Otis (2 page)

OTIS

Having a woman
fit
me was near impossible, as I had some pretty serious issues trusting people. I would never describe myself as paranoid, and in fact, I was quite the opposite. I was more of a realist, and realistically speaking, people seemed to always press their noses into cracks and crevices of a person’s life where they just didn’t belong. For me to
get to know
a woman would require exposing myself to her, and in doing so, I took a tremendous risk. My life, lifestyle, and day to day activities weren’t something I could trust anyone with, male or female. Even spending
short
periods of time with people I didn’t know exposed me, the club, and my club brothers to potential scrutiny. And, for the Selected Sinners, something as simple as a very shallow examination would certainly reveal more than we were prepared to allow outsiders to see or attempt to try and understand. Placing me under a microscope was one thing, but potentially placing my MC Brothers in harm’s way was something I wasn’t ever willing to ever jeopardize.

Taking the risk to even
meet
a woman was difficult for me. Meeting a woman would potentially cause me to want to naturally know more about her. Knowing more would require more exposure. More exposure equaled more risk, and the risk grew with everything she learned about me. In time, if I found out she either couldn’t be trusted or she wasn’t what I was looking for, the damage, so to speak, was already done. The life of a 1%er was a difficult one, and many outsiders didn’t understand what they perceived as arrogance or conceit within the ranks of outlaw bikers when in fact it was nothing more than a façade used to preserve what it was we believed in.

Freedom.

When I was young, long before I became a Sinner, life was different. In high school, and for several years following my graduation, there was a woman in my life; a woman I loved dearly. She was everything I needed, almost everything I wanted, and we fit each other perfectly. One thing kept me from spending the rest of my life with her.

My selfishness.

She wanted a family, and I yearned for freedom. At the time, I perceived children as an annoyance and an obstacle between me and a world which was otherwise free of confinement and restriction. We separated when I was twenty-one years old, and I had spent a lifetime regretting it. Since then, I had been with very few women, but each one I met reminded me of the same thing – just how extraordinary Sam was.

After having experienced the love she and I shared, attempting to accept someone else as anywhere close to her equal was to admit I had a special procedure for shoving a square peg into a round hole. There would never be a soul on earth to completely fill the hole she left inside of me, and admitting it allowed me to accept a life of solitude as being not only what I needed, but without a doubt what I deserved.

Living in my self-imposed womanless hell had some benefits. The freedom I once yearned for was now well within my grasp. My life had no restrictions and very few regulations I was required to adhere to. I had the ability to do whatever I wanted, whenever I pleased, without answering to anyone.

Well,
almost
anyone.

As my mother bent down and opened the oven, she turned her head to the side and widened her eyes slightly, “They’re saying on the news the police were threatened by some of the motorcycle clubs, Steve. They threatened those poor officers with retaliation. I don’t like that at all. People are supposed to respect law enforcement officers. For heaven’s sake, your father was a police officer.”

“Ma, they’re full of shit, no one threatened the cops. If for some reason one of those clubs wanted to do something, they’d just do it, they damned sure wouldn’t announce it or warn the cops. And it’s pretty tough for me to respect some city cop when every time I turn around they’re shooting another unarmed citizen for having a taillight that doesn’t work or for arguing with them about a traffic ticket.
Serve and protect
. That’s their job. It’s damned sure not what we get from them anymore, is it?” I shrugged.

“They said they recovered a hundred and fifty weapons, it’s pretty obvious to me those men came with killing on their minds. It makes me nervous having you and your friends out there riding anywhere near those thugs,” she said over her shoulder as she situated the casserole dish on the countertop.

“They’re not thugs, ma. And it was in Texas.
Everyone
is armed in Texas. They’re trying to make it sound like it was an all-out war, but it was nothing more than a bar fight and the cops came and shot everyone up. Hell, if you went to Wal-Mart in Texas and rounded up everyone in it and searched them, I’d be willing to bet more than seventy-five percent of them would be
armed
. I’m tired of talking about it,” I complained.

She turned to face me and placed her hands on her hips, “Well, it makes me nervous. I don’t want you or any of your friends hurt if you go to one of those get-togethers.”

My mother was fifty-nine years old, and appeared to be much younger. She was a small woman, standing barely over five feet tall, and weighed roughly one hundred pounds. I attributed the majority of her preserved appearance and youthful looks to the fact she rarely left the house, and spent most of her time either cleaning or preparing meals for my father, who was a mirror image of me.

“We’re not going to get hurt, ma. Not unless some cop decides to shoot one of us,” I chuckled.

As I heard my father’s footsteps coming into the kitchen, I turned to face him, hoping he had heard at least a portion of what we were talking about. His opinion mattered to my mother, and he was not much different than me in his judgement of today’s police officers and their poor decisions.

“Ken, talk to your son,” my mother sighed as she folded the towel that dangled from her fingers.

“My son? He’s
our
son, Marge. What are we talking about?” he chuckled as he slapped his hand against my back.

“Game’s over and the Royals won. Best team in the league,” he bragged as he rubbed his hands together.

“It’s about time,” I laughed, making reference to the fact the Kansas City Royals hadn’t done anything good in baseball since the 1980’s.

I glanced at my mother for a second, and shifted my gaze toward my father, “We were talking about the biker shoot-out in Texas. Ma’s afraid the fellas and I are gonna get hurt if we’re hanging around the
thugs
who were at the bar in Texas. I told her the only way any of us would get hurt is if one of those trigger-happy cops decided to shoot at us for getting in a fist fight.”

