Chapter 8
Humbug
We stand there, the bike between us, an altar to all our worst prayers. Trina looks at me a long time, and for once there’s something like pity in it. “On Christmas, Jack? … How can you do this to me… She’s young?” she says like someone told her. “She’ll learn.”
Of course, someone told her. “Learn what?”
“That bikers like you don’t change. But you do get old. You burn hot, but then you burn out.”
Trina’s not going to guilt me into coming home to her this time. “Young? Who? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Go ahead and play dumb.” She tucks the paper back in her pocket, zips the parka, smears the red of her mouth with her thumb until it looks like blood. “If you’re not coming home, I’ll have my sister bring the rest of your shit. Don’t break your hand punching the walls to impress yourself.”
“I don’t punch walls,” I say.
“No,” she says from the doorway. “You punch mirrors.”
Trina has a whole bag of tricks. Hurtful reminders are her weapons. “Only when I catch my wife in bed with Santa... On Christmas.”
“How long you gonna sulk on that. Poor Humbug. Get over it. Come home. After all the women you were with… You can’t forgive me? I was drunk. The office Christmas party’s to blame. Just like you blaming the parties here at the clubhouse all those times.”
“Before. All the women I was with was before you became my Ol’ Lady.”
“I’m still your Ol’ Lady, Jack. You were never home at Christmas... I was lonely.”
“You knew I hated Christmas. I’m fucking, Humbug, for God’s sake… Shouldn’t be an excuse for my Ol’ Lady to turn whore. You’ve made me nothin’ but a joke in this club.”
She crosses her arms. “So, it’s about them. It’s always about your brothers.”
“No, look, I’m not doing this today. Fucking leave, Trina, before I throw your ass out.”
The door swings shut, and the silence after feels final. I stare at my reflection in the chromed primary cover. I’m the one asking for a divorce. The word tastes like copper. A mouth full of blood. I should feel relief. But I feel flayed.
I put my head down and find something broken I can fix that isn’t me.
In the afternoon, I’m back at the clubhouse, and it’s just coming to life around me. The coffee pot chirping, someone cussing about a dead battery, the jukebox hiccupping awake to a Waylon song.
All the losers who aren’t home on Christmas turn their heads when I walk in. I ignore them, pour black coffee, kill it, pour another.
Although, I know she’s gone, I check my room anyway. If Carol hadn’t split, Trina would’ve dragged the girl to me by her peppermint scented hair.
Rednose sidles up, big grin, bad timing. “So, hero,” he says, bumping my shoulder like we’re friends. “That little bartender as pretty up close as she is from the security footage?”
I turn my head slow. “What footage?”
He blinks. “Sheriff’s got some. Posted it.” He winks. “Big eyes, pouty lips. Makes a man wanna unzip…”
“Stop talking,” I growl.
Rednose laughs until he realizes I’m not. He lifts both hands. “Easy, brother. Respect.”
“Then show some.” I set the mug down, too hard. Coffee trembles like a threat. “You go near that bar, you keep your hands to yourself.”
Frost’s at the far table, watching. Brother always has my back.
“Everyone’s sayin’ she clocked a brother with an ashtray,” Rednose adds. “Feisty. Bet she puts up a good fight.”
I move before I think. Not far. Just a step that steals his thunder. “One more word about her, and I’ll help you remember how to chew.”
He swallows, some of the stupid leaving his face. “Copy.” He backs away, palms up, grin gone. The room exhales. Frost meets my eye and the corner of his mouth twitches, not a smile. Approval. Warning.
I'm not sticking around to be the main attraction.
I take my coffee to the side door, the one that opens to a narrow strip of world, chain-link fence, snowdrifts, trees bowed under white.
My bike waits under a tarp like a promise I ain’t sure I can keep. I need air. Motion. Noise I own. I pull my cut over the flannel, slip my arms in my jacket, snap the collar up.
Tarp off, leg over, I hit the starter button. The engine bucks to life with that first angry thunder that shakes everything back into place. I roll out past the guard shack. The kid on watch gives a salute. I pretend not to see it.
