Chapter Eighteen
Blaze
I’d grown up with Oak, so I was used to people stirring around four in the morning. ‘You could take the man out of the military, but you couldn’t take the military training out of the man,’ my mom always joked. Easy was no different. I stumbled down the hallway to find him cleaning his pistol at the kitchen table. His gaze lifted and he shot me a wink.
“Morning, nephew.” He nodded to the coffee pot in the corner, but I put a hand to my stomach and shook my head.
“I can’t drink that, I’ll be on the toilet all fuckin’ morning.”
He laughed and nodded in understanding, “There’s bottled water and juice in the fridge if you prefer.”
I helped myself to a bottle of water and swished before popping the front door open and spitting.
“Hot,” a voice called from the street.
I jerked upright, not having expected anyone. I shoved the door open and strained.
“Sounded like Marchella,” Easy mused.
I didn’t even have a shirt on yet. Easy’s jogging pants were hanging low on my hips and my feet were bare as I hurried across the yard, stubbing my toe on a brick when I neared the tree.
“Damn it,” I cried, grabbing my foot and hopping a step or two.
She laughed shamelessly.
“Are you fuckin’ drunk?”
“I am not!” I denied, coming out into the streetlight, finally.
She was wearing her work uniform, and her hair was piled in a messy bun on her head.
“Look at you,” I admired.
“Me?” She bugged her eyes before pointedly dropping her gaze down my abs. “I didn’t realize you had so much ink.”
I held out my arms so she could see the extent of my sleeves, they came up my shoulders and wrapped around each pec.
“There’s plenty of time to explore…”
She smiled and stepped into me, planting a kiss that I deepened as I pushed her against the car and nipped at her jaw.
“Blaze,” She stressed my name, digging her nails into my shoulder.
“Don’t do that, or we’ll really give Easy a show out here.” I laughed.
She slapped my shoulder and I let her go with a smile.
“I have to work,” she announced the obvious.
“Dayshift?”
She hitched her thumb toward the fence, and I realized for the first time there was some kind of facility on the other side.
“I got called in.” She sighed. “Looks like I’m on for a double.”
“A double,” I blurted out, without meaning to sound so disappointed.
“Yes. A double.” She shook her head and opened the door.
“Fine. I’ll have lunch.” I smacked her ass and started back toward the porch.
By the time I got back inside, Easy was putting the pistol in his waistband and returning his supplies to the lockbox.
“You carry?” he asked, without looking at me.
“W-why would I?” I stammered, causing him to slowly turn his head and fix his gaze on me.
“Because you’re Blaze Aviston. That might not mean anything in Georgia, but here it does.”
“I don’t own a gun.”
“Never mind.” He snatched a hold of the box and nudged my arm as I passed, “C’mon.”
“Where are we going? I ain’t even dressed…”
“Little cold for that shit, best get something you can ride in.” He suggested without breaking his pace.
I made a mad dash to the guest room and changed into some jeans and a shirt. I found a pair of socks and shoved my feet into my boots. I had no idea what he was up to, but something told me it was going to help me know my father a little more, or the life he loved.
Maybe that was what all this was about.
Was I just on some kind of soul-searching mission over the father I barely had time to know? I pushed those thoughts from my mind and marched toward the shed.
“You got a few miles worth of gas left in that thing?” Easy asked, before cranking his bike on and making sure the entire neighborhood heard his farewell.
I started mine up and answered him without a word.
He laughed and tore off, inviting me to race with him toward the stop sign.
“Where are we going?” I called toward him over the idling of the engines.
“To visit your old man,” he answered, before tearing off toward the highway. Rather than turn toward the Winehoppers, he went the other way. A few miles out, I saw the big Steel Cages sign.
“That’s where we were arrested.” I laughed, when Easy slowed and turned back toward town. A big hill led down to a cemetery and my stomach flipped. I thought he had meant somewhere my dad had enjoyed, not his grave.
The path into the cemetery was rocky, and I wasn’t all that sure of myself on the loose gravel, so I slowed much more than Easy. I caught up with him just as he was placing an empty beer bottle on top of a grave marked, Aviston. There were four bottles left in a package on the ground, and one in his hand. The grass in front of the littered stone was wet with spent beer.
