His only escape in life back then was Felix’s house a couple blocks from his place. There was always something to do there, and he was a very cool man, in his mid-forties. Remy looked up to him because he owned a sweet looking bike, was part of an MC that ran the streets that nobody messed with, and he had girls constantly falling over themselves just to be near him.
Maria took Remy there after she picked him up from school. Kieran was tagging along. His Uncle Frank was part of the club, which meant Kieran practically had free roam. It was Kieran’s hope one day that he would be part of the club too, and Remy would be lying if he said he wasn’t jealous. When his old man wasn’t a drunk, he was a pretty decent mechanic and he serviced the club’s bikes for a shiny dime. He, too, hoped to be integrated among the club, but three years in and he was still a hangaround, and time was chipping away at his patience.
His father Antonio was nowhere to be seen when they got there. Maria dropped them off, telling him to look after Rita and to stay away from the alcohol. Then she raced to her job as a waitress on the other side of town. At the time, this was normal. The club was family-friendly, no drugs operated in the open, and everyone knew everyone.
Remy held Rita’s hand and they walked through the opened gate. Kieran nudged him on the shoulder. “You’re not really going to stay away from the alcohol, are you?”
“’Course I am. I’m not gonna be skinned alive a second time in one day.”
Kieran rolled his eyes. “Pussy.”
This time Remy punched him hard on the shoulder and he grimaced, paling in pain. “Say it again, asshole.”
Kieran didn’t. Remy was stronger than he looked. Another punch and Kieran would have been bruised for weeks.
There were a lot of kids already playing about. Back around then, before there was any threat to danger and the Jackals were flying high with power, the members’ families converged together, including the children. There was no alcohol out just yet, but the adults had gathered around the fire pit on the far end of the backyard. Remy saw leather jackets all around, the Jackals emblem of a ferocious jackal etched in white on the backs of them. He paused for a moment, watching them clap one another on the backs as they greeted each other. He longed to have that kind of bond. He knew it ran far deeper than simple friendship. They were a brotherhood. Family. And he envied Kieran for his chance into that kind of alliance.
“Hello, Remy,” came a deep voice, cutting the laughable tension between them.
He turned around and looked up, meeting Frank’s eyes as he came to a stop beside him. “Hey, Frank.”
“Another fight, I see,” he remarked, looking over his face with a cool expression.
He looked away, nodding. “Yeah, another.”
He wondered if Frank caught his lie. He’d always bullshitted him, explaining his bruises as little trophies from fights he had in school. Which was bullshit. No kid had the strength to put a mark on him. He couldn’t let Frank know the truth. He’d think Remy was a pussy for getting smacked around by his old man and not putting up a fight, and then he’d never have any chance of being part of the club.
“I see.” Frank looked him over, and then spotted Rita still clinging to his hand. “Your mother dropped you off again?”
“Yeah. Says it’s safer than being at home.”
“Safer from what exactly?”
His father’s beatings. “The neighbours are shady.”
He made a thoughtful sound and dropped the subject, but Remy could feel his eyes on him. He wondered if he smelled the bullshit. Fuck knows Remy did, and he was the one sputtering it. Truth was, his old man never touched him in public. Even if the dick was kicking around somewhere nearby, he would never reveal his true colours to anyone, which led Remy to believe he did have control over himself. His old man didn’t hurt him when he was angry and incapable of holding back. He did it because he wanted to, which made Remy’s hatred run deeper.
The past few weeks had been a special kind of hell for him. Even when contentedly drunk, Antonio was beating him around. He was getting worse with time, and still Remy’s mother would make those promises of leaving. Remy was slowly losing his mind.
Frank swung his gaze to Kieran and frowned. “Your mother’s been complainin’ about you, boy. Says you’re never home on time and that you’ve been stuffing dirty rags under your mattress.”
Kieran stiffened and then shrugged. “Ma complains about everything, Uncle Frank. And those rags are from Dad. He put them there. I don’t look at that smut. I like the real thing.”
Frank grabbed Kieran’s ear suddenly and bent over, so he was at eye level with Kieran, who was now scared shitless. “My sister’s a good girl, you little shit. Don’t turn into your father, or you’ll never wear this patch ever. Got it?”
Kieran nodded quickly. “I got it, Uncle Frank.”
“And I don’t give a fuck if you’ve been looking at naked girls. Hide that shit where she won’t find it. There’s a fucking brain in that head of yours. Use it, you little shit.”
