Rust
Zeke and I, Shackle, and a few of his lieutenants sit in the bar as the doctor operates on one of the pledges in the dormitory wing. Even from here, we can hear his screams: high-pitched, full of disbelieving pain. Zeke winces each time the pledge screams; the kid’s a pledge Zeke brought on himself. Shackle gets a bottle of whisky and places it on the table, and one of the lieutenants collects some glasses and begins handing them out, all to the soundtrack of a screeching pledge.
When we’re all sipping our whiskies, Zeke mutters: “Fucking unpatched.”
Everybody nods in agreement.
“Fucking unpatched,” Shackle agrees. “Trent was supposed to be a fuckin’ tick we could just flick away, no problem. But I’ve been hearing some troubling shit. First of all that Trent is gathering more and more unpatched to join him; and second of all that they’re getting into hard shit, like heroin.” He scratches his jagged scar, his mouth set into a grim line.
I know how he feels. Say what you want about The Damned, but we’ve never been into hard shit like that. We’re into weed, bootlegged booze, cigarettes, protection, counterfeit electronics, but never hard shit like heroin, shit which ruins lives. Looking around the table, I can see that the men feel just as I do: this Trent fuck has gone too far. The pledge lets out another scream, this one louder, penetrating the walls of the bar.
“Can’t the doctor give him something?” Zeke murmurs.
“Probably has,” I grunt. “Gunshot hurts like a sonofabitch.”
“The fuck would you know?” Zeke says.
“He was shot, before you joined,” Shackle says quietly. “Back when Mouse was in charge.” A small smile touches Shackle’ lips, despite the screaming. “Tried to take on three guys yourself, you crazy bastard.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Young and stupid. It was just a grazing shot to the thigh, Zeke, but it still hurt like fuck. That kid in there has got a—what is it? A flesh wound to the torso?”
Shackle corrects me, telling me he’s got a slug clean through his bicep muscle.
“Fuck,” Zeke says. “Yeah, I bet that hurts a damn lot.”
We drink our whisky, and then one of the lieutenants asks who did the shooting.
Shackle shakes his head. “No clue who it was exactly, but it was unpatched, that’s for sure. The kid told me when the doctor was bringing him in that the guy who shot him shouted: ‘Trent says hello.’” Shackle growls, his face twisted with rage. “This unpatched fuck thinks he can blow a hole in a Damned—a pledge, but still a fuckin’ Damned—and get away with it …he’s a fool.”
“He’s got a lot of support,” Zeke points out. “More than he did a month ago. Me and Rust have been doin’ what we can, but it’s difficult. I think we’ve failed.”
I offer a sideways smile. “Yeah, tell the boss we’ve failed, Zeke, great fuckin’ idea.”
Everybody laughs darkly.
“It isn’t your fault,” Shackle says, speaking a little louder over the sound of the pledge’s screaming. “It’s my fault. I should’ve sent the whole club after this fuck the moment he started bothering us. I just never thought he’d have the balls to really go after one of ours. Rust, when you told me about how you chased off him and his, I thought the bastard was green; I thought he’d stay green. How long’s it been—a month, two? And he’s gone from a scared leader of a bunch of rodents to having the balls to slug a Damned.”
“He’s insane,” one of the lieutenants says. “’Cause when we find him, he’s dead. He must know that.”
“Maybe he thinks he’s got enough gun power to take us on.” Zeke shrugs when the lieutenant shoots him an angry look. “I’m just speaking about what could be,” he goes on. “If he’s dealing heroin, he’s got a supplier, and if he’s got a supplier, maybe he’s got enough pull to form a proper club. We all know that once you put a patch on a group of men, pretty soon they start thinkin’ more of themselves. And that can be used for good, like we do. Or it can be used for bad, like so many other clubs do.”
I think about Trent running a club and clench my fists under the table. I think about the way he leaned over Allison, the first time I ever met her; I wonder why I didn’t just end it then and there. But back then, he was just a creep bothering a beautiful woman. Back then, he was just a weirdo, a nuisance. Now, everything’s changed. The kid screaming from the other side of the building is proof enough of that. Allison …I almost shiver at the thought of her. I need to keep her out of my mind. I need to kill that part of me. She rejected me. It’s over. Done, over, done. I need to remember that.
“Rust?”
Shit, Shackle is talking.
“Yeah?”
“I said, what do you think their chances are in a straight-up war?”
I shrug. “No idea. Before, I would’ve said it’d be like stepping on an ant-hill, but now, who the fuck knows?”
“Think you’d have a little more faith than that,” a lieutenant mutters.
“We’re The Damned, don’t forget,” I reply, to a round of throaty laughs. “I don’t know, Shackle. I’d need to know more about them: their numbers, their bases, their operation.”
