Chapter Eighteen
Archer
H ARDCASE AND I both showed up at six-thirty a.m. on the dot.
It was as if we were playing a game of ‘punctuality chicken.’ I was riding my Fat Boy today and Hardcase pulled up on an Indian Scout Sixty that I’d never seen him ride before.
It looked to me like he was in the middle of restoring it, but even in its current condition, it was a sweet ride.
Hardcase took off his helmet, and I gave him the smallest of chin lifts. He nodded back and climbed off his bike.
“Mornin’ dickhead,” I said .
“Same to ya, nepo-biker,” he replied.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Yeah, right. Like being the kid of the club’s VP doesn’t come with perks.”
“I’m here now, same as you.”
“The high from Saturday night’s tickertape parade worn off already, eh golden boy?”
“You forget about Hatch reading us the riot act? Ordering us to be here, now?”
“Hatch went easy on both of us,” Hardcase said. “He could have sent me packing just for fighting with a member.”
“You didn’t fight. I hit you and you hit the floor.”
“I was smart enough not to retaliate.”
Hardcase then produced two cups of coffee and a white paper bag from a pink cardboard box that was strapped to the back of his seat.
“I brought coffee and donuts,” he said casually. “As kind of a peace offering or whatever.”
“You fuckin’ asshole,” I shot back.
“What the fuck did I do now?”
“You played the ‘Bigger Man’ card, and right off the fuckin’ bat too.”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t mean I like you or anything. Just that I’m sorry for being a prick the other night. I can be mouthy sometimes but I’m guessing you know a thing or two about that yourself.”
I shrugged then nodded. “How’s your jaw?”
“It fuckin’ hurts,” Hardcase replied. “You swat pretty good.”
“Benefits of growing up in a club. There was always someone bigger than you to scrap with, including my brother. Makes you tough. I didn’t have it as easy as you think growing up.”
“You fight a lot?”
“When I was younger. Not so much these days.”
“You coulda fooled me,” he replied, stroking his jaw.
“You struck a nerve,” I said.
“I made a wisecrack about your woman. That’s every man’s nerve.”
I nodded. “That’s true, but the woman I was defending didn’t much appreciate how I was defending her any more than you did, so I fucked the whole thing up in the end anyway.”
“You didn’t like me from the jump, though. Why’s that? Because I was a Spider?” he asked.
“That’s part of it. I mean, you gotta see things from my perspective.
The Spiders and the Dogs have been at each other’s throats for as long as I can remember.
Then, the moment Hatch shuts down your club, he brings a handful of you into the fold.
I don’t get it and I’m still not sure why Hatch decided to do that? ”
“You don’t trust your president?”
“I trust him one hundred percent which is why I’ve never questioned him about his decision. But I’m still puzzled by it.”
“You think having us patch over makes the Dogs vulnerable to an ex-Spider’s insurgence.”
“That’s exactly what I think,” I replied.
Hardcase smiled a sly grin, as if he knew a secret, but before I could ask what it was, the roofing crew showed up .
The next nine hours were brutal. Hatch had clearly given the job foreman the directive to put me and Hardcase on any and all grunt work.
We spent most of the day scraping the old tar and gravel from the roof and hauling it down to the bin and when we weren’t busy doing that, we were doing something even worse.
To add to the brutality of the day, the Portland metro area reached unseasonably record highs in temperature, which made us feel as though we were retarring the surface of the sun.
By lunchtime neither me nor Hardcase had any fight left in us.
Hatch’s evil plan worked. Admittedly, Hardcase’s olive branch of caffeine, sugar, and trans fats helped too. Now it was my turn.
“That’s a nice Scout,” I said motioning to his bike.
The two of us ate our lunch sitting underneath the Big Ernie’s sign, one of the few shady spots available to us under the mid-day sun. Normally we’d just go inside, but comfort of any kind was off limits to us today.
“Thanks. I’m almost ready to strip her down to be repainted.”
“What color?”
“Silver sparkle and candy apple red. With three six-pointed stars on each side of the gas tank.”
“Like the Masked Marauder’s bike,” I replied casually.
“Holy shit, you’ve read the Phantom Battle comics?”
I nodded. “I have a complete first print set.”
“Fuck you. You do not. ”
“Signed by Bill Skanlyn,” I added.
“No fuckin’ way. Did you get to meet him?”
“My parents took us to the Portland Comic Con every year.”
Hardcase took a bite of his sandwich and grinned. “See, nepo-biker,” he said, through a full mouth.