Then he let go and stood up straighter, his gaze suddenly paling from the sound of the backdoor slamming shut. Remy followed his line of sight to Felix’s daughter, Joanne. She was really pretty. Had everyone’s heads turning as she walked over to the play pen and put her little girl in it. When he looked back at Frank, his face had gone soft, his posture less confident than before.
“You okay, Frank?” he asked him.
Without looking at him, he snapped, “I’m fine, Martinez. Mind your business.”
He left them and moved in Joanne’s direction. She was kneeling behind the bars of the playpen, half-heartily playing with her daughter Sara. Her face was empty, even when Frank cautiously approached her she just looked up at him with vacant eyes. Then she stood up and stormed off before he could say a word.
“That was weird,” Remy said.
“What was?” Kieran asked, rubbing at the earlobe Frank had tugged with a pained expression.
“The way Frank was around Joanne.”
“So?”
“So, it was weird.”
“Who cares? You pay attention to shit too much, Rem. I’m gonna find something to eat.”
He walked off and Remy didn’t follow. He watched Frank instead as he looked down at Joanne’s daughter with a frown on his face. Then he turned and walked away. With nothing else to do, Remy approached the playpen and set Rita down in it.
“Go play,” he told her, gesturing to Sara. “Go on.”
Rita was bigger than Sara, and she was also nastier. She walked over to Sara and ripped the toy donut from her hand. Sara’s eyes welled up and she screamed instead of fighting for it back.
“Give it back to her, Rita,” Remy demanded.
Rita plopped on the ground instead and sucked on it, stating, “Is mine.”
He sighed and climbed into the pen, picking Sara up to calm her down. She was all sticky from whatever the hell she’d eaten earlier, and she didn’t smell so great either, but he rocked her the way he rocked Rita and she quieted down. It took her a few minutes to forget about the donut, and then he set her down on the other end of the playpen, picking up a random book off the ground nearby. It was an animal book, and it was barely intact with bite marks all around the edges. Sara rested her tired head against his arm. He opened the book and read to her under the porch lights, mimicking animal sounds that made her giggle. Somewhere along the way, she crawled to another spot and picked up some other toys.
Climbing back out, he heard, “That was real sweet of you, Martinez.”
He turned to the voice and went stiff. Lana. She was a club brat, the same age as him. She was also neck deep in the lifestyle. She had black cut-off shorts and a white tank tied up into a belly top. She smiled at him, waiting expectantly for him to respond, but all he did was look at her briefly before sitting down on one of the patio chairs in front of the pen. He didn’t like her much. He figured she’d leave because he was ignoring her, but she stood there, her body turned to him. He kept his gaze averted, casually covering the side of his face that she could see with his hand.
“What happened to your face?” she asked. “Did you get into a fight?”
His embarrassment rose to his face. He glared at her, but really, he was terrified she could see the truth of his abuse. Okay now he really didn’t like her. Either she didn’t give a fuck she was prying, or she was completely unaware of human fucking etiquette.
She gave him a sideways glance, her curiosity growing. “Ignoring me now, Remy? You know, all the guys like me, and you’re always skirting past me.”
“You just here because I’m a face you haven’t sucked off, Lana?” he retorted.
He was such a dick.
Lana glared. “I’m being friendly, asshole.”
“Would you call what you do behind the bleachers at school friendly too?”
Lana had a reputation, and she didn’t mind it. In fact, she flipped her hair behind her shoulder and smirked at him. “You jealous of the boys I take behind the bleachers, Remy?”
He scoffed, acting disgusted when he was secretly curious what went on behind there. “You’re dreaming, Lana.”
She looked too confident, her eyes glowed as she looked him over. “If you clean yourself up a bit, boy, you might have a turn. Maybe we’ll be bored enough one day and make things extra special, huh?”
Heat spread to Remy’s cheeks. He felt shivers crawling down his arms. He didn’t know how to respond to her. He didn’t know how to tell her he wouldn’t have minded a turn. Lana was beautiful. A boy his age climbed mountains to touch skin as soft looking and pale as hers. She was such a fucking tease, and she loved it. She carried her flirtations with pride.
Kieran appeared just then, carrying a hot dog in each hand. His face lit up when he spotted her. He was already drawn in. “Hey, Lana, how are you going?”
She turned her attention to him and smiled the same smile she used on Remy. And Remy felt like a fucking chump. “Good, Kieran, and you?”
