As Promised

The "Prologue" to "The Baptized" follows. Comments are welcome.

Prologue

Florida, 1974

He was amazed it was this hot down here in March. It even seemed to him that it got at least another degree hotter every 5‑10 miles he headed further inland from the coast. The sweat ran down into the week‑old tattoo on his left wrist, and he imagined the salt breaking down the black and red inks, mixing with his blood and running down his arm and onto his jeans and spilling onto his work boots. He’d heard back when he was in the Army from someone who was in the Navy that was fundamentally how tattoos were removed if you went to a doctor and cried wimp, with salt in the wound. And Christ but that probably hurt if it was true.

Central Florida bothered him, it was an armpit, lines and lines of strip malls, auto parts dealerships and convenience stores and t‑shirt shops in front of which mean‑looking people stood and snarled at each other and showed off their acne and their appendectomy scars and their varicose veins. Welcome to the Sunshine State, leave your IQ and your cool at home. He'd never before realized he could have his blood pressure checked on the street, but here bored‑looking medical technicians sitting at card tables and reading "The National Enquirer" were a common enough sight.

And the land was flat, flat and sparse and punched out of every color except a straggly sort of green in the trees and beige everywhere else. No, this was not the Florida of his dreams and it sucked a very raw one. Where were the bathing beauties waving from yachts skippered by guys in white caps? The tiled-roof vacation homes resembling Moorish palaces? This shit, it all made Jersey suddenly look colorful. And interesting! And he knew for sure Jersey wasn't really interesting, except maybe compared to this lousy piece of Florida and probably all of Arkansas and West Virginia..

We have an errand for you, they'd told him. A simple pickup. But of people. Kind of like picking up a date for the prom, someone had added. Sure, as if anybody in the club had ever gone to the fucking prom back in high school. But he'd jumped at the chance. And now he was sweating like Jesus had done for 40 bleak, temptation-filled days in the Wilderness because the van they'd tossed him the keys to had no air conditioning.

He rounded a comer a little too fast and the metal rings fitted into the floor of the van behind him rattled again, shifted loudly with the weight of the vehicle. He'd stared hard at that bit of customizing when he'd first peered into the van fitted with South Carolina plates, what was that all about? But he'd also wanted to clearly establish that he was righteous, could be counted on when something went down. So he said nothing. As someone had once told him, one of the problems with snitches was that they "absolutely lack discretion." Well, that wasn't going to be his problem. Discretion, silence, even manners of a sort, these were things he was taking seriously since becoming a probate almost two years ago, and even more so since being made a full, colors‑wearing brother 6 months ago. He wanted very badly to make a good impression with his new "bosses," and in that sense, he suddenly realized, club member or not, he was the same as any other "new hire" throughout the whole damned economy. He was a trainee, willing to take on any shit job and this one, he was sure, was bound to be shittier than most.

This was not like emptying trash cans or running off photocopies, he was sure he'd be learning things as a loyal, to be‑relied‑upon brother that most stone citizens out there would never even dream about. This was definitely not the corporate life, which he couldn't handle anyway, he much preferred being an outlaw.

He drove slowly and he was right on time. Down a long boulevard that bisected a development of wooden houses in faded pinks and blues. Then a stretch of nothing, what he thought Floridians called sawgrass, in which off to his right he saw a pack of wild dogs tearing at something. What? He decided he wasn't that curious to stop and look by way of making sure, especially when one big black dog caught a piece of whatever in its jaws and threw it up in the air a full two feet before catching it again. It looked like either the remains of a white cat or someone’s arm.

He made the final left called for by the directions they'd given him, stopped short 15 feet or so round the bend in front of a chain‑link fence, with one of those metal shield‑shaped signs in the middle of the gate that security companies hand out upon which was taped a hand‑written notice: "Only brothers and their guests allowed inside, all others keep the fuck out." And in a different handwriting, as a PS below that, “Trespassers will be sorely harmed." And in a third, smaller hand below that, "And then killed.”

