I turned my eyes up, though, and he was still smiling with a cocked eyebrow. He wasn’t even pretending like he hadn’t heard me.
“Why are you doing that?” I asked again. “I mean, you’re a member and all.”
“I am. I’m also a member who likes to have coffee without the cup getting stuck to the bar. I don’t want to have to use a straw to be able to finish my morning coffee,” he said, and the mental image of a row of bikers drinking their coffee with a straw made me laugh. “The last straw, no pun intended, was when my graphic novel got stuck on it.”
His eyes had been on mine until then, when he reached for something and held it up. I was relieved for the broken connection and looked at what he was holding in his hand.
“Oh, I like that one.”
“You’ve read Transmetropolitan?” he asked.
“Yes, my brothers like stuff like that. Is that the look you’re going for?” I asked before I could stop myself.
He didn’t look exactly like Spider Jerusalem, the main character in Transmetropolitan, but it was pretty close. As opposed to Spider’s completely bald head, Roach had a short stubble of both hair and beard, but he usually wore black jeans and t-shirt with a coat reaching his mid thighs. I’d wondered about the coat because I hadn’t seen a biker with one before, other than the biker on the Marauder patch. It seemed a bit impractical.
“Haven’t been able to get the right glasses, though,” he answered.
“Got any of his ink?”
Instead of answering, he tipped his head forward, and even though his hair was dark, I could see the shadow of a small spider on the right side of his head. I laughed again.
“That’s the one you picked?”
“I was seventeen and stupid,” he chuckled. “Just glad I was too poor to get the rest of them.”
“Some of them are nice.”
After a quick side-glance, he put the comic down. “You better get going, Princess, before your dad comes over here and rips my face off.”
Oh, yeah, I hadn’t thought of that, and I nodded. I tried to think of something to say, but with a shrug, I said, “Okay. I’ll see you.”
“Yeah, see you,” he smiled. “Hopefully with my face intact.”
He’d actually been smiling the entire time, and I wasn’t sure if it was, like, a ‘it’s nice talking to you’ smile, or more of a ‘let’s amuse the princess to get on her dad’s good side’ smile.
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
I noticed Dad staring alternately at me and at Roach, so I said, “Don’t rip his face off,” when I sat down next to him. He’d been nice, and pretty normal with me, so I didn’t want him hurt just because of that.
“What?” Dad asked with a laugh and put an arm around my shoulders.
“Guess you made him nervous last time.”
“I was just wondering why the fuck you were hiding in an alley with him.”
“I wasn’t hiding with him, Dad.”
“I know that now,” he said and gave my forehead a kiss. “I’m not gonna beat him up for talking to you. I’m not that bad. Unless you’re asking—are you asking?”
“No!” I decided to try to change the subject. “Did you know he has a spider tattooed on his head?”
“No, I thought it was a mole. I’ve been thinking he should get that checked out.”
“Nope. Spider Jerusalem thing.” I smiled and held up the cup in front of him. “Want a sip?”
We had our coffee the same way, so sometimes we shared a cup. It had been a thing when I was younger. I always sat next to him at the table, and in the mornings I’d tried to take a sip from his cup without him noticing. He hadn’t thought it was a great idea, since he didn’t think I needed more energy than I already had, which obviously had meant I really wanted coffee. In the long run it had meant I liked my coffee the way he had it—black with two sugars—just like I smoked the same brand of cigarettes as he did.
“Yeah,” he answered and looked really happy when he took the cup from me. At first I wondered why, and then I realized it could’ve been the smile. So I kept smiling.
“A smoke?”
“If you’re a nice girl and don’t tell your mom, you can have a smoke.”
“I’m a nice girl.”
“Yes you are.”
