hydroponic crap, grown in plastic tomato tunnels by piggy-eyed geeks.”
From the next table over, I caught Lump’s voice. Lump was short, but big and round. He always claimed he was all paratrooper muscle , although I couldn’t see what kinds of exercise would build that much stomach and ass muscle.
Even for a biker, Lump was, to say the least, insensitive, and he was holding court with Chiz, big, bald and bulging, and Mo. Stoned, bearded Mo. Maybe Lump was making a show for them. The older and more senior bikers, they often get around a couple of drinks and they love to be giving out their wisdom and instruction to whoever will listen.
Lump was the only charter member apart from Bogart who wasn’t dead or in jail. Not counting Butcher, of course. The rasp of Lump’s voice sawed through the air, “Damnit, man, their English. I can’t hardly understand a word they say,”
Chiz joined in, “Even their names, man. ‘Trols,’ ‘Bent,’ what the fuck?” then their voices were rising,
“What about ‘Snori’?”
Chiz said, “‘Trols,’ man, I mean, really, ‘Trols’?”
If I could hear it well enough, then so could Jurgen and Bent. I was thinking about shifting location when I saw that Cox and Hacker were already looking to move, too. We all got up, just as Jurgen and Bent were moving to the next table.
Lump was saying, “Man, whoever heard of an angel called ‘Bent’?”
Jurgen was standing behind Lump’s chair. “What was that, brother?”
Lump didn’t look around but he wiggled a finger in his ear as he said, “Some kind of a noise, but I can’t make out if it’s words or not.”
Beanie and Cap laughed. Bent broke a chair across Lump’s back and asked quietly, “Can you hear any better now?” Lump stood up slowly and turned.
“Yeah, I know what that meant,” he said, swinging a Jack Daniels bottle at Bent. The two prospects were out of their chairs. From the far side of the room, Snori and Trols couldn’t get their dicks out of that little redhead fast enough, and they were bustling across the room and trying to shove their cocks back in their pants at the same time.
Hacker and Cox and I were over by the wall, and the two men started back towards the growing eruption of chair legs and fists. Bogart was headed our way and he held a hand up to them. “Let everybody have a good time. Don’t step in unless somebody is really going to get hurt.”
Hacker and Cox both looked the way that a puppy looks if you take his smelly rubber toy away. Bogart said, “Burden of responsibility, boys. The Kaos Anarki MC are our honored guests, and we’re management.”
Cox took me into the far corner. I thought it was an odd moment to get romantic, but I was OK with it. He held my chin with his thumb and forefinger. Feeling him close, my breasts pressed against his shirt.
He said, “Nikka, I told the Norwegians that you were my old lady to save you being passed around.” My face must have fallen, I must have looked very disappointed when he told me that, but Cox misunderstood the reason for it.
His eyes flashed and I knew right away that he’d misread me. I touched his arm, but he shrugged my hand away. His voice was hard, “If you wanted to be passed around, then I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spoil your party.”
I reached for his arm again and I was starting to speak, “Cox no, I...” but he was gone.
I was alone in a room full of fighting bikers and miserable as mud in the rain. Daddy used to say that and I never knew what it meant. Not until now, now I think I got it.
I took a shot of bourbon and a spliff outside, sat on the stoop. Listened to the noise, watched the clouds over the moon. I never took anything seriously my whole life. Not until I met Cox. Could that stupid misunderstanding really be enough to fuck our beautiful thing up so bad?
As the noise inside the clubhouse changed in pitch, it sounded as though the fight was moving into a bro-hug phase. Snori and