Chapter Sixteen
Hunter
“How much is the pay?”
Those are the first words out of my mouth once I meet Havoc and Mayhem at the clubhouse and then follow them to the job site, which is actually an old farmhouse — complete with a big barn — on the outskirts of Ironwood Falls. The fields are fallow, overgrown, and the only crops on the entire compound are the hunks of steel, sheet metal, and the skeletons of past creations that spring from the earth.
I know it’s not the best idea to ask about the money up front, especially when it’s more important to me I get in the good graces of these two so they can speak up for me with the MC, but I have a kid at home, and kids take money; I can live rough and homeless for a long damn time, but a baby is not suited to sleeping under the stars.
Plus, I have a babysitter to pay. Emily seemed excited as hell when she came by watch Charlie, like she’s craving some sense of normalcy, that, or she’s just flat-out in love with Charlie — which wouldn’t shock me, every day I spend around the kid, I realize he’s going to grow up to be a handsome guy — but I refuse to let her work without pay. I couldn’t do any of this without her. She deserves to be compensated.
“Five hundred, maybe a thousand,” Havoc says, running his hand along his shaved head.
“Depends on the job,” Mayhem adds. “This whole thing is like art. You conceive, you create, you mold, you birth, you destroy, and what’s left at the end… that’ll decide.”
“Five hundred or a thousand, huh?” I say. “Let me show you something. You guys have your welding equipment ready?”
“It’s in the barn. Follow me,” Havoc says.
The two of them lead me into the barn, which, on the inside, looks like something out of a steampunk mushroom trip; there’s equipment I recognize, equipment I’ve never even imagined, and equipment I know shouldn’t exist, all around the space, set out on tables, sprawled on the floor, and even hanging from chains suspended from the ceiling. I feel like I’ve stepped into Willy Wonka’s workshop after he’s had a midlife crisis .
“Holy fuck,” I mutter.
“Welding equipment is over next to the thing with spikes on it that looks like a giant man in a diving helmet. We call him Trundle the Great,” Havoc says.
“Really, he named himself. That was a wild night, wasn’t it, brother?” Mayhem says.
Havoc nods. “My scars still hurt.”
“Lot of blood, yeah,” Mayhem laughs. “Sometimes I think we need to help him find his queen. Trundle shouldn’t be alone.”
“No, he shouldn’t.”
“I’m going to go weld, now,” I say. I ask no more questions because I’m not sure if I could handle the answers. Once I’m ensconced in the safety gear and holding a torch in hand, life feels a little more secure. Then I grab several pieces of metallic scrap and perform several welds, and the pieces, once finished, I set up in a line. Mayhem and Havoc both come over once the welding is finished.
“What’s this?” Havoc says, gesturing to one of the welded pieces. “It looks sloppy.”
“And this one looks smooth as a baby’s ass,” Mayhem says.
“I wanted to show you two what you can buy. That first one is a five-hundred-dollar welding job. It’ll hold, because I know what I’m doing and I’m not a piece of shit, but it’ll be ugly, and every time you look at it, you’ll hate yourself for cheaping out. That smooth one is a thousand-dollar welding job. It’s durable, elegant, and fucking pretty. I like welding those, and I know you’ll both like them, too.”
“So it’s just economics with you? Not art?” Mayhem says. He almost sounds disappointed.
“Where’s your sense of fun? Of wonder?” Havoc adds.
“I got a fucking kid, man,” I say. “A fucking little baby. Look, I love welding shit, I love putting guns on shit, and, if you want explosions, oh fuck, count me in. Except those don’t pay the bills. Those don’t buy his diapers, those don’t pay for doctor’s visits, those don’t even cover the babysitter. I want to work with you guys. I want to be a part of the MC. But there are bigger things I have to worry about.”
“Bigger than Trundle?”
I look at the monstrous man of spikes and steel. “He’s four months old and his name is Charlie. To me, he’s bigger than the world.”
“He must be huge,” Mayhem whispers.
“Fifteen pounds,” I say.
“Oh, cute lil’ guy,” Havoc says. There’s a pause and he and Mayhem exchange a long glance. Then each of them nod, as if some psychic twin conversation has taken place and a decision reached. “Listen, we understand your concerns, and we want to create something really incredible here, so we’ll take the thousand-dollar welding job. Is cash up front OK?”
