18. Eagle
CHAPTER 18
EAGLE
“Yo, brother.” Crow claps me on the back in greeting.
It’s five-freaking-o’-clock in the morning, and I’m standing in the driveway of a modest two-bedroom, one-bath house. Crow’s wearing a safety vest and a hard hat, and I have to stifle a laugh. Crow’s an ex-con. He did real time for a crime that wasn’t intentional, but which cost a man his life anyway. Bar fight gone bad. Crow threw the punch that knocked a guy’s lights out for good, and he did serious time for it.
But now, he couldn’t look more legit. A wedding band is tattooed where a gold ring would be since in this job, jewelry would be a danger. Like everybody else in the club, Crow’s gone domestic. He’s got a wife, Birdie, and a stepdaughter, Mia. He’s even got a little bit of a belly now, and I smack him on it.
“Married life treating you good?” I ask.
I mean it as a joke, but a cold look crosses over Crow’s face. “Yeah, man, all good,” he says.
But then, clearly, he’s back to business. No time to shoot the shit. He’s telling me about the work they’re doing on this house, the turnaround time, and it all starts buzzing like static in my ears.
This is the shit I wasn’t cut out for. Listening to some jacknob with a hard-on for a paycheck giving me rules and instructions. I try to listen, but I’m out there trying to figure out how Crow became that guy.
At some point, he’s like, “You got all that?” And I just nod.
I don’t, but what the fuck. It’s demolition. How hard could it be? I tear shit out and throw it away.
I follow Crow to a huge pickup truck where he’s got a lockbox with extra materials. He gives me a neon vest and a hard hat, and he points down at my boots.
“I’ll let those ride today, man, but you gotta wear steel-toe. It’s a safety issue. Insurance’ll be up my ass.” He doesn’t even wait for me to answer. He turns and heads through the open door that leads into a really outdated kitchen.
There’s no one else here but Crow and me, and he shows me where the sledgehammer, crowbar, and other tools are. He’s talking fast and throwing a lot at me, but again, I just drift. This isn’t for me. Nothing about this shit is for me.
But what the hell is?
I can’t go back to the Lantana. I texted Carla yesterday to let her know that I was giving two-weeks’ notice and that I’d find someone to cover my events over those two weeks. I couldn’t go back there and work for the asshats who fired Lacey. Brute was fine with it, though. He actually thought Carla was hot, so I’m not exactly putting her in a bind. If Arrow can’t cover me, Brute’ll find somebody who wants to make a few bucks standing around doing nothing.
Unlike what I’m doing here. There’s no AC running and not even a fan since I’ll be kicking up dust, tearing out the kitchen cabinets and fixtures, and within an hour, I’m drained and soaked with sweat.
Crow checks in on me, and that’s when the shit starts. “Fuck, man.” He points at the stack of cabinets I’ve torn down from the wall. “What the hell did you do?”
I look from him to the cabinets, totally confused. “I did what you told me,” I say. “I tore the shit down.”
Crow curses under his breath. “Fuck, man,” he says. “I told you this row of cabinets here—” he points to a row that’s splintered and shattered in a pile on the floor “—we’re reusing in the garage. Repurposing.” He bends to inspect the damage, but there’s no fixing this.
I either didn’t hear or didn’t pay attention when he said they were gonna try to save one small strip of the cabinets to reuse someplace else.
Crow’s muttering about money down the drain, but he just sighs. “There’s nothing else to fuck up in here,” he says. “Tear it all out.”
I am suddenly so pissed off, I want to drive the sledgehammer right through the stack of ruined cabinets. This is why I’m not cut out for honest work. I can’t listen. I don’t give a shit about repurposing or whatever the hell Crow wants to do here. He shoulda said clear as day, “Don’t fuck these up. I need them.”
I take my frustration out on the rest of the demolition, knowing full well that Crow probably did tell me not to fuck them up. I need work. I need money. But this ain’t me. This isn’t how I want to earn it.
My mind goes to a dark place. I miss the old days. The days when we made steady cash and lots of it. There’s no easy way for a man like me to make an honest buck. But I made a lot of bucks the not-so-honest way.
I can’t, though. The club’s clean now. If I wanted to run drugs or move stolen shit, I’d have to betray my brothers. Leave the club, patch in someplace else, but that’s something I’d never do. I could freelance and go solo. Find some low-end hacks who need muscle.
The idea fills me with hope, and I wonder why I didn’t figure out a way to get back into the shit years ago. But then it hits me. Lacey.
Lacey’s the reason I’ve got a solid employment history, a paycheck, and taxes paid on legit earnings for the last couple of years.
I started at the Lantana when we cut ties with everything that could land us in prison—or, worse, dead at the hands of a rival club. I started at the Lantana because I needed to find my own gig. And I stayed for her.
I don’t think I’ve ever admitted it to myself before. But I see it now. Without Lacey to keep me interested, to keep me coming back, I don’t know if I would’ve stayed straight as long as I have.
As I look over the pile of ruined cabinets, Crow’s disappointment written all over his face, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stay straight now that I don’t have the Lantana and her to hold me in place.
By the time lunch rolls around, Crow seems calmer. He’s been taking calls all day, lining up contractors and shit. I don’t know. But what I do know is I’m ravenous by the time I jump into my truck.
“I’m gonna grab a burrito,” I call out to Crow. “You want somethin’, man?”
Crow shakes his head. “I got lunch coming up right now.”
Just then, a modest red sedan pulls up to the street and parks in front of the house we’re working on. The back door opens, and a little girl flings herself from the car and starts running.
Crow opens his arms and scoops her up, giving her a big kiss on the cheek. She’s talking a mile a minute, and Crow’s completely absorbed in her. So much so that he doesn’t seem to notice the beautiful woman who gets out from behind the wheel. But she notices me and waves.
“Eagle.” Birdie, Crow’s wife, walks up to the passenger window of my truck and leans on the door. “How’s it going on your first day?” Birdie’s a cool chick. It’s obvious that Crow’s wrapped around that little kid’s finger, but I’ve always liked his wife.
“Not bad,” I lie.
She seems to study my face. “You sure?” she asks, as if she can tell I’m not at all sure about this.
I wave a hand, not seeing any reason to lie. “Not sure all this shit’s for me,” I say.
Birdie doesn’t say anything. She throws a look back at Crow and then smiles at me. “When Crow first started, he hated it too,” she says. “He won’t say that now, but he came home every night real quiet.” She leans deeper into the window. “It’s not easy,” she says. “But it gets better.”
She gives me a smile and then turns and walks over to Crow. He kisses her and sets Mia on her feet. Then, both of them holding Mia’s hands, the three of them head over to Crow’s truck.
I wave and fire up my truck, mapping it to a nearby burrito place. Birdie’s words stay with me the whole drive. I can only imagine how hard it was for Crow to adjust from being on the inside. He came back to a club that had gone clean, after spending years behind bars with thugs and thieves. To try to find a job with a conviction on his record, to go from the life we all had to a totally new normal. Yeah, I can believe it was hard for him. I can believe it took time.
But as I watch Crow and his family pull away, I wonder if, with the right motivation, I can change. Seems like I did for a while, at least. But what I did it for was not myself. And if I lose Lacey, everything will fall to ash. Just like it did with Linda.
And I can never let that happen to me again.