“Okay,” I whispered.
“Then Dad went down. War between MCs. Stupid-ass shit, but it happens. Happened more back in the day, but still happens. Dad took a hit for the Club. Not sayin’ he didn’t do what he had to do to protect his Club, just sayin’ he didn’t do what he went down for. But that’s what you do. You take your hit if you need to protect the Club. The family splintered. Not the Club. My family. My brother lost it. Didn’t get why Dad went down for his brothers. Took off. Lives in Utah now. Found God. Used to hear from him, he’d spew shit about Dad, Mom, my sisters, our lives, how much he thinks we suck, Dad and Mom suck forcing him to live that life. How we’re sinners. Goin’ to hell. Shit like that. Don’t hear from him anymore and like it that way. He’s a dick.”
He sounded like it.
I didn’t share I felt that way because Buck kept going.
“I took off. Dad and I were tight, and I couldn’t be where I was when everywhere I turned, I remembered how much better it was when he was free. Went to Flag. That was when I met Kristy.”
He stopped speaking.
So I said encouragingly, “Okay.”
And he started again.
“Fell in love with her. We were ready to start a family right away. Knew the only way to do that was to come home. Home here, Phoenix. Also home to the Club. Came back from Flag. Tied myself to Kristy. Built my life here. Liked it. One of my sisters, she got in the life, but a different one. Has a man who’s a brother in a Club up in Denver. Good Club. Called Chaos. My other sister…”
He shook his head.
I waited.
It took a bit, but he started again.
“Both of my sisters were tight with Dad too. Neither really survived the splinter. But only one of them took Mom down with them.”
Oh no.
This did not sound good.
He stopped again, so I prompted, “She took your mom down with her?”
He nodded, but he only nodded once.
“I’d barely left when she went off the rails. Why I can be tough on Tatie?”
He asked this last as a question, and even if I didn’t quite understand it, I said, “Yes?”
“That was how Meg was. ’Cept a lot worse. Booze. Pot. Harder shit. For Meg, life was just a good time. And for the most part, I agree. It is. But that doesn’t mean you don’t gotta do what you can to get by the best you can for yourself, your family.”
I agreed with this, so when Buck went silent again, I nodded.
And he kept talking.
“For her, it was just finding good time after good time. Brought that shit home to Mom. Fucked it on the couch while Mom was upstairs. They fought. Mom’s shit got stolen, hocked. Mom’d kick her ass out, my sister would break in, take more shit, crash in the bathroom, puke all over the kitchen. Get lit. And that was it. One time she broke in, got lit. Drunk, high, lost, whatever she was doin’, caught the house on fire. She was so out of it, she went up with the flames. Smoke got Mom before she went up in them too.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, horrified at what he was telling me.
Horrified and hurting for him at these terrible, awful, heartbreaking things he was sharing with me.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “My brother, he said they got what they deserved. Said God had a hand in the cleansing. Told me that shit, said it right to me standin’ by their fresh graves. Then I gave him what he deserved for spewin’ that. That’s when I quit hearing from him. Makin’ matters worse, shit was gettin’ fucked with the Aces. Life was changin’ here. Turbulence. Then more. Aces changed focus. It wasn’t about the life and livin’ it the way we wanted it to be. It was about money. We didn’t have the store, just the contracting business that, at the time, was all brothers and it was small. The Great Recession, no one building, no one doing improvements, a lotta guys had time on their hands and needed cash. So they got tied up with some shit, started running protection. Drugs and guns.”
I tried not to gasp but didn’t succeed.
Buck didn’t hear me.
He was focused on his story, therefore, he kept sharing it.
“Even though they spouted a lot of shit about it bein’ a big ‘fuck you’ to the establishment, it was about money. I get it. Times were lean. But that shit was whacked. Drugs and guns? Fuck. That wasn’t the man my father taught me to be. That wasn’t the Club my father was in. That wasn’t the Club my grandfather and his brothers built, for it to end up with that kind of legacy.”