“Cash’ll be fine.”
* * * * *
Hours later, the abomination only a quarter built, a mess of metal and maniacal contraptions that make me shudder somewhere deep in my soul every time I look at it, and, with every weld I make, my sense of dread grows, when suddenly Havoc taps me on the shoulder just as I’m setting up for another weld.
I pull off the safety glasses and look at him. There’s concern on his face, which only adds to my growing sense of unease, because Havoc is not the type to show concern, or anything other than demented enthusiasm for building things that god or nature would give a wide berth. “What is it?”
“We need to stop.”
“Stop?” My arms and shoulders ache, I’m caked in dirty and sweat, my stomach rumbles at me and I realize I haven’t eaten all day. The sun’s falling in the sky and the entire course of its trek through the sky. I’ve been absorbed in birthing this crea tion of chrome. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. No more welding, no more building, no more making. It needs to stop.”
I frown. “I was just about to weld the chainsaws on. Then the spikes on the wheels. Are you not happy with the quality of my welding? Because, I can tell you, I know what I’m doing. These welds will hold, no matter how hard you push the motors, no matter what you fucking shoot at it or crash it into, they will hold.”
“It’s not that, Hunter,” Mayhem says, walking towards us while he cleans his hands of oil and blood with a chamois cloth.
I turn to go back to my welding. I’ve put too much time and effort into this thing to stop. But Havoc puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “You need to stop. We all need to stop. Put the gear down and back away.”
“But why?” There’s a strange tone in my voice that I don’t recognize. It’s fanaticism. I’ve spent so much time around Havoc and Mayhem that whatever lunacy they have has infected me. I don’t just want to finish creating this thing, I need it down to the depths of my soul. “Why are we stopping when we’re getting so close?”
Even now, I’m drawn back to my equipment. Something about the thing we’re creating is calling to the deepest parts of me. I need to see this through.
But Havoc tightens his grip on my shoulder, and Mayhem does so as well. Gentle but relentless, they pull me away from the equipment.
Still, I fight. “I have to return to my work. It needs to be made. Can’t you see that?”
They pull and I struggle and they pull so more.
“Let me go,” I snarl, shrugging them off and turning. I can see it, now, I’ll finish this thing by myself. It will be made and it will be beautiful and terrible.
Then Mayhem slaps me.
“Get ahold of yourself, man,” he shouts.
“You don’t understand. I have to—”
Havoc punches me. Not hard, but enough to stun and snap my head back and sense into me. “Let it go, Hunter. It’s over.”
The punch turns into a hug, and then Mayhem joins it. I’m shaking. The call to return to work irresistible.
“Think of what’s important. Think about Charlie,” Havoc says.
I shake my head clear. The call fades. The space those thoughts leave behind get filled with thoughts of Charlie. Of the life I need to build for him. And about someone else, too. Someone who makes all this possible, even though they don’t know how integral they are.
“It’s done. It’s finished. No more,” Mayhem says. “This thing can never see the light of day.”
Mayhem pulls me away from the creation, while Havoc goes to a locked chest the keep in the corner, opens it, and begins removing what looks like explosives. He straps these to the thing we’ve built, while Mayhem takes me outside. Moments later, Havoc joins us, and moments after that, there’s a bone-shaking roar and the sound of metal crashing against metal.
When the rumbling stops, and silence fills the air, I look at Mayhem. “Why?”
“Because we were so preoccupied with whether we could, we never stopped to think if we should,” he says.
“It was going to be too perfect, too… wrong,” Havoc says.
“You’re still going to get paid,” Mayhem says. “The full thousand.”
That snaps me back to myself. “I will?”
“Of course. Your work was flawless. And I know that, if we had kept building, the thing we would have built together would have worked like a dream. Or a dream of a nightmare.”
Havoc nods. “It would have. A stunning nightmare. I’ve never seen someone weld so well.”
“We’ve got the cash here. After a day like today, take it back to your family, put some of it aside for Charlie, and then spend a little on yourself. Have a good time. Get all of this out of your system and enjoy yourself with the people who matter most.”
“We’ll put in a word with Rabid, too.”
Not long after, I’m sitting astride my bike with a thick wad of bills in my pocket and one goal on my mind: spending this cash on the people that matter.
And I know exactly who I’m going to spend it on .