Part 5 (1/2)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Dismounting from his own electric blue Ducati, Kellan Vaughn removed his helmet and let a cool gust of prairie air push through his damp locks. He shook his head to and fro, sweaty from the drive. He squinted up the half a mile's worth of dirt road that unspooled before him.

A ways up the trail, two fusty cacti bent from the waist to create a kind of archway. Across their touching tops, someone had-long ago-draped a tin box sign, inscribed with faded wood block letters. What remained of this dubious ”Welcome mat” spelled out DE IL'S A E'S-LLC.

It had been a long time since his last visit home.

Shaking highway grime from his motorcycle boots as he strode, Kellan took in more of his childhood home. Coming up the bend, he could see the sagging wraparound porch, covered with its typical film of detritus: rusty bike parts, card tables, spent propane tanks. Dirt began to give way to granite pebbles, and the sun dipped behind a shadow of the old house. Now he could see the corrugated rooftop, coppery with age and water's influence. The filthy, cheap windows. Now that same dry wind carried his way an old Charley Pride tune, which seemed to be sifting out of what he took to be the kitchen window. Not long after, he heard the tw.a.n.ging echo of his mother's voice, singing along to the radio.

Kellan paused when he reached the first step of the porch. A feral cat took the opportunity to scurry out from behind a dilapidated red pick-up truck towards the briar-y tundra he'd actually mistaken for a yard in his youth. Tallying quickly, Kellan realized: six years. Six years since he'd sat on this porch from dusk until dawn, nervously pacing until he heard the comfort of his brother's revving bike. Six years since he'd last entertained the scratchy voice of Valerie Vaughn (or, ”V”), his mother and the de facto matriarch of every Devil's Ace. So many evenings had he spent forcing down her sinful cooking, or listening to her bawdy stories of the old days while she smoked in her rocking chair, affixed rhinestones and doodads to all the club members' leather jackets. It had taken two year's worth of a tour with The Prattle for Kellan to fully realize how strange his own upbringing had been-other members of the band spoke of estranged parents, boring parents-whereas his were all but the leaders of a cult.

When he was a kid, this porch had been lousy with the comings and goings of frightening men-loud men, bearded men, and all were heavy drinkers. He'd grown accustomed to falling asleep through the sounds of dust-ups, either verbal or physical. He'd seen his first naked women at the tender age of nine, when he walked in on the aftermath of a rowdy orgy in the early morning. His parents were permissive with drugs (to a degree), s.e.x, booze, loud talk of any kind-their jurisdiction began and ended only with their vague ”enemies,” to which they swore swift and fast retribution. Or, of course, the law.

Bryson had once tried to describe to his kid brother just what the motorcycle club represented, how it operated. While strumming his Stratocaster knock-off, Kellan had strained to understand a story filled with the stuff of gangster movies: his parents had been painted as benevolent Robin Hoods, content to usurp and extort vehicles of organized crime for the benefit of an anonymous public good and...of course...the Devil's Aces themselves. Money was made (or, laundered) through several venues-among these, four or five Reno body shops; a dry-cleaner's on the main road, and-most bizarrely-a McDonald's out by the airport. All of these places were staffed by club members, all of whom drove Harleys and loved to celebrate almost everything on the crowded expanse of his childhood lawn.

And Bryson had looked at the family legacy with a glow of pride in his eyes from high school on. It had been easy to see that Kellan's older brother wasn't suited to a typical education; cla.s.ses bored him. The girls at their school he'd found tedious, if only because they were so willing, so gullible and expectant of his cool-guy persona. Kellan supposed his brother might have craved a meaningful connection all this time, but that didn't make the I'm-in-love-with-Romy news any easier to swallow-especially since Bryson's journey away from regular school and regular friends and regular women had lead him to a fast, loose, unknowable life on the road. His main function as a bada.s.s had consolidated, and blossomed him into the official club muscle. Loneliness notwithstanding, his brother didn't seem to be afraid of anything. Which of course Kellan always admired, if he couldn't understand.

His own allegiance to the ”family business” was dappled by the fact of his parents' early loss of faith in him. Hughie and V had taken to calling their younger son a ”wimp,” and a ”yellowbelly,” as early as he could remember. He hadn't been able to master a bike until sometime around his eighteenth birthday, preferring to spend his days inside, practicing guitar. Their ribbing had been mostly affectionate-they were affectionate people-but he'd felt their disappointment, deep down. So when he graduated high school and was offered only the meager position of ”Club Bookkeeper,” he'd taken it only on the condition that he could leave whenever he found something he preferred to do. A year later, The Prattle was born.

He listened to his mother crooning in the kitchen, and made out the shadow of an old, familiar mop; she was cleaning and singing, something he remembered her doing often when he was young. Had his parents been mad-or even miffed-when their youngest son had refused to come home for holidays? Surely Bryson, despite his loyalty, wasn't around much. Kellan wondered what his parent's life was like out here on the prairie, by their present lonesome. Did they still entertain drifters, transients, troubadours? Or had they...in some unusual way...come to settle down?

There was an abrupt sound of the wooden mop flopping against a linoleum floor, and before Kellan knew what was happening he was bound up in the smoky embrace of his mother, V.