He got out and pushed the buzzer.

A voice, nasal and weaselly like he imagined most white trash Floridians sounded once you got off the tourist strip of the state's Atlantic Coast, came out of the speaker at the very top of the 10‑foot‑high chain link fence. "What do you want, scumbag?"

Maybe they're still upset over who won the Civil War. So he yelled back into the speaker, "I'm here for a pickup. The pickup, I mean," he added in a softer tone. That was better. "And I was told I'd be expected." Hoping they wouldn't catch his true nervousness. Come on, guys, make this relatively easy for me.

He heard the buzz of voices, probably deciding whether to let him into the compound or not. "Okay, back up about 10 feet so the gates can swing open, then when you drive in park in front of the shed and get out of the van with your hands straight and high up in the air. Then walk to the middle of the 3 trailers that form an L to your left and wait at the bottom step. And don't fucking do anything else or you're one very dead and diced‑up jerkoff full of buckshot."

He nodded, figuring that he was on Candid Camera, got back into the van, waited until the electric gates swung outward, then drove down the gravel drive. Inside the fence, which was weirdly covered with the sort of green wind‑breaking material he'd seen on the fences around tennis courts back in Daytona Beach, he followed the gravel drive straight ahead. The grounds were virtually treeless, but a huge beach umbrella shaded an old couch upon which a girl with long, dirty hair and a marijuana leaf tattoo on the back of her neck was giving a blowjob to a guy who sat there alternately moaning and taking sips from a quart bottle of beer. "Property of Juggy, " he read off the back of her sleeveless denim vest. But he wasn't dumb enough to then automatically assume that was Juggy getting his dipstick wiped.

He got out, looked at the bulletin board attached to the wall of the shed. Business cards for custom bike shops and leather workers, take out menus for both a Chinese and a barbecue restaurant, a list of brothers who had outstanding dues and/or fines and thus wouldn't be allowed into club social functions until they'd cleared their back accounts.  An invitation, on a cream‑colored engraved card like people sent out for weddings, to a white supremacist rally, "featuring musical entertainment by The Lynch‑ing Boys and patriotic speakers," in some other god‑forsaken town he assumed was nearby but was sure he wouldn't personally go near in a thousand years. And, of all the goddamned things you'd expect to find, a page, apparently torn from a local newspaper, listing the times for church services at local Christian "houses of worship," as the clipping called them.

He walked over to the T‑shaped arrangement of identical double‑wide trailers. They were shabby, paint‑peeling crates, over-laden with a dull film composed of equal parts Florida dust and motorcycle exhaust fumes. The only things he saw glimmering throughout the whole compound, in fact, were the 12 or so parked hogs. And there was a smell in the air that he recognized immediately, one you could sniff out in any bike club hangout he'd ever been in, eau de beer, menstrual blood, motor oil, grass and semen. Two brothers in the colors of the club he was ‘visiting’ here sat on the steps of the left trailer watching him, one cradling a pump action shotgun. He nodded to them, paused in front of the middle trailer.

'Don't bother knocking," the one with the pump action said. "You're expected, mother."

The door of the middle trailer opened, two brothers came out and the two who'd greeted him stood up. So the other two were probably chapter or even national officers, he realized. But their colors were so faded he couldn't even make out their club names from the patches over their left breasts.

"Hey, man," the taller, younger, clean‑shaven one, who was fiddling with a riding crop in his hands, said with a smile. "How's it going? You found the place alright, I see." His partner had a thin goatee with a lot of grey in it, skull rings on every finger of his right hand except his thumb, and a long, deep scar that ran from above his left elbow to the back of his hand, blurring the neatly arrayed line of "In Memory Of..." tattoos in honor of deceased brothers that began at his wrist and continued up to his shoulder blade. That one just nodded.

