Jem…Chapter 171

*Before…

I slip out of the car and actually don’t close the door all the way just enough so it kinda latches and the door chime isn’t pinging and I keep kind of low and close to the bushes that are close to the sidewalk here and actually go through them once I catch a peep of everyone in the garage that’s at the end of the driveway on the lot. The wooden sliding door is up and I saw Rayne there and others but I seen Mike and Carmen there too.

I go through the bushes and am on the property next door and slipping through it and finding a break in the fence line and go through that and then try and sneak up to the garage through the back.

Every damned footstep sounds way too loud to me.

Old leaves, twigs, branches and a yard that’s not seen a lick of work because it’s now just a rental place and the landlord’s either part of the Marshall set or they’re from someplace out of town like Toronto.

I can hear voices and I hear Mike saying two names.

“Guff, Zee-Zee.”

“Hey rat.”

*And Now…

I know those names from somewhere?

Billy and Davey?

No…

Mike...oh shit these are the two guys he sent to jail.

These guys should still be in jail right?

Prison?

Oh...Adam...It’s got to be Adam.

I’m trying to keep calm and have everything recorded and at the same time keep my hands from sweating too much. Like seriously? It would be nice if this wasn’t a thing. Or fiction, fictional heroes never seem to sweat.

Or like having a leg threatening to cramp up.

Mike’s staring almost blandly at the two guys and they’re doing the same thing back the tough guy vibes are so strong right now.

It’s like that for a few endless seconds when one of them pulls a length of steel chain from his leather jacket pocket and the other guy takes a side step to get a different angle on Mike.

And Randy swings at Mike from behind.

And Rayne grabs his t-shirt with a big yell/scream pulling on him and throwing off his punch and Mike does this kick backwards catching Randy in the guts.

Then it’s on as the two bikers jump in on Mike as fast as anything I’ve seen. Yeah I’ve survived bullying but I’ve never fought really so everything’s happening just so fast.

There’s this crazy song bit of Jim Croce’s “Don’t Mess Around with Jim.”

I don’t get all the moves but Mike takes the chain to the head partway but gets his arm up as a boxer would and snapped a jab out to that guy and did this flicking reverse hand slap bat away to the other guy’s knife hand.

How he wasn’t cut I don’t know.

Then he steps into them and his hands moved so fast blocking hands, forearms, keeping inside of the chain and too close to the knife for the other guy to pull back to stab he was still sort of able to try and cut but even that was being made hard as Mike used his feet to stomp step on feet or a grazing stomp on shins through their jeans and hooking at their feet.

I can barely dance with lessons.

Oh course this makes them stumble some and that opens them up for Mike to land these really fast shots in and he’s sticking to the center chest because of the leather jackets and their heads/faces/throats.

I’m getting as much on camera as I can because if these two buttholes are who I think that they are then they’re on parole and stuff and jumping Mike or associating with Randy here has to be breaking it.

Actually then using weapons definitely does that as well as rack up lots of charges more.

Randy’s getting up or he was until Carmen like literally picks up a car radiator like a big slab over her head and wonks him with it with a yell.

He gets a hand up partway and I hear him grunt and swear.

“Ow…fucking nigger bitch!”

There’s two girls that were at the whole fight at the pizza place and they’re running out of the place for this regular sized door at the other side of the garage from where I’m at and there’s this skinny and skeevy looking guy getting up and he takes a swing at Rayne who goes down as he connects with her back shoulder and the force of it slams her hard into the car that’s parked in there.

Okay, I can only stand by so much!

I run around the back of the building and literally through all of the tossed out junk that’s there and the brush that’s been hiding it and I run into the garage and the guy’s Got a handful of Rayne’s hair and she’s yelling and trying to elbow him and he’s trying to hit her into the side of the car again and I bring the baton down as hard as I can swing it across his forearms.

I don’t want to hit Rayne and he’s like drug used skinny and stuff.

He lets her go with a scream and he turns and he looks at me and I give my wrist a flick snap with the baton and catch him in the balls with that rounded weighted bit.

I was sort of aiming for that, I’m not a fighter, I’m not and that was well just instinct.

He changes color and starts to double over when Randy yanks him out of the way with a big bear like roar and pull throws him into Carmen knocking her over and then he’s on me.