”BABY!” She shrieked, her voice like a sick toad. ”MY BABY'S HERE! LET ME LOOK AT YOU!”

V leaned back and surveyed her son; he took the opportunity to paint his own picture. She looked mostly the same-ever sun-kissed, brown as the earth she hewed. Her crackly bottle-red hair still had the texture of Brillo, though it now hung past her shoulders. What looked like fistfuls of turquoise jewelry dangled from her ears and rested atop the flared collar of her denim vest, which was itself decorated with beads, decals, stones for days. Her tattooed blue eyeliner had slid farther still from the corners of her eyes, lending her face the slight air of a perpetually sad clown. But despite all this, he saw his mother as he'd always managed to see her: beautiful, in her way.

V was skinny and taut from a grisly lifetime, but he still felt the warmth of flesh against him when she encircled him in her arms. She seemed equally pleased with what she saw in Kellan, and hugged him the tighter.

”I heard you singing in there. Got some nice pipes, Ma.”

”Oh, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” V said, cuffing him sharply on the shoulder. ”When we all know who the Elvis is around here. Get your patootie off the porch, mister! Made three loaves of zucchini bread when I heard you was coming.”

Suppressing a premature gag (oh, how he remembered his mother's infamous zucchini bread...), Kellan followed V over the threshold and into the house. She bustled towards the kitchen, but he took a moment to consider the inside of his childhood home.

It smelled the same. Sharply musty, like old potpourri, a thousand stale cigarettes, and new plastic. Some of the furniture had been swapped out for newer, somehow uglier replications of the originals-the old Admiral Console TV had at last succ.u.mbed to a mounted flat-screen, it seemed-but just like his mother, the world inside seemed essentially undisturbed by a long absence. Perhaps six years wasn't so long after all, Kellan thought. This was comforting and disturbing both.

When V returned and shoved her son into the best loved armchair in the living room (a high honor), she seemed at an unusual loss for words. She rubbed her waxy lips together and watched Kellan expectantly.

”So.”

”So!”

”I hear that the music thing is treatin ya alright.”

”It is, kinda. Yeah.”

”Oh, don't let me interrupt. Eat the zucchini bread!” If he knew his mother at all, this was less goad than direct command. She watched him like a hawk. Accordingly, Kellan took a timid bite from the corner of his...loaf.

”Any pretty girls?” she demanded, as soon as he'd managed to swallow a shred of the product. Her cooking hadn't improved at all.

”What's that?”

”Any pretty-?”

Just then, the very fabric of the living room seemed to shudder with the antic.i.p.ation of a new body. The screen door clattered shut, and a shadow filled the foyer. Judging by its girth, Kellan took this interloper to be his father. An impulse deep within compelled him to sit up straighter in the armchair.

”VALERIE? THAT YOU?”

”HUGHIE! IN HERE!” His parents had also not outgrown their habitual shouting to one another from close proximity.

”SOMEONE SPECIAL TO SEE YOU!” V chirped. Her voice cracked at the top of her taunt with barely suppressed glee.

Hughie followed his shadow into the room. As he remembered, his father was a hefty man-if anything, the article in front of him was bigger than memory. He wore his customary driving goggles and black-topped helmet. The walrus drapes of his moustache were perfectly manicured, and curled at the edges of his chin. His wet-looking stubble remained the same. At once, he cracked a grin filled with gold teeth in his younger son's direction.

”The youngest Vaughn returns. As I live and breathe.”

”Pop.”

Kellan rose and hugged his father, who smelled -as usual-of Evan Williams, spearmint and a freshly extinguished Black n' Mild. He was surprised at how sentimental he was finding this encounter; for a moment, Kellan could even feel the wells behind his eyes start to produce tears. He stifled these. If Hughie and V couldn't abide anything, it was crying.

”Valerie, get that s.h.i.+t out of his hand,” Hughie instructed, on seeing the zucchini bread. ”Baby boy's in town, we go out. Get your bike.”

His mother didn't even look briefly hurt; she was surely used to this sort of casual cruelty by now. Instead, she followed her already retreating husband back outside the house and onto the lawn. Kellan scrambled to follow only when he heard the whirring of two motorcycles, already prepped to make tracks.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Over a heavy dinner at the local pub Flanagan's, Hughie and V began to speak with the same fluidity Kellan remembered from childhood. The club was doing well, they informed him. Various business pursuits were being managed by top men and women, to the extent that the king and queen of the castle had been allowed to sit back and relax for the past few years. Bryson was doing a great job of intimidating the unsavory. Various promising lost women had wormed their way under V's wing, and if Kellan was willing to stick around through the weekend she'd be all too happy to introduce him...

”I want to talk about Bryson some more,” Kellan said at last. Several beers and a hot bowl of chili had booned him the courage to speak to his parents about why he'd come back in the first place.

”What about 'em?” Hughie asked. It was difficult to make eye contact with his father-for, like Bryson, it was a rare day when the leader of the Devil's Aces took off his motorcycle helmet and dark gla.s.ses, indoors be d.a.m.ned.

”He came out to my show the other weekend and mentioned a long con you're all working. On the mob.”