Chapter 72

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.