Jesus he’s huge.

I whacked him once with the baton and he just sort of bulls through it and he’s got me outside and through the doors and he’s on top of me.

“Fucking bitch you and the French whore did this shit you’re always in our shit!”

We’re fighting or he is like trying to hit me and grab me and I’m squiring out of his grip each time and trying to hit him and then I hear. “Angel close your eyes!”

I close my eyes. It was Rayne’s voice and I smell the heavy minerally scent of WD-40 spray and Randy’s screaming and I feel his weight shifting and I roll over onto my stomach and use all my strength and all fours to scramble out from under him.

Then I hear sirens, doors and this yell of. “RCMP Freeze!”

I see Randy up and wiping at his eyes and then running trying to get across the busted fence in back of us and see a Mountie actually catch him with a running cross check sending him to the ground then yelling “Stay down!”

I look and I see another Mountie likely the partner of the one closest to me with his gun out and the two bikers are raising their hands and they’re on the ground but not like they were told to get down but like Mike tackled them.

He’s on the ground too and he looks pretty much the worse for wear and one of the motorcycles is knocked over and they’re all close to it and I think that they tried to get away.

And like seconds later the town cops show up and they really look less than happy to see any of us.

Oh we’re so getting the You again looks. “What the fuck is going on!”

Mike’s coughing. “Went looking for a friend that usually checks in and she didn’t.”

The town cop’s like. “So you showed up here looking for trouble?”

Rayne limps out. “No, I ran into that girl there and recognized her from when these assholes sideswiped my van and she took off and I followed her. I was going to call you guys because the car is in the garage still with the paint from my van on it. But that sac-de-douche Randy and these other ones kept me from leaving.”

Randy’s coughing but he doesn’t say anything.

One of the girls says. “Frenchy sprayed Randy in his eyes with a can of stuff.”

The town cop is glaring at Rayne. “So you trespassed and assaulted someone?”

The closest Mountie says. “From the sounds of it she was being detained illegally.”

Carmen pipes up. “I got Randy threatening Rayne on my I-phone.”

The Mountie looks at her and I pipe up getting up and walking to the Mountie offering him my phone. “And I have stuff on my camera too including the two guys with the bikes going after Mike first.”

They’re looking at me and they are looking pretty hard for a few minutes and then they’re glaring at Mike and all of the cops and the Mounties as more of both are showing up as well. I see Uncle Mitch there too and I see “Uncle Bobby” arriving as well.

The Mounties take our phones from us and we’re all separated as the town cops put the bikers and the druggy guy and Randy in cruisers for themselves and the Mounties. They start to take down all of our stories and I’m with “Uncle Bobby.”

He’s looking at me. “This was so not a good idea Angel you all could’ve been badly hurt.”

I look at myself and my torn clothes and the bruises that I’ll likely have. “I’m lucky yeah but we’re all actually pretty much hurt.”

He makes a face. “You really have them though and hopefully we can turn this into something.”

I nod. “Those two are the ones that Mike put away through that thing that happened before he moved here. They’re supposed to be still away.”

He’s looking at them. “They’re out huh; I wonder who helped that along?”

“I’ll give you one guess.”

He’s nodding. “We’ll need to back track somehow on them and find out the connections to who pulled what strings but we have a place to look now.”

I nod. “Randy, the guy that went after Rayne he's high as a kite and I think they live here but I know that Randy doesn’t.”

Bobby’s nodding. “So why is he here then?”

I nod.

He makes a call in his Mountie truck and I see him on a tablet as well and there’s some waiting and there’s two Ambulances showing up and everyone’s getting checked out on both sides.

Then there’s “Uncle Bobby” talking to the town police and he and another Mountie and a town officer all go inside the house with their guns out.

There’s a bit of baited breath and then it fades into boredom as there’s no shots fired or a scuffle inside or anything and the town cops comes out asking for the paramedics and both teams and asking for them now and there’s more lights and more RCMP and the Sheriff is there with a van and I see some bikes go by and get stopped by the cops and they get ID’d and actually frisked and they’re let go and they just drive by.

I don’t recognize any of them but they look like the bunch that Billy and Davey said landed here in town.

They’re looking mostly at the two that are here and they’re looking at Mike too.

