The prospect looked down at the ground, hung his head, and Thatcher slapped him across the head like a chastised child, then pushed him out the door, screaming like a drill sergeant at boot camp.
"Hammer?" I turned to Blaze. "When the fuck did that happen? That's some serious bullshit, especially from a prospect."
"He'll be taken care of." Blaze said. "Prospects don't need to be opening their fucking mouths like that. Actually, you can go kick the shit out of him if you want." Blaze nodded toward the open door.
I glanced outside, then shrugged it off. The truth was, I didn't know if I could stop once I started. Lately, it seemed like more and more was setting me off, and I was going zero to sixty in mere seconds. It used to take a lot more than this kind of bullshit to push me over the edge.
"Hammer?" I asked.
"The Hammer thing," Blaze said. "It's because word gets around, Crunch. I sent two brothers to help Benicio's guys clean that shit up. They came back to the club, drank themselves incoherent, and you know, shit happens. What they said became legend. For fuck's sake, even Benicio's hitters think you're the goddamned boogeyman now, and those guys are hard fucking dudes."
"Jesus Christ." I didn't know what to think about that shit. Achieving a reputation for pulverizing someone into pieces with a sledgehammer was one thing I'd never expected in life. It was also tied to my wife's murder, and I didn't need another fucking reminder of that. Not in a name. I'd thrown away my original road name, Crunch, when I retired. I didn't want to be reminded of the past.
Blaze saw the look on my face. "Come on," he said, turning. "Have a beer with me. Unless you want something stronger."
"Beer's good," I said. Blaze grabbed a couple of longnecks from the bar as we passed it, and ushered me into the back room, Mad Dog's former office.
"Place looks different without Mad Dog here," I said.
Blaze nodded. "Not just the office, either."
"I noticed that," I said. "Out there. It's a little calmer."
"Things are good, Ha - Crunch," Blaze corrected himself. So he was calling me Hammer now too.
"I'm glad to hear it," I said. "Working with Benicio is good for the club." I assumed they were still working with Benicio. I wasn't privy to club business now, and I knew not to even broach the topic. I was trying to be friendly, casual. But this was fucking awkward. I had no real reason to be here anymore.
Blaze nodded. "It's all good now. You think about coming back to the club, coming out of retirement?"
"I - " I started, then stopped. Had I ever thought about it? Yeah, of course I had. I'd be crazy not to think about it. This club had been my whole life, the brothers my family.
Until the day April was taken from me.
They hadn't been a part of my life now for a long time.
Blaze looked at me, waiting for a response.
I shook my head. "I don't think so, man..." I said.
"I don't expect it," Blaze said. "It's understandable. But if you ever wanted to come out of retirement, here or at the Vegas chapter, normal rules wouldn't apply." Normal rules meaning the chapter rules that required retirees to stay in retirement for at least five years. It was designed to keep people from deciding to retire and then come out of retirement impulsively.
That wasn't going to happen, not in my case.
No matter how much part of me wanted to ride again.
Or the part of me that missed what I had here, the sense of brotherhood. No matter how empty I felt now, without April, without the club, I wasn't going back.
"It's good of you to say that, Blaze," I said. What the hell else was I going to say? Thanks, but no fucking thanks.
"If you ever want to come back, say the word," Blaze said.
I nodded. It will never happen, I thought. I stood there, silently. This was what the fuck Blaze wanted me to stop by for? To tell me that I needed to fucking consider coming out of retirement?
He finally spoke. "I've got a job you might be interested in," he said.
"Shit, Blaze, I'm not getting back into club business. You got to understand that, man," I said. "No can do..."
Blaze shook his head. "I'm not asking you to get back into club business. This is strictly contract shit. You're retired. It's just that we need someone with your tech skills."
"What kind of tech shit are we talking about exactly?"
"We're in a couple of new enterprises, with Benicio. This involves the chapter out in Vegas too."
"Not here?"
"Both."
"Okay." I was getting irritated with how vague Blaze was being about this. Just fucking come out and ask whatever it is you're going to ask, man. That's what I was thinking. I didn't say it. "I'm not going to promise anything until I know what the job is. I don't even know it's something I can actually do."
Blaze nodded. "Instead of telling me, let me show you."