“Forty-five fully-patched.”
“Is that all?” Mongrel shakes his head. “You pansies have fucking let it go to rot. I always knew your stupid ideas would take the beef out of our presence, undo everything my generation did to make sure everyone knew who we fucking were and that we’re not to be messed with.”
The bullet ripping through Pits flashes to mind. “They still know not to mess with us.”
“But they are,” he says, pointing his cigarette at me. “From what you just said, you’ve got trespassers, and they wouldn’t do that if they feared for their life by merely stepping over county lines.”
Maybe he has a point.
“What do you propose we’d have done?” I ask. “Start a war every two to three years for funsies to keep everyone on their toes?”
He shrugs. “I would have. Hurricane would have. It wouldn’t have been a question at our table.”
“Casualties have been next to none since we took over.”
“Even more proof you’re not doing enough.”
Proof that our viewpoints differ. For me, members’ lives are things to protect. For him, they’re currency to be paid in the name of staying feared on the road.
“How many were on the books in ’97?”
He sits for a moment, head lolling side to side while he thinks. “A little over two hundred, I think. Maybe a fraction more.”
The whole damn reason why Temperance hates the Kings; they used to be like flies on the road, constantly in your face and coming from every direction.
“Times aren’t the same, but the threats are,” I muse. “The world’s changing its attitude toward clubs like ours, but death is still death, and crime is still crime. The general population wants to feel protected in their homes, but they don’t want to look uponthe face of those willing to do what it takes.” I huff through my nose. “Pretty soon, they’ll have to accept change whether they want it to or not. The way things are now isn’t sustainable.”
My father studies me a moment, absently tapping his cigarette over the side of his chair. “Best you boys decide what you’re going to do to remedy that, then.” He makes a grumbling noise in his throat. “You need to boost your numbers, sure. But that’s not as important as what you just talked about: the face you show the world. Your enemies won’t give two shits how many men face them down if they’re too concerned with what you might do next. You can’t play nice,” he grouses. “You fuckers like to be all heartfelt and soft, talking shit out before you have to raise arms. Well, I say fuck that.” He jerks forward in his chair with the passion behind his words. “You need to take your goddamn hoity-toity morals, your conscience, and your deal with God, and set them all aside. Shove them in a box under your bed to collect later, and let that dark part of you free. Show those fuckers who’s in control and make them rethink ever looking your way.”
Give the man a younger body, and he’d be out there now, hunting down his rivals with a mad smile on his face, wind in his hair. It’s the most passionate I’ve seen him in a long time.
It shows where his heart is.
“Never mind who gets caught in the crossfire, huh?”
He eases back into his chair, slowly turning his head toward me.
Yeah, he knows what I mean. The families: children and women, old ladies and bunnies alike. The people who have no say and no choice in what happens to their world.
“They chose the life as much as you did,” he says, low and level. “Don’t go thinkin’ they’re innocent in all of this.”
Maybe not. But they have limited control over the outcome.
“I know you want to think of yourself as a good man, Matthew.” He takes me by surprise by using my birth name. “But as long as you wear that patch, you never will be. The sooner you make peace with that, the easier your life will be.”
Easier? Or like his? Alone. Bitter.
“Thanks for the chat.” I rise and toss the empty can in the trash and then put the chair away. “When did you last go see the doc to get your health checked?”
He laughs, sending himself into another coughing fit. “Don’t need some overpaid quack to tell me what I already know.”
That he sits in this garage day after day, quietly killing himself with cigarettes and booze. And he knows it.
He wants it.
I swallow away the lump in my throat and give him a tight nod as farewell, knowing one of these days it’ll be the last time I do, and I won’t even know it. He watches me with those tired eyes, a hint of sadness behind the tight lines when I don my helmet and get on my ride.
My father’s best days are over.