And then there’s this whole thing…they get down the street past all of the police here and they stop and they’re talking with Billy and Davey.

Oh yeah there’s something definitely going on with that.

I can actually see Billy with his bike stopped and both feet are planted and he’s standing with the bike between his legs instead of just resting on it.

I have no idea what’s going on but it looks like he’s pulling rank or something. The guys that were searched leave and there’s some cops looking at Billy and Davey but they don’t come close enough for them to get pulled over and searched instead they pull the bikes around and they follow the others out of sight.

Dad shows up with the others and with a tray of coffees and he shows ID and gets let over to see us and he sets the double tray of coffees on the hood of the Mountie car we got moved to after the EMT’s needed the ambulance and he hugs all of us….me and then Rayne and even Carmen and he does it twice before he turns us over to Molly and Brooklyn and Kimmie.

We’re all talking about what happened and Randy see’s Brooklyn and he pitches a major fit in the back seat of the town squad car and he slammed his head to the glass twice yelling at her.

“Turncoat fucking bitch! Rat-fucker! Mom shoulda fuckin swallowed you! Cunt! Skank! Slut!”

Then he falls back on the backseat and even while being cuffed he’s slamming both feet in his work boots into the door and the window making the car rock with the strength he’s putting into it.

Mike grabs Brook around the waist as she was going to head over there to scream at him and Mike’s saying. “Nooo that’s what he want babe, he wants to get under your skin.”

The EMT’s are headed out fast with two people on the stretchers and they’re in and gone fast blowing for the road full lights flashing.

Then the town cops and Mounties are coming out of the house with the Sheriff and they’re carrying stuff in plastic. A couple of long guns like hunting rifles, a shotgun, a machete and knives as well as a samurai sword and numchuks and other stuff but I see a handgun in a bag and clips in others and there’s baggies with green stuff and this bag with black candy? And there’s even a couple of plants being carried out.

I mean that sounds bad and it is but some of that stuff I’ve had before like the numchuks I mean I made mine in the garage and I was a kid and stuff but they’re still illegal and the hunting rifles might be legal or not but I think it all adds up.

And then there’s the drugs.

And the people hurt in there or whatever.

And the whole stuff from the fight.

We’re all kind of just watching it all happening this point and we’re kind of talking as we are watching about everything that happened and Dad’s not going at us for being here or going after Rayne or blaming Rayne for going after the one’s that wrecked our van or tagged our house going after Brooklyn that time.

It happened, and yeah not the smartest thing and we know that too heck we’re even sort of quietly talking about that as things are happening and the whole bunch of them are being driven off to lock up.

The thing is most of us would have gone after them and the rest…well it just snowballed on us and Dad even says.

“I just care that you girls are safe, I get it…stuff happens, it happened to me and to Mitch when we were that age too.”

Rayne’s leaning on me and I’m leaning on her and I sigh. “I just really wish things would stop happening though.”

“Uncle Bobby” comes over and says. “Soon, really soon if things pan out with all of these assholes. But you need to be more careful. There’s some really heavy action involved in this and up until now you’ve only been on the edges of it.”

He’s looking at the bikers as they’re being taken away in the back of an RCMP cruiser and not the town clowns.

Yeah it might get heavier with whatever goes down between Billy and Davey and them.

I just have a feeling.

Other cruisers are pulling away with the druggies.

Kimmie looks at “Uncle Bobby.” And she says. “Say it.”

He looks at her. “Say what?”

“You need to say it.”

He gives her this look like he doesn’t get what and she beams up at him. “Idjits.”

Okay that makes me snort and laugh and so does Molly who gets the joke too.

He looks lost and he looks at us. “So you girls might have to testify you know that.”

We’re nodding and I say. “I know, hopefully though it’ll be all in one go.”

He nods. “So are you girls still going to play your gig tonight?”

The last town cruiser is pulling away with Randy in the back and he’s upright again and has his face pressed angrily to the window and he glares at Brooklyn and Mike and all of us and he’s staring at me long and hard as they’re pulling away with him.

I give him the finger. “Yeah, Hell yeah we’re still going to play.”

I don’t even have to look to feel the others nodding and I can even just sort of feel all of them giving him the finger too.