Page 27 of Moonshine Lullabies

He nodded and looked thoughtful a minute.

“You need a man you can rely on,” he said, and I shook my head. “I mean I get it, he’s my brother, not my man – but he likes to walk around here with his chest puffed out, claimin’ to be the man o’ the house when he ain’t never here or do nothing and it pisses me off!”

He had the nerve to smirk but what he said doused the fire of my rising anger. “He’s still a young buck and ain’t got his priorities straight.”

“Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth?” I sighed and dropped onto the end of my bed to put my boots on. He came over and sat down next to me.

“You ain’t ever had a man who wanted to, have you?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“What about Tate’s daddy?” I stiffened and just pursed my lips and shook my head.

“He ain’t have nothin’ to do with him past the age of like three,” I said. Collier cocked his head as I told him, “No child support, nothin’. I don’t want or need his help. He’s all up into drugs and all that.”

“You been doin’ really great with him,” he said and l looked at him. “Now I mean that.” He sighed. “You gotta go to the school anyway today, how hard is it we go in and you put me on the books as an emergency contact or whatever? Get it so I can pick him up the rest of this week? I’m gonna be around anyhow.”

“You’d do that?” I asked, frowning.

“Hell yeah,” he said. “I’m here anyway and as much as you’re annoyed with your brother and his always bein’ around the club, I don’t think you realize the club’s family. We’re supposed to be here for you as much as he is. So let me do that. Let me help.”

I thought about it and said warily, “Sounds too good to be true an’ I ain’t got much reason to be the trustin’ sort.”

“Hey, I get that,” he said, spreading his hands. “But I want to, so I will. Let me do it and take some of the load off you.”

I nodded and said, “Alright, then.”

He beamed a little. “Okay.”

I tried to calm myself down, knowing at least today was taken care of – maybe. We would have to see. I couldn’t tell you the number of times a man told me he would do something then conveniently “forgot” the moment something shinier came along.

We went to the school and I got things squared away in the office. I told the principal I wasn’t mad at my son for poppin’ his bully in the mouth and that they needed to keep that kid away from my kid. I knew they wouldn’t do anything. They never did nothin’ to protect me when I went to that school and Macy Robinette wouldn’t leave my ass alone. I could see nothin’ about that pattern had changed in all these years.

Next, Collier dropped me off at my job where I pulled off the helmet I’d worn and handed it over. He took it and said “Go on an’ have a good one. I’ll come by and pick you up after I get Tate home from school.”

I nodded and said, “What you gon’ do the rest of today?”

“Don’t you worry about me, none. I’ll find some shit to get into – but hey,” he called when I looked away and I looked back. He met my eyes with those ghost blue eyes of his and promised me, “I’ll be where I’m supposed to be when I’m supposed to be there for you an’ for Tate today and the rest of the week.”

I nodded. I wanted to believe him, believe me I did, but I would just have to wait and see what happened there.

“Okay,” was all I said. I didn’t know what else to say. I mean, anything else might start a fight and I really didn’t want to fight with him for some reason.

“Okay.” He reached out and gave my hand a careful squeeze and I jerked it out of his grasp on reflex.

I did the only thing I could do and walked away into the family owned, big-and-small-game butcher shop to start my day.

CHAPTERTEN

Collier…

I went into the city to the clubhouse. I was making good money with the city parks department but I was on vacation this week for a variety of reasons. One, I had enough vacation time built up that I had to use it or lose it. Two, Hex and the club needed my help in getting this ‘shine operation up and running as next to Hex, I was the only one with any experience doin’ it.

I had the rest of this week and halfway into next week free and we had two more stills to get going out there to maximize our chances of getting something made to completion that was decent.

The stills we were runnin’ weren’t all that big. Probably get five or six gallons of shine out of each of ‘em, if we were lucky. That was by design, though.

One of the things that was a fun part of Moonshining history was that it was the birth of stock car racing. Fellas back in the day would soup their engines up to high heaven and strip the inside of the car down to nothin’ to cut weight. It gave rise to some of the fastest cars on the road meant to outrun the law if they caught on to what you were doin’. We didn’t have that out here, but what we did have was the bikes. We could put the shine in smaller batches into the saddlebags of our bikes and make a pretty fast getaway if need be. That was just the way it had to be for right now as we perfected our recipes.

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