CRASH: An Evil Dead MC Story (The Outlaw Series) (55 page)

Crash looked over at Cole who shrugged. “Whatever you want to do,
brother. We don’t have to be at the clubhouse for a few hours yet.”

Crash turned back to Ace with a smile. “That’d be great.”

“You two in town for a reason or did you just ride twenty-three hundred
miles just to see little ol’ me?” Letty batted her eyes and tossed her head
flirtatiously.

 
“In town for a funeral.” Crash’s
eyes moved from Ace to Letty. “You remember Bulldog?”

Her voice got soft as she dropped the flirtatious pose. “Oh, no, it’s
not Bulldog’s funeral, is it?”

Crash nodded. “Cancer sticks finally got him. He’s been battling lung
cancer the past year.”

“I’m so sorry. I always liked him. He was kind of like the uncle we
never had.”

“Yeah. He was a good soul. Saved me and Cole when we were stupid punks
who thought we knew it all and were determined to fuck our own lives up.”

“He’s the one that got you in the club, isn’t he?” Letty asked.

“Yeah. Found me and your brother down in Southside. Back then it was a
drugee’s paradise, and we’d fallen in with the wrong crowd,” Cole explained.

“When’s the funeral?”

“Tomorrow. The clubhouse is having a party tonight. Kind of our version
of a wake. You should come,” Cole invited.

Letty smiled. “I haven’t seen any of those guys since you both moved out
to California. It
would
be fun to
catch up.”

“Yeah. I remember you and Skylar used to love coming to the Dead parties.”
Cole smiled.

“When my big brother would let us.” Letty stuck her tongue out at Crash,
teasingly.

“How
is
Skylar? You two were
always like two peas in a pod,” Crash asked.

“Funny you should ask. She just got back in town. She took off not long
after you two left for Cali.”

“Took off? Where to?”

Letty shrugged. “I lost touch with her for a while. But, it’s good to
have her back. We were supposed to go out for a drink tonight. Catch up.”

“Hell, invite her along. It’ll be good to see her. She was always like
the kid sister I never had,” Cole said tugging on one of Letty’s dreads with a
teasing grin.

“You don’t know how lucky you were, Cole. Kid sisters can be a pain in
the ass,” Crash advised him with a wink at Letty.

“You love me, and you know it.”

“Yeah, but you were still a pain in the ass. Always wanting to
tag-a-long. Shit, I remember being scared to death you’d end up some brother’s
ol’ lady.”

Letty’s hands landed on her hips again. “Would that have been so
horrible?”

“Uh-oh. She’s getting the pissed off ‘I-am-woman, hear-me-roar’ look in
her eyes, Crash.” Cole grinned.

The corner of Crash’s mouth pulled up. “Don’t tell me that surprises
you, Cole?”

Letty slugged Crash in the arm. “Still the smartass, I see!”

“Ow, woman!”

Ace chuckled. “Glad to see I’m not the only one she slugs.”

Crash rubbed his bicep. “Yeah, and I’ll have the bruises later to prove
it.”

Ace grinned. “I’ll give y’all some time alone to catch up, and I’ll get
back to work.” He pulled Letty close with one arm and kissed her forehead.
“Later, baby girl.”

Crash turned to watch him walk out the backdoor, and then looked back at
his sister. “He your man?”

She nodded. “I love him, Ty. He’s the most sensitive soul I’ve ever met.
And his big muscled body gets me hot.” She grinned and waggled her eyebrows.

Crash held up his hand. “Don’t need the dirty details, Letty.”

She laughed and grabbed his hand and nipped at his fingertips. “This is
a nice surprise. Seeing you. You been by to see Gram yet?”

“Nope. This was our first stop.”

She linked arms with him, turning him toward the door and said over her
shoulder, “Come on, Cole. She’ll love to see you both. I hope you’re both
hungry, you know she won’t let you out of the door without feeding you.”

“Damn, I hope she’s got some cornbread. I haven’t had any of that in
years. And some sweet tea,” Cole replied.

