After four jabs that I leaned away from, he swung a left hook that caught me in the ribs.
The air shot from my lungs.
Naturally, I tucked my elbows close to my midsection, which lowered my hands.
The next punch caught me straight in the jaw, knocking me three or four steps back. As I shook my head to regain my senses, he swung another hook into my ribs.
Hell, I hadn’t even found my breath since the first punch.
Mother…fucker.
Through my ringing ears, I heard Crip’s unmistakable voice. “Beat that motherfucker’s ass, or turn in your patch, Cholo!”
“Hear that, Cholo?” Butcher taunted. “Your Beaner ass is unfit to be a biker.”
I was one of those people who was accurately described in the old cliché you can dish it out, but you can’t take it. I would talk a mad line of shit to another man, but as soon as anyone said something derogatory to me, I was ready to fight.
And, what he’d said was enough to make my blood boil.
“I’m half Beaner, half Mick, asshole,” I seethed. “And the Irish half of my blood gives me a temper I can’t control.”
I shifted my stance to southpaw, and his eyes shot wide. He glanced at my right side, undoubtedly trying to figure out which was my lead hand, and which was my rear. I threw a quick right jab to catch him off-guard, and then swung a left cross toward his jaw with every ounce of my being.
The punch landed square on his mouth.
I felt his teeth loosen beneath my knuckles.
The crowd cheered.
His eyes went glassy. I had him right where I wanted.
“You can get Uncle Sam to fix those teeth,” I said as he stumbled to catch his footing. “Oh wait. You can’t. They kicked you out for being a dip-shit.”
I swung a wide right hook. The punch crashed into his temple, and spun him halfway around. As the left side of his face became fully exposed, I swung a left hook into his ribs, and then another hard right into his open jaw.
The second punch caused his knees to buckle. He stood before me, wavering, one punch away from his first loss.
Technically, he was out on his feet – standing, but in an unconscious state. I could have stepped aside and let the referee make note of it, or simply waited for him to recover.
Following the Beaner comment, I planned on giving him what I felt he deserved.
I planted my feet firm on the concrete floor, lowered my chin, and took my mind to the day that I found Alexandra in the back room of the dope house. I thought of her standing there, scared and shaking, trying to protect the other girls from harm.
I thought of what they’d done to her, and what they’d taken from her mentally, physically, and emotionally.
My hands reacted in accordance with my thoughts, plastering punch after punch into his thick skull.
My fists pounded into the sides of his face, opening up the cut on his upper cheek. As he slowly melted into a pile on the floor at my feet, my hands followed, pummeling him until he was in a pile of his own blood at my feet.
Two red sweatshirts stepped between us.
“It’s over!” one shouted.
I raised my swollen fists into the air and glanced around the crowd
People were cheering and waving their fists. As they tried to raise Butcher to his feet, the crowd began to cheer.
“Downey! Downey! Downey!”
And, for that short moment, I wasn’t a half-breed, I wasn’t a Mexican, and I wasn’t Irish.
I was simply the man I was supposed to be.
I was me.
Chapter Eighty-Four
Lex
I totaled the receipts, figured what I owed the restaurant from my cash payments, and then counted what remained. Shocked, I carefully recounted. While Sandy got her things together and grabbed her purse, I looked up.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“I’ve done this twice.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s uhhm. Well. I put cash receipts over here, and credit card receipts over here. I’m just trying to get my cash straight. So, after totaling my cash receipts, this is left over.”
I slid the pile of money to the side.
She counted it. “$325.00? That’s about what I made. In cash, I mean.”
“Seriously?”
She nodded.
I waved a handful of receipts. “There’s another $150 in credit card tips.”
“We were slammed,” she said. “It’s like that on Fridays. Everyone comes in from work, and they’re in and out quick. Then, there are the regulars who come anyway.”
“Almost $500 in one shift?”
“That’s about right for a Friday, yeah.”
I looked at the pile of cash. “Holy crap.”
“Wait ‘till you work a weekend. It’s crazy good money,” she said.
I separated the piles. “I love this job.”
After we paid the restaurant we walked into the parking lot together.
“Are you working tonight?” I asked.
“No. I have the night off.”
I looked at her. “You want to go somewhere?”
She grinned. “Sure. What are you thinking?”
It was 4:30 in the afternoon. Although I didn’t really feel safe going out at night yet, I wasn’t scared to go out during the day, depending on where she wanted to go.
“I don’t know. Just around the corner, on Harbor. Maybe one of the places on the water. Just sit and talk?”
“Sure. I’ll follow you.”
“Okay.”
I drove around the corner, past the more expensive restaurants, and ended up parking at Joe’s Crab Shack on Harbor Drive. I didn’t particularly care for chains, but the place was on the water and was likely to be a mellow atmosphere compared to other bars.
We sat at a table facing the water and each ordered a beer.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” I asked.
“I’m not really girlfriend material,” she said. “No.”
She truly was pretty, and looked like a little Barbie doll with grotesquely large boobs. I was intrigued by her response. “You’re a man’s dream girl. Blonde, big boobs, you’re pretty…”
“Thanks.” She grinned, and then shrugged one shoulder. “It just doesn’t work for me.”
