Chapter 13 #2
I don’t know how long I pounded away at that damn bag, but I was dripping with sweat, and my arms felt like lead. I used the back of my arm to wipe the sweat from my brow, and that’s when I spotted Smitty standing in the corner. “I didn’t realize I had company.”
“Didn’t want to bother you.”
I drove one last punch into the bag and let it swing wide, then caught it with both hands, resting my forehead against the worn leather as I dragged in a breath. I was still winded as I stepped back and leaned against the wall, silently sliding down to the floor.
That’s when Smitty walked over, and without a word, he held out a bottle of water. I took it, cracked it open, and drank half of it before coming up for air. He gave me a moment, then asked, “You good?”
“No,” I clipped.
“It have anything to do with the Coyotes?”
“What about ‘em?”
“Word is, some have been spotted around town.”
“They stirring trouble?”
“Not yet, but we’re ready if they do.”
“Good.” I sat there for a moment, then looked up at him and asked, “Lemme ask you something.”
“Yeah?”
“You seem like a good, level-headed kid… What’s your story?”
“Come again?”
“Everyone has a story.” I cocked my brow. “What’s yours?”
He let out a faint huff before saying, “I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours.”
“You haven’t already heard?”
“Bits and pieces, but none of it from you.”
Most of the brothers didn’t ask. They either already knew or knew better than to ask. Smitty wasn’t pushing. He just left the opportunity out there and waited to see if I’d take him up on it.
I let my head fall back and closed my eyes as I told him, “Not much to tell… I was a man who had it all, and then, I lost it. I’ve spent years on the road, trying to put it behind me.”
“And did you?”
“I’m getting closer… or I thought I was.”
“Something happen tonight to make you change your mind?”
“I came closer to finding something worth losing, and I guess I got spooked.”
“You don’t seem like the kind to get spooked.”
“Ghosts have a way of doing that to ya.”
“So, how you gonna get rid of them?”
“The ghosts?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t, and I don’t want to. They’re all I got left of ‘em.”
“I get it. I have ghosts of my own.”
“I’m listening.”
Smitty sat down at the bench in front of me. He was silent for several moments before his weary eyes met mine. “I was twelve years old when I killed my brother.”
The words came out forced and breathless, like the words took all the air out of his chest. “They called us the Hauler twins.”
His eyes brightened for a moment when he said the nickname, like he was recalling it coming from folks back home. “My mother worked at a diner, and Dad was a mechanic downtown. We didn’t have much, but we didn’t need much for Aiden and me to get into trouble.”
His cheeks tightened for a moment, and a faint idea of a smile crossed his face before snapping back to a cold, unfocused stare.
“One day, Dad brought home an old, beat-up four-wheeler. Didn’t say where it came from or how he’d managed to buy it.
He just parked it in the driveway and ordered us not to touch it.
Aiden and me didn’t care. We were pumped that he’d gotten it.
We thought it was the coolest thing ever, and we spent all day at school bragging.
We lied through our teeth when kids asked if Dad actually let us drive it. ”
He paused for a moment, like he was trying to find the right words, before he continued, “Few weeks later, Aiden and me were fucking around, and he noticed that Dad had forgotten the keys in it.”
He blinked his eyes and refocused them, finally looking at me with a shrug.
“It was like a personal invitation. It was basically begging us to ride… I still remember winning the coin flip for who got to drive and how it felt to sit on that warm leather seat… I could see the whole world sitting up there. And man, when I started that engine, and Aiden climbed on behind me, I can’t even describe it. ”
The energy in the room began to shift, like all the air was slowly getting sucked out as he told me, “Took us out to the back roads behind the house. We could see the sun hitting the river, and that’s when Aiden said...”
A small crack in his voice stopped him for a moment.
He looked down at the ground, shaking his head.
A pained expression marked his face as he cleared his throat hard, physically pushing those feelings back long enough to say, “Aiden said he felt like a king up there.”
His lip quivered, but he quickly bit down on it, stopping it before he spoke again. “We wanted a better view of the river. Thought we’d find a fishing spot for the next time we got out, so I cut between a few fields and…”
I expected to see tears in his eyes.
Instead, I saw rage.
His cheeks turned red as he grumbled, “And for some fuckin reason, I thought it’d be a good idea to hit the gas.”
His muscles tightened, and it didn’t take long to figure out where that rage was directed. “I thought it’d be fun. Thought I’d show off. Saw no reason not to. We weren’t on a main road, so I wasn’t scared of getting caught.”
