WyzWmn's World©

Mrs. K started to bark questions and people started to move…in no time at all the waiting room was empty but for her children and myself. No sane biker would have attempted to withstand that woman’s grief.

She alternately barked questions and wailed like a banshee for the better part of 10 minutes before a nurse came into the waiting room to advise her she should “try to hold it down”.

The very suggestion raised Mrs. K’s volume and decibel level substantially…she tore a huge strip off of the nurse and then went back to her grief.

Jaimie the cop paced the floor and glared at his brothers and sisters balefully, stopping occasionally to pat his mother’s shoulder. Grey and Rosie look exactly like one would expect them to look had they been pierced balloons.

The clock seemed to be stuck on the 6 permanently and each waiting second seemed drawn out to take forever. By now there were upwards of a dozen family members collected and pacing and wailing along with their mother.

I watched the family dynamics take shape around the room, the “good” boys and girls clustered around their mother, speaking platitudes and nodding knowingly and derisively at the “black sheep” members of the family. The black sheep members all sat or stood leaning against walls arms crossed morosely…lips pressed firmly shut…mute.

Suddenly it “felt” as if the climate in the room had changed. I looked up to see Mrs. K standing before me, Grey and Rosie. She held a trembling hand out to me and said…”the girl will tell me the truth”.

Grey straightened up in his chair, and began to “now Mama” but she silenced him with a withering glance as she leaned forward to grasp my clammy hands in my lap.

Her fingers crushed my hands; I was amazed at the strength in this old woman…”the truth now girl” she said, “you owe me that”. So I hung my head down and stared at those fingers and told her the story of the arrival of the now disappeared friends, and the trip to the Silver Dollar. I went on to describe the shock of Robert and Snot swinging through the bar doors covered completely in blood and the ensuing joke before admitting that it was pig blood from butchering the pig with a chainsaw.

She smiled and murmured…”just like his fadder, my Roibhilín” and then patted my hands to get me to continue.

So I told her the rest, about the partying, and the aborted trip home…and then about my panic at the gunshots and the news that Robert had been shot. I told her about Grey having to wrestle Robert to the ground and both he and Rosie having to virtually lie on Robert to keep him on the ground when he was trying to go after the truck that carried the shooters off. Grey and Rosie both stiffened at the telling.

I looked up to see all of the family standing around behind their mother kneeling in front of me, but for Grey and Rosie on each side of me. I told her that Grey and Rosie had likely saved Robert’s life, just like they’d saved Barry before him. I told her that they’d have done their best to save David had he not been shot in the head. A dozen family members sucked in their breath at once.

I looked up to her face to see tears quietly rolling down her cheeks, and realized there was a wetness on my face too. She nodded and patted my hands again. Then I told her that I knew the license number of the truck.

Jaimie jumped like he’d been stuck with a pin. There was a rustle and a murmur from the family as a group, Grey and Rosie both turned stiffly towards me.

I wondered briefly if there was a possibility that I was breaking some “secret silence” rule but in the end, I knew that I had to tell the truth as I saw it.

Jaimie stood before me waiting, the family, collectively held its breath.

I recited the plate number and a sigh rippled through the people standing and sitting around me. Grey slipped an arm over my shoulder and Rosie dropped her head to my other shoulder.

Mrs. K smiled at me. She patted my hands one last time, took a deep breath and began to wail again as she rose to her feet. Family fluttered around her as Jaimie made his way to the phone.

note from Wyz: it’s been a little over 2 weeks since I wrote and posted a chapter…and as often happens when there’s a break, my writing syntax changes….but I am under the strictest of orders from some friends to “get er done!”

So here tis….I suppose you’ve all had just about enough music in the interlude to do you till I get back in the swing of things…

Five hours later we were back at the hospital. Every time it seemed that life couldn’t get any worse…it did just that.

I sat on a bench between Grey and Barry this time, waiting to find out if Robert would live through the night.

We’d partied at the Silver dollar for quite a while…till it’d got to the stage where Roberts dungarees had dried and would have stood up in the corner by themselves they were so stiff. I was a little fascinated by the fact that he didn’t seem to be in the least bit uncomfortable about it.

We’d left the Dollar en masse and headed for the farm, for once, everyone was riding.

I found out later that it seemed that there was a club on the Iron Range that took a particular exception with Robert and his band of merry riders. As we’d left the bar that night we’d been followed by a beat up old pick up truck…not one of us had noticed.

As we rode through the city to head out the opposite side and back to the farm there were probably 30 motorcycles with at least 50 people all told. There was a lot of laughing and antics going on between the bikes as we rode through town. People riding side by side, passing joints and wine skins and bottles…women blowing kiss’ or climbing around to ride in front of their men,facing them, wrapped around them, guys poppin wheelies, screaming past the group in the opposite lane….it was just the most relaxed I’d been since I’d arrived in the Twin Cities.

At an intersection in the warehouse district the truck pulled up beside Robert who was pretty close to the head of the group and riding beside Scruvy D. The driver of the truck rolled his window down and words were exchanged between Robert, Scurvy and the fellow driving and his passenger.

Scruvy and Robert both got off their bikes, dropping them to start towards the truck.(which was the moment that all the rest of us cottoned on to the fact that something serious was happening here…)

At that point I had visions of Robert pulling someone out of the cab of the truck and dusting the pavement with him…kinda like he’d done with those cops.

Shots rang out and we all hit the pavement.

Rosie and I scurried/crab walked to the curb and hid behind a huge metal bin that was on the sidewalk…people were yelling and I heard more shots and then lots of yelling.

The truck pealed out leaving Robert standing in the road holding one of the passengers by the throat. Some of the boys ran to him to get him to let the guy go before he stopped twitching. It wasn’t till they got up close that they realized both Robert and Scurvy had been shot.
We couldn’t really make out how bad either of them were because of the gallons of dried pig’s blood that covered them from the “chainsaw massacre” of the pig earlier.

The end result was that Scurvy was DOA and Robert had not one, not 2 but 4 – 45 shells buried in his great big gut. How he was still breathing was beyond me. We’d had to wait for an ambulance, in spite of his protestations that he’d ride himself to the hospital, and then I’d had to ride in the bus with him or he wouldn’t stay inside.

He’d shut his eyes just as we’d been pulling up to emergency and I was pushed out of the way and the Dr’s and nurses began their well executed ballet to save his life.

So there we sat again, in the waiting room at the hospital, waiting to find out if another one of the brothers would live. The difference this time was that I’d called Mrs. K. I hadn’t told anyone…but I’d got it into my head that she had a right to know.

I looked up as the doors whooshed open in time to see Mrs. K and Jaimie the police officer son, and 2 more men and a woman that all looked like Kirkpatrick stock swooping through the door. I looked to Grey as the oldest and he looked tired and truly did look grey.

Rosie muttered, “fuck…how’d she find out so fast?”

“I called her” I said.

“Jesus baby!” was as far as Rosie got before her mother was upon us.

All my life I’d heard stories of wailing and gnashing of teeth of women who’d lost their children to death. My father’s family business was funeral directing and I’d seen and heard more than my fair share as a child in my grandfather’s office.

Nothing in my previous life prepared me for the fury of Mrs. K. Scurvy D, had been her son “Daithi” (David) and she was broken hearted at the loss of her boyo.