Rod

ROD

By
Nella Tyler

This
book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are
products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not
to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual
events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright
© 2015 Nella Tyler

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Chapter One

Trish Fitzgerald

Dad rushes into our house, speeding past
my mother.
 
His standard blue jeans,
white t-shirt, and graying hair are a blur.
 
Dinner’s aroma permeates the house as my mother tries to ascertain what
crisis he currently faces.
 
He slams
doors behind himself, but she barges in.
 
Not being one to be left out of the loop, she confronts him.

Sasha and I sit at the dinner table
awaiting dad’s presence at the head of the table.
 
Out of respect, my mother always says that
dad gets to eat first.
 

“He provides for all of us,” she rants
before his grand entrance.

“But it’s going to get cold,” I
protest.
 

Sasha sits there in silence trying to
gauge my mother’s response. Mom’s face says she has no time for any of
this.
 
She looks deep in thought, but
breaks that image by saying, “Whenever you start paying the bills, then you can
eat whenever you’d like.”

I shrug.
 

“Until then, you have to wait.”

Commotion between our parents breaks the
silence and Sasha trembles at the sound of dad yelling uncontrollably.
 
At twelve-years-old, Sasha is sweet and
innocent and has no idea what’s going on.
 
Sometimes, I feel it’s foreign to me that they argue so much, but I play
it down for her sake.

“Are mom and dad fighting?” she questions
me.
 
I have just about as much
information as she does.

“I have no idea, maybe something happened
at dad’s work.”

I put my finger over my mouth, say “
Shhh
,” and sneak over to dad’s office door.
 
I affix my ear to the door so that I can make
out their words.
 

Listening in, I hear dad yelling about the
club.
 
Something is wrong.
 
He’s pissed.
 

My mother tells him from behind the door,
“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

He yells, not at her, but it’s still a
mind numbing howl just the same.

“Max Vella fucked up the books.
 
Fuck,” he explains.

“Honey, I’m sorry.”

I picture her rubbing his shoulders as if
the gesture will cure his financial woes.

“One more fucking time and I swear that
fucker is out.”

“Kick his ass,” my mother eggs him
on.
 
“Sometimes it’s the only way guys
like that learn.”

“We shouldn’t be talking about this,” he
says quietly.
 
Their voices get lower and
I gather that whatever she’s doing to calm him is probably working.

It’s a warm Sunday evening and almost time
for me to run Sasha to her mother’s place for the week.
 

I creep back to the table quietly and sit
down.
 
Sasha stares me down with her big
green eyes and bouncy blonde curls.
 

“What?” I ask her.

“Was dad yelling at mom?”

“No, he’s just upset about something that
happened at work,” I try to convince her.

“Oh.”

They come out of dad’s office and we give
them the look of innocence.
 
He sits down
at the head of the table and looks to our mother as she doles out the
food.
 
Our house comes across as the
perfect 1950s household to people on the outside looking in.

Mom dips out dad’s food and sets the rest
of the containers in the center of the table.
 
I eyeball the dark golden pork chops, the buttery goodness of the mashed
potatoes, and the green beans like I haven’t eaten in a week.

Diving in to the food before us, dad looks
up at me.
 

“Are we still good for you to run your
sister to Missy’s?”

“Yup.”

The table sits in silence while the good
disappears.
 
Mom cringes at dad for his
use of “Missy” instead of calling his ex-girlfriend “Melissa.”
 
Still, he makes no apologies.

We consume our dinner quickly and mom
takes it as a sign that it tastes great.
 
I wait as dad prepares Sasha for the week ahead.

“I’ll see you next weekend, buttercup,” he
tells her.

              
I want to gag.

“

“How about next Saturday I take you
shopping for shoes or whatever it is you kids are into these days?”

Her face lights up.
 

“It sounds great, daddy.”

Mom joins me in my feelings of
disgust.
 
Dad is playing the role of the
loving, well-meaning father and I won’t stand in his way.

“Alright, buttercup, give your old man a
hug,” he tells her.
 
She runs to his arms
and they squeeze each other tight.
 
My
mother gives a roll of her eyes as if to say, ‘Let’s get this over with
already.’

I gear up to leave, but dad stops me.
 
He paws me a bill, of which on later
inspection proves to be a twenty.

“For gas,” he mutters.
 
Hinton Heights isn’t that far of a trek on
the bike, but I won’t tell him otherwise.
 
I shove the folded up bill and stuff it in my pocket and get my helmet
from the garage.
 