“Yeah, just chilling.”
Kieran offered Remy a hot dog and he pushed his hand away, standing up from the chair. “I’m gonna go to the toilet. Look after the girls.”
“You okay, Rem?”
He cast a cursory glance at Lana. “Fine.”
He didn’t walk into the house or go to the toilet. He went straight to one of the chairs on the other side of the yard where all the guys were. He took a seat next to Frank, giving him a nod hello. He didn’t acknowledge him. His eyes were pinned on the backdoor, catching flashes of Joanne’s body moving about.
Remy twisted his head in Kieran’s direction. Him and Lana were talking, and he didn’t even look like he was trying. How did he do that? How did he converse without sweating bullets? It helped Kieran’s face didn’t look like a bucketful of assholes.
Remy was angry at himself. He wondered what was wrong with him, and how he’d gone all these years without saying more than a line to a girl his age. He never minded it until now. What the fuck was wrong with him? And why did it matter to him now?
Frowning, he looked back at Frank, surprised he was still eyeballing the backdoor.
“If you like her, why don’t you just go to her?” Remy blurted out.
Frank’s face turned cold when he looked at him. “What did I say about business, boy?”
“You said to mind yours.”
“Why don’t you then?”
Remy shrugged. “I was just curious and thought…”
“Thought what?”
“Thought if you liked a girl you’d just go to her.” Wasn’t that the way it worked?
Frank took a gulp of his beer, his face softening a fraction. “And what if she doesn’t want you anymore? What if she ended things and you never got the chance to make it up to her? What then, Casanova? Since you seem to know all the answers.”
Remy shook his head slowly. “I don’t know anything to do with girls.”
Frank smirked, nodding back. “I can tell by the way you scurried out of your chair over there just to get away from Lana that you sure don’t.”
He noticed that? He couldn’t meet his eye, embarrassed. He looked down on the ground and kicked a bit of dirt. “She was asking me questions.”
“About what?”
“About my bruises at first.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure you answered her, told her all about your impressive fights in the school yard, huh?”
He didn’t respond. Fucker could see straight through him. Brilliant. Truth was, he preferred not being asked about it. He didn’t want to explain, but everyone kept doing it. Kept prodding him with questions like they gave a fuck. Except Kieran. He never asked. He knew what was happening and he never spoke a word of it. Why couldn’t everyone be like Kieran?
“Do yourself a favour, boy,” Frank then said, “instead of running off because your little dick’s all terrified about the attention of a pretty little girl, how about you man up a bit and talk to one? Gain some confidence. Judging by your face, you’re gonna be a decent looking kid, so you might as well get used to the attention and have a little fun with it.”
Remy considered that, but he didn’t even know where to start.
He glanced at the backdoor, watching Joanne move about the kitchen as she cooked. Never once did she poke her head out to see how Sara was, and if she did, he doubted she cared that Sara was currently eating the dirt with this ravenous look in her eye. Poor girl was neglected, not that he didn’t know what the feeling was like, but at least he had Rita and his mother gave a crap about him. It made him hurt for the girl.
His mother returned later from her short shift and took Rita home. He opted to stay. Sara was still in the playpen all by herself, and Remy didn’t feel right leaving her. The adults checked in on her, but they were obligatory glances, ones that made sure the girl was still breathing. But she appeared lonely, glancing around her surroundings with curious eyes. She kept yammering, “Ma!” repeatedly, searching for her mother’s face, but Joanne had disappeared further inside the house after a man showed up. Her emotionless eyes had lit up, and she’d taken him by the hand and led him in, never once stopping to check on Sara.
Remy wondered if Frank noticed it. He glanced at him by the firepit, and sure enough, Frank was looking that way, his face unshielded. He looked raw with…a despairing look that he immediately concealed.
One of the women picked up Sara and took her inside the house. Completely alone, he decided it was getting late and he needed to head home. He didn’t make it far past the gate when he suddenly heard his father’s voice, slurred and lost in the arms of another woman, taking her up against the side of the house. They were both drunk, both slurring and moaning, their movements slower and lazier than they should have been. It took Remy a long moment to process what was happening.
The fuck…The fuck was fucking another woman.
Anger flooded Remy. He took a step in his direction, contemplating swinging his fist against the back of his head, hitting him cowardly the way he did to him his whole life. It was dark enough no one would know it was him if he scurried out of there fast enough. Maybe he’d hit him hard enough to die. Maybe, just maybe, this was the opportunity he had been waiting for.