As far as my mother and father were concerned, I was part of a group of men that loved riding motorcycles together. They either didn’t want to accept or were afraid to admit that I was the Vice President of a 1%er MC. I didn’t press the issue or try to explain anything, and they didn’t ask. For them to understand just what it was the club offered me or to learn of and comprehend our day-to-day activities would be nothing short of impossible.

“That’s the damned truth Marge. That whole thing stinks. They said the other day the shooting was
inside
the bar. Now they’re saying it was
outside
. The officer in charge originally said the police returned fire when the bikers shot at them. Now the film from the security system of the bar has been reviewed, and it looks like the only shooting was from the police officers. The whole thing makes me sick. Cops today are too damned trigger happy. Hell, I made hundreds of arrests, and never pulled my service revolver once,” my father explained as he walked toward the casserole dish and peered down at the concoction my mother had cooked.

My father worked for thirty years as a police officer, and had retired unharmed. He now attempted to maintain his sanity by working part-time at a local hardware store, which seemed to work well for him. Still standing six foot five at sixty-two years old, he was in good physical and mental condition. His job kept him busy enough that he continued to feel his life was worthwhile, and it allowed a little physical separation from my mother during the day, which, according to him, was necessary.

“I just don’t want him to get hurt,” my mother sighed.

“He’s a big boy, Marge. He’ll be fine. Hell, he’s got that Marine by his side half the time, nobody’s going to mess with him,” my father said under his breath as he walked toward the dish my mother had placed on the countertop.

“What have we got here, Marge?” my father asked as he poked the top of the casserole with his fingertip.

“It’s a recipe I got off of Pinterest,” my mother responded, “Enchilada casserole.”

“You know, we ate for thirty years without Pinterest. Now it seems every time I turn around, we’re trying something new that some shit-head in San Francisco cooked, took a few pictures of, and posted a recipe. They’re probably sitting back there now laughing at all the people trying to cook that shit. Just because they took a pretty picture of it doesn’t mean it tastes good,” my father growled as he shook his head.

“What are we going to eat with it?” he asked as he glanced around the kitchen.

“I’ll slice up an avocado and a few tomatoes. It’s supposed to be a complete meal,” my mother shrugged as she turned toward the refrigerator.

My father glanced at the casserole dish, turned toward me, and shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s any wonder I haven’t starved to death since she joined that damned web site. You still not messing with any of that internet stuff?” he asked over his shoulder as he walked toward the refrigerator.

“Nope. Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, I don’t have any of ‘em. Can’t see any need. I don’t want people who don’t know me digging through my life. As far as I’m concerned, it’s like leaving your front door open for anyone to come into your house and dig through your shit,” I responded.

“Amen,” he said as he held a bottle of beer at arm’s length.

I accepted the beer, twisted off the lid, and took a drink. My father was a very understanding man, and rarely pried in my personal business. I believed he understood far more than my mother what me, the club, and my MC Brothers were all about, but he never asked, and I never offered.

“Sit down,” my mother said as she arranged the plates around the table.

As I slowly walked toward the table, I peered down at the plate of sliced avocadoes and tomatoes and eventually shifted my eyes toward the enchilada casserole. My father was right. I was surprised we both hadn’t starved to death since my mother found Pinterest. Trying new things was fun for her, but it seemed she was constantly searching the site for an easier way to prepare a meal. An entire meal in one dish was her obvious desire and my father and I were the test subjects. For me, it was one day a week eating with my parents. For my father, it was a daily occurrence.

Sunday dinner at my parent’s house wasn’t necessarily a requirement, but I was always
expected
to attend. Although I was thirty-six years old, I was still a little boy in the eyes of my mother, and I always would be. I looked forward to the dinners, and enjoyed the conversations we had. For me, it was a way to unwind, become normal, and mentally exhaust myself from all of the atrocities from the previous week of being a
Selected Sinner.
It allowed me to begin each week with a new start, a fresh mind, and the reminder that family is more important than anything else this world has to offer us.

Drinking beer and Sunday dinners were a guilty pleasure. Any other day of the week, my strict diet excluded foods which would cause me to forfeit my form, muscle tone, or physical condition. Setting Sunday dinners aside, drinking beer was my only vice, and I tried to keep my drinking to no more than five or six beers a day. My daily physical conditioning not only allowed me to maintain a sound mind and body, but did a pretty good job of working off the beers I typically drank throughout the course of any given day.

“So, your father tells me the Marine friend of yours is engaged to be married. Said he’s with that cute little blonde waitress down at the barbeque joint,” my mother said as we sat down.

Here we go.

“Yeah, ma. He’s engaged to the girl at the barbeque joint. Her name’s Sydney,” I sighed as I scooped half of the casserole dish onto my plate.

“And your other friend Ashton is living with a girl and they’re just as good as married. Is that right?” she asked as my father turned toward me and wagged his eyebrows jokingly.

“Axton, ma. With an X. His name’s
Axton
, not Ashton. And yeah, he’s got a girlfriend or whatever. And her name’s Avery,” I responded as I raised my beer bottle to my lips.

“Talk down at the store is that the tall brown haired girl is an attorney. They said she filed an appeal to get a new trial for the other girl’s brother, who was set up by the ATF years back. Is that all true?” my father asked as he shoved a forkful of enchiladas into his mouth.

I shook my head as I placed my bottle of beer onto the table, “Who told you all that?”

“Common knowledge down at the store,” my father said as he finished chewing his food.

“Well, it’s partially true,” I sighed as I pressed my fork into the casserole.