“Guess what happened, girl,” I said with a smile. “I finally finished my law degree at UCLA. I still have to walk for the diploma, but today is my first day as Deputy District Attorney here. I’m going to finally clean up this town.”
I laughed as my eyes began to well.
“I’m sorry you’re not here to see this, but I know you’re watching from above,” I said, my voice somewhere between blubbery and emotional. “I know you’re proud of me. We talked about all that we were going to accomplish as little kids. Girls rule the world, and we were going to do it. And now...”
I’ll carry the cross of duty for both of us, Shannon. I’ll make sure of it.
“I will clean this town up,” I said. “I will make you proud. Your father has done so much good work for this town, but he’s going to retire in the next couple of years, and I don’t think he can stay around. Too many bad memories. He’s talked about moving to Florida or Arizona. Either way, I’m going to take over his legacy.”
I wasn’t about to say this to her, but I was also going to be much tougher on the motorcycle clubs than her father had been. Her father had more or less looked the other way on a lot of questionable behavior, so long as the truly atrocious stuff mattered. He believed that if you let the Reapers and Saints have their fun, the dark stuff would never come.
To say I disagreed was an enormous understatement. Vandalism, prostitution, drugs, guns—to me, they were like gateway drugs to things like murder, rape, and assault. If a man thought he could get away with one thing, what was to prevent him from doing more? And it wasn’t like this town was free of violence. Where I stood was tragic proof of that.
I loved Shannon’s father and would never say a bad word about him as an individual, but I truly believed the time for fresh blood had come, most especially from a woman who had the courage to stand up to these assholes.
“Keep praying for me,” I said as I kissed the ground before her. “I promise I’ll live up to your legacy and make you proud.”
With that, I rose, waved, and headed back toward my car, a quiet Honda Civic.
Lane
Afew hours later, around the time when the rest of the normal world had begun their lunch breaks—but the Black Reapers had just begun their day—I pulled up to my father’s shop, Carter’s Auto Repairs, with the clubhouse behind it. The outside had begun to dilapidate a bit, with rust appearing all over the walls. I had wanted some of our prospects to take refurbish it, but either they had not gotten to it, or the officers in the club had not pushed them enough.
I was beginning to think I needed to light a fire under the asses of some of the more veteran club members. I felt like morale had sunk a bit despite profits increasing and our skirmishes with the Fallen Saints. I wasn’t sure why, because what more could the club want other than results? Nevertheless, I did not want to have to impose my will. Extreme measures like that rarely worked out, and the more I put it in the hands of my men, the better.
I killed the engine and hopped off my bike, popping my jacket with the “President” patch forward. I moved into the shop, watching closely as everyone worked. Few paid attention to me—everyone was either busy fixing up cars, handling paperwork, or managing some other menial task, like talking to customers. This was as I wanted it to be—I was there to make sure things were running well, not to converse with everyone.
Contrary to what some of the old ones like Butch and Axle liked to say.
When Butch ever says anything, that is.
I headed to our clubhouse, a massive open building at the back end of our shop, and saw Butch. I nodded to him, and he nodded back. Butch, looking like he was taking a break from something, almost never spoke. “Can you take care of this, Butch?” “Yes.” That was a very common type of answer. So long as he got shit done, I could’ve cared less how frequently he spoke.
I then saw Axle in the office. I waved to him, and he gave a wave back. A former member of the Army, I didn’t think I had ever seen Axle smile in my life. Unlike many of the members here, who had to learn the basics of car care beyond enhancing their bikes, Axle actually gave a shit about cars and other vehicles. He subscribed to all the magazines and spent much of his day browsing different websites. If I were to open a mechanic shop with only one employee, he would be the first option I’d hire to oversee the store.
As Vice President, he did well enough. He wanted me to get more involved, but part of me couldn’t help but wonder how much of that was about him not having to do so much work. He never complained about it, but that was as much about his military days as it was his demeanor.
Of course, if the club actually did need help, I never would have hesitated to give it. I just believed that letting people take ownership of their own matters was a better decision.
I walked to our “church,” a small conference room where we met once a week, sometimes more depending on the circumstances. Just outside, Father Marcellus—who was a real, actual minister and chaplain—greeted me with a smile and a hug.
“It is good to see you here, my son,” he said. “The team sometimes wonders where you are and would like to see you.”
Well, today, I was at the graves of the club founder and my former fiancée. But...
“I’ll make sure the team knows I appreciate them,” I said with a smile. “Is the morale good otherwise?”
“Not as much as we would all like,” he said. “The men feel a bit lost. It feels as if our purposes are not as clearly defined as they once were under your father.”
My father had established purposes perhaps a bit too clearly. The Black Reapers existed as a chance to let men be as they were meant to be, free of the rule of law and free of overly restrictive guidelines the government had set on us. The Black Reapers used their choppers as a means to freedom, but the bike was as symbolic as it was practical—it was meant to represent our fast movement through the world, our complete control over it, and our power over others. The Black Reapers also served the community in ways the law could not. We were fully expected to protect our small town of Springsville, as oftentimes, the police and the local agencies could not.
Or would not, depending on who had given them better bribes at a given time.
I tended to agree with all of the perspectives, but I felt such guidelines repeated as often as they were threatened to become overbearing. Since we had only gained two new members since the end of my father’s reign, resulting in a net decrease, it wasn’t like we were in dire need of creating a seminar to outline our guidelines. We just had to lead by example.
That was the ideal, at least.
“I will see to it that they better understand,” I said. “Thanks, Marc.”