I found that very interesting. A smile and he just gave me a cigarette, and watched me light it and smoke it. Maybe that was the easiest way to get people to back off? Just become what they wanted to me to be.
oOo
Brick
Eliza had given him a hug before taking off with Mitch. There had been a while after she’d been taken when she couldn’t stand being touched even by him. It had broken his fucking heart, but he’d tried not to push. It had taken a few months, and then she’d carefully taken his hand while they were walking down the street, just like she’d done when she was a little girl. These days, she was back to normal with him, Mel, her brothers, and Bull, but that was it. Maybe Billie, he wasn’t sure about that, but Billie wasn’t a very cuddly person. Eliza, on the other hand, had been a cuddly girl who’d hugged and touched anyone who gave her a chance, but she wasn’t anymore. She kept her distance.
He was glad she was getting out more, though, even if it was just to the clubhouse or to her rehearsals. He’d used to barely see her before, since she was always out with friends, and even if it had annoyed him, it had been nice to see she had a life. The Eliza that had been brought back to them wasn’t the same girl as had been taken—not even close. He understood, and he was more than willing to give her time, but he missed her. He knew Eliza missed that girl, too,
Today he’d seen the first real glimpse of her. She’d been laughing. He knew for a fucking fact that it was the first time he’d heard her laugh like that in over six months, and it had been with Roach. Not that he gave a fuck who made her laugh, it was more that she was laughing, but he realized that he didn’t know much about Roach. Or, he knew about him, but he didn’t know him.
He decided to do something about that.
Roach visibly tensed when Brick approached him, and after he’d put his cup down on the bar he braced himself, as if Brick was, in fact, going to rip his face off.
“Give me a cup of that?” Brick asked when he sat down on one of the stools.
“How do you want it?”
“Black with two sugars.”
Roach was on loan from New York, and as much as Brick knew they needed the manpower, he didn’t like loans or transfers. When a guy went from hang-around, to prospect, and finally a member—if he got that far—he grew into the club while he grew into a member. It gave him another connection and a place in the club in a different way. In short: he gained his role and earned his respect.
When someone was transferred or on loan, they’d earned their respect once, and they had found their role as a member. Fitting that role into a new club was like forcing a square peg into a round hole. Sometimes it worked after the worst edges had been worn off, but most often it didn’t, and they went back to their original club. The charters in the Marauders were quite different, simply since the brotherhood in a club depended on the members, each one unique and creating an even more unique mesh of people.
Family was important in the Greenville Marauders, and not only because a lot of them had families, but mostly because they were all close as hell. Brick even had both his sons as members. He’d known Bear, his VP, since before they’d joined, and the members who’d joined after that had to some extent joined because of what the club was like. As opposed to a lot of the other clubs, they didn’t have many ex-military men. That had proven to be a flaw when they’d ended up in the middle of a cartel war. Roach, Ahab, and Slug had been in Greenville when it happened, and along with Ahab, Roach had said he could stay behind until it was sorted. Dawg, another member and Brick’s brother-in-law, had known Ahab, who’d been in the army. Brick had initially had no fucking idea why New York had sent Roach when he asked for experienced members. At first Bric
k had called up to New York and asked them if they were so fucking stoned they’d sent the wrong guy. Roach was just a few weeks short of twenty-two, and Brick had a hard time seeing how the hell that made him experienced in anything but jerking off.
‘He’s a street kid,’ had been the answer. Roach was short for cockroach, because he tended to always survive. He’d grown up on the streets of New York, so even if he hadn’t actually been in a war, he had an uncanny survival instinct, and he knew how to fight.
Brick had decided he wanted to see that first hand, so he’d asked Tommy, a former Marine, to take him up in the ring. Even if Roach hadn’t won, he’d made it a helluva lot longer against Tommy than most before him. Brick had asked Tommy about it later, and apparently the kid had anticipated most moves, had a more than basic knowledge about defense, great reflexes, and was ‘fast as fuck.’ More importantly, Roach had taken a beating without whining about it. He’d shaken Tommy’s hand afterwards, and they’d had a beer together.