“Then that’s what we’ll need to do.” Shackle nods. “I’m tired of these fucking insects moving in on us. I’m tired of their fucking arrogance and I’m tired of that kid’s screaming.” He points at his scar. “It was a fuckin’ gang that did this to me, boys, five of the fucks. Do you know what I did to those bastards when I got my hands on them?”
We all grow quiet, because we all know. None of them are alive today.
Shackle stands up and walks to the bar, where he leans and lights up a cigarettes. Some of his lieutenants light up too. Zeke and I remain sitting, sipping whiskey. For ten or so minutes, we wait in silence: a silence punctuated by the screams of the kid in the next room. The screams rise and fall as the doctor picks pieces of bullet out of the wound. I look around at the men, all of them seeming grim and focused, and wonder what they’re thinking about, if their thoughts are honed on Trent and the unpatched and nothing more. Or if they stray.
This thought occurs to me ’cause my thoughts keep straying. Here I am, sitting with my club, one of my brothers screaming and bleeding, the leader of the club smoking a cigarette and staring off into space, and Allison keeps resurfacing in my mind. Goddamn Allison, like some kind of magical woman, with the ability to captivate my thoughts when she should have absolute no place in my mind. During this past month, I have banished her. I have accepted that I’m never going to see her again.
A voice calls out in my mind: “Liar! Liar!”
I swallow, lean back, on the surface looking nonchalant as ever, but inside an invisible hand squeezing my chest. I’ve wanted to banish her, is the truth, but banishing her isn’t so simple when I’ve been visiting Joseph. It’s too difficult to visit the kid without asking him how she’s doing, if she’s okay, if she’s seeing somebody else…that last one is important to me even when I know it shouldn’t be. I haven’t touched another woman since Allison, which is about the strangest thing I’ve done in a long, long time. Me, Rust, enforcer, lady’s man—that’s how the men know me—hasn’t touched another woman just ’cause I fucked some chestnut-haired deer-eyed woman in her office. Was the sex that good? Was I really that captivated by it?
I lean my head back, hardly hearing the glugging of the whisky now, the occasional muttered word of one of the other men, the crisping of the cigarettes. All I hear is Allison. In my mind, she is leaning over me, those perfect pert breasts pushed together, wearing only her panties and waiting for me to snap them away with my teeth. In my head, she whispers, and here in the bar I feel the whisper on my neck: “Why don’t you come and visit me, baby? I know I told you I didn’t want it, but I lied. I lied, baby.”
I pour a whisky, sip it, willing it to not only burn down my throat but burn away the thoughts, too. Allison pushed me away. She doesn’t want me. Allison made her choice. We fucked and now we’re done; that’s all. I don’t need to worry about her anymore. It makes me angry that I can’t just shrug and forget her. How many women have I been with who, afterward, I’ve never thought about again? How many times have I even forgotten the name of a woman after we’re done? And here I am…I want to growl, but I’m surrounded by the men so I make sure to keep myself calm. But I need something to help me get rid of some of this tension. I’m fuckin’ furious with myself. She pushed me away, and yet I still want her. Goddamn it!
I almost gasp when I realize that I’m not just furious with myself. I’m furious with her, too. I’ve never felt furious at any woman except Mom, back when she looked me directly in the face and told me to get out of her house because she was starting a new family. After that, I’ve made sure to be indifferent toward women. But Allison…under the table, I clench my fist. She did the same thing to me; she reeled me in and then told me to go fuck myself. She completely rejected me. She might as well have slapped me in the face. I wish I could go back and scream at her, and then I’m ashamed by the wish; all it would accomplish is showing her the effect she’s having on me.
I’m glad when the doctor walks into the bar, his worn scrubs flecked here and there with blood, wiping his hands on a towel.
All the men turn to him, and Shackle stubs his cigarette out on the bar and approaches him. The two men talk quietly for a few moments before the doctor turns around and walks back into the dormitory section.
“He’ll live,” Shackle says, and I see Zeke breathe a sigh of relief. “But it was closer than it ever should’ve been.” Shackle begins pacing up and down before us like a general pacing before his assembled men, hands behind his back. “It’s time we found out where Trent is and put an end to him. These unpatched men want to assemble around Trent. They think Trent is their savior. They think Trent is going to make them something. Let’s show them how wrong they are. I want all of you out there—lieutenants, tell your men—in groups of two, looking for Trent, or the unpatched men who might know where he is.” He nods shortly. “Dismissed.”
Zeke turns to me. “The bartender at the Englishman has been having some trouble with unpatched,” Zeke says. “I told him to keep an eye out. Let’s go stake the place out. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
I shrug, stranding. “Alright. Let’s go.”
Zeke tilts his head at me, looking closely. “Are you okay, man?”
Fine,” I reply gruffly…unless you count the social worker constantly bouncing into my mind. “Fine,” I repeat, as much to convince myself as him.