HOT as F*CK

by Scott Hildreth

  He said he realized he loved my mother when they made love for the first time. I’m not so sure Tegan didn’t convince me when we kissed for the first time.

  I’d never really kissed anyone like that, and although I had very little to compare it to, I didn’t need to compare it to anything to realize just how special that kiss actually was.

  All I needed to do was kiss her again to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

  When I kissed her at her door, I knew.

  I really did.

  Now, I simply needed enough time to pass so I could tell her how I felt without her thinking I was some sentimental idiot.

  I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of passing cars, and tried to fall asleep.

  The sound of my ringing phone woke me up. Confused, groggy, and pissed off that someone was calling me in the middle of the night, I reached for my phone and stared at the screen.

  Mom and Dad

  I looked at the time in the corner of the screen.

  3:52 a.m.

  My heart sank.

  I swiped my thumb across the screen.

  “Hello?”

  After a few seconds of silence, my mother’s voice came over the phone.

  “Bradley?”

  She never called me Bradley, unless I was in trouble. I swallowed hard, afraid I really didn’t want to hear what she had to say. Visions of my father standing up, attempting to go to the bathroom, and breaking another ankle ran though my head.

  “Yeah?”

  “I need you to come home.”

  “Is everything alright?”

  “I need you to come home, Bradley. He’s gone.”

  I sat up in bed. “Who’s gone? What’s going on?”

  “Your father, Bradley. He’s left us.” She began to whimper, and after a moment, regained her composure.

  It took a moment for everything to register. I think my brain simply refused to process it. At the same time I realized what she had told me, she continued.

  “I need help getting him back into his chair. I don’t want to the funeral home to see him like this.”

  She began to cry.

  My heart shot to my throat.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t.

  I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t form the words.

  I couldn’t anything.

  After an immeasurable period of silence, I swallowed hard. Somehow, I was able to mutter, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I choked on each of the words.

  “Thank you.”

  The phone went silent.

  I dropped it onto my chest and lay there in a daze, staring at the ceiling. Somehow, I felt if I didn’t move, if I don’t go there, if I didn’t react, I’d wake up from the nightmare.

  Tegan rolled over. “Who called?”

  “Mom,” I said flatly.

  She sat up and looked at me. I turned my head to the side and met her gaze.

  Immediately, she started crying.

  I didn’t even have to tell her. She knew. She wrapped her arms around me, and before I’d spoken a single word, kissed my neck.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  Immobile and staring at the ceiling, I simply nodded.

  I couldn’t do anything else.

  She rolled to the side, got dressed, and turned on the light. “Come on. You mother needs you.”

  “Are you going to go?”

  “I have to,” she said. “I need to tell him a few things.”

  “Okay.”

  I got up and somehow got dressed.

  “Can you drive? I asked. “I can’t ride.”

  “Yep.”

  Hand-in-hand we walked to her car.

  The trip took us fifteen minutes that night, and we didn’t speak. Not one word. I’d end up forgetting it completely, as well as walking through the front door, but I’ll never forget what my father looked like when I saw him.

  On the floor, laying on his side, he was still dressed in his tuxedo.

  I looked down at him, and then at my mother. I didn’t have to ask.

  “He insisted that he wear it to bed,” she said. “And you know how he is. There was no arguing.”

  “I think he just hung on until the anniversary,” I said, feeling proud of him in an odd sense. “He probably just wanted to cling on to the celebration as long as he could.”

  “He knew it was coming,” she said. “Can you pick him up? Get him in the chair?”

  I chewed my bottom lip and looked at him for a few seconds.

  “Can I?” Tegan asked. “One last time?”

  I nodded, and then burst into tears.

  She lifted him from the floor, shuffled toward the chair, and then lowered him into it. After brushing the wrinkles from his jacket, she leaned over, kissed him, and whispered something in his ear.

  At some point, I stopped crying. It wasn’t because I didn’t care, or that I stopped grieving. I simply stopped crying.

  After the ambulance pulled away, I turned to Tegan and took her in my arms. “What did you tell him? When you put him in the chair?”

  “Just reassured him of a promise I made to him,” she said. “But I forgot to tell him last night before we left.”

  I stood on the porch with my arm draped over her shoulder, and held her close. It was the same porch I sat on as a kid while I talked to him about everything a boy talks to his father about.

  My mother stepped to my other side. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close.

  And, as I held the two most important women in the world, I realized I had become the pillar of the family.

  The foundation.

  I tilted my head back, looked up at the stars, and made my own promise.

  I’ll make you proud, Pop.

  Chapter Seventy

  Tegan

  Marcus sat with his head buried in his hands. Eventually, he looked up. “I feel sick.”

  “We can feel sick together.”

  “I liked your words of wisdom from his vault,” he said.

  “Maybe I’ll start making up my own.”

