It's Over Karen YJA2017 [Writer]

It's over Karen.

Its funny how trapped you can feel, how despite having two legs that work and a mind to direct them, you will stay within the same little box, in the same little corner of the planet no matter how bad things get for you. I was sitting on the wall outside the block of flats where Karen and I lived. The smoke from my cigarette floated lazily in the still air of an average British summer in this average Midlands town. All new build shoe boxes, out of town shopping and decaying factories. There was nothing to recommend it other than it had a lot of roads which led away from the place.

Even three floors down, I could hear her shouting, crying, throwing stuff around. We'd reached that point in our relationship where it was time for me to leave, obviously. I didn't blame her. Not at all. I know I am no saint. Pretty much the opposite. She knew that too, but it didn't stop the screaming fit, the massive row or that sense of betrayal I could see in her eyes. Hell, She knew! She really did, but now it's all some big surprise to her. That's the trouble with chicks, they know deep down in their hearts that no matter how bad you are, that they can change you, turn that frog into Prince bloody Charming. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so depressing.

I should have left months ago. Things were getting grim. Home from work, shower, eat, cuppa tea and head back out for a late night...That's no way to live when you are supposed to be living with someone. I was trapped by that invisible box, you see? Couldn't face up to what needed to be done and just walk away like I should have. So what did I do? The usual, treated her with disdain, took a big dump over all that loyalty and kept pushing her until she broke. It's what I always have done. Force something until the only option left is that thing I should have done off my own back, ages ago. Well, now it was done and as I sat on the wall, listening to the far off diesel growl of the number 5 bus at the stop over the road and the rhythmic thunk of my boots against the brickwork I thought through my next moves. Not that there were many. I had the keys to my bike (which was locked safe in the shed) , my leather was on the wall and my helmet on the handlebars. That was all I was going to be needing, that and the fifty odd quid and packet of Camels in my pockets. It sure didn't sound like anything of mine in the flat was going to be usable any more. I flicked the spent butt away and jumped down. Feeling that funny sting in my soles that always comes from sitting with my feet off the ground when I jump back onto them. It always reminded me of being little. Everything you sit on when you are a little kid is so high your feet don't touch the ground. The thought made me smile as I wandered around to the shed and fiddled with the cheap, combination lock.

As I wheeled the bike out into the golden light of the evening I wondered briefly about photographers and painters, trying desperately to catch a subject in what they termed the golden hour. When the chrome and deep, black paint was fully out of the shadows, I could see what they were about. Just for that moment.

Seeing the old girl there, lean, mean and looking ready for anything made me think about the rest of my problems. I belong to a club, an M.C. It's not like joining the local gardeners club. No, you have to be invited. Then you have to spend upwards of half a year proving you are worth keeping around. Everything from fetching beers to restock the fridge at midnight, sewing up cuts in member's clothes and sometimes skin, acting as security for any of the guys that need it and washing down bikes and any other, menial rubbish the patches can think up. Me and one of the other probates had to fight each other with wrenches one day and the fight wasn't over until the patch said so. He damn near broke my skull, and the next time I saw him, his arm was in a cast. You get through that though and you are a god. Not some new age tosser type f god, but a proper, old fashioned sort of god, walking head and shoulders among men and knowing you are so much better than them, knowing they won't even dare look you in the eye. That kind of god, all fire and brimstone and wrathful vengeance. I bloody loved it!

A lot of rubbish is written about MC's, sure, there is some criminality, but that's an individual's choice mainly. There's no club rules that say “You will always take part in the drug trade” for instance. It's just something that people do (like outsiders) when they are hard up and want money. Most of the criminality is in response to actions of other clubs or people. You get some other guys coming into your pub and giving it the Billy Big Bollox, you are going to have to act, else every idiot in town is going to come and try it on. We just want to be left alone mostly. Like anyone else.

As I turned onto the ring road, the engine of the bike coughing and farting in protest at me not wringing it's neck for a change, I turned over my other, bigger problem. The prez of my club was a big, scary freak of a man called Tiny. He got that name from being six foot seven and too wide to fit through a standard doorway unless he took it side on. For the last couple of years, he'd gotten pretty deep in with some city types who were importing a lot of illegal stuff, class A's, guns and lately, girls from Eastern Europe. The money was amazing. I could see that, any fool could see that. Trouble is, some things just darken the soul so much no amount of money can wash out the stains. I didn't need that kind of stuff on my conscience. I'm bad, but I ain't cruel, not like that. Get in my way, I will stomp you, leave me be and I will leave you be too. I just can't be ruining someone else's life for a few (or way more than a few) quid. It ain't me. Not at all.

