Page 26 of Property of Baffle
The RV shop was the largest of the two garages the Morton family owned on their compound.They also had an auto body shop for cars and motorcycles, several houses, a few rental cabins, and a whole fucking campground that accommodated everything from RVs to tents.
“Does Brady know this plan yet?”Grunt asked.When I shook my head the bastard laughed at me.It didn’t matter, I had a good feeling Brady would jump at the chance to rent the space to Nell, especially once he got a load of what she was creating.I might have to talk to Nell about doing the Harley piece for us before Brady got any bright ideas and put in his own special requests for my wife’s work.
15The Turnaround
Nell
Since Crutch tookhis job to watch over me in the most literal sense, I ended up parked on a couch in the common area of the clubhouse for more than an hour before I declared that I would go out of my mind if I didn’t have anything to do.
Tilly disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a bunch of printer paper and pencils.She waved me over to one of the tables in the common area.It looked like something the men might use when playing poker or simply sitting around to shoot the shit.I honestly had no clue since I hadn’t been around the club long enough to notice those things.
“What is this for?”I asked when she smiled at me as though she’d just done me the world’s biggest favor.
When I raised an eyebrow as if to emphasize the question I’d just asked, Tilly’s smile fell and her confident demeanor shifted enough that Crutch walked over to check in on us.
“It’s…” She paused a minute and hesitated as her eyes bounced between Crutch and me.“Well, you’re an artist.I thought you might like to draw something.”Her husband laughed and walked away again as I sighed.
“I work with metal,” I admitted at the same time Bigfoot’s son, Hawk, yelled, “Cool, can we draw, too?”
Tilly mouthed, “Sorry,” as Hawk and his friend, Ryan, took a seat on either side of me.
“What do you guys want to draw?”I asked as I doled out paper and pencils to everyone.Tilly took a seat across from us as the boys thought about what they wanted.
“A Harley, like my dad’s,” Hawk answered.
“A house on a lake,” was Ryan’s response.
“Tell you what,” I started to say as Crutch came over with a drink for his ol’ lady and took a seat beside her.“Hawk can draw a motorcycle and Ryan can draw a house and we’ll go from there.”It seemed like common sense, but kids sometimes needed to know that their idea was good enough before they started.
“What are you going to draw?”Hawk asked.
“I’m going to draw a motorcycle parked in front of a house by the lake and two really cool boys who I know.”
“She means us,” Hawk announced loudly with his little chest puffed up.I giggled as my fingers flew across the paper.My preferred medium was to work with metal and paint, but I drew all of my concepts first as a blueprint of sorts to keep me focused and help me figure out which materials I’d need for each project.
A few times, I had to stop what I was doing and help one of the boys when they weren’t sure how to make something.After about an hour, they both declared they were done and wanted to do something else.One of the prospects, Chuck, took the boys outside to run around and play at the playground the club had set up in their residential area.
I continued to work on my drawing and didn’t even realize that Tilly and Crutch had stuck around to watch.Two hours later, the boys came back along with a woman I hadn’t met yet.She was introduced as Melissa, Hawk’s mom.She had come to pick the boys up, since Hawk was going home with her and she was dropping Ryan off with his uncles.As Melissa made sure the boys had everything, Hawk turned back to say goodbye to his grandparents and noticed me.
“Wait!We never saw your picture.”Hawk ran back over to where I’d been working on my sketch and I grinned as I carefully lifted the paper up to show him.It was a life-like drawing of the two boys standing in front of two motorcycles with a house to the right and a view of a lake and the mountains in the distance.The boys were both wearing little cuts of their own in the image as if they were club brothers.
“Holy shit!”Hawk yelled to a round of laughter from everyone close enough to hear him.
“Hawk!”His mother admonished until she looked down and saw my drawing.“Wow!”
“Can I have it?”Hawk asked.I was about to hand it to him when Ryan’s little voice said, “I want it, too, so I can show it to my sister when she gets back.”
Thankfully, Tilly came to the rescue with a plan that would appease everyone.“How about I go make a few copies for you boys and I’ll get a frame so Bigfoot can hang the original somewhere in the clubhouse?”
“Yeah!”Ryan shouted as Hawk said, “Cool, thanks, Grams!”
I tried to hand the image to Tilly but she refused to take it at first.“The artist’s signature is required on this one.”
Once I signed it, she took off and I was shocked to see a few of the men staring at me in awe.“You put the boys in Kings cuts,” Crutch mentioned when he noticed my confused look.
“Was I not supposed to?”
He grinned, as if he was about to let me in on a well-kept secret.“Nah, that was fine, darlin’.My son is going to cherish the fuck out of the image of his boy as a member.”He knocked his knuckles on the table.“Pretty sure Sammy’s going to lose it when she sees you included her little brother, too.Kid’s been through a lot lately.”He glanced over to where the boys had followed Tilly into an office.“You made him look like family when he was having a hard time believing anyone loved him.Means a lot how you blended them all together.Even if you didn’t know how important it was when you did it.”
