Fink
“You sound an awful lot like you’re scared, Fink.” Snake drains his whisky and pours another. “I don’t wanna start nothing, but it seems that way to me.”
I drain my own whisky. “Keep talking that way and see how scared I am.”
Snake gulps, and then holds his hands up in a show of peace. “I didn’t mean nothing.”
“Keep your fuckin’ thoughts to yourself, then.”
“What is it, then?” the Old Man asks. “If you ain’t scared?”
“This is a war with the cops,” I say. “It’s not about being scared or not being scared. It’s about business, and money, and living a goddamn life. I don’t remember the last time I felt scared. I don’t reckon that’s a good thing, either. Only crazy bastards don’t feel scared. All I’m saying is that this war can’t go on forever. Not with cops, it can’t. And cops have a habit of winning shit like this. In the long run, they always win. We ain’t a drug cartel. We’re a biker club. We survive by riding the thin road between outlawing and playing it safe.”
“There’s some truth in that,” the Old Man agrees. “But what do you suggest we do when they bloody one of our own?”
“It’s not about that.” I sigh, looking over the bar. The boss and his VP sit at the other end, drinking and talking. The boss is a good man, pushing 55, but strong and smart. But even he respects respect too much. “Since when can’t I handle a bloody face? What am I, a child? I don’t need a damn babysitter.”
“Is this about that girl?” Snake asks, his voice even snakier than usual.
“Are you itching for a bloody face yourself?” I snap.
Snake sips his whisky, smiling crookedly. “You’re awful touchy when it comes to the girl.”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” I say.
“I don’t think Fink’s scared,” the Old Man says. “I’ve known him since he was a teenager and I’ve never seen him scared. So maybe we ought to listen to what he has to say.”
I nod at him, thankful. “This war ends with this clubhouse burning. This war ends with our brothers dead or in chains. It ends nowhere good, and I don’t see the sense in fighting it no more. Why are we smashing up cop cars, having fistfights with off-duty cops in the streets? ’Cause they bloodied me up a little? I’m over that shit. Goddamn. Me and Snake have bloodied each other up more times’n I can count and we ain’t at war.”
“Yet.” Snake smiles.
“I think you’re missing the point,” the Old Man says. “This whole business is about respect, and if we get disrespected—”
The gunfire cuts through his words, thumping into the wall above us, wood and plasterboard chipping away, big pieces of shrapnel flying everywhere. I grab the Old Man by the shoulders and lower him to the floor, ignoring him when he curses and grunts at me. We all crouch as the gunfire passes by. It’s clearly a drive-by. The aim is haphazard and travels in a straight line up and down the clubhouse before the car screeches away. We all stay crouched for a long time, waiting for another round of bullets.
After five or so minutes, the boss stands up. “All right, is anyone hurt?”
“Yeah,” Snake says. “Caught me in the leg.”
“Okay, anyone else?”
One other man got one in the arm. Otherwise, everybody is okay. I help the Old Man to his feet. He waves my hand away when he’s settled in his chair. “Fuckin’ pigs,” he grunts.
I don’t say anything. I don’t have to. If anything could’ve demonstrated what I was talking about more, I don’t know what it is.
“We all need to lie low for a couple of days now,” the boss says. “Contact the men. Tell them the clubhouse is off-limits. We’ll keep in contact on the burners. We need to figure this out.” He meets my eye. “Maybe Fink has a point. Maybe this is fucking madness.”
I leave the clubhouse, get on my bike and ride away, feeling free like I haven’t since I joined the club. The boss has never told us to just leave for a few days before. He’s told us to lie low, but that always meant at the clubhouse. This is something else. It’s almost like I’m not a club man. I don’t even wear my leather, riding just in my T-shirt. I could be anyone. It’s almost like I’m not a Son of a Wolf.
I think about going back to my apartment, but going back to my apartment seems like a bad idea. They know where I live; that much is obvious, since they’re all cops. They’ll roll up and open fire and I’ll catch a bullet and that’ll be the end of Fink Foster. I end up riding toward Sal’s house. I’ve only ever been there twice before, a three-bedroom place in the suburbs which reeks of family. His wife didn’t take much of a liking to me and I can’t say I blame her. I showed up raging drunk and hungrier than a racehorse, munching down the food in ten seconds flat without any pretense at decency.
The sun is setting as I reach the house. I stop a few streets down and walk down this suburban neighborhood, feeling like an invader. Kids’ bikes lay scattered on lawns and through a window I glimpse a woman taking a pie out of the oven. I can’t stop the mad laughter from bubbling out of me. This is all too perfect, all too American Dream. But maybe some of the laughter is jealousy, ’cause maybe I wouldn’t mind a kid with a bike on the lawn and home-cooked apple pie—I banish the thought. That thought leads to family, and family leads to pain, to asshole dads walking out on their kids.
I stop when I reach Sal’s place. His car’s out front, so I know he’s home. I sneak around the back garden and just sit there, staring into the house. I don’t know why I don’t just knock on the door. Maybe I’m afraid he’ll turn me away. Or maybe I’m afraid that this suburban life will infect me. Whatever it is, I know as soon as I see Sal that I ain’t knocking. He walks into the kitchen wearing a turtleneck sweater with his big soft smile on his face. His wife—a skinny, redhaired, freckled woman—kisses him on the cheek and waves off to the side, presumably to the table since he gets out knives and forks and plates. I watch, an ache in my chest I don’t understand, and then leave before he spots me. I know Sal. If he spots me, he’ll invite me in. He’s too damn kind.