Evervale is a postcard someone dropped in the gutter. Lights still twinkle, snow still glows, but it is melting fast. Tracks are messy. Magic smudged.
Real Christmas means the doors are locked and the elves that run this town have the day off.
I idle down Main, past the square where the spruce is all dressed up. A mother drags a kid in a red snowsuit across the crosswalk. He points at my bike like I’m a parade float and waves.
I don’t wave back. I ain’t in the mood to lie to children.
Sno-Globes sits half-shoveled, a crust of police tape sagging across the door like tinsel after a fight. A paper sign in the window says CLOSED FOR CLEANUP, BACK SOON! with a damn smiley face.
I don’t stop. I already took enough from that room.
I travel a long route to the town's border, where houses shrink.
Hard blue sky is above white fields. I shiver as the cold cuts right through me.
Passing the church, I figure the choir is probably warming up a carol that used to make me itch.
I pass the sledding hill, seeing a thermos shining in the snow like a spent shell.
Finally, I turn onto a side street where the plows gave up after one try. Carol’s building is brick and stubborn. Three stone steps. A door the color of her mouth.
I don’t park by her boyfriend’s sports car. I roll by in first gear, engine low, like a wolf keeping to the tree line. It is not stalking if I don’t stop, I tell myself. It is not anything if no one sees.
There’s a light in the second window. A shadow moves. Woman-sized. Big busted woman sized.
Could be her. Could be anyone.
But I picture her hair twisted up in a towel, the curve of her neck, and the mark I left there.
I keep going.
Two blocks later I pull over anyway. Boots crunch. Breath shoots the cold. I rest both hands on the bars while the motor ticks its heat away.
I want to drop the stand, climb those steps, knock until my knuckles split. Tell her boyfriend to take a hike. I want to make the same mistake again and call it destiny. I want to see if that humming sounds the same in daylight.
I don’t move.
Instead, I see Trina’s face, the way she said she might finally sign the papers. I see my brothers’ faces. How fast respect turns mean when a man starts looking too soft. Suddenly, I remember why I could never forgive Trina back when it might’ve mattered.
And I see Carol’s hand on the clubhouse window last night, her fingertips on the foggy glass, humming that song like hope’s something we can hold. The want for something new is a live wire. The shame for quitting too easy is a leash. I let both bite.
I toe back onto the street and roll the throttle open until the sled tracks blur. Wind drills through the jacket, finds every crack in me that winter didn’t make. I ride the ridge road where the pines crowd close and the snow cuts sideways in silver sheets.
People come to Evervale chasing picture perfect joy. I come out here for the opposite. To remember the world kills every pretty thing and calls it just the weather.
When I loop back toward the compound, the prospect at the gate salutes again.
This time I lift two fingers. He looks relieved.
The clubhouse hums with the kind of busy that covers sins.
I kill the engine, sit for a minute, stare at the smear of old blood on my hand. I should clean it. I will. Later.
I hang my jacket on the same hook as always and walk into the noise like a man wading into confession.
I convince myself I won’t go back to Carol’s door.
I convince myself it’s because I still have a wife until a judge makes it final.
And Executioner’s by laws say we need to shit or get off the pot.
If I don’t want my Ol’ Lady, I need to give her up.
Because respect for the patch still counts for something, even in a sinner’s world. Truth is smaller and meaner. I am scared. Not of Trina. Not of the club. I’m scared of that humming getting into my bones and making a liar out of everything I ever believed about men like me.
Frost looks up from a parts magazine when I reappear.
“Good ride?” he asks.
“Cold,” I say.
He studies my face and nods. “Cold’s honest.”
“Yeah.” I pick up a rag, work at the crusted blood, the skin underneath pink and raw. “So am I.”
He grunts. “We’ll see.”
I scrub until it burns, toss the rag in the bin, and hear the jukebox flip to some old hymn pretending to be country.
I don’t look at my phone. I don’t look at the door.
Outside, the snow minds its own business. In town, the lights will come on again and fool the tourists into believing. Somewhere under that brick roof, Carol is having herself a perfect Christmas with her boyfriend.
I think about her anyway.
And in my head, even though I hate it, I hear her hum.