“How’s that adoption thing going?” I asked. She and Tammy had put in an application to adopt, but they hadn’t heard back from the social worker. It was likely going to be hard for them to get approved because of her association with Outlaw Souls. Of course, there was no official association, but our MC was pretty well known in La Playa.
She’d done a good job of keeping her distance, on paper, anyway. She was the manager of a fitness studio across the street from Blue Dog. Tammy was a pilates instructor and they’d been married since it was legalized in California in 2008.
“I don’t know, man. I’m gonna be old enough to be a grandma by the time we finally get this kid.” She rubbed her face with her hands. “Tammy would be such a great mom. It’s bullshit that it’s taking so long.”
“What’s taking so long?” Trainer asked.
Trainer, Pin, and Moves all came in at the same time and pulled up chairs in between Yoda and me. We left the head of the table open for Padre, and I looked at my watch. We needed to wait six minutes, but we had enough for the meeting.
“For you to get me that twenty bucks you owe me from the Superbowl, that’s what!” Swole grinned and punched Trainer.
Trainer looked Middle Eastern even though his last name was Lopez. He had thick curly black hair and a full beard. He got his nickname because when he was pledging he stole a bunch of ammo from another MC as part of his initiation.
I was really wondering where Padre was. If he wasn’t with Trainer, Pin, and Moves, then he wasn’t stuck in traffic. It wasn’t like him to miss meetings. But if he didn’t show in two minutes, I was going to have to start without him.
“Where’s Padre?” Moves asked. He was our Enforcer and was small, fast, and deadly. The guy knew weapons the way the rest of us know the alphabet. He was the one who’d suggested we have Trainer steal the ammo because he knew exactly what we needed. Moves was also the one responsible for keeping inventory in the warehouse.
“The warehouse” was actually a Public Storage locker just up the street. We paid off the owner to look the other way, and it’s where we kept the guns, ammo, and various drugs we sold and used as leverage.
I stood up. “I don’t know, but it’s time to start without him.” I walked to the front of the room and pulled out Padre’s chair. Just then, the door opened and the four patches walked in. Known as “members” in some other clubs, these guys didn’t have management roles, but were active members of the club.
The recruits were likely outside acting as bouncers to let us know if there were any problems during the meeting. You didn’t get to attend meetings until you were a patch.
“Okay, everyone. Almost everyone is here, except Padre. Rules are rules, so let’s get started. Since we don’t have a Secretary at the moment, let’s get right to the numbers. Pin, how much do we have left from last year’s Fun Run money?”
As Pin got out the books and put on his accountant glasses, my mind started to wander. This is what it would be like to be President. Looking around the table at the faces of my brothers and sister, I had to admit it felt good. Maybe someday I really would be the President of Outlaw Souls. I hated to think what it would take to make that happen, though. I’d looked up to Padre as a father figure since I moved to La Playa. The idea of him being gone…it was too much.
Where the hell are you, Padre?
Four
Paige
My sister was looking out the window of her bedroom on the second floor of our house, watching me move out. My mother was locked in her office, blasting Ellen about as loud as the television would go, angrily pretending nothing was happening. My dad was in the kitchen drinking a sparkling water and barking commands at me.
“Don’t bump the wall with that box, Paige. I’m not paying for Trevor to come and touch up paint that you scraped.”
“You need to put the big things in first, Paige, and then fit the smaller things around it.”
He seemed to have an awful lot of opinions for a guy who was willing to stand there and watch his daughter do everything alone.
My arms and legs were exhausted. I’d rented a U-Haul and was putting everything I owned in it all by myself. No one in this family was willing to lift a finger to help me because they didn’t approve of me moving to La Playa. “You want to be on your own?” they said. “Do it on your own, then.”
I was almost twenty-five years old and the only time I’d lived away from this house was when I was in college. I stayed in the dorms for the first two years and then in a sorority house the last two years. And even then, I came back home during breaks. It was well past time for me to move out.
I’d been collecting things for my eventual apartment since I was eighteen and storing it in the garage.
“Be careful of the Audi, Paige. I don’t want you scratching it.”
“I won’t, Dad.”
One by one I grabbed lamps and boxes and tables and chairs and put them in the U-Haul. I’d hired movers to load the things I couldn’t carry, like my bed and dresser and stuff like that. I was going to make one trip over with all of this stuff and then meet the movers back here this afternoon for the second load.
La Playa was only about 25 miles from Verde Hills, but it was a world away. Since my parents refused to help financially, I wasn’t able to afford an apartment in the nice area of town. I was staying at an apartment complex right on the border of North La Playa. I’d signed a month-to-month lease so that when I got a better job and saved up for first and last month’s rent, I could move closer to the beach.
“You said you wanted an urban experience, Paige. Now you’ll get one,” my dad said when I told him where I’d be living. My mother just sat there, tight-lipped and judgmental.
When I finally put the last load of stuff I could carry myself into the truck, I pulled the back of the U-Haul closed, locked it, and took a deep breath. This was it. After years of wanting to move to a community where I could really make a difference to people who understood what a real crisis was, I was finally doing it. These people lived a different life than the one I’d known, and I knew from my work at the free clinic that they were often on a razor’s edge between life and death.