"Can we offer you some Southern hospitality?" the younger one continued. "Beer? Pussy?"' He paused, moved down a step and leaned forward, grinning. "Some fresh­ squeezed OJ, direct from the groves?"

"No, just the pickup. I have to get the hell back."

He nodded, seemed to visibly relax, as if playing the concerned host had been momentarily trying. "And how do you expect to pay for this delivery, man?"

"I, uh, was told to tell you it'd be the usual combination of three things, to be delivered later." And even he knew that probably meant some combination of meth, cash and firearms and explosives stolen from National Guard armories and military bases back in Jersey. Probably whatever they had more of lying around when it was the agreed‑on time to make the actual payoff. He'd seen virtual crateloads of pilfered M‑16s and M‑60s and Kevlar vests in guys' basements and garages, after all, just there for the taking, kind of like the locker room for a SWAT team. And he'd once watched a guy putting red self‑stick bows on anti‑personnel mines, who'd told him with a wink that "When you care enough to send the very best, it's also important to take real pains with the presentation." So, with that knowledge and awareness of the club's crank labs in the Poconos, he felt he had a pretty good understanding of what could be supplied in lieu of money

This time the goateed one spoke. " Okay on the fee. So tell me, you enjoying Bike Week? "

"Haven't had much time to. More serious partying back at the motel than time on the streets and in the local bars, you know?"

The goateed one laughed. "Yeah, I can get that. But it's different for us. We're just a happy band of local brothers with roots in the community and standards to uphold."

Sure, baby. "Well, I hear your chapters down here are full of good people." This was his attempt to be diplomatic.

"Oh, we're very good people, mother," the younger one jumped in. " Very fine and very fucking righteous. But we're also businessmen, so let's get this deal accomplished." He backed up the steps to the door of the trailer and slammed his elbow against it. "Okay, we're ready. Bring the bitches outside."

The door opened and a bow‑legged guy with red hair and big floppy ears, on whose new leather colors vest could clearly be read "Juggy" on his left breast although he could have figured that one out for himself, came out, holding in his stubby hands the end of what seemed to be a very long chain. Oh Juggy, he thought, do you know, like I know, what your personal property's been up to while you've been sweltering inside this trailer? Do you even care? Did you maybe even put her up to it as an act of charity, Christian or otherwise, for a fellow biker?

And as Juggy jerked the chain behind him and started down the step, it became clear what was attached to by larger links that led to more chains around their wrists: three blonde girls in nearly identical tank tops and cut‑off shorts. None was older, he judged, than about 19 tops. And they all had bad, ashy skin and they all looked very stoned. Not high, exactly, but stoned as both a matter of principle and as a means of controlling them, they'd probably been forced to gobble up piles of downers per girl over the last week or two. In between rapes by the brothers, perhaps. The middle girl had several small yellowish and blue bruises on her face, neck and shoulders, the kind, he realized, as might be made by a skull ring during sex without prior agreement.

"Here's the merchandise," the goateed one said. "All ready to go. And Juggy here will pack them for you. For security reasons, too, you won't get a key. Instead, your people at the other end already have one. This is SOP, you capisce?"

He nodded.

"They're good‑looking ones, right?" the younger, clean‑shaven one asked. "You can't easily get young stuff this ripe, believe you fucking me."

“Okay, let's do it." Really, what else was there to say? It was just a business transaction, he told himself, every day all across America clubs like the one he belonged to and clubs like these jokers belonged to traded women off like so many baseball cards.

The younger one made a face. 'Wait," he said. He stepped in front of the lead girl, whose dull blue eyes registered, it seemed to him as an outside observer, absolutely nothing. Perhaps, he thought, this is really what it means when someone has had the shit fucked out of her, as brothers of his acquaintance were always telling him they’d did.  But they hadn't, not if this blank‑faced nubile was any standard to go by, he'd never seen a girl who appeared so used‑up and unable to care about it, and he'd been to a lot of parties where the brothers had used up the available snatch at a frighteningly quick rate.