  “You should write them down,” he said. “Maybe make a book.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “He was a good man. He really was.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sure going to miss him.”

  “Pee Bee is such a doll,” he said. “I love him, too.”

  “Brad? Why do you say that?”

  He leaned away from the table and shot me a sour look. “What? I can’t love him, too?”

  I laughed, and it felt good. “No, you can, I just. I didn’t know. I wondered where that came from.”

  He pressed his hand to his heart. “From the heart, of course.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  He leaned against the edge of the table, looked at me and blinked rapidly.

  “Did you do something with your eyelashes?”

  “No, I was trying to get your attention.”

  “Attention got,” I said with a laugh.

  “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “Brian apologized.”

  I clenched my jaw. “Not good enough.”

  “Uhhm.” He raised both eyebrows. “Maybe this will be.”

  “What?”

  “He’s got a new bridge of teeth.” He widened his eyes and cocked his head to the side. “And, they look like Chicklets.”

  “New teeth?”

  He nodded his head a dozen times in two seconds, and then continued. “And, he’s got a nice scar on his cheek, and a scar on his arm…” He raised his hands in the air and held them two feet apart. “And it’s this long.”

  “What?” I gasped.

  “Uhhm. Someone beat him to a frazzle.”

  “Karma, that’s what that is,” I huffed.

  “You call it karma, I call it vengeance.”

  “Vengeance?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Serge told me who did it.”

/>   “Do I know him?”

  He grinned and nodded his head. “I’ll give you a clue.”

  “Okay?”

  He rested his cheek against his palm, and tilted his head the side. “You sucked his cock on a motorcycle.”

  “What?” I wrinkled my nose at him and stared. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because, it was my man Pee Bee. I asked around. He went to The Brass Rail as a poser, and then took Brian outside and beat him up.” He raised his hand and turned his palm toward me. “I swear.”

  I shouldn’t have been, but I was excited hearing him say it. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “A hundred percent?”

  He leaned forward and raised his index finger to his lips. “Brain admitted it, but he said if I said a word, even one, that Pee Bee guaranteed him he’d come back, kill him, and cook him on a spit.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Not the spit part, but the rest, yeah.”

  “This is going to sound awful,” I said. “Bu that makes me happy.”

  “It makes me happy too. I hate it when people talk crap on bikers.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “When is the funeral?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  “Can I go?”

  “Sure.”

  “I just. I don’t know. I feel like I know him. And, I want to pay respect to Pee Bee.”

  I sighed. “Brad.”

  He looked down his nose at me. “Brad to you, Pee Bee to me.”

  “Fine. But yeah. You can go,” I said. “Maybe give me a ride?”

  He reached for my hand.

  “You know it T-Girl. I love you.”

  I grinned and squeezed his hand. “I love you, too.”

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Pee Bee

  The highway leading to the graveside service shut down to allow the bikes and cars in without interruption. Tegan, Mom, and I rode in the Limo. I invited Marcus to ride, but he insisted that the Limo be limited to family.

  I gazed out along the grass laden hills. Bikes lined the access road for as far as the eye could see. No less than six MC’s had members in attendance. My guess was there were 400 MC Brothers, and 300 friends and relatives paying tribute to my father’s life.

  As brash as my father was, before me stood proof of the men and women he touched in living his life.

  I could only hope that in living mine I could influence half as many people.

  After the pastor finished speaking, he stepped aside and patted me on the shoulder. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. After clearing my throat, I read the hand-written story.

  I was roughly seven years old. Maybe eight. While my father was at work, and my mother was probably cooking brownies, I snuck around the edge of the house.

  With my Red Ryder BB gun at my side, I positioned myself in the alley. The garage window was my intended target, and after taking aim, I fired one shot at the pane of glass.

  The impact of the BB broke the fragile glass, but it didn’t shatter it. It left a small hole, and a ‘spider web’ of misplaced glass surrounding it. After close inspection of the damage, I went on to hunt anything that was brave enough to expose itself to me.

  It wasn’t that night, or even the night that followed when my father approached me. It was maybe a week or so later. He knew my friends didn’t do it, because at that time, none of them had a BB gun.

  I was the only one who was ‘responsible’ enough.

  He towered over me with his hands on his hips and his eyes locked on mine.

  Looking down wasn’t allowed, and looking away wasn’t an option, either. Reluctantly, I met his stare.

  The tone of his voice was such that there was no mistaking his disappointment in me. “Brad, did you shoot the garage window with your BB gun?”

  I knew he would probably kill me, or at least ship me away to a camp somewhere for what I had done, but no punishment would be as bad as the punishment I’d receive for lying. Honesty was a part of having integrity, and as my father’s son, I was expected to be honorable over and above all things.

  I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “I work hard to pay for this house. Why would you do such a thing?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  I’d no more than responded, and I knew it wasn’t going to be sufficient. Not with my father, anyway.

