Page 4 of Duke

Present Day

LEAVES CRUNCH UNDER the heels of my heavy black boots as I cross the lot filled with beat-up cars. I stop only to whistle in admiration at the motorcycle parked close to the front. The chrome catches the moonlight making it shine like silver.

Reaching into the pocket of my jacket, grabbing my smokes, I light one up enjoying the chill of fall before entering the packed bar. I’ve been trying to quit. But they calm my nerves and I’ve been on edge since the day I rode back into this podunk town.

Nodding at the bouncer, I walk past him to the side of the building. Cupping one hand to my mouth while the stick lights, my eyes close, savoring that first moment when the warm smoke enters my lungs. I inhale deeply, scanning both the front and back lot with cold eyes. Leaning back against a tree with the heel of my boot resting against the trunk, I probably look like a man who is just enjoying his smoke.

But, I’m not.

I was trained by the best never to let my guard down and I won’t, especially since I know she’s inside.

My lips tip up as I bring the cigarette back to my mouth. I’m gonna see her soon and it has become the highlight of my day—hell maybe even the highlight of my life.

Every night when I stop in, she pretends not to notice me, but by the way her back straightens every time I saunter in, it’s clear she does. The back door bangs open, my body coils like a spring ready to take action but it’s just some worker hauling bins of empties to the recycling container. This bar used to be a real shithole. It’s been cleaned up since the days I raced these streets; owning them like only the young can. But these days on my old man’s Harley—I’m more of a demon than a man and definitely no boy.

Taking a long drag, my eyes look up to the sky. If he’s up there—he’s laughing his ass off. But knowing who he was… there’s a good chance he didn’t go up.

He went down.

I slowly exhale, one tip of my boot dips into the dirt. My head hangs, remembering how the damp air chilled me to the bone as I watched my old man’s casket get lowered into the ground.

It was dark gray—just like the sky was overhead.

I held his worn leather jacket in my arms staring at the back embroidered with the logo of the motorcycle club he started in this town so many years ago. A clap of thunder sounded from the sky, and I raised my head feeling the regret and pain wash over me with every cold, hard pellet of rain that smacked face. My fists squeezed the coat, one last time before I tossed it down in the ground with him.

That jacket was a part of him. He never took it off. As a kid, I often wondered if he slept in it. He certainly always fucked in it. I didn’t understand what those patches meant, or the pride he felt wearing it. The patch is a symbol of a brotherhood that goes deeper than any religion. You agree to live a life outside the black and white. The only rule of law is the laws of the MC and if you break them—you end up buried in a back field.

As I stared at his leather cut on the coffin with the patch staring back at me, I cursed and in a split-second—I jumped in the hole and grabbed it off the coffin. The cemetery worker operating the Caterpillar practically shit his pants because I had stepped right onto the casket, using it as a spring to vault back out.

I scooped up a handful of fresh dirt, tossed it down and said, “Rest easy old man. I fucking loved you—even though you could be a bastard.” Then I turned on my heel and walked away. I hadn’t stepped one foot back in the town limits of Springdale in over two decades.

He was a stubborn bastard and like father, like son—so am I.

I kept my last word to him; leaving that day I turned eighteen, determined to show him I could make it on my own. I rode out of Springdale on my refurbished Ducati, down the Pacific Coast Highway to Sacramento never coming back. Shortly after I arrived in California, I enlisted and served three tours in Iraq. He never wrote or sent e-mails. But I heard through the old friends that had no choice but rot in Springdale or pledge to Creed that he was proud of me for becoming a Marine.

Days turned to weeks and weeks blended into years. When I had enough of war, I got out, opened my chop-shop but shortly after, the request for “favors” started rolling in. I had no choice but to stay loyal or risk the wrath of the northern California chapter of Creed.

I won’t lie—doing “favors” for them has made me a rich man, but you wouldn’t know by looking at me since I’m decked out in worn leather and tats.

My old man stayed one proud son of a bitch until the day he died. He stayed here, in this rural town in Oregon, letting me continue to go my own way. We never reconciled each of us thinking there would be time.

Taking one last drag, I shake my head, flicking the ash. I'm a fucking mess riding on a road to nowhere. I don’t have a family, a girlfriend, or even a goddamned dog to greet me when I get home. How the hell did I get here? I’m approaching forty with nothing good in my life.

“Can I bum a smoke?” Some saucy brunette asks slinking closer, “Duke? I thought it was you.”

Puzzled, I look at her face caked with makeup, not being able to place her.

“You don’t remember me do you, sugar? It’s me Cheryl from high school?”

“Sorry. It’s been awhile.”

“That’s okay. You’ll remember me real quick if we go somewhere quiet, ya’ know?” The tips of her black nails creep up my forearm.

“I gotta take a leak,” I mutter giving her my back, hoping she takes the hint and goes away. I feel her waiting, thinking I’m actually considering taking her up on her offer. I don’t want to be rude to her but I’m definitely not some horny teenager taking whatever piece of ass I can find.

With a sigh, I walk past the side of the bar that resembles more of an oversized shack than a place of business. Christ, there’s nothing decent in this town except forher.

I wanted to get the hell out of Springdale, as quickly as I could after the pathetic funeral my old man had. But, I felt the least I could do was stop by the place where he used to sit, drinking with his club. I thought I would just raise a glass—maybe a whole god dammed bottle before crashing on his couch and taking off the next morning.

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