Chapter Seven
Dax
A few days after Olivia and I took our ride, I woke up knowing that I had to talk to Terrance and I had to do it that day. I felt like my life was just standing still and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I woke up and did the same thing every day and none of what I did amounted to anything worthwhile.
I felt like with the e-mail and the tape I was at least on the brink of figuring something out. I didn’t want to just sit back and waste even more time. I wasn’t looking forward to talking to him. I knew that he was going to deny everything and it was going to be a big fight because I wasn’t prepared to let it go.
I showered and dressed and stopped in the kitchen to hug my mom and tell her how much I loved her. I couldn’t get that image of her on that tape with her heart breaking out of my head. I finally started to understand and appreciate all she must have gone through to protect me my entire life.
Smiling, she said, “What was that for?”
“Just because I love you and I don’t tell you often enough. I also don’t tell you enough how much I appreciate that you’ve always been there for me, every step of the way. You never give up on me. You’re amazing and I couldn’t have special ordered a better mother.”
Tears welled in her eyes. Damn women, you can’t tell them anything without making them cry. I wiped the water out of my own eyes. My dad must have been smoking in there. My eyes were burning.
“I love you too, Dax, and you are a great son. I’m lucky to have you. I won’t ever give up on you, no matter what.”
As I went out the door I said, “I’m going to do my best to make sure that you have something to be proud of again someday. Hopefully, soon.”
I drove to Terrance’s apartment hoping that Olivia would be at work. I didn’t want to confront him in front of her because I was sure it was going to get ugly. I wasn’t going to hit him, as much as he probably deserved it, but I wasn’t going to hold back when it came to telling him how I felt about him and everything he had done either.
I parked the bike and knocked on the door. I waited for what seemed like a really long time and was about to knock again when he finally pulled open the door. I suspected that he looked out and saw me and was hoping I would think he wasn’t there and go away.
“Hey, Dax! It’s good to see you,” he said. I could tell by the look on his face that he was lying already.
“This isn’t a social call,” I said. “We have a lot to talk about.”
He didn’t look like he was going to invite me in, but one of his neighbors, a middle-aged businessman walked by. I smiled and said hello. Terrance gave me a look like he was afraid I would sully his good reputation in the neighborhood and he stepped back and let me in. I looked around and saw plenty traces of Olivia there. She should have never been with him. I should have never been away from her in the first place.
“You want a beer or something?” he said. I looked at the open beer can on the coffee table and then I looked at the clock. It was nine forty-five.
Shaking my head I said, “No thanks, you’re taking this motorcycle club thing pretty seriously though, I see.”
“I haven’t even been to bed yet,” he said. “I just got in from a parts run up to Modesto.”
I smirked. “A parts run, huh? That’s what they call them these days?”
“That’s what they are.” He was getting annoyed with me. “What do you want, Dax? Or did you just come here to insult me?”
I sat down on his couch, not waiting for him to offer me a seat.
“Let’s see, what do I want? How about a little bit of the truth, Terrance.”
“Truth about what?” he said, taking a seat himself.
I rolled my eyes and said, “You know what exactly. I want to know what you did, what my old man did and why. Why would two people who were supposed to care about me do something like that? What the hell did I ever do to you, Terrance, besides be your friend?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Oh Jesus, Terrance. You so fucking know what I’m talking about. I watched a security tape a few days ago starring my father and my mother. It was a dramatic scene where she confronts him about setting up his son. That would be me. He doesn’t quite admit it, but when he tells her that none of us would have anything if it weren’t for the club it’s obvious where his loyalties lie.”
“So there you go. Bull set you up. Why do you want to bring me in on it?”
“What about the e-mail?” I asked.
“What e-mail?”
His answer pissed me off. I slammed my hand down on the coffee table and stood up. I had too much energy inside of me to stay seated.
“You know what fucking e-mail, Terrance. Even if you had forgotten it, I know that Olivia confronted you about it already.”
The look on his face when he realized that Olivia and I had talked about it was classic. He wasn’t ready to give it up yet.
He puffed his chest out and said, “So you found some old e-mail I sent to Bull. I work for him. Why wouldn’t it stand to reason that I’d send him an e-mail from time to time? Did it say, ‘Hey, Bull, I set up Dax? Love, Terrance’?”
His sarcasm was a defense mechanism and I knew him well enough to know it. “It said enough for me to know the two of you were up to something. Since it was the day before I got busted, I have to believe that something had to do with setting me up.”
“Maybe you’re paranoid,” he said.
I took two giant steps and put my face right down in front of his and I said, “And maybe you’re a fucking pussy liar. Why the fuck would you cover for him? Why turn your back on the only real friend you ever had for that fucking old man?”
“Me turn my back on you?” he questioned me, standing up. We were toe to toe, but he was a good half a foot taller than me. I took a step back so I didn’t have to look up at him. “You left me, Dax. You went off to your fancy college and got yourself a fancy girlfriend and suddenly you were too good to hang out with me no matter how much I asked you to. You left me here with them and okay…you win…I did what Bull fucking wanted me to do because I had no choice.”
I was surprised about the college stuff. I never knew any of that bothered him. He never acted like it did back then. But did that qualify me for two years in prison? I didn’t think so.
“You had no choice? You’re a big boy, Terrance. You could have walked away or at least came to me and let me know what was going on.”
“God dammit, Dax! You lived with these people your whole life. The way that I did. You know that you don’t walk away from them without consequences. I did what I was told to do to keep them from doing it to me. Maybe this was your punishment for walking away.”
I stared at him for the longest time. I couldn’t believe he was rationalizing it that way. He helped ruin my life, but it was okay because he had a feeble excuse. Bullshit.
“Fuck you, Terrance!” It was the only statement that made sense. I started to walk out. I couldn’t look at him much longer without punching him in the mouth. I thought about Olivia and turned around.
Before I could say anything he said, “Listen to me for a minute, Dax. I got those e-mails from Bull and I did what he told me to do. I want you to know that I’ve felt like shit about it ever since, especially since I’ve been dating Olivia. The other guys and even my dad…I don’t think they knew. No one ever mentioned anything about it.”
“Wow, you regretted it, huh? I’m sorry about that, buddy. That had to be tough.”
“Dax, please, man.”
“No, shut the fuck up. Now it’s your turn to listen to me. You need to tell Olivia everything you just told me. Throw in the part about the regret. That should really get to her.”
“Dax, man…she’ll hate me. She’ll leave me. She doesn’t have to know. You two are over, right? Don’t you want her to be happy?”
I laughed. “Happy? You think you can make her happy? Happy the way your father being in the club made your mom happy or happy the way my mother is happy? You fucking tell her, Terrance, or I will.”
“Fuck! Okay, I’ll tell her. But let me do it, please.”
“Oh I will, because you deserve to have to tell her that you’ve been lying to her all this time in order to get into her pants. You and I both know Olivia well enough to know how that’s going to go over. Have a great day, Terrance…and make sure you tell her today because I’ll be checking in with her tomorrow.”
I walked out of there shaking. It wasn’t because I was sad or sorry, but because I was still so pissed off. I couldn’t even wrap my head around how a best friend and a father could get together one day and decide to set up their best friend and their son. How they could look at themselves in the mirror every day for nearly three years after that, knowing that mine wasn’t the only life they had screwed up. My dad was watching my mother’s heart break and Terrance Olivia’s. Yet, they both just went on like they had no regrets. Terrance said he did, but even now all he was worried about was himself. Fuck that, he was dead to me.