“Abe ‘The Chef’ Aviston.” I read the tombstone he’d marked.
I’d never heard the name before. According to the headstone, the date he died was long before my time.
“Here.” Easy took the pistol out of his waistband and shoved it into my hand. “I’ll get the one in my box, once I get you set up for some practice.”
I glanced down at the gun he’d handed me and popped the safety off. My attention shifted to the splashing sound, and I watched as he poured the beer out on a second Aviston grave. When I read the name on it and realized what he meant to do, I didn’t wait for him to set the bottle down. I raised my gun and fired.
The bottle exploded in his hand, and Easy jerked backwards. He landed on his ass and scrambled back several paces.
“What the fuck–?” he roared, looking at me wide eyed.
“You’re not gonna use my fuckin’ dad’s grave as target practice, asshole.” I couldn’t keep my voice from raising in outrage, but it never occurred to me to raise the weapon. I didn’t mean him any harm; I was just insulted by his choice of location.
“Y– You said you didn’t own a gun.” His brow was halfway up his forehead.
“I don’t.” I shrugged.
“You just—” He exploded.
“I said I don’t own a gun, dumbass. I never said I hadn’t fired one before, get fucking real. My mom’s a cop and I was raised in Georgia, by a former marine. Of course, I can shoot a damn gun, Easy. If pulling a trigger required talent or brain cells the world would be a wildly different place, now, wouldn’t it?”
His broken snort gave way to a round of laughter that left him half limp on his elbows with his head dropped back. When he composed himself, he was all smiles. “You sound just like him. I swear you do, sometimes. I don’t know how it’s possible. I didn’t mean any disrespect, Blaze. In truth– There is none. Your father isn't there. It’s just a memorial type thing. It made Aunt Daisy feel better to have somewhere to come pray for him, but– there wasn’t anything to recover from that explosion, bud. There’s nothing here to disrespect. The only reason I like it, is I feel like he’s here with me when I shoot. He and I used to come here and use our father’s headstone as a holder for the bottles when we practiced.”
I glanced back toward the headstone he’d set the first bottle on.
“That’s–”
“Your grandfather,” He confirmed.
I looked back at the stone a moment before asking, “Your dad was a cook or something?”
Easy collapsed back again, his laughter turning dark and throaty while he covered his face with his hands and rubbed ever so slowly. “No,” he managed, through his tears and snorts.
I stood there dumbfounded.
“You don’t know anything about them? My parents?” he asked once he sobered.
I shook my head, and he rocked to his feet and started toward me and the headstone. He jerked his gun out of my hand when he passed and tucked it back into his waistband. He took two beers from the box and handed me one.
“It’s like five in the fucking morn–” I started.
“Drink,” Easy insisted.
He stared until I twisted the tab and did as he instructed. He opened his and swigged before stepping around the tree that separated his father’s headstone from the next one. I followed him, only to find another Aviston marker.
“Darla Robbins Aviston,” I read before piecing together Aunt Daisy’s last name and my father’s last name. “That’s your mother, Aunt Daisy’s sister.”
“Your grandmother,” he agreed.
I did a slow calculation of her birthday and date of death. It wasn’t lost on me that my grandparents died on the same day.
“She was only thirty-two.”
He nodded and followed me back to my grandfather’s grave.
“He was thirty-six.”
My gaze darted to my father’s and Easy grunted, “He didn’t get that long. Ant was twenty-nine.”
My mouth went dry as I took all of that in. What did it even mean? Why were they so damn young? I knew my father died in the war with the mob, but my grandparents?
“They were all young. What did she die from?” I heaved a thumb back at his mother’s grave and tried to recall the name on the stone, “Grandma Darla?”
“He killed her.” He hitched a thumb at his father’s headstone, and I fumbled with my beer.
“Not like that,” Easy fanned the air. “He prided himself on his ability to cook meth. He was good at it, according to Montana and Mark, the older brothers– but not good enough. I was ten years old when he fucked up his batch and blew up our trailer. Your dad was spending the night at Mak Miller’s house.”
“Where were you?” I whispered, captivated by the tale.
He grunted, his lips tipping up on one side in an unamused smile, “In my bed.”
I set the beer down on the Chef's headstone.
“Your mom?”
