ALL GOOD SONS

 This post isn't a short story, but rather two chapters from my last novel, All Good Sons. I was rather obsessed with Sons Of Anarchy at the time, which lead to biker music playlists on Spotify, which lead to the creation you see before you. Being a mother myself, albeit a slightly better one than my protagonist, this was a fairly easy story to write. Thankfully, my kid is the polar opposite of hers.

ALL GOOD SONS - Chapters 1-3.

Chapter 1

From the moment my son Grey was born, he was the sun and I was the mud ball orbiting around him. His sister, Lenore, was born ten minutes earlier but unlike Grey, who was alight come flu, flood, or famine, Lenore wore a scowl on her face from minute one. I suppose that was my fault - I know it was - but when a loser like me is gifted custodianship over of such a rare creature as Grey, she isn’t about to take it for granted.

I was a championship drinker and screwer who happened to sing a little on the side. That would be the description my mother would offer you of me, were she to sink to vulgarity. If there was anyone in my life who was almost as disappointed in me as my daughter, it would have been her. She threw me into every choir, talent quest, and audition she could find as soon as she discovered my talent, and with reasonable success. I went from playing orphan number twenty-three in a local production of Annie to playing Fantine in an off-broadway production of Les Miserables.

Then I discovered metal music.

To be more specific, I discovered metal musicians.

More specifically still, I fucked them…a LOT of them. I lost my virginity to a roadie - not the most auspicious start, I know - then I graduated to bass players, drummers, guitarists and - the holy grail - singers. Most women tend to gravitate toward the second and third last options, I know, but there was always something about the hot, slightly disturbed looking guy sweating his balls off in leather pants, screaming for his life that appealed to me. Weird, huh?

J.J. Makepeace was the prize notch in my lipstick case and, as it turned out, the last…for a little while, at least. He was the lead singer of The Rimmers, a punk-metal hybrid band that were having some chart success, much to J.J’s chagrin. J.J. was of the belief that to court popularity was a betrayal of one’s artistic principles. I doubt he could even spell principles. J.J. was a tall, lightly bronzed rock god with swimmer’s muscles and the most luscious head of wavy, chestnut hair you could imagine. (To give you some idea of its wonder, look up an old teen rebellion movie from 1979 called Over The Edge starring a magnificently coiffed Matt Dillon, who was around fourteen years old at the time).

For all his earnestness, J.J. wasn’t exactly my intellectual equivalent, but that didn’t bother me. I didn’t hold much stock in smarts at the time, and I was clever enough for the both of us. Then I forgot to take my pill. So much for brains. To his credit, J.J. stuck around for a whole six months after I gave him the happy news. He would’ve stayed longer, were it not for the enormous alimony estimate his second wife (a senator’s daughter) flashed him when he announced he was leaving. Apparently, math was his strong subject. My mother was quite the mathematician, too. All it took to get Joeline Makepeace to put myself and my unborn demon spawn up in a nice, mid century ranch in the valley were six words: I Know Barbara Walters Personally, Dearie.

I was still nursing a fairly serious cardio-vascular wound when I went into labour, which might go some way toward explaining why I felt such an immediate affection for Grey when they finally wrenched him out of me but, for the most part, it was all him. My mother had a characteristically succinct take on it.

‘A beguiling little bastard, just like his daddy.’

Mother favoured Lenore, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that she was my paternal grandmother’s namesake.

‘Poor, lovely little thing. Why would you name her after that old harridan?’

‘Because she was nice to me.’

‘Out of spite. Old bat always hated me.’

‘Gee, I can’t imagine why.’

Mother raised an eyebrow. ‘Laugh all you want, just don’t let this little girl down. You’re a mother now, God help us.’

‘I have TWO children, mother.’

Mother took a furtive, piteous glance at Grey.

‘Yes, well, I’m sure he’ll do just fine; there are plenty of rich, naïve girls who are willing to support dumb boys with big…’

‘Goodnight, mother.’

She retreated a little, speaking in a hushed tone so as not to be overheard by the nurses, a profession of which she’d been enormously mistrustful since her father died. The fact that Grandpa had been an incorrigible drunk, feeding a wicked case of cirrhosis with Jack Daniels and Pall Malls for thirty years did nothing to shake her of the belief that one of them had killed him in his slumber.