Bear, his VP, had pointed something else out: the number of scars on Roach’s body. Brick hadn’t thought much of it. Most of them had their scars, but that was until he took the guy’s age into account. Roach had a lot of scars and burn marks for someone his age.
When Eliza was taken, the initial plan had been that Roach would stay behind to protect the people in the clubhouse, but Ahab had protested. ‘Dude, you want Roach with you, and he wants in,” he’d said. ‘If, god forbid, they’ve… done shit to her, he’s the one you want there. He can handle it.’ And he had. When the rest of them had stared in horror, Roach had grabbed a blanket and threw it at Brick, telling him to cover her up. Brick assumed that kids who grew up on the streets both saw and experienced a lot of shit. He’d found out later that Roach had lost a sister, and that he was a recovering drug addict. The latter had made Brick concerned, but so far he hadn’t even seen the kid drunk, and according to Ahab it wasn’t a problem at all. Brick was all for second chances; it was thirds he didn’t bother with.
The ‘uncanny survival instincts’ were probably the reason for why Roach was slightly on edge when he put the cup of coffee in front of Brick.
“Thanks,” he said and took a sip. “How are you settling down?”
“Um, good. Edie helped me find an apartment, so I moved in just before Christmas.” He took a deep breath. “Not that I’m assuming I’ll be here forever, or anything. Just, I like having a place of my own. Looks like I might be here a while.”
“I understand. Sometimes it’s nice to have a breather from the rest of us.”
“Yeah. There’s always a lot of people here, a lot more than in New York. Which is nice, but it kind of means you need a place to wind down.” He nodded to himself. “It’s a great clubhouse, though. Fucking love the stools.”
“Ah, yeah,” Brick chuckled and looked down on the leather seats Vi had decorated a few years earlier. “Vi tattooed them.”
“Mac’s old lady?”
“Yeah. Bear’s kid.”
It looked like he was thinking. “Sorry, but… The one with purple hair?”
“Yeah.”
Vi hadn’t been around the clubhouse much since their second kid, Joseph, was born, so it wasn’t that strange that Roach didn’t know for sure who she was. He hadn’t been to any of the family dinners at the house, either. Which might simply be because he didn’t know they had them. It bothered Brick, though. One of the significant things about the Greenville Marauders was how close they were. He didn’t want to lose that.
“She’s a tattoo artist?” Roach asked.
“Yup. A good one.”
“If she did those chairs, I’m not gonna argue that.”
“She’s usually pretty generous with clearing time for members. She’ll put you on her list and call you if she gets a cancellation.”
“Yeah?” he said with a contemplative nod. “I’ll think on it. Is it okay if I don’t know exactly what I want? I mean, is she good at freehand?”
“That’s when she does the best work.” He emptied the cup and stood up. The kid might be on loan, but he still wanted to make sure he was one of the family. He’d been there long enough to have earned that respect, and so had Ahab. “Don’t know if they’ve told you, but we do these family dinners. You and Ahab should stop by.”
“Um, yeah. I’ve heard about them, but… When?”
“Whenever you feel like it,” Brick laughed. “Tag along with Sisco or Bull, they make good use of my old lady’s cooking.”
He’d put a stop to the dinners for a while when Eliza had just come out of the hospital. About a month later she’d asked why no one had dinner with them anymore, she’d thought it was quiet and strange, so he’d told people they were on again. It had taken another month or two before they were back to normal. If it became too much for Eliza, she told him or Mel and went back to her room, but mostly she stayed for the full dinner—just a lot quieter than she’d used to be.
oOo
Roach
He’d mentioned the family dinner thing to Ahab, who thought they should go. So far, the loan to Greenville had been pretty calm. He got up, worked out, did a shift as a bouncer at The Booty Bank, and went home if he didn’t stay the night at the clubhouse. The cartel had been quiet, which they assumed could be a good or a bad thing. Brick had been a pretty distant president, but everyone knew why, so they cut him a lot of slack. Bear, the VP, was on top of things, so he’d been covering for Brick when it was needed.
