"That's good." I was silent. Blaze and one of the other guys made idle chit-chat and I looked around, detached from the whole thing. I didn't recognize some of the newer patches, and the whole place had a different flavor since I had left. It was kind of like going back to visit your parents after years away- everything was the same, but it was all different.
It definitely didn't have the same vibe it had when Mad Dog was running the show, but that last year with Mad Dog in charge everything had gone to shit anyhow. The whole place had been out of control crazy, parties all the time, drinking, drugging. It hadn't just been me that was out of control. The whole fucking club was. This, now- it was more subdued somehow. The guys sitting around, relaxed, watching the game. It was more...normal, I guess.
One of the brothers, someone who had been patched since I left, walked up to me, held out his hand. "Hey, man," he said. "You're a fucking legend around these parts. Nice to meet you."
"A legend, huh?" I repeated the word slowly. "I'm not sure why."
A kid, one of the prospects, stood a few feet away, obviously eager. "Hammer," he said, nodding. "They've been calling you Hammer. Why are you riding up here in a cage, man?"
I felt blood pumping in my ears, and my face was immediately hot. Some stupid prospect without a filter and a shred of common sense wanted to run his mouth? Retired or not, I was going to fuck this kid up. "You want to find out why I'm riding in a cage, you stupid fuck?"
My fist clenched, my feet shifted, and then Blaze yelled, "Shut the fuck up, Prospect! No one said you could fucking talk. Thatcher, get in here and take care of your goddamn prospect."
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.