Game Changer (Hell's Saints Motorcycle Club)

by Paula Marinaro

I heard screaming. And begging. And crying. I saw them huddled against the wall. Pleading.

That’s what was waiting for me at the end of the long battered hallway of the apartment that my sister and her addict boyfriend, Jamie shared. As I passed their bedroom I could see a razor, coke residue, a rolled up bill, and a small mirror sitting on the floor. I knew if I looked further, I would see a syringe and a heavy elastic band. When Jamie’s sleeve was rolled up, his arms looked like a road map that said: Next Stop Heroin. This Way Please.

Jamie‘s drug of choice was H. and my sister‘s drug of choice for the past year had been Jamie. More recently though, I knew she had been doing coke and not just a little bit. I had stopped giving Claire cash about a month ago when I realized most of it was going up her nose or into his arm. I still came by once a week, when I knew Jamie wouldn’t be there. I bought my sister groceries, cleaned the house and sometimes she would even go out with me.

Those were the good days and I would like to be able to say they were just like old times. But I couldn’t say that because my kid sis and I never really had the kind of upbringing that could draw on remember the good old days scenario. One thing you can say about a shitty childhood, it can do a lot to bond two little souls.

Even in the worst of it, I had always reassured my sweet little sister that she and I were destined to live long happy lives. I knew the chances were pretty good that there really were no happy endings and no rewards for surviving. But I would be damned if she was going to draw her last breath in fear, huddled on a dirty floor with a junkie’s arms around her. Wondering how the hell I was going to get us out of this one, I walked toward her screams.

They had seen me anyway. I recognized the rockers on the cuts and knew instantly who I was dealing with. Not good, but could have been worse. These guys were 1%ers no question, but I had learned early on nobody was all bad or all good and one of the kindest men I ever had known, had worn these colors.

My dad’s best friend had been one of Founder of the Hell’s Saints Motorcycle Club. They met while serving time in County. Spending two years together in a five by nine cell you learn a lot about a man. In the hours of swapping stories, they had discovered that, aside from having a long and unpleasant relationship with the United States Criminal Justice System, they had a lot in common.

Both my dad (Jack) and Prosper had grown up in the Foster Care system. They had served their country by joining the service (my dad was Army, Prosper was Marines) and doing two tours each in Vietnam. They both loved bikes, tequila and dark eyed women. Prosper was released a month after my dad. The two of them took to the road that very day riding across the country sharing everything. And that everything eventually included loving the same woman.

My mother was Lakota Sioux, living in desperate poverty on a reservation in the Badlands of South Dakota. She was selling little earrings by the side of the road when they rode into town. My dad liked to say that while she had easily been the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, it was her gentleness that had shone through like a beacon. It took him three days to convince her to ride out with him. Her name was Magaskawee and she was 18 years old. My dad called her Maggie.

Maggie, Prosper and Jack spent the next 6 months on the road together. My mother was pregnant before her 19th birthday. When Prosper found out, he rode out that same afternoon. I couldn’t say for sure, but my guess is that being around her every day and not having her was something he had learned to live with. But watching her flower, ripe and beautiful with the seed of his best friend growing deep inside of her was just too much. So he left and soon after he had started a family of his own. That family was the Hell’s Saints MC.

Prosper came back into their lives a few years later. By then I was a little girl. I had been a shy, observant child living in a land of ordered chaos. I learned early on that that there was a lot to be said about sitting quietly and Watching. I watched for secrets. I found out Prosper’s secret when I watched him watch my mom. Then, I watched my dad watch Prosper watching my mom. My mom spent all of her time watching us so it all worked out okay.

She was nineteen when I was born and eight years later she was gone. She gave us as much as she could in the time we had with her. She taught us the Lakota ways and she would often sing lullabies to us in rich Native American Language. She loved us. And we knew she loved us. I always knew we were safe with her. I didn’t always know that about our father. I knew he would never hurt us, but there were times that I knew he didn’t see us. Sometimes, when Claire would laugh or cry or demand attention in her sweet baby way, he would look at her as if surprised she was still there or even there at all.

Our mother never forgot. And she was soft. Her skin was soft, and her long, long hair was soft. Her eyes were a soft deep brown color and they were fringed by long thick soft eyelashes. When she spoke, it was in soft tones. She never raised her voice. If we were out in the yard playing she wasn’t the sort of woman who would stand on the porch and yell for her children. She would walk to us, put her hand gently on us and guide us home. She was our world. It seemed like she had no other family. We never had any grandparents or aunts or uncles visit us. Once I heard her talking on the phone to someone called Tanka. She was in the bedroom with the door closed, but I could hear her crying in between the words. I had asked my mom about it, but she just shook her head and went sad for two days. I never brought it up again.

So Maggie made her family where she could. Although I know sometimes they made her uneasy, she welcomed my father’s rough wild friends with gentleness and grace. And they seemed gentler around her. Big muscled hardened men, men that the town folk would give a wide birth to, would turn to sweet around her. My dad had an open door policy when it came to his friends and everyone was welcome at any meal. There was never ever not enough. If it be macaroni and cheese or roast beef no one left that table hungry.

