Page 19 of Monk
Tarantula waves Bala over, and he turns to me, putting his fist out. I hesitate for a moment but give him a nod and bump my fist against his. A smile crosses his face as he turns and heads over to his crew. I walk over to Cosmo and we watch Montezuma’s Raiders take off, kicking up a tail of dust and gravel in their wake.
“Tell me we’re not gettin’ into the meth business,” I say.
“It’s a legit offer. I gotta take it to Prophet.”
“Dude, we don’t deal that shit.”
He shrugs. “We sling dope, man.”
“We sling weed.”
“And guns.”
It’s like a bad replay of my conversation with Bala all over again. But unlike that chat, I have Prophet’s own words to fall back on, him saying that weed’s one thing, but we don’t put that sort of hard poison into the world. That’s not our thing. And Prophet has always said it never will be.
It’s then that Bala’s words float back into my head.Money opens a lot of doors.I hope that’s not the case. If we get into that sort of business, I don’t know if I can keep riding with the Pharaohs.
“It’d bother you if we started slingin’ meth, huh?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. I’ve always thought that we’re a club that tries to do the right thing. More or less anyway. But one thing I thought for sure was that we don’t put that sort of shit into the world.”
“My feeling? It’s DOA,” Cosmo tries to reassure me. “But like I said, it’s a legit offer, and it’s my job to bring it to the prez.”
I don’t know Prophet extremely well, but I like to think he’s a standup guy. My every instinct tells me he is. He’s guided the Pharaohs along a path most MCs don’t travel. We’re not saints, but there are far worse out there than us. But there are a lot of things I don’t know about the man.
“How much does Prophet value money?” I ask.
“Probably not as much as you fear. But I guess we’ll see,” he replies. “Come on. We need to get to St. Aggie’s. We still have a shift in the booth.”
I feel amused at the incongruity of it all. Here we are, on the cusp of potentially starting to sling meth… and we’re going to work a food drive at a local church. But this is one thing I know we do and I’m comfortable with it. Doing good and giving back to our community is something I actually enjoy. It helps me feel like less of a dirtbag.
We mount our bikes as the boys drive off in the van. Cosmo turns to me, his expression earnest.
“Don’t worry, kid,” he says. “I don’t think Prophet’s going to go for it.”
I nod. “Good to know.”
He gives me a cocky look. “But don’t start gettin’ the idea that we’re fuckin’ saints. We’re most definitely not.”
He drives off, leaving me there smiling to myself as I twist the throttle and take off after him.
Chapter Seven
Kasey
The early morning light slants in through the blinds. I watch as motes of dust dance through the golden beam of light, hearing my dad moving around downstairs as he gets ready for work. It’s not long before I hear the front door close, and a few moments later, he gets into his SUV and fires up the engine.
Laying there, I listen to the rumbling of the motor fading away, and I suddenly feel the emptiness of the house. Everything is so perfectly silent and still. It’s almost like being in a vacuum. Back when I was a kid, there was always a presence about being here. The house never felt empty, even when they weren’t here. My mom and dad made this a warm and loving home for us that was always filled with laughter, and of course… love.
Rolling over, I prop myself up on an elbow and open the top drawer of my nightstand, looking for what secret treasures I kept all those years ago. After rummaging around in it a little, I stumble upon my old diary buried under the pile of junk in my drawer. With a smile on my face, I pull it out and start to flip through the pages, marveling at the trivial things I thought were life-altering crises back in the day. A few of the entries are so overwrought and emotional, I can’t help but laugh.
At the back of the diary is a stack of pictures tied together with a red ribbon that’s faded over the years. The ribbon unfurls when I give it a pull, and the pictures slip out. The nostalgia is thick as I look at my pictures with some of my old girlfriends. Some of them are at school functions, others are just candid shots from different places. It’s quite the blast from the past and a fun trip down memory lane.
I stop, when I get to the last picture in the stack. My heart lurches in my chest, and my belly starts to roil with a thick feeling. In the photo, I am standing next to Jacob Tulowisky. He was—and arguably still is—the greatest love of my life. He’s the man who got me to open my heart to him… and then vanished. Disappeared from my life, and as far as I know, simply dropped off the face of the earth altogether.
This was back in the days before they even had a name for what he did. Today, everyone knows what it’s called, but back then, we just called it a really shitty thing to do. Setting everything else on the nightstand, I lie back in bed, the picture in my hand, and look at his face, recalling the way his full lips felt pressed to my lips, and the way his body, taut with corded muscles felt against mine.
It was Jacob’s eyes that were my favorite part of him. They were crystalline blue, so light they were almost silver. And intense. They were always so intense. But then, so was he. It was one of the things that drew me to him. Jacob was my first… everything. First kiss. First love. First sex. He was my world for a while.