“I guess they don’t have that on the west coast, huh?”

“Nope. Closest thing you can do is order iced tea and dump some sugar in
it, but it ain’t southern sweet tea. Not by a long shot.”

“Or there’s that Chai tea shit,” Crash put in.

“Fuck, don’t get me started on that crap. Angel loves that shit.”

“So, you can close up the shop, just like that?” Crash asked his little
sister.

She grinned up at him. “Being a business owner has its perks.”

“Like smoking pot in the back room?”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I never could slide anything
past my big brother.”

“Yeah, and don’t you forget it,” he replied while she locked up.

The three of them stepped down off the sidewalk. Crash pulled a spare
helmet out of his saddlebag and held it out to her.

She took it, her eyes running over his bike. “God, I miss riding.”

“You get rid of your bike?” Cole asked surprised.

She nodded. “Sold it. Needed money to start this place.”

Crash threw his leg over his bike, reaching to start it. “This place
making you any money?”

“Only because Ace makes a fortune with his pieces. He just got
commissioned to do a piece for the lobby of an office building in downtown
Atlanta. Peachtree Towers, I think it’s called. Last month one of those snooty
restaurants up on Highland Avenue bought one for its courtyard. Paid fifteen
thousand.”

“Hell, that’s some nice pocket change.”

She climbed on behind him and wrapped her arms around him.

“How are the guys?” she asked over his shoulder.

“Good. You should take a trip out. I’m sure they’d love to see you. I
can think of one in particular that would love it,” he teased.

She laughed, and he gunned the throttle. The two bikes roared off down
the street, turning heads.

They were sitting in his Grandmother’s dining room. Crash moving his tall
drink glass around in small circles on the lace tablecloth, the wet ring
soaking through to the plastic covering underneath. The ice cubes in the tea
clinking softly. His belly was full, and he was happy.

Gram had been at the stove, frying up some chicken the old fashioned way
in a cast iron skillet on the stove when they’d arrived. She’d turned when
they’d come through the door. She’d wiped her hands on her apron, shrieking
with joy as she ran across the kitchen, her arms in the air, and grabbed Crash
in a hug. He’d wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet.

“My boy! You came home!”

He’d set her back on her feet as she’d kissed his cheek. “Hey, Gram.
Miss me?”

She’d taken his bearded face in both hands and shook it. “Of course I’ve
missed you! And look at this scruff on your jaw, I can hardly see your pretty
face. Where are those dimples I remember? Buried under there somewhere?”

He’d laughed. “I smell something good cooking, Gram. You gonna feed us?”

“Of course.”

“Move outta the way, I want a hug,” Cole had ordered with a grin,
pushing Crash aside.

“Cole!”

He’d picked her up in a hug as well. “How are you Mama Rose?”

“I’m old. How do I look?”

“Beautiful!”

“Ha!” She smacked him on the shoulder. “You always were a flirt.”

He laughed and grabbed her cheeks and laid a kiss right on her mouth.

She shrieked. “Owee. Boy, stop that! Gentlemen callers in my kitchen,
and here I am with no lipstick and without my pearls,” she teased with a wink.

“Is that fried chicken, I smell Gram?” Crash asked.

“It’s Sunday, isn’t it? Don’t I always fry up some chicken after church
on Sunday?”

“Yes, ma’am. As
long as I can remember.”
                 

“Please tell me
there’s cornbread?” Cole begged with a puppy dog grin.

She turned back to
the oven. “Of course there’s cornbread. What kind of fool doesn’t have
cornbread with their Sunday dinner?” She grabbed a potholder and pulled a
square pan out of the oven, slapping it down on the counter. “Can you reach up
there on the top shelf, and get me down a plate to put it on, son? These old bones
aren’t so good anymore, I can’t reach up there like I used to.”

“How old are you
now, Mama Rose?” Cole asked.

“Getting on in
years, son. Be eighty next month.” She turned to Crash, shaking a wooden spoon
toward him. “You can take that as a reminder, boy.”

