WAYLON (Ruthless MC 1)

Now that I can see the unnamed town in broad daylight, it's actually pretty cute and not ominous at all. It looks a lot like a small neighborhood, except instead of brick storefronts, like in Wilmington, there are large double wides with signs for a general store and the laundry where Meemaw must have headed to earlier to wash our clothes. Also, instead of regular people, the residents I see are primarily young women with pregnancy bellies like Lucinda or older ladies with lots of tattoos.

Many of the women turn and openly stare at me as I walk through the town. Because I'm a newcomer? Or because I'm African-American? I'm not sure.

If the women are any indication, the Ruthless Reapers seem to be a club made up of mostly whites and Latinos. And I’m sure at least a few of them have to be like Waylon, a mix of both.

Anyway, everyone, white and brown, is living in a mobile home. There are a few other semi-wide modular ones like Meemaw’s. But most of them are on wheels, which makes me wonder about the nature of this town. How long has it been around? And what are they going to do in the winter? A few RVs are pop-ups—I can’t see those being livable come December.

Not that it matters, I remind myself. I’ll never know what the town does in winter because I won’t be here much longer. Going along with Lucinda to this job Waylon’s decreed for me is more about getting a lay of the land and making friends so that I can figure out how to get out of here.

But Lucinda turned down my request for help with a weirdly passive, “Oh, Waylon wouldn’t be happy about that when I tried to ask her about helping me leave their trailer park town.”

And she seems way more interested in peppering me with questions than answering mine.

“Who told you I made him smile?” I ask, refocusing on my conversation with her instead of my curiosity about the pop-up town that Meemaw insists makes taking orders from Waylon worth it.

“One of the guys who got here earlier than you last night said he saw it with his own eyes before the big meeting in Tennessee after the Griffin Latham concert.”

A meeting. So that was why we stopped at the roadhouse. Not just because Waylon was hungry. It made me wonder about all the other things he wasn’t telling me.

“Yes, I guess he did smile that night,” I answer Lucinda. “Once. Less than an hour before he savagely beat one man and shot another point-blank in the face.”

“So he did actually smile!” Lucinda says, clapping her hands together over her big belly as if she didn't hear the rest. “What did it look like? Does he have all his teeth? A few of the other girls were wondering since none of us have ever seen them.”

“Yes, he has all of his teeth that I could see,” I answer carefully.

But I don’t tell her that they were straight and white and pretty well taken care of for a man who apparently never smiled. I also don’t say anything about all the times Waylon smiled at me while handcuffed to my bed. This conversation is already strange enough without me adding in those details.

But I have to ask, “Does he really never smile?”

“Never smiles. Never jokes. Doesn't really seem to like anybody,” Lucinda answers. “If you want to know the truth, we were all very, very surprised when he came back from Delaware and told us he was starting a town. But I am grateful for this opportunity, you know. Crazytown was so upset when he found out I was pregnant with his baby, and I cannot make a good living with maid service now. I needed a place where I could come live for not too much money.”

I’m happy for her but a little confused. “Wait, isn't Crazytown Meemaw’s man? I thought he was dead, not her….” I scan the much younger Latina and decide to go with a neutral, “…ex.

Meemaw’s story about never having children with her former man who’s on the “other side” takes on a new soap opera turn. Did she mean on the other side of the trailer park with a much younger girlfriend?

Lucinda laughs. “Oh, I can see why you could get confused about that. Crazytown Sr. was her old man. Crazytown Jr. is his son by another lady, not Meemaw.”

A shadow dampens Lucinda’s smile. “We are not together-together. He never wanted any children. I live two trailers down from Meemaw, and he lives in that trailer right over there.”

“Got it,” I say, somewhat relieved as I look in the direction she’s pointing toward a nondescript white trailer. It’s not a pop-up, but it doesn’t exactly scream year-round living either. All the lights are out with no signs of anyone moving around inside like the other trailers on the dirt lane.