I return to my bike and ride away from the suburbs, back toward the city proper, trying to figure out where to go. Of course, there’s one place I want to go above all others, one place which roars at me, which tugs at me. I try and ignore the urge. It’s been a couple of days since I saw her at The Mermaid and I’ve almost fooled myself into thinking I can forget her. But as I ride through the city, a lost man with a lost cause, I wonder if I should just bite my pride and go to her. At least Nancy’d mean warmth, and something almost like home. But I’d be putting her in danger, too. But isn’t that her choice?
My thoughts chase each other around my head, but my body isn’t as indecisive. I end up outside Nancy’s apartment building without making the conscious choice to come here. I look up at the windows, trying to guess which one is hers, wondering if she’ll even want to see me after the way I left her. I need to decide what I want, but it’s hard.
The second I start entertaining the thought of being with her, I remember the way Mom looked when she talked about Dad, eyes all watery and lips twisted in bitterness. “An evil man,” she’d say. “Walking out on me like that. Stole my last twenty dollars, too. Never be like your father.” Surely the only way to make sure that never happens is to never have a woman, a family, a life?
I want to walk away. It’d be what’s best for Nancy and so far I reckon I’ve done a passable job of putting that first, but today I find I can’t. I climb from my bike and walk across the street, all while cursing myself for being weak. I ought to steer clear, but steering clear is just getting too damn hard. I’ll hurt her, like my dad hurt my mother; it’s in my blood.
I realize as I’m staring at the buzzer panel that I have no clue what number she lives at. I hit a number at random, wondering if fate will work it out for us.
It doesn’t.
“Hello?” an elderly woman says.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” I say. “Do you happen to know which apartment Nancy O’Neill lives at?”
She does. She gives me the number and I press it.
“Um, hello?” Nancy says, sounding like she doesn’t get many visitors.
I stand silently for way too long, trying to force myself to walk away. She doesn’t need me. I’ll just bring pain into her life.
“Fink?”
It’s hearing my name in her beautiful voice that does it.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s me.”
“I’ll buzz you up.”
“Okay.”
I climb the stairs to her room, not taking the elevator to delay the moment of meeting. I know that when I see her, I’ll be lost. She has that effect on me as no other woman has ever come close to. She’s the only woman who’s ever made me think about family and life and suburbs and all that shit that I’d usually call flowery or womanly, all that shit that I thought I’d given up the moment I took the patch. I reach her door. Nothing for it but to knock.
She answers right away, as if she’s been waiting on the other side.
“Come in,” she says.
She looks smoking hot, but then she always looks smoking hot. Today she’s wearing pink pajama bottoms and a pink tank top with a pink bra, her hair tied in a ponytail and her purple bathrobe wrapped around her, but open in the middle. She leads me to the couch, and then goes into the kitchen. “A drink?” she asks.
“Beer?”
“I have wine,” she offers.
“Wine it is, then.”
She returns with two glasses. I can’t remember the last time I held a wineglass, if ever, but it tastes good enough.
“Do you like it?” she asks.
“Sure.”
The TV is on mute: two women sit in a bar drinking out of glasses not unlike the one I’m holding. For the umpteenth time, I wonder what the fuck’s come over me to make me sit here and drink this wine and not feel absurd. More than that: feel comfortable, at ease. For the first time today, I feel like I can relax. Ain’t that what home’s supposed to be?
“Why are you here?” she asks. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you are. But the way we left things last time . . . I thought that was it, Fink. And now . . .”
I explain about the shootout.
“Oh my God.” She gasps. “I can’t believe they’d do that!”
“Taunt a tiger enough, Nancy, and anything can happen. But the boss might be tryin’ to make some kind of peace, so that’ll be good.” I sip the wine, as red as blood. “I was going to ask you if I could lie low here for a couple of days. I know it seems like a lot—”
“Yes,” she interrupts, her cheeks wine-red, her lips blood-red. “The answer is yes.”
“I thought I’d have to twist your arm.”
“Nope, no arm-twisting necessary. You can have the couch. I have some spare sheets.”
“Okay,” I say, watching her, looking at her full breasts, her legs begging to be grabbed, thinking of all the animal things I’d like to do to her. I’m getting hard just thinking about it.
She sees me looking but doesn’t tell me to stop, just blushes at me and takes a sip of her wine. “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“I have some pizzas in the freezer.”
“Pizza sounds fine.”
She puts the pizzas in the oven and then we eat, and drink, and talk about nothing in particular. After the pizzas I lift my arm and she climbs into me, resting her head on my shoulder as we watch TV. We watch half of Catch Me if You Can and then Nancy yawns and stands up, stretching her arms above her head in a way that pushes her breasts out. “I’m beat. Let me get you those sheets.”
“Okay.”
She makes up the couch for me and then goes into her bedroom, closing the door. I sit on the couch for a couple of minutes, staring at a vacuum advertisement on the TV, and then I can’t help myself any longer. She’s too hot, too damn sexy, too much of the woman of my dreams for me to just sit here. I go to her bedroom door and open it slowly, making sure I make some noise so she knows I’m coming.
She stands with her back to me, shirtless, her tank top in her hands, her bra hanging loosely, the clip undone. “What are you doing?” she whispers, her voice trembling with lust.
“I think you know,” I say, kicking the door closed behind me.