Hell on Heelz (Asphalt Gods' MC) (2 page)

Seeing red, I reared back my fist before my confusion had me coming to my senses. “All this time?” I asked.

“Yeah, he says you won’t leave.” She cackled beneath me, “I’m pregnant now. Get a clue bitch. It’s over.”

Pregnant? The word stabbed me in the gut. “He begged me to stay,” I mumbled through my flowing hot tears. I punched her face once but hard. Even with my fantasy within reach, I got off her before I squished and killed her baby. I stumbled outside. No one stopped me.

Shirley came out a few minutes later, offering me a lit joint.  “Someday she’ll hurt,” she said with an eerie confidence.

I took a drag and coughed, I’d never smoked weed before. “I doubt it.”

Shirley went on, “Men always want something fresh and new.”

I thought of Neil having another child when I’d had a tubal for him only two years ago, and my tears ran hotter and harder. It was okay, it was dark so no one would see them.

I wiped my cheeks. “Why’d you bring me here?”

“You were hurting.”

“You don’t know me from Adam.”

“I know a lot about you, Edie. You’re hurting all over. Your soul aches, and no one gives a good goddamn. They want you to make nice and move on. That’s not you. I know it.”

Her words were too true so I looked away from her, feeling the hurt deep down in my soul. “So, there’s no job.” I sucked in air. I wasn’t one to cry so easily. I couldn’t let myself cry again.

“Yes, there’s a job, but it’s more than that. If you need a place to go, you can come and stay here.”

“When I leave him, you mean?”

Shirley nodded her head.

“Like I’d wanna be around his whore,” I argued.

“She’s not a member. I’m cutting her loose soon anyway.”

“A member?”

The wind whipped Shirley’s red hair before it reached me, smacking my wet face, cooling down my flushed cheeks. She reached up behind her head, securing her hair and turned around to show me her back. She hadn’t been wearing it earlier, the leather motorcycle vest. The flaming high heels were bright pink but fierce all the same. It read, “Hell on Heelz,” on the top and, “Florida,” on the bottom.

“I thought motorcycle clubs were for beer-bellied old men,” I remarked.

She laughed at that. “You know anything a man can do…”

I nodded my head. I knew for a fact that women were just as good as men. Shirley had proved it in this small town. Her shop hired the best mechanics but some of them just happened to be women, something that was still rare. It was the best repair shop in the area and people came from all over.

“You’d be here on a trial bases at first. But there’s also a paying job and a bike.”

Here? “What about my kids?”

“Cabins are big enough. Number four is empty.”

Cabins? I looked around seeing the tiny homes surrounding us, assuming they were hers. With no other plans, I told Shirley I’d try it out that I’d come over and hang out, but I wasn’t moving in.

She led me to her old Harley. “You know how to ride?”

“Yeah,” I said confidently. I’d ridden a moped all through my one year of community college. I knew it wasn’t the same but was sure I could figure it out. I took a seat and started the bike with some directions from Shirley.

Instantly, something sparked in me, resonating with my soul. The deep rumble of the engine mimicked a lion’s roar, echoing my resolve. A shiver ran through me as I felt strong enough to leave Neil.

Shirley’s voice rose over the rumble. “Edie, the world’s against women like you and me. We are too powerful. Someone’s always trying to take us down a notch. Put us in our place.” She touched my face affectionately, a strange gesture coming from her. “We’ll show you how to never hurt again.” She gazed up at the pitch black sky like she could see something. “Sure you want to take it tonight? It’s coming up a storm.”

I didn’t think a storm could hurt me any worse than I was hurting, so I nodded and took off, heading home to leave Neil. No one would hurt me again. The rain couldn’t stop this machine either. We cut through the drops of water that turned into sheets. We were powerful, free—invincible.

I arrived home soaked to the bone, baptized by the rain, no longer afraid to leave.