“Huh? Why not?”
“Guys cheat on me. I’m not, I don’t know. I’m not whatever I have to be to make them want to be loyal or whatever. They cheat. I find out. We break up. It happens over and over.”
I took a drink of beer. “Maybe it’s not you, but the guys. You’re picking the wrong ones or something.”
She looked down at the table, scrunched her nose, and after a moment, looked up. “I don’t think I’ve ever picked one. They pick me.”
“Pick the next one.” I lifted my bottle of beer. “A good one.”
She chuckled and raised her bottle. “You’re funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
“No,” she said. “I mean you’re different. You’re quiet and don’t talk shit. I like that. Most of the other girls that I work with are catty and competitive. I hate it. It’s like, I don’t know, they talk shit behind your back just to get others to look at you a certain way. It’s non-stop at the club.”
“I’m not a big fan of girls. They’re mean.”
“I know, right?”
“I can kick it with you, though,” I said. “You seem pretty genuine.”
“Genuine?”
“Yeah. Not like everyone else. Genuine.”
“I don’t feel very genuine.” She turned toward the window, took a drink of beer, and then looked at me.
“Why?”
She glanced down at her boobs, and then laughed. “Really?”
I chuckled. “What?”
“They’re fake. I’m a phony.”
“I think they’re awesome,” I said, although they were ridiculously large for her small frame. “And they have nothing to
do with who you are on the inside.”
“Thanks. I bet if you had them for a month, you’d hate them.”
I looked her over. As far as fake boobs were concerned, hers were pretty perfect. They looked dumb on her, though.
I shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d hate them.”
“You’d hate how they make your back feel.”
“Is it bad?”
She let out a laugh. “Terrible.”
“That sucks. Maybe if they weren’t so, I don’t know, big?”
“Yeah.” She starting laughing. “They are pretty ridiculous.”
“Good for business at the club though, huh?”
“They make me tips, that’s for sure.” She nodded her head toward me. “So, what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Boyfriend?”
“No.”
She cocked her head to the side. “How come?”
“The last one used me for a punching bag, so I left.”
“You don’t put up with any shit, do you?”
I laughed. “No, not really. Why?”
“You just don’t seem like the type.”
She was right, I didn’t. The minute someone started trying to bullshit me, or treat me poorly, I cast them aside. It was another one of my many strengths.
Or defects. Depending how one wanted to view it.
“I’ve got a pretty low tolerance for putting up with bullshit,” I said. “And then, I have an issue with telling people what I think. I always just say exactly what I’m thinking. I don’t pull any punches.”
“No filter,” she said. “You don’t have a filter.”
“If I do, it’s a really little one.”
“I keep everything inside. It makes me sick. Like, it makes my stomach sick.”
“If you don’t like it, change it,” I said.
“It’s not that easy. I hate conflict. Fighting. Arguing. It’s weird. I hate being in an argument, even a little one. But, when it comes to sex…”
She wagged her eyebrows.
“What?”
She leaned forward, looked in each direction, and then met my curious gaze.
“I like being pushed around,” she whispered.
“Just during sex?”
She nodded.
I laughed. “Who doesn’t? There’s two types of girls. Girls who like it rough, and girls who don’t. The girls who don’t haven’t been with the right guy yet.”
“That’s funny. Sheri used to say I was weird.”
“Who’s Sheri?”
“The girl you replaced at work.”
“She’s an idiot. She probably didn’t show up because some guy finally pulled her hair just right, and she didn’t want it to stop.”
“I doubt that. She was kind of uptight.”
“Most girls who aren’t sexually satisfied are uptight. Seriously. Have you ever met a girl who’s getting it – and getting it good – that’s in a bad mood?”
She grabbed her beer, leaned back, and looked beyond me. After a moment, she shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay. Have you ever met a girl who’s madly in love – and getting laid on a daily basis –that’s a total bitch?”
She chuckled. “No.”
I grinned as if I’d made my point clear. “Good sex cures a bad mood.”
“So why are you so happy if you don’t have a boyfriend? Do you have a fuck buddy?”
The thought of it sickened me. “I couldn’t do that. No, I’m on a dry spell.”
“Seeing somebody?”
“Not really. Kind of. I don’t know.”
She leaned forward. “Tell me about him.”
“It’s really nothing. Yet.”
“Tell me.”
“Okay. Fine.” I let out a sigh as if I didn’t want to say anything, but I really did. “He’s one of the Filthy Fuckers. But. There’s nothing going on yet. I just kind of like him.”
“Which one?”
“The one you said you didn’t know.”
She couldn’t hide her excitement. “What’s his name?”
I considered saying Adam, but knew he preferred Cholo, so I stuck with his preference. “Cholo.”
“Mexican guy?”
“Half. He’s half Hispanic and half Irish.”
“What color are his eyes?”
“Blue.”
“Tattoos?”
I nodded. “From his knuckles to his shoulders.”
“What about his hair?”
“His head’s shaved.”
“Tall? Skinny? Muscular?”
“Tall. Really, really muscular. Built like a weightlifter.”