Anyway, despite knowing my feelings on all this, Tiny told me I had to run shotgun on a container as it made it's way up from Harwich, down South, all the way up to Birmingham. Quite a trip, and one that would be broken half way just outside of Cambridge. The university town that spawned such geniuses as Stephen Hawking, Newton, Darwin and loads more. It's quite a nice, genteel sort of place. What some might imagine when they think of an English town. Just outside, there is a farm, owned by some guys who supply all sorts of nasty things to all sorts of people in the Greater London area.

I didn't want to do it, he knew that. He still demanded it though, and, with no one else available, and with how deep he had gotten some of my brothers in with this crew, there wasn't really anything reasonable I could do but go along, grumpily, for the ride. There were no bikes, no cutoffs for this job. We were travelling in a couple of cars, one up front containing Tiny, one of his new mates and Gruff, our Sergeant at Arms. I was in the rear car. An aged, but well maintained Ford Granada three litre. It had the vee six lump and back in the day, could get away from most things on Britain's roads. Driving was a probate called Spud. An OK lad of about 23 who, if I was any judge was only a couple of weeks away from a big patch party. In the back was another of these other goons, some big, taciturn pole we all called Mickey, since his name sounded like it had an M in it somewhere. He looked like what you'd get if you took a seventies skinhead, fed him steroids for twenty years and shoved him in a tracksuit.

a reply to: SprocketUKI know a few Poles and they are a lot of fun, drinking, football, being loud. Just like us. Not Mickey though. He was quiet, spoke in short, harsh syllables (When he did speak) and had dead eyes, like a shark's. You look into them and there's nothing remotely human about the things. The last seat was taken up by Dazza, a mate of mine since primary school and my tightest brother in the whole club. He, like me, wasn't best pleased with this gig either and I caught his look in the mirror on the sun shield a few times as we headed up the A120, skirting the southern extremities of London, then heading North on the boring, dilapidated stretch of the M11.
There was nothing else to do but sit and chain smoke in grim silence, keeping an eye out for cops or customs guys or maybe someone more criminally minded. The Webley thirty eight that had to be as old as my granddad dug into my ribs and was a constant reminder of the fact this was somewhere I didn't want to be. I should have said no, should have handed my cut in and just walked away. But I was trapped by routine, by the fear of change, just like the guy trying not to sob in his office cubicle, facing the prospect of another tasteless microwave meal, washed down with too much cheap wine and shared with a woman he fell out of love with ten years ago and just too scared of the unknown to get up and walk away.

The lead car, then the truck with the container on pulled into the farm entrance, bouncing slowly along the half mile track to come to a stop behind some old stables and a barn. I got out and stretched with a groan that was echoed by the other blokes. My back cracked a couple of times as I leant over to the left, then the right and waited as the lead guys walked around and met up with a bunch of tracksuits who had come out of the stables.

There was a bit of tooing and frowing before the container was opened. Spud went and chatted with Tiny while the tracksuits unloaded a few dozen tellies, big Samsung ones, still in their boxes. Then, with more care a few smaller, cube shaped ones. Obviously the powder. Finally they climbed up and dragged out and threw down a bunch of crying, terrified girls. My fists clenched so hard that my nails drew blood from my palms as I watched for a moment, then turned away, unable to look any more. There was some shouting, some muffled squeals, the sounds of fists hitting soft flesh...It went on far too long and I took a few steps away, falling in with Dazza and taking the smoke he held out. “God, I hate this.” he murmured. “I nodded and said “I've decided Daz, if he ever asks again, I'm turning in my colours. I can't do this.” His mouth was held taut in a grim line at that, but he nodded and I knew he got it.

I shrugged off the overly jokey, light banter of the others as the truck was sealed up and we headed back to the cars. I decided that as soon as I had a moment, I was going to send the location of the farm to the cops, see if they couldn't do some good for once. The rest of the journey passed in poisonous silence, broken only by the hiss of the radio as Spud tried to find a station that wasn't playing rap or some other rubbish that no one with a brain would want to listen to.

When we got to the industrial estate in Birmingham, the rest of the cargo was unloaded and I excused myself for a minute to go and take a leak. I texted the locations and a brief description to the crime stoppers number, then walked back out to get in the car, feeling a little more human finally. I handed over the Webley and burner phone back at the clubhouse and received my own back in return and went out and got absolutely hammered. No amount of booze can completely remove some feelings though, I just got to that dead, zombie state, then went home, slept on the couch and woke up to a row.

