“Yep, but it’s also true.”
“Wow, Hop. I don’t know what to say,” I replied.
“Nothin’ to say. I do not not like her. I hate her. Can’t stand the sight of her.”
This was not good.
“How does that, um… affect your kids?” I asked cautiously.
“They feel it, I know it, and it sucks. Kids feel everything. Even if you’re careful, you can’t hide shit from kids. They suck stuff up like a sponge. Struggled with that, did what I could, burned in my gut every time I had to pretend to be nice to her, realized I wasn’t teachin’ them a good lesson by not bein’ true to me. I’m not a dick to her. I don’t get up in her face. I just avoid her. This has the added bonus of not givin’ her the opportunity to get up in mine.”
I had a feeling I knew what that meant.
“So she’s not a big fan of yours either?”
“She wasn’t. She’s learned. Took a while but she figured out what she had and lost. Tried to be friends. ’Way she fucked me, I wasn’t down with that. She wasn’t stupid enough to try to get back together. She knew that was a no fuckin’ go in a big fuckin’ way. Now, she just avoids me like I do her ’cause she doesn’t like to be faced with what she created.”
“What did she have and, erm… lose?”
His head cocked to the side. “Babe. Me.”
I studied him, thinking I knew what that meant too.
“So, you loved her?” I asked.
“Made a family with her,” was his answer, which I thought was an answer but it also was not.
I let that go.
“How did it go wrong?” I asked, and he leaned further toward me.
“You don’t have enough time for me to explain all the ways it went wrong, that’s how wrong it went. Honest to God, spent a lot of time thinkin’ about it and I do not have any fuckin’ clue what I was thinkin’ about, starting shit up with her. She was never sweet. She looked good. She was great in bed. She doesn’t hold a candle to you but, until you, she was the best I had. But told you, I like a challenge and that was Mitzi. Her parents were assholes, both of them, hated their daughter, hated the life I led, made sure we both knew it. Freaked me out because it was like Mitzi fed on that, got off on it. Figured it out too late that one of the reasons she was with me was because she hated them right back, maybe more, and she got a kick out of shoving me right up their asses.”
That was not good, either, and it did make Mitzi sound like a bitch in a way that leaned toward the c-word.
I felt my brows rise on my query of, “Seriously?”
“Serious as shit. She was a rebel in her fuckin’ thirties. Hadn’t found her way. Hadn’t found herself. Still stickin’ it to her parents like she was a teenager throwin’ a shit fit because they didn’t like the posters of the bands she had on her walls and, I’ll repeat, doin’ this in her fuckin’ thirties. Bitches that hang around bikers, babe, you gotta be careful. I wasn’t.”
“What does that mean?” I asked carefully, seeing as I was sort of a “bitch” who hung around bikers.
“You got to have sat with Brick after he was fucked over enough times to know,” he answered.
I had, indeed, sat sipping a beer while Brick did shots after a woman broke his heart, and I did it more than enough times.
“Well, yes,” I admitted.
“They take advantage of a tough guy with a soft heart. That’s what he picks. Strung out, needing to be fixed, unfixable; he gets fucked in the end. Then there are the ones who have an idea about bikers and they got problems. They think they’re gonna get worked over, torn down, dominated. They want that shit and I know you’re gonna think that’s all kinds of whacked but it’s also the goddamned truth. Had a woman in my bed, honest to Christ, babe, she asked me to punch her. Punch her. Not spank her, not even smack her, which I wouldn’t do, but fuckin’ hit her. Begged me for it. That shit got her ass kicked out of my bed.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed, staring at him, unable to take this information in.
“Not fuckin’ with you,” he told me, going back to his sandwich.
“I… that’s… that’s crazy,” I told him.
He took a bite and his eyes came to me as he muttered, “Yep.”
He finished chewing, swallowed and continued his tales of lunacy.
“That stuff you said the other night about where old ladies fit in the life of a biker, club then bike and all that shit, women are drawn to that. They don’t think enough of themselves to find a man who thinks the world of them so they look for a man who’ll fit them in kinda close to the top and they’re down with that. They think that’s makin’ out good. Others are so weak all they wanna do is party, get high, get laid, and lay everything on their old man’s shoulders, so they can keep partying, getting high and getting laid. Shit’s whacked. They’re all over. Next hog roast, honey, I’ll point them out. They come back again and again hopin’ one of the brothers is not gonna read them and know what they’re buyin’ if they go there. Fuckin’ crazy.”