“Oh God.” She breathed. “I bet he’s hot.”
“He’s pretty easy on the eyes, that’s for sure.”
“How’d you guys meet?”
I didn’t want to lie, but I couldn’t tell the truth. At least not the complete truth. “Some uhhm. Some guys were beating me up, and he stopped it. He saved me.”
“What?” She gasped. “Guys were beating you up? Like hitting you?”
I nodded. “I was being attacked.”
Mrs. Kelly said it would feel good to talk about it, and she was right. Even though I wasn’t talking about it specifically, finally sharing the event – even partially – with someone out of the group was a huge relief.
“Oh my God.” She covered her mouth. “And he saved you?”
“Yeah.” I grinned. “He sure did.”
“That’s awesome. Bikers are bad asses. I’ve always dated douchebags from the bars. An insurance salesman. A mechanic at the Chevy dealership. A guy that worked construction and was freaking married. And, there was another guy that was worked for the city’s landscape crew. He was a dick. Asshole had like five girlfriends.” She took a drink of beer, let out a sigh, and leaned on the edge of the table. “I wanna trade places with you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do, too.”
“Really, you don’t. I wasn’t popular in school. Me and my big mouth didn’t make many friends. The only people close to me were my two boyfriends, and instead of cheating on me, they slapped me around.”
She crossed her forearms over her chest and scrunched her nose. “I can’t imagine getting hit.”
“Yeah. It’s not fun,” I said. “The line that separates aggressive sex from abusive sex is razor thin, and finding someone that knows the difference isn’t easy.”
“I’ve always had normal guys that I’ve just asked to pull my hair and slap my butt. They don’t get too mixed up,” she said with a light laugh.
I chuckled. “Yeah. I think we’re in different leagues.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
The thought of having sex was so far out on the horizon for me that I wondered if when I got there I would even have the same sexual desires I’d had in the past. Whoever I ended up with was going to have to take the time to gain my trust, I that much I knew for sure.
It wasn’t going to be easy.
For either of us.
Chapter Eighty-Five
Cholo
Pee Bee, Smokey, and I stood in the entry of a home I’d recently obtained a construction contract on. In addition to remodeling the kitchen, I was hired to remove the carpet in the great room, and replace it with ceramic tile.
I waved my hand toward the floor. “So. What do you think?”
Smokey took a long pull on his vape, inhaled, and then crossed his arms in front of his chest. As he gazed around the room, he exhaled a huge cloud of smoke, and nodded his head. “I can do it.”
“No fucking shit, Smoke. I know you can do it. How much?”
At 6’- 4”, Smokey was considerably shorter than Pee Bee’s 6’-8”, but he looked taller due to his long, lean muscles. His neatly cut hair made him look more like a tattooed car salesman than a biker.
But, he was a Filthy Fucker through and through. He raised the device to his mouth, took another long drag, and looked at me. “Thirte
en grand.”
The home was in La Jolla, a small coastal town thirty miles south of Oceanside. The majority of the homes were priced in the tens of millions, and it wasn’t a place I’d normally look for – or obtain – work.
The homeowner called me on a recommendation from a former customer of mine, and upon meeting him, we hit it off. I could have overpriced the job and still obtained the work, but I didn’t.
I kept the price as competitive as I could, and I was going to make sure Smokey did the same.
I nodded toward Smokey’s vape and then shot him a shitty glare. “What’s in that thing, weed?”
He coughed a laugh, and exhaled, filling the room with a thick film of smoke. “Smokin’ lemon cake pop today.”
“Lemon cake pop and fucking weed. You’re high as fuck if you’re thinking thirteen, Brother.” I said. “Are we looking at the same house?”
“Thirteen grand is a good deal,” he said.
“Yeah, if it’s 1,300 square feet. It’s not. It’s 1,000. It ought to be ten grand.”
“Carpet’s got to come up,” he said.
“That’ll take two guys six hours, max. That ain’t three grand.”
“You pull the carpet, I’ll do it for twelve.”
“I’ll pull the carpet and give you ten. Not a fucking dime more.”
He raised the vape to his lips, paused, and looked at me. “Eleven.”
I shook my head. “You must be high. Crip asks why I don’t give the fellas work, and you come here and try to rob me. That’s why. Ten a square foot is standard. I’ll pay the standard, and not a dime more. Ten or you and your little smoke box can kick rocks.”
He took another hit off the device and then nodded. “I’ll do it for ten.”
Pee Bee laughed. “He’s trying to stick ya, Cholo.”
Smokey exhaled his smoke in my face, enveloping me in a thick cloud of the sweet-smelling vapor.
“God damn it, Smoke. What did I tell you about that shit? That fucker’s gonna kill you. I don’t want it to kill me.”
“Better’n smokin’,” he said.
“According to who?”
“Me.”
“I heard they give you popcorn lung.”
“What the fuck’s popcorn lung?” Pee Bee asked.
“Comes from diacetyl,” Smokey said. “It’s a chemical used in butter flavoring for popcorn. Bunch of fuckers at a popcorn plant years ago got puss pockets in their lungs from ingesting it, and they called it popcorn lung. Haters started saying this will cause it.”
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