"Truth in advertising, man," the younger one then said, running his riding crop over the girl's belly. "You see?"

No, he didn't see, he shook his head, the only thing he maybe noticed here was this girl had a slight curvature to her belly, whereas the other two were absolutely flat‑stomached.

The younger one slammed the riding crop hard against the girl's tummy and she didn't wince. Even if her eyeballs seemed to momentarily push back into her head. "She's missed at least two periods, man.  We figure she's pregnant. So you won't get a lot of work out of her on her back before she starts showing."

                                                                                                                                                                         

And if she was pregnant, that blow he'd just delivered was surely enough to at least jar the fetus. Okay, how to handle this one?  “I was told that these things usually work themselves out, that it didn't matter if they were young enough and pretty enough."  Actually, he been told, literally, that it was "fucking fine and dandy in case any of these bitches turn out to be pregnant, that's kosher, it won't queer the deal, it may even be a plus but don't go telling those dickheads that" but he wasn't going to admit that here, even if he'd wondered about that unguarded admission when he'd heard it. He didn't, as the "buyer's agent" here, want to give the "seller" any possible edge.

"We just wanted to tell you that for quality control purposes," the goateed one said.

"But if you've got no objections to slightly soiled merchandise that’s been picked over…,” the younger one added, shrugging his shoulders. He couldn't imagine that any "such merchandise" these dudes would sell would ever be anything less than very soiled, but he let that one go.

"Then okay, Juggy, go and do your bondage thing with these fine young ladies," the younger one said. "He gets off on tying people up," he added with a smirk, "trussing them like fucking turkeys and then stuffing them full of  essence of Juggy."

So he finally knew what the iron rings in the van were for and besides, now the rings wouldn't rattle so much on the ride back and thereby bug his concentration, pressed as they'd be against female flesh. He could always find the good points in anything, he told himself, and that really meant anything this hot, breezeless March afternoon.

Later, after Juggy had shackled the narcotized (a word he remembered from a psych course he'd taken the one year he'd spent at a state college, and it struck him as totally apt) girls to the floor of the van and he'd pulled out and had gotten no verbal response at all, even when he'd asked, as a way of being as kind as he dared get without pissing off the people waiting for him, if they wanted a specific station to listen to on the radio since they had about a two‑hour drive back to Daytona Beach, the goateed one and the younger one, whose club names were, respectively, ""Chrome" and "Smiley" sat in the trailer sipping lukewarm bottles of Dixie beers and reviewing the day's activities..

"He had brass balls, that one," Chrome admitted. "We could have sliced his fucking head off, him showing up alone like that, but he showed class."

"Maybe we should have, man," Smiley said. "He was eager. Eager means dangerous when it's from another club."

"And did you catch the big fat swastika tattoo peeking out from under his sleeve? That is one serious dude. That is somebody who doesn't give a shit what the straights out there think, siegfuckingheil, you know?"

Smiley belched by way of agreement. "He'll make his bones in his club. And he will surely be someone to be reckoned with in his neck of the woods."

"So we'll see him again?"

"Oh we'll definitely see the fucker again. He's someone we'll surely be doing lots of business with in the future. And I look forward to it."

"And I'll drink to that."

So they did, finishing up their beers as he pulled behind a rented bungalow 95 miles away in Daytona Beach to deliver the chained girls to some members of the ruling hierarchy of the club who were down for Bike Week, and him not feeling the slightest twinge of guilt at having become, in the course of an early March afternoon, what his father and mother would have termed a "white slaver." Only elation that the deal had gone down, that he hadn't blown it as far as he could tell.

And confidence that he'd be doing much more such business for the club in the future, and some mild curiosity as to what his brothers really had in mind for the girls chained and stoned into sullen silence in the back of the van, since even in his native Jersey young blood, pregnant or otherwise, wasn't exactly in short supply to get gulled by bullshitting brothers into working their bodies on their backs for the coffers of the Demons MC.