Everyone had been treating him well. There had been some distance, but he’d expected that. He was pretty cool with Sisco, Bull, and Tommy. He’d been at Dawg’s place with Ahab a couple of times, too. They were old friends and had known each other since they were kids, and it had been cool to hang out with them.
He’d heard about the family dinners, but he hadn’t sweated that he hadn’t been invited. It was actually more stressful to be invited. He didn’t know what to expect or why he’d all of fucking sudden been asked to come. That it happened just after he’d been caught talking to Princess Eliza seemed a bit too coincidental, and during a total attack of paranoia, he’d wondered if Brick had asked him to come only to beat him up.
When Sisco turned and pulled up on the driveway outside what Roach assumed was Brick’s house, he almost laid down his bike. It was fucking huge.
“This is where he lives?”
“Yeah,” Sisco answered and looked towards the house. “Smells like we’re getting barbecue. Come on. There’s stairs up to the deck on the side of the house.”
Deck. Of course Brick had a deck. With a big grill on it, probably. And Roach was right. Brick was by the ridiculously big grill; Dawg, Mac, Mitch, and Bull were scattered around on chairs and recliners. There was a glass door open and from inside the house he heard women and kids.
So picturesque he could puke.
“Hi, welcome,” Brick said and pointed towards a cooler. “Dinner is done in five. Have a beer.”
“Thanks,” he said and grabbed one. He figured that if he sipped it, he could make it last until he went home. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“Through the kitchen, to the right, and to the right of the stairs.”
“Thanks.”
When he entered the kitchen, he was almost attacked by Mel in the same comfort fascism way as Brick had done.
“Welcome! Can I get you a beer?”
“Nah, I’m fine. I need a bathroom. Brick said it was this way.”
“Vi is in the downstairs bathroom with Joseph, but you can use the guestroom upstairs. It’s to the left, down the hall. There’s a sign on the door.”
“Thanks.”
The house had looked impressive from the outside, but the inside was even more… pompous. It was super designed, everything in its right spot, and as much as he liked neat, it was just too fucking perfect.
And pink matching towels in the bathroom.
Roach wondered how Brick was handling all the chick stuff in the house. It would drive Roach insane to liv
e in such an environment.
On his way back to the stairs, a door opened in the hallway and Eliza stared at him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, but she was at least looking at him when she talked to him. She closed the door behind her, like she was trying to hide something.
“Used the bathroom. Is that your room?” he asked with a nod towards he room behind her. “I’m not gonna ask to see it, just wondered,” he added when she kept glaring at him.
“It’s not like it’s a big secret or anything,” she said and opened the door for him to see inside behind her.
The first thing he noticed was the bed. The little princess had a huge four-poster-canopy-monstrosity bed at the end of the room. The curtains were dark pink (obviously), red, and orange with crazy fucking gold patterns on it. In fact, the entire room looked as if a few cans of color had exploded and patterns had been added on later. And just… stuff and dark woods—and gold lamps. Like a medieval royal room, sort of, with a hint of… something else.
“A lot of colors,” he said. “And patterns.”
“It’s Moroccan—kind of,” she mumbled. “Mom and I went there when I was fourteen, and I liked it.”
Travels abroad. Obviously. Could she be more cliché and girly?
“Suits you,” he said with a smile he hoped looked nice and not sarcastic. “I think dinner is about ready.”
She nodded and closed the door again. They walked downstairs together, and she took the seat next to Brick. Roach hesitated for a second, but sat down next to Dawg, since that seemed to be the farthest he could get from any of the children.
This was so not his scene.
Towards the end of the meal, when the worst hysteria settled down, and when Mel stopped trying to make sure the new guests were okay, it became pretty decent, though. At least it didn’t make him want to puke. He couldn’t help noticing how they doted on Eliza; he was surprised they didn’t cut the meat for her.
Equilibrium: A Marauders Interlude Page 3