He took another step, adrenaline surging, begging him to pounce on the cheating prick. Then he stopped. His body was trembling, his hands were balled into fists, watching his father slide in and out of this drugged out no-name. The pig. The scumbag. The piece of shit abusive fuck. Remy wanted him to die.
He took a third step when an arm suddenly wrapped around his shoulders, steering him down the side of the house in a hurried pace.
“Keep moving,” Frank muttered in his ear, his tight grip replacing his adrenaline with pain.
He took them down the sidewalk, until the sound of chatter faded. Then he dropped his arm and forced Remy to face him. Remy didn’t look at him. His vision was spotty, and his eyes were burning with angry tears.
“That would have been a bad move,” Frank told him, solemnly. “The last thing we need is a commotion. That brings attention, and with attention brings the police, and if you haven’t noticed, we’re packing a lot of juice. I don’t want to have you banned, but Manny will do it. He’s the president. He gets to decide, and even Felix won’t be able to vouch for you. Your actions towards your father must remain outside the club –”
“I want him to die!” Remy seethed through his teeth, glaring up at Frank with vehemence. “I want him dead, Frank. I want to kill him.”
Frank smirked. “I see a lot of fire in you, boy. We need your fire. We’re going to get old one day, and it’ll be your generation taking over the club. If you walk the line, if you stay out of trouble from the law, I will personally take you under my wing.” He dropped his head to his level, eyeing Remy closely. “We will nurse your fire, and you will extinguish it on rats like your father. Do you understand?”
Remy’s throat closed. It took everything for him to breathe, let alone push out, “He hurts us, Frank.”
Frank’s face cracked a little. He gripped Remy’s shoulder harder, nodding stiffly. “I know, boy. I know what cockroaches like him are like.”
“My mother won’t go.”
“Sometimes they don’t. Look at Joanne…falling apart over a man I know will be the end of her, and she won’t go, either.”
“What do I do?”
“You can’t force ‘em to do shit. Like I said, walk the line and the club will be waiting.”
Remy shook his head. “I want to be in the club now.”
“You’re a boy.”
“I can be a man –”
“You have a lot to learn, and you’re too young to learn it. Understand?”
Gritting his teeth, Remy reluctantly nodded.
“Patience, boy. You need to learn it. Patience can be your greatest enemy, or your best ally.”
“But my father –”
“He’s a piece of shit. We all know it, but he’s beneficial to the club. The fucker may be a useless drunk, but he’s an excellent mechanic and he keeps quiet with our business. We need him for now.”
“And later?”
Frank smirked, patting Remy’s shoulder once. “Later he’s all yours.”
Remy went to bed that night staring at the ceiling, waiting for his father to get home. Frank had calmed him, but the anger burned in his stomach when he thought of his father slipping his dick inside another woman. He still wanted to kill him. He didn’t think he had the patience to hold back anymore.
When Antonio came stumbling through the door, it was two in the morning. His footsteps made it to his room, and he stirred Maria awake, ordering her to open her legs. Remy slipped out of bed and tip-toed out of his room, waiting in the hallway outside his. He waited for his mother to beg his old man to stop. Remy would come barrelling through the door once she did. Then he’d beat him until his head was flat and he was no more.
Yes. Remy nodded. Yes, it would be perfect. All she needed to do was say it. Say that one word. Tell him no and let her son take care of the rest.
“Come on,” Antonio demanded in a slur. “Open up.”
Remy strained to listen. There was silence and the ruffling of bed sheets followed. His mother’s soft breaths sounded followed by her little moans, encouraging him to continue.
Remy dropped his head, feeling his heart drop to his stomach.
Why? He asked himself as he backed away to his room. Why did she take him when all he did was hurt them?
He paced the room, feeling lost, feeling cold and emptier than he’d ever been before. Half a dozen times he packed his school bag with clothes and then dumped them out again, thinking of Rita, terrified at the thought of the old man turning his hate on her. And if Remy wasn’t there to take his beatings, he would. He was certain of it. Antonio would itch to wrap his arms around the next vulnerable, defenceless thing he could.
Shaking still, he raked his hands down his face. His vision was blurring. He needed out. He couldn’t take it anymore. He needed something. Someone. Anyone.
But like usual, there was nobody.
Trapped and lonely, he slid down the wall of his room, cradled his knees to his chest and sobbed until his eyes hurt.