  “That’s not an answer. I’ll ask you one more time. Why did you do it?”

  I looked at the hole. After a quick study, I told the truth. “I wanted to see what it would do. The BB gun. See how much power it had.”

  He nodded. “What did you think it would do?”

  “Break it…”

  He scowled. “But you just had to know, didn’t you?”

  I nodded again. “Yes, Sir.”

  “You damned sure didn’t exercise any common sense. It’s going to cost $20 to fix that window. Do you have $20?”

  I had about $2.00, if I collected all the change from my piggy bank. I was saving for a mini-bike at the time. I fought against the lump in my throat. “No, Sir.”

  “Start saving.” He said. “You’re going to pay for it. You understand why, don’t you?”

  “Because I broke it?”

  “That’s right.” He placed his hand on my shoulder. “And now, you’re going to pay for fixing it. The decisions you make in life will have a financial effect on you. Some will be bad, and some will be good. This was a piss poor decision on your part.”

  I suspected taking my BB gun was next, and I was right. He told me he’d return it when he could trust me, and to this day, I’m still waiting on it.

  I chuckled a laugh, paused, and looked out over the crowd.

  Most people were wiping their eyes. I realized not all of them were reacting to what I was saying, but some of them certainly were. The rest, by my best guess, were recalling stories of their own.

  I dropped my gaze to the sheet of paper and continued.

  A month or so later, he and I changed the broken piece of glass together. He showed me how to scrape away the caulking, pull the retaining clips, and replace the glass.

  To this day, I still know how to replace a pane in an old double hung window.

  I also know the value of money.

  The lessons my father taught me didn’t stop there. They continued for years, many long after I was an adult.

  “Be honest.”

  “All we have is our word. Be a man of your word. Always.”

  “If you can’t pay for it, you probably don’t need it.”

  “Work hard every day, or your boss will find someone else who will.”

  “Never raise your hand to a woman. If someone else does in your presence, raise your hand to him.”

  “At any cost, stand up for what you believe in. If there’s opposition, stand taller.”

  “No man on this earth is born better than you, or worse. Don’t judge. Ever. A man’s worth will be shown in his actions, but never by his skin color, religion, or lack of religion.”

  In my parent’s home, using derogatory words to describe a race or religion didn’t happen.

  Ever.

  I am the man I am today because of my father.

  He died in his sleep while Tegan and I were laying side-by-side in bed on the night of his 50th wedding anniversary.

  I’m going to miss him dearly.

  But today, I stand tall, I stand proud, and I stand firm in my convictions.

  Because I am Bradley Carson’s son.

  Pop, I’ll try to never disappoint you.

  Proudly, Your son, Bradley Carson II.

  I folded the paper and tossed it on top of the casket.

  And, I wept one last time as they lowered him into the ground.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Tegan

  I sat beside Brad’s and stared at the attorney. Dressed in an expensive suit and wearing greased back salt-and-pepper hair, he
looked like a retired car salesman.

  He peered over the top of his wire-framed glasses and sighed. “Your father was an interesting man.”

  Brad nodded and squeezed my hand. “That he was.”

  “With your mother still living, there is no property, and resolving your father’s will shall be rather simple and painless.”

  Brad nodded.

  “There’s a note written to each of you, and as they’re a part of the last will and testament, I can either read them to you, or you can read them privately. Have you a preference?”

  “You can read mine out loud,” Brad said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  The attorney nodded. “You’ll each get a copy of them, but I’ll read what he has written. And, I quote:

  Bradley. I leave you the BB gun you used to shoot the window. One of the many idiotic decisions you’d make through the course of your life as my son, but certainly not the worst. I told you I’d return it when I felt that I could trust you, and I’m quite certain that time is upon me. Lest you worry when this will was written, I ask that you check the date at the bottom, when I signed it. Yes, Son, it took that long. Furthermore, I leave you my coveted Padres World Series ball. You’ve spent a lifetime admiring it from afar, and now you can fingerfuck it for as long as your little heart desires. I must also clarify that I don’t think you or any of your brethren in the club are dip-shits or shit-heads. In fact, I respect each and every one of you. Keep the streets clean of filth, and keep the shiny side of your cruiser up. Lastly, proceed with your life knowing this: you’ve made me damned proud, Son. Damned proud. Just remember this, dip-shit. I’m up here watching you.”

  The attorney paused and looked up. “That’s the end of yours.”

  I glanced at Brad. He fought not to smile, but he couldn’t help it. A prideful grin covered his entire face.

  I squeezed his hand in mine.

  The attorney cleared his throat, and then looked at me. “Tegan? What about you?”

  I sighed. “Read it.”

  He nodded and then looked down. “Tegan. You came into my life like a thief, stealing my heart, my modesty, and my Son. I’ll be forever grateful that you came when you did, for I am convinced that in your absence, my son would have perished an early death, and losing him before he found true love would have killed me a second time.