‘I’ll take care of food and clothing and education, don’t you worry; just concentrate on being a good example. Do it for their sake, if not your own.’

I sat up in bed, with some difficulty, and looked her dead in the eye so she would get the full measure of my meaning.

‘Hear this now: These are MY children, and I will take care of them.’

I meant this promise and, for better or worse, managed to keep it. I took on two jobs - working in a donut shop during the day and in a commercial laundry at night - and was fortunate enough to be able to take the kids with me to both of them. Grey didn’t give me a moment’s trouble but, when the terrible two’s hit, Lenore received both a right and a left cross to make up the shortfall. She hated everything and everyone except for her grandmother so, just after the twin’s third birthday, I gave in to my mother’s constant requests and let her babysit. She didn’t want Grey, of course, but it didn’t matter; all the more quality time for us. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, for Lenore and for myself, but I know now I should’ve hung in there. In hindsight, I know this was what Lenore was really screaming for.

Lenore got her brains from me, and she used them for all they were worth. While Grey and I watched movies, she read. While we played football in the yard, she planned. While I was sitting in an office doing my best to charm the principal into reconsidering not allowing Grey to graduate, Lenore was studying for the English exam that would prove to be the clincher in her winning valedictorian. Make no mistake, I was proud of my girl; we just never really connected. If I were to sum up the reason Grey and I were so close in one word, that word would be warmth. Whatever he said or did, there was an unassuming radiance about Grey that allowed one to look past the fact that he wasn’t going anywhere special. He had his boarding pass all set, he was just comfortable right where he was.

Grey did end up pulling off an acceptable enough score to graduate, after I managed to patiently nag him into pulling his thumb out of his ass, and while it wasn’t exactly with honors, he out shined his sister in his celebrations. The pink limousine he ordered for himself, his date, and seven of his closest friends (which I paid for) pulled up at seven thirty, while Lenore drove herself and her best friend to the reception room in the beloved but bedraggled V.W convertible she insisted on paying for with the money she earned working nights and weekends in a bookstore. Lenore was back an hour after prom finished, looking happier than I’d ever seen her up to that point but not the slightest bit disheveled.

‘Who are you and what did you do with my daughter?’ I smiled.

‘Please don’t ruin this for me, Mother.’

‘What? I’m happy for you. You’ve had that piece of two by four wedged so far up your ass for so long, I was beginning to think I’d have to get it surgically removed.’

‘Yeah, well, don’t strain yourself…Eric did it for you.’

She went upstairs to bed without so much as a grunt of impatience, and I went over to the couch to put on a movie and to wait up for Grey. I woke up six hours later to someone knocking so loudly at my door that I fell off the couch with the shock of it.

Two cops were waiting for me with unreadable expressions on their faces.

‘Ms Perris?’

‘Yes?’

‘Is your son Grey Perris?’

‘Yes,’ I grinned, ‘what’s he done now?’

‘Nothing, Ms Perris…’

‘Didn’t think so. My boy’s never been an instigator. He’s just the guy who stays back too long grinning like an idiot.’

The older cop’s face suddenly took on a look of determined resignation, and I felt my knees buckle before he’d even finished his sentence.

‘I’m sorry, Ma’am, but there’s been an incident. May we come in?’

I don’t know if you’ve ever had to visit an intensive care unit, but if I were to liken it to something, it would be a long-term airport parking garage. Ten to twelve bodies stored in neat, numbered allotments while their owners are away on unavoidable business, travelling with a one-way ticket. In a lot full of four wheel drives and luxury sedans, Grey was an ill-used Mustang. Forever young and handsome, but driven to within an inch of his life.

My son doesn’t belong here. I thought. Someone did something stupid and, God bless him, he stood where he was when everyone else took a giant step back.

‘They stole a motorcycle,’ the older cop had said, ‘and they each took it in turns to see who could ride it the furthest over the peak of Sage Brush Hill without calling chicken.’

‘And my boy never called chicken.’

‘The owner of the bike was Robert Sinclair, otherwise known as Little Bobby. He’s a member of The Romans.’

I was very familiar with The Romans, just as I was with every biker club in the state, thanks to the father of my children. His brothers, half of whom were currently serving time in the very same prison to which Little Bobby would soon be checking in, were members of a proud clan known as The Peaceniks, and when they heard that their nephew had been turned into a mannequin, it would be open season.

I would make sure of it.