My Mom had a way of making everyone feel like an honored guest. Whether the guest had just been released after doing five to ten, or whether it was one of the “shadow people” who had been thrown out by his latest old lady and needed a hot meal, a shower and a woman’s advice, my mother treated them like kings. Because of this, these rough and tumble men were around a lot and when they sat at Maggie’s table to break bread they found their manners. They found their pleases and thank you’s. They found their ability to keep their elbows off the table and their napkins at the ready. They kept their mouths closed when they chewed. They kept their voices low and their conversation mainstream. They complimented the food and drank their beer from a glass. They offered to help with the dishes.

One thing they didn’t do was ever find themselves too close to Maggie. Not in the kitchen, not in the dining room, not at the table. Our father had been known for his crazy jealous nature. His love for his boys only extended as far as it didn’t interfere with the love of his life. Prosper was the only one who got close to that, to her. And Jack only allowed that because when Maggie had a choice to make, she had chosen him over Prosper. He also put up with it because Maggie would have it no other way. Our mother had put her foot down on two things in her whole life. One was that she made all and every important decision regarding her babies, and the other was that wherever was home for Maggie and Jack, was also home for Prosper.

But they were all gone now. Cancer took my mom and after that my dad drank himself to death. I hadn’t seen Prosper in many years.

Prosper had been a big, hard handsome man with dark brown eyes and light brown hair that was streaked through with caramel, molasses and honey sun- kissed highlights. When he picked up the small girl that was me, I felt like I was sitting atop a redwood. He had had a deep gravelly voice and sang a mean Bob Seger. In the summer time, there would often be a warm crackling fire in the smoke pit of our backyard. He and my dad would play soft music and sing in deep harmony. Claire and I would fall asleep to those tunes in our mother’s arms and I grew up knowing all the words. Sometimes I heard my mom humming Prosper’s music softly to herself when she thought she was alone.

Other times there would be different people in our backyard and on those nights there was no music, just loud men and women with letters on their jackets just like Prosper’s. I didn’t need to watch them to know that their secrets came from dark places. On those nights, I would keep Claire upstairs with me, tucking her in close and keeping her safe from the dark shadows they cast on the bedroom walls.

On my 8
th
birthday Prosper bought me a beautiful silver harmonica. As much as I had loved the wonderful little music maker, the best gift of all was the time we spent together. He talked to me about how the harmonica was a magic instrument because it was so small that you could carry the gift of music with you wherever you went and how hell, if you had music you were never alone.

He taught to me how to hold it so that the low notes were on the right and what those notes meant. I learned that if I blew into one little hole it sounded one way and if I sucked the air in it sounded another way. I learned how to isolate those sounds. He taught me to breathe from the diaphragm. He tutored me on the fine art of over blows and how to choke them, and that while the standard lip lock was a cool way to go, you really needed to do it a different way to play the blues. He taught me how to make rich soulful sounds by bending notes and I practiced so much I had a permanent state of cramped hands and swollen lips.

My mother was pretty sick by then. Prosper and I would spend hours sitting by her bedside singing and playing for her. Mom’s favorite was Bob Seger’s
Turn the Page
and she made us play it over and over again. To her unending delight, Prosper learned to replace the long soulful sax with a beautiful rift on his mouth harp. When he taught me how to sing in harmony, my child’s voice was clear and strong and fearless. I loved him because he shared her with me. Sometimes in quiet moments when I was playing on the floor and they sat softly talking to each other, I watched my mother. And I saw what I had missed before. My mother had a secret too.

The love my father had for my mother filled his heart so completely there wasn’t much room left over for us. Her illness broke wide apart a deep hurt in his soul that only being loved by her could heal. She changed him, and when a woman changes a man that way, that man would rather die than go back to the place without her. My dad’s secret wasn’t that he couldn’t live without our mother, but that he didn’t want to.

He was disappearing before my eyes and I took to following him around everywhere. I knew my mother would soon be gone and I was petrified to lose him too. I waited and I watched. He never seemed to notice, but Prosper did. One morning we woke up to find him gently snoring on the couch with Claire’s little body tucked safely under his arm. He was there every night after that until my mom died two weeks later. Prosper was the one who arranged all the things for the service. He held our little hands in his through the whole thing. My dad too deep in his own grief to tend to ours.

After my mom was gone, he would still come and visit but there were no more magic nights filled with sweet music and firelight. When I watched Prosper then, there seemed to be a darkness growing within him. I knew all his new secrets came from bad places and that had made me sad.

Eventually he started to bring a woman around. She had the unlikely name of Pinky and she was fascinating. She was round in all the right places and had big blonde hair that hung in soft curls down her back. She wore bracelets with little gold bells that chimed when she moved. She had a wide mouth and a big laugh. She smoked endlessly and when she hugged us she smelled of tobacco and lilacs. I remember she used to bring us cookies and one time even cleaned the house. Prosper smiled when he was with her. The first time I heard my father laugh again was because of something she had said.

Prosper, Pinky and Jack were the family we were left with. Because I was a Watcher, I knew that by many standards, Prosper wasn’t a good man. But he was always good to us and that wasn’t only enough, it was everything.

Then came the night when the good in Prosper stepped up to change the crash course that had become our little lives.