Page 79 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

“Colin,” she said, again using her Mother Voice.

“This dorky fucking kid came up to me and asked if Mercy’s mom was a whore,” he finished with a huff. “I’d never seen him before, and I never saw him after, but when I saw that picture…” He gestured to the phone.

Alex looked to Mercy. “Colin said you guys used to hang out and swap dirty magazines in some clearing out in the swamp.”

“Yeah.” Mercy gazed at the phone another minute, then passed it back, jaw set, tendons leaping in the side of his throat. His eyes had gone shark-black and flat. “And then he prospected, and he said his name was Hank.” His throat jerked. “And I told him to get fucking lost, because he was an idiot wannabe.”

Twenty-One

It turned out that being a prospect wasn’t any more glamorous than being a potential prospect. He still had to wash all the bikes, and mop the floors, and scrub the toilets, and go on beer runs. Was still hazed mercilessly. For a solid week, he woke to find dead mice in his boots. He got sent on impossible, nonsense errands, and was told story after story that proved to be false, and left him the object of much laughter and ridicule.

But. Bob gave him a thousand bucks to put toward a new bike. It was shitty, missing parts, and couldn’t go more than twenty miles-an-hour to start with, but it was his, and he had access to club tools and parts to work on it in his spare time. That involved lots of asking questions, and more research, and staying up until the wee hours, flashlight clenched in his teeth, because he wasn’t given time during the day to tinker with it. He couldn’t sit in on church meetings, but was allowed to go on some runs with the guys. Innocent, around-town stuff, and he almost always wound up trailing far behind on his shitty bike. But people looked at him on the street, and he was flying the colors, and he was a part of them. When people watched him go by, he had the sense they were seeing a Lean Dog first, rather than a big-eared, awkwardly-built kid with a bad breakout along his jawline.

He was still too nervous to talk to girls whose company he hadn’t paid for, but a few of the Lean Bitches offered to blow him, and he accepted readily, even if they seemed bored with the whole thing. It took a little of his constant edge off, on the nights they knelt down between his spread thighs, but it didn’t soothe the hammering of his heart, or unclench the anxious knot in the pit of his stomach.

He called himself “Hank” around them, and since Bob wasn’t writing him checks, a last name hadn’t been necessary. He caught a head cold, and sneezed and coughed his way through three days in a row. He took to carrying tissues in his pockets, and Frenchie started calling him “Hankie,” which the others of course picked up.

In the weeks that passed before the night that would end his short tenure as a Lean Dog prospect, he spoke with Felix only three times.

The first, the Dogs were enjoying a late dinner courtesy of Diablo’s skills at the smoker, and a dozen pans of ribs and barbecue chicken. Harlan wasn’t allowed to sit down and eat until each Dog had been comfortably served, which of course meant that he wouldn’t eat for hours yet: by the time he got everyone situated, the first man he’d served wanted more beer, and the second had dropped his fork, and they were all casually intent on torturing him. It didn’t matter. Harlan crammed half a corn muffin in his mouth on his way to get a fresh pitcher of beer, and plastered a smile across his face. Prospecting only lasted a year, and by his reasoning, the easier he made all of their lives, the more likely they were to see the necessity of patching him in.

When he arrived at Felix’s table to refill glasses, someone else was calling for him across the room, and he was too harried to bother with his usual nervousness. He filled Felix’s glass, caught the pitcher’s drips with a cloth before they could hit the table, and stepped back.

“Thanks, man,” Felix said when he reached for his glass, and Harlan’s heartleaped.

He froze a moment, blinking, words washing over him like a hot bath at the end of a long day. Then he was off again, buzzing with renewed energy.

The second time was out in the parking lot a few weeks later. Harlan was on his way to the store, list clutched in one hand, and Felix was unloading cardboard boxes from one of the club pickups. “Hey,” he called, as Harlan passed, trying not to look too conspicuous as he darted glances Felix’s way. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought he’d been caught staring. But Felix waved him over and said, “Come gimme a hand with these.”

Harlan crammed the grocery list into his pocket and did so gladly.

The boxes wereheavy, and their contents shifted with crammed-full, metallic noises, and the rustle of some sort of packing material. Harlan was wildly curious about their contents, but as a prospect, it wasn’t his place to ask questions, only to follow orders, so he toted and stacked alongside Felix until the truck bed was empty. Felix clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Thanks, man.” He didn’t make eye contact, but Harlan figured he was tired and winded from moving all the boxes. Not as tired and winded as he was, obviously, because look at thosearms.

The third time proved to be the very next day. And proved to be more contact than Harlan had dared to hope for.

He was washing bikes, which seemed to be the only thing he did anymore; he washed bikes more frequently than he went to the bathroom. Frenchie leaned over the porch rail and peered down at him, squinting against the sun. “Alright, scrub,” he said. “Felix needs an extra set of hands picking up something at his old man’s place for Bob.”

Harlan blinked up at him, suds trickling up the back of his arm and dripping into the sleeve of his t-shirt to pool in his armpit. “He does?”

“What are you staring for? Get going.”

Harlan floundered, looking at the half-washed bike, the smear of soapsuds across its fender.

“Move,” Frenchie snapped, and he was grinning.

Harlan threw the sponge back in the bucket, hurriedly rinsed the bike down, and then scrambled for his cut, which he’d left draped over the porch rail.

Felix was behind the wheel of a club van, eyes shielded by sunglasses, and he greeted Harlan was a small smile and a “s’up,” as he scrambled into the passenger side.

“Hey.” He couldn’t help but notice that Felix waited to put the van in gear until he’d clicked his seatbelt into place, a small, considerate act that left Harlan marveling all over again that someone so large and intimidating to look at could have such a kind nature. It was a revelation that made him brave enough to speak out of turn as Felix piloted the van onto the road. “Frenchie said your dad had something Bob wanted?”

“Yeah. Some boat parts he picked up.”

Then it was silent save the hum of tires over pavement.

Shit.

Harlan watched the trees whip past out the window and racked his brain for something to say. This was so awkward! Why wasn’t he any good at conversation? Why couldn’t he just be one of those guys who could chew the fat about any- and everything, without worrying about getting the topic and tone just right?

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