I wasn’t back out in the hallway for more than three seconds before Lenore threw her arms around me.

‘I’m so sorry, Mama!’

Her dismissive, dead-pan voice was now an impotent croak and, as her mother, I should’ve comforted her. All I could do was think the same thought, over and over.

This is not fucking fair.

This is not fucking fair.

This is not fucking fair.

Chapter 2

We got home at two thirty in the afternoon, and I let Lenore make tea for me. I didn’t want the tea, I had no intention of drinking the tea; it was just easier to say yes and shut her up. Even then she flitted about the house, doing chores, cooking a meal she must’ve known I’d never eat.

‘Mama? I made you tarragon steak. I know you don’t feel like it right now but you might later.’

‘Honey,’ the word felt cold and unnatural on my tongue, ‘why don’t you go over to Eric’s for a while? You need better company than me. I’m okay here.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘No, I mean it.’ I forced myself to smile. ‘Eric’s a sweet boy. Let him take care of you.’

‘Okay, then,’ she said, swallowing, ‘I’ll go.’

She walked over to the front door, turned the knob, but didn’t pull it.

‘If you’re sure you’re…’

I held up my hand. ‘REALLY okay here.’

She was out the door a second later, leaving me to wallow, but I did not do so idly. I got up off the couch, took our cups of tea into the kitchen, poured them down the drain, went back into the living room, fluffed the sofa pillows. Before long, I wasn’t fluffing anymore; I was punching, and not just the pillows. I punched, threw, and kicked anything I could get at until my knuckles went numb just as I was poised to pound the telephone into powder. Then I remembered Daryl.

He was the only Makepeace brother not currently missing in South East Asia or residing with god knew how many other men who had chosen similarly doomed career paths. Even if he wasn’t, he’d still be the only one I’d call.

‘Is it all set?’

‘Done deal.’

‘When?’

‘Soon as he checks in…the night of.’

‘Sorry to ask.’

‘Don’t be. Curly’s in for the long stretch, anyhow. It’s not like he’s gonna be earning any points for good behaviour.’

‘Don’t tell me when it’s over. I’ll just watch it on the news.’

‘How are you doing?’

‘Oh, nothing a blow torch and a half a tank of gas won’t put right.’

‘You know you picked the wrong brother, right?’

‘Yeah,’ I smiled, ‘I know.’

He was right, of course, but if I hadn’t made that colossal mistake, I wouldn’t have Grey; not the Grey I had now. I hung up the phone, and then I noticed something. The little red message light was flashing.

One.

One.

One.

I’d left the machine on when I went grocery shopping the day before, and it had been set to click on at one ring. But I’d checked the machine before the kids left for prom, and there were no messages then. Someone had called when I wasn’t present. Someone had called while I was asleep.

‘You have ONE new message,’ chirped the cuckoldish machine voice.

‘Mama! Please help me, Mama! They’re gonna kill me, Mama, please HELP!’

I reached down and ripped the phone cord out of the wall.

Chapter 3

With Lenore at my mother’s place, and me having made my feelings about Mom pretty clear when she paid an obligatory visit to the hospital, there was nobody around to take me to task for rendering myself unreachable, so my phone was still unplugged when Little Bobby’s death hit the news. I didn’t know how they’d done it, or how long it took; all I knew was that he’d suffered, because I made Daryl promise me he would. I plugged the phone back in as soon as the report was finished and dialed star sixty-nine. I have no idea why to this day. Apparently I’d missed a call the night Grey was hurt; at exactly the same time. In theory, that couldn’t happen; one mechanised telephonic system was supposed to cancel out the other, but it didn’t. Grey had been calling from a cell phone, and I didn’t question it at the time. I’d given him a new phone for his birthday, but the number that star sixty-nine was oh-so-enthusiastically relaying to me wasn’t Grey’s. I dialed the number, and was greeted by another recording. The voice on the other end of the line was warm, even charming.