All I ever wanted was a road to lead me away from here, but here I was at the Roost night after night drunk on whiskey…

I’d broken one or two dishes telling Neil to leave that night before he admitted Kelly was indeed pregnant with his baby.

“You’ve seen her since you told me it was over?”

“What am I supposed to do? She’s having my baby.”

After he’d fessed up, I broke all the dishes and a chair. I took our confused kids and left. Driving aimlessly, I didn’t know what had come over me. I’d always been able to hold my temper, especially in front of the kids.

We ended up a town over at my mama’s house, a big mistake.

My mama’s hair was in the shower cap she always wore to sleep. Opening the screen door for us, she shooed the kids in quick, not wanting to let the bugs in. As always she took the time to ask the kids for some sugar, and they kissed her cheeks. She situated her purple floral robe around herself since we’d gotten her out of bed. It seemed like it’d be a lot later, but her clock said it was only eleven thirty. Mom hugged me, and I inhaled the scent of all the powders she loved to use. Even slightly wrinkled, my mama was as beautiful as ever.

Knowing something was wrong, she took me to the kitchen, asking, “What’s going on?”

I told her the gist of it too quickly, trying not to cry.

“That piece of shit!”

“Mom. The kids will hear you,” I said through my teeth. Then I hugged myself, knowing they’d heard enough from my lips tonight.

She was as loud as ever, asking me a million questions. She only got louder as I shut the door to the living room where the kids had escaped to.

Collapsing at her old oak kitchen table, I told her everything—the bad and the ugly. It poured out of me like vomit. Holding my face in my hands, I cried like being around my mama finally gave me permission to.

“That’s what you get for marrying a white man.” My mama didn’t mince words. “Pedophiles, the lot of them.”

I looked up from my wet hands. “Really, mom? That’s all you have to say.”

“The other woman’s only eight years older than your own daughter,” she fumed. “Good thing you took the kids away from that low down, no good….”

Mom wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t thought on my own, about “the other woman’s” age—not about Neil abusing our kids. He wouldn’t do that, surely not. I knew Neil, but then I had a horrible thought—did I know Neil?

It made me so sick that I even had to entertain such vile thoughts. The whole situation made me sick as a dog, but mama’s words about a pedophile had cut deeper. I sighed, knowing they were meant to hurt me. But that was another story about another time my life had turned to shit.

Sitting up, I dried my face and wrapped my hands around the warm mug of coffee she’d poured. I piled in cream and sugar. She’d made the coffee right after I’d walked through the door, and now she was cooking. Mom laid out two eggs, over easy and dark toast on the plate in front of me in no time. She microwaved and poured on chipped beef gravy to make it my favorite, “Shit on a shingle”—that was what she liked to call it while I told my kids it was, “stuff on a shingle.”

She sat with me, a proud smile on her face. Just like when I was a child, mama thought food would make everything better. Even if breakfast was my favorite, I pushed it away, telling her I couldn’t eat. She sipped her coffee before announcing, “Neil and you never should have married, same as me and your dad.”

“Please don’t talk about dad right now,” I insisted before grabbing the toast and stuffing a huge, smothered in gravy bite in my mouth.

Here’s the deal. My dad was white, God rest his soul, and mom swore up and down he left her way back when he found out she was pregnant with me. But I loved my dad. He’d been there for me, making sure I had everything I needed while my mom was in nursing school, not that he had too much money himself. Afterwards when she started to drink, he’d been my salvation, my ticket away from the mess that had become my mom’s life. She’d tried my whole life to make me dislike my dad as much as she’d grown to hate him, and I knew that made me like him more than I ever probably should’ve. In fact, I’d be at his house right now if he hadn’t died of colon cancer three years ago and his wife, my stepmom, Kate remarried and moved to Utah.