He stood as he finished his sentence and turned his back to me.
He let out one muffled sniffle and wiped his eyes before letting out a deep sigh and turning back to me.
“I knew better. I knew there was a reason Dad didn’t want us riding that damn thing…
I knew it was fucking dangerous, and I was testing the limits.
But I heard Aiden laugh, and it just egged me on. ”
Smitty nodded once, like he was agreeing with himself. “We hit a foxhole, a pretty damn deep one. Ended up jerkin’ the wheel and flipping us.”
His hands lifted slightly, like he could still feel it. “Everything got real quiet for a second. No engine. No yelling. Just that weightless feeling, and then we came down.”
Then his hands dropped, and the garage suddenly felt smaller.
Knowing what was coming, my chest tightened as I listened to him say, “The next thing I remember, I was opening my eyes and seeing the clouds. I was fine, barely a scratch on me. I got up, dusted myself off, and then I heard it. Groans, guttural, breathless groans… You ever heard someone try to scream with no air in their lungs?”
He didn’t wait for an answer.
He just stared blankly ahead and said, “I found him pinned under it. The whole damn thing on top of him. The handlebar was square on his chest, and he couldn’t get air. I tried to lift it. God, I tried. I yelled for help and kept pulling, but it wouldn’t budge.”
He took a second to collect himself before he explained, “I had to get help, so I ran. I ran as fast as I could. The whole way, I was screaming for help. Someone heard and got Dad. That part is still a blur. Everybody came running. I remember thinking if I could just run fast enough… if I didn’t waste a second, that he’d be okay. But when we got back…”
He didn’t finish his thought.
He didn’t have to. I knew his brother was already gone.
He let out a hollow laugh that didn’t hold any humor.
Just pain. Deep, guttural pain. I knew it well.
I’d felt it for years, so I understood exactly what he was feeling when he said, “I knew before anyone said it. He wasn’t making those sounds anymore.
Dad got the 4-wheeler off him and kept calling out his name, but there was no answer. ”
My grip tightened around the empty bottle in my hand.
Smitty was a good kid. It was tough hearing what he’d been through, and it didn’t get any better when he continued, “They said it was an accident. Everyone did. The cops, the neighbors, and our friends. They all said we were just being kids, but I knew better. I knew what I’d done.
I killed him. I’d killed my brother, my twin brother.
You know, I know what I’ll look like when I die. How’s that for ghosts?”
The garage fell silent again.
For the first time since I’d met him, I understood the look in Smitty’s eyes. He was carrying a hell of a load on his shoulders, and like me, he’d be carrying it for the rest of his life. He dragged his hand over his face, then turned back to me.
“That afternoon, I didn’t just lose my brother.
I lost everything. My mom couldn’t even look at me.
She’d try, but every time she saw me, she saw him, too.
It was the same with Dad. He never said, but he didn’t have to.
I knew he thought it was my fault. Eventually, he just stopped looking at me altogether.
It was like I wasn’t even there. I took it for as long as I could, but once I turned eighteen, I left and never looked back. ”
He gave me a half-hearted shrug. “I spent a lotta years bouncing from place to place. Then, I found Fury. At first, I didn’t trust all this brotherhood shit.
Thought it was just something else I’d fuck up, but the guys never treated me like I was a fuck up…
like I was broken. And somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like I was just passing through and started feeling like home. ”
Smitty nodded again, like he was agreeing with his take on how things had played out. “I got a family again… at least, I will once I get that patch.”
“Don’t gotta have a patch for these boys to consider you family.”
“I know. That’s one of the reasons I stuck around.” His eyes met mine as he said, “This doesn’t change what happened. Doesn’t take the fault away or make it right again. But I don’t feel like my brother’s death defines me no more.”
His words hung in the air for several minutes, and then he cleared his throat once again. “There it is. It ain’t pretty, but now you know.”
“It’s a hell of a story, brother.”
“Like you said, we all have one.” He gave me a look, then added, “But mine’s not over yet, and neither is yours.”
“Yeah, I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”
“Then, maybe it’s time to start listening.” He held up his hands in surrender. “But then again, I’m just a prospect. I don’t know shit.”
He smiled, and without saying anything more, he turned and walked out of the garage, leaving me with a head full of thoughts I didn’t ask for.
But that’s how it worked in a club like Fury.
There was always a brother there to have your back, whether you asked for it or not.
I sat there for a moment longer, and then it hit me.
The rage I’d brought in here with me was gone and had been replaced by something I hadn’t had in years.
Hope.