‘Hi, this is Pierre. Leave a message at the…’

There was a loud, meaty belch just before the beep sounded. I remembered that belch. The last time I’d heard it, I was descending my basement steps, delivering a tray of hot dogs and fries to a gang of loud, cheeky boys. Pierre Chibale was the first friend Grey made in school, and it was their mutual love of toilet humour that united them. Their principal, Mrs Henderson, was a privileged wasp bitch and although she was prohibited from actually attacking her charges, she always managed to find reasons to punish or, worse still, exclude those children who didn’t have her preferred blood type running in their veins. Little Pierre, being of half Tongan, half Egyptian descent, often found himself sitting out trips to the zoo or the museum for such diverse reasons as wearing inappropriate socks or sneezing during the buddy system talk. I happened to have volunteered as a ‘Helper Mom’ for a trip to the newly revamped local park on my day off, and when Mrs Henderson singled out Pierre as the phantom cougher who was disrupting her concentration during a speech about public safety, I took one look into that little boy’s shattered eyes and stepped in.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Henderson…’ I coughed ‘…but I was the one who coughed. It must be my sinuses or something, or the pollen in the air, I don’t,’ cough, ‘know.’

‘Gee, Grey’s Mommy,’ she forced through gritted teeth, ‘maybe chaperoning a trip to a great big park in the middle of spring wasn’t the best idea.’

I squeezed Pierre’s hand as he got on the bus, and he hit me with that aw-shucks smile that I predicted would win over any girl he so much as glanced at, and I knew from the very different smile I saw him share with Grey as they watched a Golden Retriever do his business next to an oak tree that this would be the last field trip either of them would go on for a while. How they managed to sneak it onto the bus was beyond me, but I didn’t say a word. Call me evil, but I really wanted to see whatever wicked little scenario they had cooked up play out.

I was the only one who saw the tiny hand shoot back and forth from the Principal’s seat at the front of the bus, but everyone saw the brown, crescent-shaped smear on the back of her very expensive, polar-white dress when Mrs Henderson stood up to thank the driver when we got back to the school. Violetta Henderson grabbed Pierre by the ear and pulled him up out of his seat.

‘You disgusting little shit!’

Pierre stuck out his tongue, which I guess was the cherry atop the humiliation sundae for Mrs Henderson because she hit him with a vengeful backhand that sent him hurtling halfway down the aisle of the bus. Pierre’s parents were none too pleased, and neither was the board of education once Mr and Mrs Chibale and I exposed Henderson’s brand of governance on the six o’clock news. The sight of the little boy with the big black eye, being comforted by his equally adorable blonde moppet best friend, was enough to have half the city sign a petition to have Henderson’s suspension made into a termination. Nobody but me witnessed the sly grin on that gorgeous little face as he wiped an invisible tear from his cheek.

Thirteen years later, at what would be the beginning of the end of our final surrogate mother/son encounter, that grin had faded, replaced by the dopey, non-present, placated smile of a freshly relieved junky. He was sitting in his crappy car, which he’d parked in the back lot of a supermarket, far back enough to be out of range of the security cameras. I’d been following him for six weeks by then, and knew exactly where to wait. The first time I saw those strong, defiant shoulders slump, I was moved to tears of fury I hadn’t shed since the night my boy was hurt. I reminded myself of the end game.

The shoulders dropped. The head lolled forward. I got out of the car and pulled the black hood tighter around my face. He jumped when I knocked on his window, or made some sort of movement that was a reasonable facsimile. He stared at me for a moment, slowly and not too surely scanning my face, then he closed his eyes and smiled. He fumbled with the car door handle for a few seconds, and it was another minute or so before he was finally able to get out of the car and plant both feet on the ground.

‘Ms Perris?’

‘Hey, you!’ I hugged him and, damn it to hell, did not want to let him go. ‘You can call me Viola now you’re all grown up; you know that.’

There was a brief flash of that adorable, bashful smile.

‘Thanks…Ms Perris.’

I looked him over. ‘What are you doing here, Honey?’

Pierre swayed slowly, evading. ‘Just…chilling out.’

‘You can’t drive like this. Come crash at my place. Don’t worry, I’ll come back and park the car somewhere safe…I promise.’

He allowed me to take his hand and lead him back to my car. I only just stopped him from hitting his head as he got in. I got in the car, switched on the central locking, and put on some tunes.

‘Zeppelin,’ Pierre breathed. ‘Grey loved Zeppelin.’

‘Yeah,’ I nodded. ‘Remember his favourite song?’

Pierre closed his eyes and sang. ‘Gimme a piece of your custard pie!’

I laughed, genuinely.