When I was little, I was always being bounced back and forth between my black and white families. In the beginning, I’d lived with my mama mostly, but stayed the summers at my dad’s house. It wasn’t like a vacation where I was riding in a limo, heading to a better neighborhood like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. These were poor white people, a neighborhood full of them. And yes, some of my white family didn’t seem to know how to act in front of me, all because my skin was darker than theirs. And there were so many of them when they got together because my dad was one of eight siblings and his brothers and sisters had kids from multiple marriages. It was overwhelming.

My white aunts liked to dress me up like their children, like what I’d come from my mama’s in wasn’t good enough for them, even though they were living in run down trailers.

My dad’s mom, my grandma, although I’d never call her that to her face, kept her distance like she’d catch my skin color. But I loved to listen to her stories. I learned from her, we were Florida Crackers—and it wasn’t derogatory. She said our family had descended from the early frontier people, cowhunters, she called them as I discovered there were once cowboys in Florida with whips instead of lassos.

My dad’s wife, my stepmom, well she didn’t care about anyone’s race, thinking humans had come from aliens or something. She was loonier than a bin but caring, and I often found myself listening to her new age musings for hours on end. Always a surprise to folks, she was the one who’d done hair and cleaned houses for a living, not my black mama.

On the other hand, my mama’s side always made comments when I came back, said I sounded white or acted white since I stayed with my dad. And by my mom’s family, I meant mama’s aunt who raised her, my Great Auntie Betty, her son, my Uncle Rufus and his two kids, my cousins Trinity and Jamal. And I can’t leave out mom’s lifelong friend, our neighbor, Nina and her family. That’s all mom had left with her parents dying when she’d been a baby.

Only a child, I never wanted to sound and act too white and disappoint them. Great Auntie Betty told me stories of her dad, my Great, Great Grandfather who sang the blues and of my ancestors who’d escaped the plantations around South Carolina to join the US colored troops in the Civil War.

And if the adults were bad, the kids were the worst. My cousins could be meaner than shit, the black and the white ones. They said all the things the adults held back, making me feel like I never belonged. The only place I belonged was with friends, the family I could choose and even they were taken from me in a shit storm.

When I was thirteen, things at my mom’s turned to shit, so I went to live with my dad for good. Believe me, summers with my white cousins had been a breeze compared to the school year in my new neighborhood. I saw firsthand the kind of prejudice my mom accused my dad of. At first it was the constant questions like, “What are you?” Was I adopted? Then it was being called a halfie or much worse. It was the stares, the comments about my hair, my lips, my bootie. My teachers flat out called me mixed in front of the class. I was treated like an outsider.

Like I’d told my kids, there were no cell phones and internet back then. When you moved back when I grew up, you were gone. My life had flipped. I was living with my dad and spending two weeks of the summer at my mom’s house. To beat all, it only took one year away before it was evident, I no longer fit in around my old friends. I didn’t know enough to be cool anymore when I met them at the roller rink. My style had changed as I tried to conform to my surroundings. Quickly, I lost touch with what I’d thought was my real family, my friends in the neighborhood I’d grown up in.

Once outspoken and outgoing, I turned inward, but eventually, I made new friends around my new home and one of them was Neil. When I met Neil in high school, I never thought about his skin color either. I didn’t realize then his family had been liberal northerners, so it wasn’t too hard for him to date the mixed girl. He’d just been mine, my first real love, my soulmate—or so, I’d thought. My heart broke again thinking of us, knowing we’d been in love at one time.

Mom’s hand landed on mine, and she squeezed, giving me a smile. I echoed hers back, though weakly. At least she loved me, wasn’t going to leave me. For the first time, I knew the heartache she experienced when my dad left her.

Though, through the years, she’d changed too. She didn’t drink anymore. My mom wasn’t all bad, I was thinking, until she opened her mouth again. “This is all for the best, best for the kids too.”

“How on God’s green Earth could my husband cheating on me be for the best of anything?” I blurted out before I continued to eat.

“You can stay here a while, work off those extra pounds. Maybe dress like a woman again.”

