Page 59 of Monk
Don’t get me wrong, they absolutely live up to some of the stereotypes. They’re big, scary, and I have no doubts they can be mean when they need to be. But they’re more well-spoken than I’ve ever thought. A few of them even seem very well read and intelligent. And all of them, I’m quite certain, are very literate. They’re not just a bunch of brainless thugs.
Oh, I have no illusions about who or what they are. The incident at the mill today showed me that they are still bikers and very much embody some of those stereotypes. But what I learned today is that they’re not just that. They’re much more than what they appear to be.
Which brings my thoughts back to Jacob. Yesterday was… perfect. There really is no other way to put it. I can’t think of a better day I’ve ever spent with another person before in my life. And yeah, sadly, that includes my wedding day. It was wholly unexpected, and not something I was looking for, but the connection we shared last night seemed even stronger than it was back in the day.
And I hate to admit it, but even though the day I ran into him at the church, I vowed to myself that I would never see him, would not reopen those old wounds he’d left behind, and would shun him for as long as I’m in Blue Rock, he got through. He got under my skin, and I felt my heart open to him in ways it hadn’t since we were together. Maybe even in more ways than that.
But then, that all changed this morning when he pushed me away. After what happened at the mill and talking to the other guys in his club, I understand it a bit more. I understandhima bit more. But that doesn’t make any of this easier. The fact of the matter is the club commits crimes. They sell weed and guns. That’s pretty black and white to me.
The other side of that coin, however, is that they keep all of that stuff out of Blue Rock. They ensure that the drugs and violence prevalent in other cities don’t touch our town. They help keep our streets clean and relatively safe.
I pull into the driveway and shut off the engine, my mind racing a thousand miles a minute. The lights are burning downstairs, and a cold chill runs through me. My dad is going to be pissed that I didn’t come home last night. Feeling nervous about facing him makes me feel like an idiot. I’m a grown woman and not a little girl. And yet, I’m nervous all the same.
With a heavy sigh, I lock up the car up behind me and walk up the steps and to the door. I pause with my hand on the doorknob, silently counting to ten before I open it, and step inside. The moment I close the door behind me and turn the locks, I hear the TV in the living room shut off and feel a jolt of adrenaline.
The chair creaks beneath my father’s weight as he gets to his feet and I grit my teeth as I head for the kitchen. Grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge, I turn around as he comes through the door, his face dark and pinched.
“So, you’re alive,” he says.
“Alive and well,” I say brightly, hoping my smile tamps down his irritation.
“Uh-huh,” he says. “And at the very least, you didn’t think to call?”
“I’m sorry, Dad. I had a few beers, and I didn’t want to drive.”
It’s mostly true. I did have some beers with Jacob, and if I had been pulled over and made to take a breathalyzer, I have no doubt I would have blown over the limit.
“Uh-huh.”
He silently stares at me with those piercing green eyes and I feel like he’s flaying me with them. Peeling back layers of skin and muscle, clawing deep down into my body and soul, trying to dig the truth out of me.
It’s an old cop trick and one he uses on people sitting in his interrogation rooms. He’s always done it and I can’t count the number of times I cracked under that pressure while I was growing up when I knew he was going to get the information out of me one way or another. It’s like his evil superpower. He either figures out what he wants to know, or he makes you freak out and tell him just to get him to quit looking at you. I hate it. I’ve always hated it.
“You were with him, weren’t you?” he finally asks.
Feigning ignorance right now is the worst thing I can do since that is clearly meant to be a statement, not a question. He obviously knows where I was last night. The feeling of being a teenager caught sneaking out in the middle of the night is overpowering. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this awkward ever since I was actually a teenager.
“When are you going to learn, Kasey? He was a dirtbag back then, he’s a dirtbag now. Scum like him don’t change.”
Despite my feelings for Jacob being incredibly complicated right now, the one thing I can say with certainty is that he’s neither a dirtbag nor scum. He’s complex. All of the Pharaohs I met today are complex. It’s impossible to put them in one box. But this isn’t stuff I can share with my dad. Not right now because he won’t hear it. I doubt he’ll ever be in a place where he can hear it, to be honest.
“I don’t think you’re being fair, Dad.”
His face darkens even further and his hands clench into fists at his sides. I’m half afraid he’s going to have a stroke or have an aneurysm right then and there. I don’t remember ever seeing him so angry.
That anger in him and his judgement of Jacob, along with the rest of the Pharaohs, is unfair as far as I’m concerned, and it does nothing but piss me off in turn. It’s possible I’m just being naïve and trying to see the better side of people, but I don’t think so. I just think my dad is being a judgmental prick right now.
“Have you ever spent five minutes talking to him, Dad? Even when we were kids, did you ever talk to him?” I ask.
“I didn’t need to. All I needed was to look at what he came from to know what kind of person he was going to turn out to be. And hey, guess what? I was right.”
My jaw is clenched so tight I can probably shatter stone right now. I glare at him hard for a long moment, unable to speak for fear of saying something horrible that I might regret tomorrow. Drawing in a deep breath, I count to ten again, then let it out, feeling a modicum calmer.
“Did you know that when he disappeared when we were younger, it was because he enlisted?” I say. “He was off serving this country and not out doing all of the terrible things you accuse him of doing.”
That seems to give him pause, and for once, he doesn’t have something nasty to say. It doesn’t take any of the fire out of his eyes, though. He’s obviously going to cling to his beliefs no matter how wrong they are. He clears his throat and stands up straighter, seeming to gather himself and regain his swagger.
“Yeah, well, now he’s running with the goddam Pharaohs, so even if he wasn’t doing all that shit then, he is now,” he says.