He was nodding on his feet by the time I got him home. I took him straight to bed, tucking him in and smoothing back his sweaty hair. I left the room and got to work as soon as he was out. I waited up all night, my stomach gurgling from the full tilt assault of copious cups of coffee and no solid food. At eight thirty a.m, he screamed. I went to the door, unlocked it, and walked in to Grey’s room. Pierre was standing in the middle of the floor, turning around and around like a little lost boy who was rudely awakened to find he’d fallen asleep smack in the middle of a lion’s den. It took me all night to hang, stick, and mount every single picture of Grey that I’d had blown up specifically for this purpose. I was exhausted, but if it helped me glean even half the information I needed, it would be worth it.

I shut the door behind me and locked it. ‘Tell me what happened, sweetie.’

Pierre started turning again, even faster than before, sweat and spit and snot running down his beet-red face.

‘LemmeoutlemmeoutlemmeoutlemmeoutlemmeoutlemmeOUT!’

I took a pair of scissors out of my pocket.

‘I will.’

I cut down the poster closest to his face.

‘Tell me what happened.’

‘N…aaa.’

I decided to start small.

‘Who planned it?’

‘No, no no no, they’ll kill me if I tell you that.’

I reached out and grabbed his arm, steadied him.

‘Okay, Honey? The guys you should be really worried about are the fifteen or so biker brothers of the guy who was killed in prison for this thing, not to mention the thirty or so tree trunks facing extra time now for no good reason so how about leveling with me?’

Pierre swallowed and sat down hard on the bed, swatting away a Grey poster like it was a buzzard.

‘We all beat him up. All of us. Nash said we had to. We all wore gloves. He said it had to look like the biker was seriously pissed at him.’

‘Did the biker have anything to do with it?’

‘The first few punches, yeah. I told Grey I wanted the bike and,’ he choked on his saliva, recovered, ‘Grey said sure. Lulu got the biker’s attention.’

Lulu was Grey’s girlfriend. I loved her. I would catch up with her later.

‘The guy took one of his friend’s bikes and chased him, just like Nash said he would. Tyler and Dillon threw a bunch of spikes in the road. Grey fell off and the dude just started wailing on him. Grey gave it his best shot, but the dude was too big. Grey spat blood in his face and gave him the finger, called him a punk. That was when the dude calmed down a little…like, like he knew he was dealing with a kid? He slammed Grey into the ground and told him he’d turn him into a eunuch if he so much as breathed on his bike again.’

‘The dude walked away?’

‘Tried to. Nash knocked him out with a crowbar and took his bike up the hill and shoved it over. Ozzie dragged Grey over to the bike and held him while we all…worked on him. I’ve never seen Ozzie so happy…I didn’t want to, Ms Perris, please believe me, I didn’t want to, but they MADE ME!’

He sobbed again. I offered no comfort this time.

He wiped his nose on his ratty shirt sleeve.

‘I saw Grey’s face and I told them to stop but they kept going until Nash said he’d had enough and made them lay him down on the sand. Then he took the bike back up the hill…please don’t make me say no more.’

I made him say plenty more before I let him get cleaned up and drove him back to the parking lot. I didn’t release the central locking right away.

‘I know most of this wasn’t your doing, so I’ll keep it between us for a couple of days. Go somewhere safe, lay low for a while.’

‘For how long?’

‘I’m not sure yet. Now disappear.’

I knew this was a pointless piece of advice; he was going to die no matter what crooked path he chose to stagger down. All I was trying to do was buy him a little more time, and give myself some hope that he’d come to his fucking senses. I watched him run to his car and drive away, feeling every bit as angry about all this as I was the night it happened. More so, in fact, but I could no more kill a kid like Pierre than I could Grey were their situations reversed.

I waited another ten minutes before I drove out of the lot. Five miles down the road, I stumbled upon a scene. The road was blocked by six or seven cars, their drivers having abandoned them to observe something from the overpass that was apparently too fascinating and too appalling to tear themselves away. I pulled up alongside one of the other cars and walked toward the right side of the bridge. A flash of colour caught my eye to my left, and I turned to see a beaten up Celica in the middle of the rabble. I shoved my way between gawkers. The freeway was a dodgem car circuit, and the pedestrian who caused the wreckage was laying on the track, face down in a pool of what was obviously, even from such a high vantage point, shattered pieces of his brain.

I got back in my car and drove ten more miles to a field that would soon be ripped up and turned into a housing development, then walked as far as my weakening legs would carry me, doubled over, and puked until my stomach hurt.