Taking a glance at my slacks and polo, my work clothes, and my big hips in them, I knew my body had never been a problem for Neil before, but I felt tears form in the corners of my eyes. I pinched the bridge of my nose. I wouldn’t blame myself anymore. Even if I wasn’t the size of a skinny teen, I wasn’t fat either. I’d had twins for God’s sake, even if it was over ten years ago.

“You can start dating again. Don’t be like me, almost sixty and alone.”

“You’re not alone. You have Nina.” Mom’s best friend had moved in a few years ago after her husband died. The two women had been two peas in a pod for as long as I could remember. They were just alike—I was thankful Nina was fast asleep.

Mom continued planning my rebound. “Dean Kimble, you remember him. Now, his boy Dean Junior’s son, he likes a woman with a little meat on her.”

I huffed. “Revered Kimble’s grandson? He can’t be a day over 21. I’m not dating a kid.”

“I say what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. But there’s also Gus Stevens, he teaches over at the community college in….”

I remembered him. Gus was my age and fine, but I wasn’t interested. My heart was too broken. I quit listening as my mom went on and on about me finding another man, a black man this time. Nothing wrong with that, but I didn’t want to think about finding another man period, black, white or purple. Instead, I began thinking about all my mama’s suitors when I was growing up. Her taste in men turned my stomach. My mom had had a thing for low life alcoholics with violent tendencies. I’d gone to live with my dad at thirteen because she refused to stand up for herself or for me. Stopping my mind before I thought anymore, I knew right then and there, I couldn’t stay with mom for long. I didn’t want my kids to ever experience what I had, not that they would, mom didn’t date anymore, thank goodness. I’d die before I let a man abuse my kids. Nevertheless, as much as they loved their “Moomaw”—as she liked to be called and she loved them, the bitterness between my mom and I poisoned the air for everyone.

The next morning, over more breakfast but this time made by Nina, I gave my kids a choice. They could either stay in Florida during the divorce and the likely custody battle or visit their Grandma June, their dad’s mother in Maine for a while. She was a good woman despite her cheating son. I didn’t say it quite like that though, I put a positive spin on it, saying that their daddy and I had some things to work out.

Gail opened her mouth to answer.

I stopped her. “Finish your breakfast before you decide. Really think about it.”

The kids picked Maine as we were doing up dishes. Having never left the state before either, they were thrilled to pieces. They also hadn’t seen their Grandma June since their Grandpa’s funeral two years ago. After her husband died of a stroke, Neil’s mom moved back to Maine where she was from originally to be close to her sister’s family who owned a little fishing business there. I’d known enough about Neil and his family to know they’d lived a Hallmark Channel life. I wouldn’t have to worry about my kids staying with June for a bit.

When I’d told June about Neil cheating over the phone, she was in shock. “Maybe it was his dad’s death. I know how much Neil loves you.”

“Maybe,” I replied, but it hadn’t mattered. “What’s done is done.” I’d spent a year hiding it, trying to justify his betrayal. I’d tried to get over it. The fact he was still seeing the girl and she was pregnant silenced his mother.

Next I called Neil. On our short phone call, he agreed to the kids going away for a while too.

I was so happy they could go on an adventure and escape this heartache. I’d wanted them to make the choice for Maine, but it had been a little too easy for my kids to say goodbye to me the next week at the airport. I knew that was my fault. I’d grown distant from them this last year. Just a year before, I’d been their everything.

Gail about packed her whole room and Gavin didn’t want to pack anything because Grandma June said he didn’t need to. She spoiled the shit out of the kids, and I was thankful. I kissed my son and daughter for what I thought would be the last time until the divorce was final.

Even more alone without my babies, I was stuck with my nagging mother until I found my own place. I wouldn’t live in our old house, which was up for sale. Neil was staying there. Also with Nina moved into mom’s guest room, I found myself sleeping in her living room on a tiny antique couch. I woke up every day with a crick in my neck. All of this made me hate Neil even more if it were possible.