Part of me wants to rip my dad a new ass
for never taking me shopping, but I stop myself.
 
I can’t ruin the moment for Sasha, it’s not
her fault she’s his favorite.

Sasha grabs her backpack followed by her
favorite yellow purse.
 
She stuffs the
purse inside of the backpack and throws it over her shoulder.
 
She looks like she’s ready to take off for
school.
 

Together, we walk out to my pink Harley in
the garage, between mom and dad’s motorcycles.
 
Hanging on the wall on a nail is Sasha’s black helmet.
 
She puts it on and I do the same.
 
I hop on first, steady the bike and help her
up.
 
I rev up the motor and we speed off
to Hinton Heights where her mother lives.
 
It’s just outside of the township, but mom forbids dad from going
there.
 
Instead, it is my weekly mission
to avoid any arguments over the matter.
 

Thirteen years following dad’s affair with
Missy, and it’s still a sore spot for mom.
 

The wind is a bit cooler tonight as I ride
us down our street and up an old gravel road.
 
It’s a shortcut that I frequently take to get there faster.
 
I would feel a draft, but Sasha huddles up to
my back.

When on the road, I become hyper aware of
my surroundings.
 
The fields we pass
smell vibrant and when we hit the black asphalt, I know it’s smooth sailing from
there.
 
We ride together for twenty
minutes before hitting Hinton Heights.
 
A
few streets down and a left at the next block is Paragon Street, where Melissa
lives.
 
The Harley’s roar signals our
presence ahead of time.

The street lights come on as I park my
bike on the curb.
 
Melissa emerges from
the house wearing these funky looking mom jeans and a royal purple
sweater.
 

It’s a quaint little place, painted a
faded blue color with black shutters and a white fence out front.
 
It’s not exactly the American dream, but it
apparently suits their purpose.

“See you later, kid,” I tell Sasha as she
walks onto the front porch.

“Bye, Trish; see you Friday!”

Sasha waves and her hair appears paler in
the light radiating from the porch’s ceiling.
 

Her mother bends down a bit to hug Sasha
and for the moment, I wonder what kind of life they share in that tiny
house.
 
They live at a distance from the
club and I guess that’s on purpose.
 

Sasha still wonders what dad does for a
living, just about as much as I wonder what goes on in that little house in the
middle of suburbia.

“See you Friday!” Sasha yells in my
direction.
 

“Friday,” I punctuate with a wave
back.
 
Her mother is welcoming and seems
to be friendly, but mom says that I should stay away from her.

 
Melissa waves at me with a smile as she yells
a prompt “Thank you!”
 

Her voice has a southern twang to it and
she’s not at all this skanky vixen that mom says she is.
 
She looks every bit the part of a second
grade teacher.
 

I hop back on my bike and get it going.
 
With a leg off of the pavement, I’m back on
the road and moving away from suburban life and to what I like to call
civilization.
 
The paved roads of the
city don’t quite compare to the dusty, dirty back roads where I live with my
parents.
 
The wind on my skin feels
electrifying and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

“Thank you for visiting Hinton Heights,”
the sign reads as I ride past.
 
I slow
down for a moment to take in the next sign.
 
It’s creaking in the wind and looks like it was made from a shoddy piece
of wood and hand wood-burned by a toddler.
 

Holding up my bike with one leg cocked on
the packed dirt of the ground, I speed past the Hinton Township sign.
 
It reads: “Hinton – Population: 14,983.” The
sign is dusty, old, and rusting.

I weave and the wind trails up my back,
causing a brief shiver to engulf me.
 
I
dodge a pothole on Fletcher Street and ride to the highway where I can keep my
head on a swivel and zip my way home in a flash.

I head to the club, this time with a
purpose: I will convince my dear father, the great Ronan Fitzgerald, to let me
in to the Green Dragons.
 
I remember the
first time I asked to be allowed membership and it has been one argument after
the other since.

I ride the old brick road to Farmer Road
and hang a slight left.
 
I pull up to the
Dragon’s Lair, still fretting internally about whether or not my dad will see
reason.
 
The Lair is a giant brick
establishment, but it isn’t welcoming to outsiders.
 

I desperately hope for the best as I ride
up to the parking area.
 
Most of the
members of the club have known me since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and
would sponsor my inclusion.
 

I calm the restlessness in my
stomach.
 
I hope my dad can overcome his
inability to see reason and allow me in.

A previous conversation of ours regarding
my acceptance into the Green Dragons had become volatile quickly.
 
He would likely erupt again into fits of
anger and quite possibly throw things, but I still try.