One of the clubs lead drivers—Skinny—had just got caught with a van full of our cargo and was being sent down for the pleasure of it. We were trying to piece together how the fuck he’d been caught in the first place since we’d got people on the payroll that had promised us his safe passage.
“The intel no good?” I asked, watching him with concern.
“Nah, by the time we got there, the crew the Highwaymen had paid were long gone.” He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. “So what’s this story about Butch then?” he asked, changing the subject.
I laughed and stopped working. “Butch used to carry this picture of our ‘mom’ in his wallet around with him. Showed all the kids in school and had them all jealous as fuck that our mom was so hot. Told them she baked cookies and took us hiking on the weekends and shit.”
“That’s just sad,” Dom said, not smiling. “And kinda pathetic since I know what your mom was really like. How the fuck have I never heard this story before?”
And he was right, it was sad. In reality our mom had been a junkie crackhead and had died from an overdose. But I knew why he had done it. He wanted more, for both of us. And he was hoping that I was young enough to forget what she had put us through. That maybe, just maybe, he could wipe away those tragic memories with something fucking good and pure.
It didn’t work, though.
The memory of me pulling the needle from her arm and lying next to her while her body went cold and stiff still haunted my dreams, her blotchy pale face and sunken cheekbones a constant reminder of the irreparable damage the drugs had done to her body.
“It was when we had to move schools cus’ we moved up here with Hardy. But this is where it gets funny. Butch was staying over at his friend’s house one night and the kid’s mom walked in on him giving himself a hand job in the bathroom, all while staring at the picture of ourmom.” I cracked up laughing, the memory of Hardy almost killing Butch for embarrassing him was still hilarious.
“I don’t get it,” Dom said, his deep voice tinged with confusion. “I mean, that’s just fucking gross. I know you two were fucked up, but—”
I grinned. “Nah, the picture wasn’t really of our mom, it was some model he’d cut out of a magazine years before.”
Dom started to laugh. “Well shit.”
“Yeah, exactly. Story went around school, though, that he was jacking off to a picture of his mom and it took three months of constant ass-kicking for the story to stop.” I picked up my wrench and went on working, the memory making me smile.
“Surprised he took three months of ass-kicking. Don’t seem like his way,” Dom replied.
I looked back at him. “Nah, brother, it was three months of Butch kicking everyone else’s asses.” I shook my head and laughed. “Story still comes back to haunt him though.”
Dom lit a cigarette and chuckled. “Thought I knew everything there was to know about your brother. Guess some people have skeletons hidden no matter how hard you look, huh?”
Butch chose that moment to walk into the garage. He looked from me to Dom and back again before shaking his head. “You fucking told him, didn’t you?” He dragged a hand through his beard. “Why can’t you just keep that shit to yourself?” he asked.
“You know me, brother.” I saluted. “I’m all about honesty, integrity, and the good ole’ American truth.”
“Yeah, you’re a real fucking saint, Jesse,” he smarted. He turned to Dom and jutted his head toward the door and both of them walked out. When he walked back in a minute later, he was alone. “Gotta meet Dom for a beer later on.” He grabbed a hairband and tied his hair back from his face. “Got a couple of hours before then, though.” He smiled and crouched down to see what I was working on. “She’s a fucking beauty, ain’t she?”
“Sure is,” I agreed. “You know we’re gonna be arguing over who gets to ride her the most. A motherfucking custody battle over our baby,” I laughed.
Butch went silent and I turned to look at him, my laugh dying.
“What is it?”
He frowned and smiled at the same time. “This bike is yours, brother.”
It was my turn to frown then. “No, it’s ours—we built her together.”
Butch shook his head and patted me on the shoulder. “Jesse, I’ve spent my entire life looking after you, but the truth is, this life is hard—harder than I thought it would be. I might not always be here for you. But this,” he said, running his hand along the shiny chrome, “this will always be a reminder of me. It means I’ll always be with you, even when I’m not.”
I stood up. “Has something happened?” I asked seriously, watching him for clues as to why he was being so morbid. “I’m serious, has something happened that I should know about?”
He smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m fine, brother. I just realized that I’m not fucking immortal and the world don’t run around me, even though it fucking should do,” he chuckled. “I want you to have the bike, Jesse. You’re not a little kid anymore. You’re a man, with your own woman and a life apart from mine. We might end up going in different directions—fuck, I hope so because I want something more for you—but this bike will always bring us back together.”
He stopped talking and stared at me, and I could tell that he wanted to say more, but had stopped himself.
“Butch—” I started to speak but he cut me off.
“All right, let’s stop with the sweet talking before I grow a fucking pussy, all right? Let’s get this bitch up and running. I wanna see my kid brother riding this beast before I fucking die,” he laughed and I laughed with him, though his words were more haunting than humorous.
“Kid brother? Really?” I joked trying to lighten the mood. Shit had gotten serious real fucking fast, and he obviously didn’t want to talk about it right now.
“You know, you may be a hard-ass motherfucker—probably tougher than even me now—but you’ll always be my kid brother, so shut the fuck up and pass me the wrench,” he laughed.
I didn’t like his tone, or the way his mind was working, but I was also really fucking glad to have the bike for myself. I didn’t have much in life; my world consisted of very few things and very few people, but what I did have I looked after and I loved hard.
Laney, Butch, Casa, and that bike were everything to me. More than everything: they were a part of me. Each one of them had somehow saved me in some small way. Sometimes from myself, sometimes from other people, sometimes from my own dark fate that was constantly trying to catch up and pull me under. But either way they had saved me.
Building that bike with Butch had meant the world to me that past year or so, and no matter what life had thrown our way, it had continued to bring us together time after time.
Little did I know that pretty soon, it would be the only thing I had left of Butch.