Crash smiled. “I’ll
remember. I always do, don’t I.”

She patted his
cheek. “You do. You do, son.” She turned to Letty. “Well, don’t just stand
there, hon. Get these men some tea!”

Cole turned to her
and smacked her bottom. “Yeah, get these men some tea, girl.”

“Yes, ma’am, Gram.”
She smiled sweetly at her, and then turned and gave Cole the evil eye.

He burst out
laughing.

“There’s chicken,
fried okra, butter beans, cornbread…” She turned to the boys. “Well, make
yourself useful. Help me carry it into the dining room, boys.”

And now here they
sat, having stuffed themselves with some good southern cooking.

“There’s more
banana pudding, Cole. Don’t be shy.”

Cole grinned and
leaned back in his chair, rubbing his stomach. “Mama Rose, I’ve already had two
helpings. You trying to get me fat?”

She grunted. “Huh!
A man should have some meat on his bones, in my opinion.” She turned to Crash.
“You look more like your mother every day, son. You’ve got her eyes.”

Crash looked away.
“I really don’t remember her eyes.”

“No?” his
grandmother asked.

“Nope. The only
real memory I have of her is her reading us that book about the train that
takes the kids to the North Pole.”

“The Polar Express,”
his grandmother clarified.

“Yeah, I guess. I
was six or seven.”

“You were seven. It
was the last time you saw her.” She looked down at the table cloth, brushing
non-existent crumbs.

“Yeah.” He looked
at his grandmother, knowing she was remembering that day. Six months earlier, his
mother had dumped him and his little brother and sister with her mother, their
gran. She’d already been raising them full-time by that time. His mom had been
a young mom. Sixteen when she’d had him, twenty-one when she’d had Trevor and
twenty-two when she’d had Letty. She’d gotten messed up with drugs. She’d take
off for days or weeks at a time, bingeing on drugs most likely.

He remembered that day
was the last time she’d ever come to see them. She’d been gone more and more
often. He’d hardly missed her anymore by that time. She’d become a stranger to
him. He remembered it felt uncomfortable at first, having to sit next to her on
Gram’s sofa while his mother read him the book she’d brought them. He
remembered Trevor wouldn’t sit next to her, she was a stranger to him. Gram was
mom to them by that time. So, Crash had sat next to his mother, even though he
didn’t really want to any more than his little brother had, but he was the big
brother, and he always took care of his little brother and sister. Letty sat
next to their mother on the other side. She was too young to think in terms of
people being strangers. She liked the pretty lady with the long hair that
smiled at her.

But Crash knew. He
knew even then that she would leave again. And he wanted her gone. And then she
was. For good. And he realized too late that he couldn’t ever get her back.

“That was the month
before they found her overdosed in that Southside apartment,” his grandmother
explained. She shook her head, and Crash reached over and laid his hand over
hers, squeezing.

What could he say?
She loved you, Gram? Nothing you could have done, Gram? None of those trite
comments made the pain go away. He knew that. And she knew how much he and
Letty loved her.

“Well! Enough of
that. You staying here tonight? You’re both welcome.” She took in Cole with her
offer.

“We’ll probably
stay at the clubhouse tonight. But we’ll be back to see you after the funeral
tomorrow.”

After they left his grandmother’s house, Crash and Cole dropped Letty
back at her shop and met up with Ace, who took them both out to Sloss.

Crash was crouched down in a squat, in the huge open-air #2 West Cast
Shed, watching as Ace and a couple of the other artists manhandled the hot
furnace and chimney that poured the molten iron into the sand casting. They
were dressed in heavy coveralls and gloves.

Crash was fascinated by the whole process. Earlier, Ace had given him a
tour, showing him the giant East Cast Shed and the west end of the site, where
the artists recycled old radiators, tire drums, and other scrap metal to make
it into works of cast iron art. He showed him how iron, coke—a coal product, a
few pieces of limestone and a furnace that brings it all to three thousand
degrees Fahrenheit turned it all into molten iron that was then poured into
sand molds they designed.