“Come on, please don’t refuse to give me this shot just because I’m female!” I complain to the Fury brothers when we meet for the second time in their Emerald Isle chapel. I reach out and run my fingers over the engraved bearded skull king carved into the middle of the wooden table. “Or is this rejection because you feel guilty about my father dying outside the gates of your clubhouse? Because you shouldn’t. He made that decision…”
“That’s not what this is about,” Torin, the president of the original chapter, says from his seat at the head of the table. “We’re not refusing you because of any guilt or because of your gender.”
“Our table is just full right now, T.J.,” his brother Chase, their VP, explains to me from his seat on Torin’s right. “We’re not looking for any prospects, and probably won’t be for a while since no one is planning on leaving or dying anytime soon.”
“Fine,” I huff and run my fingers through the front of my black, jagged layers. “If you won’t take me on and the Charlotte chapter basically asked if a nice little girl like me would like a lollipop or a bedtime story, do you know where I might have an actual chance of prospecting?”
The first time I showed up at the Charlotte chapter’s clubhouse and told them who I was, they all treated me like I was still a child. I asked them how my dad got killed, but all they would tell me was that he died with honor, protecting the mother chapter of the Savage Kings in Emerald Isle – the place where the club got started.
So, I left and came here, to Emerald Isle, thinking these guys might be willing to let me prospect for them since they didn’t have close ties to my father. That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, though. At least they were nice enough to tell me the truth about what happened to him.
Torin and Chase exchange a look, as if considering whether or not to share something with me, so I snap at them, “What? You said it’s not against the bylaws for me to prospect or wear the patch, so just point me in a direction where I may actually have a chance of doing just that!”
“Look, T.J. We can’t make any chapter take you on,” Torin explains. “All the members have to vote unanimously to approve prospects and members, so it’s up to the chapter on who they let in. If you’re really serious about doing this, then you may want to head up to Rockland, Virginia or down to Myrtle Beach. As far as we know, those are the only two clubs currently looking for prospects.”
“I’ve never been to Rockland, but I do love Myrtle Beach,” I say, able to recall the uniquely rancid smell of their salty ocean air thirty miles outside the popular tourist city.
“Then good luck,” Chase says. “Do you want us to give them a heads up that you’re coming?”
“No,” I answer without hesitation. “I don’t want any special treatment. I want to earn my place.”
“Okay then,” Torin replies as he gets to his feet and Chase and I do the same. “You’re welcome to stay here in the apartments as long as you need…”
“No, I want to get on the road.”
“The prospect interest meeting isn’t for another week,” Chase remarks.
“That’s okay. I can just have a relaxing vacation until then. Thanks for meeting with me and being honest with me,” I say as I hold out my palm to shake both of their hands.
“It was the least we could do,” Torin replies. “Have a safe ride and good luck.”
I nod and then head out of the chapel, up the stairs and through the bar to the parking lot, anxious to get down on the road.
This won’t be my first trip to Myrtle Beach, just my first visit all on my own.
My dad would sometimes invite my mom and me with him to bike week down there, and we would take turns riding around on the back of his Harley.
Now, though, I’ll be riding into town on my own bike.
Dad taught me to ride when I was sixteen, even though I couldn’t get my motorcycle license until I was eighteen.
Good thing he did too, because if he hadn’t taught me then, he never would’ve had the chance. He was killed just a few weeks before my seventeenth birthday.
It’s been five years since we lost him, and I still think about him every day, wishing I had been able to spend more time with him.
My mom didn’t keep us apart, and neither did the fact that I was still in high school back then. No, my father was just too busy, always dealing with the latest MC crisis since he was the president of the Charlotte, North Carolina Savage Kings MC chapter.
I never asked if he loved the club more than me or mom because I was afraid his answer would be yes. He did tell me that he couldn’t marry mom because the club was his wife.
Dad wouldn’t let me or my mother spend any time around the clubhouse or the other members, so I have no clue what was so great about wearing the Savage Kings patch or why he was so damn proud of that leather cut he always had on.
The man was even cremated in that same jacket. One of his biker friends insisted that the cut had to burn with him so he could take it into the afterlife.
And while Mom and I inherited his huge insurance policy equally, the money he left behind isn’t the same as having him around.
As the years have gone by, I feel like I’m drifting further away from the few memories I made with my father those last years of his life. That’s why I bought a Harley Davidson Sportster after I graduated from college with my useless Sociology degree. When I couldn’t find a job anywhere and got bored back home, I decided to see what makes the Savage Kings MC so important that my father was willing to die for them.
Hopefully, the Myrtle Beach chapter gives me that chance. Since I’ll have some time, I plan to enjoy myself, maybe even visit a few of the places I remember going to with my dad like Ripley’s Believe it or Not! and going up in the sky wheel for the amazing view of the ocean.
It sucks that I’ll have to do those things on my own, but being alone is good for me, especially if I’m about to be stuck prospecting for a group of assholes for the next few years.
