My head jerked.
“That’s not very strong,” I pointed out.
“Have I ever told you why I joined Chaos?”he queried.
I felt my shoulders straighten because he hadn’t, I knewsomething big was coming, and last, I bucked up so I could be prepared becauseI wanted so badly to know that something big.
Precisely…why he’d joined Chaos.
“No,” I told him.
“I’m a quiet guy.I’ve always been that guy.First thing Idid when I got my driver’s license was go to a movie by myself,” he shared.
There was something immensely cool about that.
There was also something immensely Snapper about that.
Then again, it waskindaone andthe same thing.
“Was the first I did that,” he went on.“Wasn’t the last.Mybrother and sister, they got big personalities.They’re almost pathologicallysocial.Just like my mom and dad.My sister, she’s crazy.Lovable, but crazy.Always getting into trouble.Fightin’ with Mom.Thenlovin’on her.My brother was the big man, sports star.Soccer.Really good at it.Earned a scholarship on it.I played tennis.”
I felt a sudden, inappropriate-at-that-juncture gigglewelling up in me and choked it back.
But I couldn’t quite hide the disbelief in my, “You playedtennis?”
“That’s all about me.The court.The racket.The ball.Mygame.My strategy.It isn’t even about my opponent.He was just someone who, ifhe could, lobbed the ball back at me, and it was up to me to get a bead on hisstrategy.You are totally in your own space.You are totally in your own head.Win or lose, it’s all on you.”
I could see this about Snap and not just the fact that,knowing this, I realized he had a tennis player’s body, if that tennis playerwas Boris Becker.
“I read,” he continued.“I ride.I don’t play tennis anymoreand haven’t since high school but when I did, I liked it.I got my propertiesand those are mine.I buy them.I manage them.Brothers might help outfixin’ them up, but the vision and the follow-through isall on me.”
“Okay,” I said when he stopped talking.
“But back then, whatever I got into doing, I went home to myfamily.I was the middle kid but I didn’t get any of that middle kid mindfuckbullshit because they were the way they were.Totally not like me but theydidn’t make me feel like an outsider because I was how I was.They gave mespace to be me.They came to my matches.I went to their shit.I didn’t existamong them.I was part of them as who I was, not how they wished I would be.That’s still my place.They get together a lot more than I get with them, butwhen I show, I’m just as much a part of my family as the rest of them.It’sjust that I’m not into family game night every two weeks and they don’t give ashit I’m not.They’re happy for me to show when I want to show.They take mewhen I want to give them time and they leave me be when I’m notfeelin’ it.”
“That’s cool,” I said when he paused.
“I wanted more of that,” he shared.“I wanted to be aroundpeople who let me be me.I didn’t want to be in a corporate situation where itwas about toeing the line or clawing to the top.I didn’t want to be in adifferent situation where every day was the same until you realized your lifewas a long line of drudgery.I wanted a family but I wanted that with freedom.”
“That makes sense,” I noted.
“And since I ride, since my bike is a big part of my life,since that freedom is the biggest part of me, I found a brotherhood that sharedthe same ideals.And the biggest part of those ideals, I give it to them andthey give it to me.That ‘it’ being, I let the brothers be the brothers and allthe brothers let me be me.”
“I love that you found that, Snapper,” I said softly.
“I do too, Rosie,” he returned.“And the point I’mmakin’ with that is, if Iwannahole up in my room in the Compound and read a book, I can.Then I can walkright out and share a beer with a brother.I can be alone, but I’m never alone.Are you with me?”
I was with him.
And I was breathing funny.
“Babe, are you with me?”he pushed when I said nothing.
“I’m with you, honey,” I forced out.
“I gotsomethin’ on my mind, I goto Tack.I go to High.I go to Hop or Pete.Or I go to my dad or my brother.Idon’twannaride alone, Joke goes out with me.OrBoz.Or Hound.I can put in a kitchen but that’s not my thing, how it shouldlook, so if I need to buy a sink that works for one of my places, Tyra helpsme.Or my sister helps me.Or my mom tells me what she thinks would work.”
“That’s all important, but what I’m saying about me at thispoint in my life is different than all that,” I told him carefully.