“Was in her bed, fast asleep… oblivious to his doings. She was a battered woman and used to keeping her head down by that point. I woke up to the sound of the explosion, and half the trailer was immediately engulfed in flames. The firefighters barely got me out.”
He slowly moved to an empty space on the opposite side of my father’s grave.
“Can you blame your mother for not wanting you to end up—?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snapped, before he could finish his speech.
He sobered at once and started toward me.
“I don’t even know my past. It’s stupid. Okay, our people make bad decisions. Don’t do drugs, got it. I’m a little old for the D.A.R.E. bullshit, don’t ya think?”
Easy laughed, “You know, Mayhem once told his kindergarten teacher that his daddy smoked trees. I refused permission for my child to hear any part of that stuff. I already knew it was game over if someone gave that boy a soap box in that arena. He loved an audience. Shit, he still does.”
I rolled my eyes, and he nudged me with his arm and cocked his head, inviting me deeper into the cemetery.
We crossed a few rows, and he paused next to a stone that read Briggs. His hand landed on the stone, and he was silent a moment before moving to one that read Miller.
“This is Marchella’s mom, Sasha Miller, she was Makaveli’s first wife.”
The date of death was only days before my father’s.
“The one back there was her grandmother, Trista and Mak’s mom, Janice Briggs. She wasn’t even one of us. She had been divorced from Mark for years. She took Trista away from him, married a dentist and started a much different life, but the mob still killed her to make a point. It was a simultaneous hit. They killed Janice in front of Aunt Daisy’s hair salon and opened fire on the clubhouse killing Sasha.” He gravitated over another row and paused, placing a hand on a grave that said O’Brian, “Oak’s brother, Big Vick was the best enforcer the Disciples ever had. He was standing guard on our president, Mark Miller during the funeral of his wife, Sophia Valentino Miller.”
Easy walked to a grave near the front and paused again.
“The Valentino mob was furious over her death. They came to the funeral and opened fire moments after the attack on the clubhouse. I was in pursuit on my bike, I got to the top of the hill just in time to see Big Vick fall.” Easy’s voice had turned haunted again.
“Mark Miller survived?”
“He did. He begged me to find his daughter, Trista, before the mob did.”
“And you did.” I knew how that story had ended; she was waiting on us back at the house.
He nodded. “I sure did.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, before clearing my throat.
“Anytime, nephew.” He winked, and we walked back to the bikes.
When we reached them, he opened his travel bag and pulled out the lockbox. After playing with the dial, it popped open, and he handed me a pistol and a clip.
“Keep that shit on you, alright…” He stared at me until I nodded.
I gave the place one more look around and was about to get back on my bike, when a thought occurred to me.
“Wait. I want to see Aunt Joplin.”
“What?” Easy made an amused, throaty sound.
I stared at him, put off a little by his humor. “My aunt. You know… the one whose body I found.”
We had a stare down that lasted for a few seconds before he turned toward his bike and mounted it.
“Easy–” I called.
“Put that piece up, before someone sees it,” He instructed.
I hid the gun in the stash spot, waved my empty hands at him and rounded the bike, refusing to mount.
“Look, if you don’t want to see it, I get it. I mean, I don’t but– Whatever. Just– which direction do I look?” I glanced back at the cemetery.
When he didn’t answer I glanced back at him, and he was staring at me with the oddest expression subtly weighing on his features.
“Crystal told you her sister was dead?” he rumbled, flinching even as he said it.
“Tell me? She boosted me through the fucking window, and I found her. She committed suicide when I was a kid, Easy. I’m the one who found her body.”
Easy shook his head, a bewildered smile on his lips.
“Joplin Nance–” His expression abruptly flattened, and he paused before correcting, “Joplin Valentino isn’t dead.”
I mimicked his expression without meaning to.
“Valentino— Like— ” I turned toward the Valentino grave that had started the mob war.
“Yeah. Them bastards.” He grunted.
“How–? Why would she be a Valentino, when my mother killed Demetri Valentino?”
He slowly nodded, before slowly turning toward me again “She really—”
He shut up and nodded, “Right. Never mind. Let’s get back.”
I had more questions than I started with, but Easy fired that bike up and put it on the road before I could aim anymore of them his way.