Morrison (Caldwell Brothers)

“She gave that shit to me, then made me give it back. You certainly don’t deserve it. I want it back.”

When I stood toe to toe with him, I saw little beads of sweat pooling in his hairline—his tell.

“You take it off me, it’s yours,” I said as I walked around him.

His boys, all five of them, held my arms as Aiden swung on me. I didn’t move, didn’t flinch, the only thing I did do was spit the blood pooling in my mouth into his fucking face. Then the bell rang, and they scattered like little fucking roaches.

Annie ran up to me, asking what happened, but I didn’t say shit. I only walked past her as I took off the jacket and threw that fucker in the trash.

“What are you doing?” she yelled at me—like, really fucking yelled.

“Not you, ever again.” And yes, I said it loud enough so a few people, quite a few, heard me.

That night, the old man had his boys at the bar to play cards. His ass passed out face-first on the green felt card table. I had fifty bucks from shoveling sidewalks, but when old man Smith asked if I wanted to play, I told him I didn’t know how. He said he would teach me.

Then he smirked, almost maliciously—his tell.

Five-card draw was the game. I got the gist of it quickly. I also lost forty bucks within ten minutes. In those ten minutes, however, I learned the tell of every man at that table, and then I walked out with eight hundred seventy-two dollars. Beginner’s luck, they all laughed.

The next day, I showed up late to school, wearing a brand-new leather jacket. I grabbed a brand-new chick, tossed Annie my old phone, pulled my new prepaid smartphone out of the jacket, and gave the new chick my digits.

After that, I played cards with the boys whenever the old man passed out. I made bank enough to get the shit I wanted and get Jagger some shit, too. But my proudest moment was when I handed Momma her Mother’s Day gift—a Tiffany necklace straight from the online store. No secondhand shit for her—or for me.

Never again. And no looking back, either.

A year later, my old man bet on an underground fighter because he was fighting a brand-new unknown—Jagger, then a junior in high school. He lost the bar, and he lost it to Hendrix. It was fucking beautiful.

My old man is a piece of shit. He’s a drunk, a gambler, and a heavy-handed asshole who takes pleasure in hurting and degrading everyone around him. But he has taught me and my brothers a lot.

Hendrix now owns a bar, I travel around playing cards, and Jagger is a fighter. Some may say—hell, many have said—that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. But the tree’s roots are as strong as Momma’s, tainted with his spill or not, so we are good boys. We may have the old man’s bad habits, but we have Momma’s heart.

On her deathbed, she told us she was proud of us. She told us she loved us, apologized for how we were brought up, and made us promise to be the good in a world of bad.

Momma died because that fucker couldn’t keep it in his pants and gave her HPV. She was too stubborn to go to the doctors when she was feeling like hell.

We lost Momma, but knowing she was proud of us three boys, none of which hold a degree or work traditional jobs, made us all feel good. It also made us determined.

First Hendrix caught the old man’s hand in the till, then he found him fucking a used-up old barmaid, and finally he kicked him to the curb.

Without the old man around, what I have learned in the few months I have been back is that nothing is stronger than the brotherhood Hendrix, Jagger, and I share.

I’m not anyone’s bitch, never have been. But when you live with a real monster—and not just the childlike notion that one is living under your bed, but the real deal—you are never truly living out loud; you are just surviving.

This place of horrors and hell no longer feels so bad, though.

Detroit Rock City no longer holds the same cold and bitter feeling it always did before. It feels like a sanctuary, a place to go when I feel alone, a place I want to drive to, not from. This is a place where, when the shit hits the fan, I know that as brothers the three of us can get through it together. Without the old man, this bar, this city, this place is now a place my brothers and I want to live.

Now we can live.

Today, as I hop in my Escalade and pull my John Varvatos Aviator sunglasses off my head to cover my eyes, I wave goodbye to my brothers and my new sister-in-law, Livi, then head back to the desert. I need a fix, a score, a few good hands dealt my way. I need to stash some cash so the next time I return to Detroit, I can stay longer.