“Anyway, the year I turned twelve years old, Bill was there. So, I paid my twenty bucks, stood in line for forty-five minutes, and at the end of line was Bill Skanlyn himself. I remember I was wearing torn jeans, a Champion T-shirt, and my denim cut. He asked who I was cosplaying as. I told him that I was a biker and this was what I wore all the time. He seemed to get a big kick out of that. I’m not even sure he believed me. ”
Hardcase laughed. “Dude, I probably would have shit my pants if I met Bill Skanlyn in person. The fuckin’ Masked Marauder is the reason I got into bikes as a kid.”
“I heard they’re making a Phantom Battle movie,” I said.
“Oh, shit. No,” Hardcase replied.
“Yup. Damon is playing Sir Scabbard, that skinny kid who was in that talking cow movie is playing The Red Scarf and Melody Morgan has been cast as Dr. Holly Fountain.”
“Holy Shit. She’s married to a Dog, right?”
I nodded. “Train. They’re both in New York right now working on her next album. Then she’s flying to Rome to work on the movie. She’s the one who told me about it because she knows what a huge fan I am. ”
“Who’s playing the Masked Marauder?” Hardcase asked, looking panic stricken. “Please don’t tell me it’s one of the Chris’s.”
I smiled. “I’ll let that be a surprise for you. I’ve probably said too much already.”
“Oh, that’s cold, Bagger. Now I really don’t like you,” Hardcase replied.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Fire away,” Hardcase said.
“What made you take up Hatch’s invitation to prospect for the Dogs?”
“You mean why didn’t I tell the guy who burned down my life to go fuck himself?”
“Yeah, that.”
“To be honest, I didn’t really love that life.
I mean, I love being in a club. Living as a free man.
But most of all, I love to ride. And to ride means to ride with someone.
I’d known Hendo for a few years before he recommended me for membership.
The Spiders took me in and before I knew it, I was knee deep in Spider shit.
Too thick to get out of, and impossible to fuckin’ wash off. ”
“Sounds like Hatch did you a favor by icing Warlock.”
“You bet your fuckin’ ass he did. We would have all ended up dead or in jail with Warlock at the helm. Your Prez showed me mercy and I accepted it.”
I extended my hand and Hardcase shook it.
“Welcome to your new crew,” I said.
The foreman called us back to work and we finished out the day strong. Apparently, we did such a good job that the crew only had two hours of follow- up work to do the following day, which Hatch excused us from for saving him some money in labor costs.
It’s funny to think back on a time when Case and I didn’t get along as he’s now one of my best friends. I could tell you about some of the crazy shit we’ve gotten into over the years, but that’s another story, entirely.
* * *
Echo
Thursday afternoon, Archer picked me up at four. He said he had a surprise for me before we headed to Floyd’s for dinner.
“Babe, it’s me,” he called out as I heard the beep of my alarm.
“Kitchen,” I called back.
“I brought the cooler,” he said, setting it on my dinette table.
“That’s huge,” I said, peering into it.
“You said you’d baked three pies, honey, so it was either this, or the mini one, which wouldn’t fit shit.”
“Thank you.” I smiled, standing on my tiptoes to kiss him. “This is great.”
“You’re welcome.” He slid a small jewelry box out of his cut pocket and handed it to me.
“What’s this?”
“Open it.”
I raised an eyebrow as I pried open the lid and then let out a quiet gasp. “Archer, this is gorgeous. ”
Nestled in the blue velvet was a silver chain with a peacock pendant attached, its plumage made up of blue, green, and white diamonds.
I’d never seen anything more beautiful.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“I love it.” I slid it gently out of the box. “Will you put it on me, please?”
“It serves two purposes,” he explained, as he secured the clasp.
“How does a necklace serve a purpose other than being pretty?” I challenged.
“That’s its first purpose,” he said, turning me to face him. “Its second is as a panic button.”
“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up type panic button?”
“Sort of.” He smiled. “If you’re ever somewhere and you feel uncomfortable, unsafe, unsure of your surroundings, you press the peacock and I will be alerted. As will Dad, Hatch, Mom, and the central hub at the club. It will tell us exactly where you are, and we will come and find you.”
I frowned. “Alerted, how?”
“In the form of a big, loud alarm that will tell us you’re in fuckin’ trouble, so don’t press it unless you’re in real fuckin’ trouble,” he warned.
I gave him a sassy smile. “Like, if someone came through my unlocked door and took me?”
“Don’t even joke about that,” he hissed. “But yes.”
“Okay, sorry.”
“And don’t tell anyone about this,” he said. “All the old ladies in the club wear some kind of jewelry that has a GPS tracker on them. The guys do too. ”
“Do you have one?”
He nodded and held up his right hand. He’d always worn a silver bulldog ring on his middle finger, and although I thought it was cool, I didn’t think anything past that.
“Your GPS is in your ring?”
“Yeah. A few of us have rings. My brother has a chain.”