“So, why you here, boy?”
He mentally shook away that memory. “Why does Dad have your address?”
She only stared at him with those dull, empty blue eyes.
He came here for fucking answers and he was going to get fucking answers. “Why does Dutch have your fuckin’ address since you left us all behind? Why would he need your fuckin’ address?” He was trying not to shout but, by the end, he was shouting.
That made Bebe scowl at him.
Too fucking bad.
“That ain’t your business, boy.”
“Don’t call me boy.”
“You’re my boy, I can call you what I want.”
“You gave up that right the second you walked out on us.”
She took one last drag on her cigarette and ground it out in a mountain of butts in the nearest overflowing ashtray.
“Dutch told you I walked out on you?” She glanced around, spotted an open pack of Pall Malls, slid another one out of the pack and tucked it between her lips.
“He didn’t have to tell us. We watched it, remember? You had me carry the garbage bags out to your fuckin’ car.”
“Shouldn’t be cursin’.”
“A little too late to try parentin’, Bebe.”
She frowned as she tried to light the cigarette with a Bic. When she couldn’t, she shook the almost empty disposable lighter as if that would magically fill it. “Still your mother, still older than you. I can knock you into next week if I want.”
She could try. Randy doubted she’d succeed.
“Want the truth?” she asked. After a few more flicks of the Bic, a half-assed flame stayed lit long enough for her to light her smoke.
“What I came here for.”
“Thought you knew someone in the neighborhood.”
Randy planted his hands on his hips, dropped his head and shook it. No wonder Dutch was always yelling at him for doing stupid shit. He got his lack of smarts from his birth receptacle.
“Your father forced me to leave.”
Randy’s head snapped up. “No, he didn’t.”
“The fuck he didn’t.”
His thumping heart was so loud he had to yell over it to hear himself. “You asked if I wanted the truth. I want the fuckin’ truth!”
“That’s the truth, boy.”
He frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“Ain’t for you to get.”
“I’m your fuckin’ son. I should know why you left.”
“I left because he paid me to.”
Randy’s pounding heart seized and his ears began to ring. “You’re lyin’. Why would he do that?”
“’Cause we fuckin’ hated each other. ‘Cause he forced me to have you two rug rats. ‘Cause I didn’t wanna be tied down to you brats. ‘Cause I didn’t wanna suck his cheating dick anymore. That’s why.”
He thought she left because she’d had enough of the club after all the shit that went down. The fighting, the killing, the—
“And ‘cause I got knocked up by Tinny.”
She did what?
He knew they weren’t faithful to each other. From the moment he could remember and understand it. He saw them both doing shit with other people. At the warehouse, at the house, in the garage. In their bed.
But...
Randy glanced around the living room again for some signs of a young kid. “I got another brother?”
Bebe shook her head and plugged the cigarette between her lips again. “Fuck no.”
“A sister?” When she turned away, he asked, “What d’you do with him?” Or her. His half-brother or sister. Did she keep the new one after dumping the old ones?
“Used some of the scratch Dutch gave me to suck that leech outta me soon’s I could.”
Randy blinked as he watched his mother pick up open beer cans around the room and shake them. It took her a few tries, but she finally found one that sloshed and she chugged the remainder down.
She kept her back to him when she admitted, “Woulda done that with you two if he woulda let me.”
Randy was having a hard time breathing. It wasn’t from the stink in the house or the heavy cloud of cigarette smoke, but the fact the woman standing in front of him was supposed to be his mother. She’d never been one. Not once that he could remember. So anything she said shouldn’t surprise him.
It still did.
He never should’ve come here.
She was a piece of shit Dutch scraped off his boot for good reason.
Dutch might not be perfect but at least he wanted his sons. He took care of them. Randy just wished he would’ve picked a better cum dumpster to grow his sperm in. Not the cunt on the hunt for another can with a backwash of beer.
“You want the truth? Here’s the hard truth, kid. He pays me to stay away.”
Pays? As in currently pays? No fucking way. “You’re lyin’.”
“Boy, I ain’t lyin’. Ask him. He’s stupid enough to think I’d want visitation or custody of you and... and the other one.” She laughed. “I never did but pretended to and every time I threaten to hire a lawyer, he sends me more fuckin’ dough.”