Now I was riding slowly, really slowly, only about five miles per hour over the speed limit as I snaked my way through back streets Not in any rush at all. The text said “Club meeting, mandatory, nineteen hundred.” I knew what it was about. Those scumbags got raided and all hell let loose while I was off my face. Tiny had obviously checked the phones and seen that it was mine that sent the texts..I didn't harbour any doubts at all that I was in for it, big time. I was a snitch, a grass. A traitor to my club....I couldn't argue with that. There'd be no point in arguing. It would just make me look weak and wouldn't do the tiniest bit of good. I was a dead man, just not quite yet.

I felt free!
For the first time in god knows how long, nothing mattered. It really didn't. The phone bill? The red letters off the gas and electric companies? The court summons for beating those blokes outside the pub last month? None of it.

There's a clarity that comes to us in these moments, something you will never understand until the scales lift from your eyes and you can truly see, truly appreciate what it is to be alive, able to chart your own course without consequences, or at least, without the fear of consequences.

I wound the throttle on, a grin spreading on my face and, as we passed through the ton in the flash of a speed camera, I let out a raw, primal scream. The ultimate rebel yell.
By the time I got to the club house it was five past seven. I practically jumped off the bike, my body fizzing with that adrenaline rush, every nerve humming, every sinew straining, vibrating like taut wire, full of potential energy.

The doors practically smashed off their hinges as I burst in past the startled probies doing their stag and I strode into the chapel larger than I ever felt in life before. Tiny's eyes were like saucers as her stared up, wildly, obviously caught in mid rant as he had been describing what a scumbag I was to everyone. I almost sang then. Nothing was real, my knife just appeared in my hand as I leapt across the thick oak of the table and cut his throat clean. I laughed and turned to my brothers and said “We don't do that stuff. We just don't. That's why I grassed.” I was about to say something else when I was kicked in the chest by the full force of both barrels of Gruff's sawn off. It blew me back against the wall and as I slid down, the images of my brothers slowly fading, I saw Daz take him with his own blade. Then it just seemed to get dark.

I don't know how long it's been dark for, but it's slowly gotten a little lighter at times, not enough to see by, just enough to know there is some light. I'm hot and feeling as though I am being squashed. I can't really feel anything either, it's like I am disconnected from my limbs almost. I can't taste or breathe or anything really. I can think though. I don't know if I am dead or merely in some hospital somewhere, in intensive care.

That squashing is getting worse. I feel sick and can't tell which way is up.

Jeez, my head is in some kind of clamp! My skull is splitting. I am in hell. There's screaming, muffled, but it's definitely there.

God, I'm sorry. I am. Please. Stop it!

My...I can't remember, there's light..what..wha....


An indistinct voice says “It's over Karen, you've done it luv. You have a beautiful baby boy.”

Oh wow Sprocket. You can write. Really write. I was there with him every step of the way.
Excellent.

But, let me get this right. While he was busy turning himself into a better man, and getting himself killed in the process, Karen was busy in the hospital having his baby. Correct?

a reply to: angeldoll
Thanks


He reached the end of his tether and she lost patience with him after the final blow up following the security job. he died that day and almost nine months later, Karen gave birth.

a reply to: SprocketUK

I see. I wasn't sure if she was having the baby while all this was going on, or if it was later. In retrospect, I see it must have been later because despite his raging testosterone and bad-boy persona, I don't think he would have left her had he known she was pregnant. Or, at least not high and dry.

Thanks for clarifying.

a reply to: angeldoll

Quite. Though he might have anyway. He's not mister nice, even though he has standards. Just a guy living life and making mistakes like the rest of us.

a reply to: SprocketUK

Really well written Sprocket, I enjoyed the images you portrayed in your story. Some parts really hit home with me. Thanks for sharing.

a reply to: heliopolis
Thanks

a reply to: SprocketUK

Wow! Very good man I really enjoyed that. One of the best yet.

a reply to: FauxMulder

Thank you

I enjoyed that, thanks for writing!

a reply to: DBCowboy

Cheers Cowboy

a reply to: SprocketUK

Most excellent write. Fine storyline. That was beaut mate

bally

a reply to: bally001

Wow. Thanks mate!

a reply to: SprocketUK


Wow, that was an awesome read - nice work

a reply to: KTemplar

Thanks

a reply to: SprocketUK

Best for last (at least today)!

I like the book-end nature of this one! A slightly different take than the Wheel of Life thing but oddly circular in its own way. I also dig the inside-outside nature of the dialogue in story. That was put into good effect here and works real well with the action.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Thank you

Wow, great read! It drew me in and kept my attention the entire way through!