least covered most of his scar, and a clean pair of jeans. He started to grab his car keys off the ring by the door but changed his mind. Donner’s was two blocks away; he could walk it. He’d rather that than have Dax Marshall and his crew see him drive up in the fifteen-year-old Toyota with duct tape on the fender…something that might make it a little hard to take him seriously when he talked about customizing Harleys.
He walked so fast that he was practically running, breaking a sweat in the cool evening air before he even made it to the bar. He had to stop outside, take a deep breath, and talk himself through walking inside before he even pushed open the door. He saw the Skulls right away––they were hard to miss, scattered around the small bar. One guy sat up at the bar and looked to be sassing the bartender. She was a cute young blonde who didn’t look to be impressed with the tall, lanky Skull with the prospect patch on his back. Another one of them was chalking his pool stick in the back while the third sat on the edge of one of the pool tables with a woman between his legs and attached to his face. Jace’s eyes finally fell on Dax, sitting alone at a table but with a cute brunette waitress at the edge of it, looking at him adoringly as she listened to whatever he was saying. Dax finally noticed Jace and said something else to the waitress before she walked back toward the bar and Dax waved Jace over.