Here comes the second, main part. I have to repeat, the views and opinions depicted in this story are the characters' and not to be confused with mine. This is still a piece of fiction.
Also, I'm still not making excuses; just exploring.
And since I forgot it in the first chapter:
Disclaimer: Justified and its characters do not belong to me and I am not making any money with this.
WARNING: Explicit language; lots of derogatory terms (nigger, dago, chink); this is the Aryan Brotherhood, after all.
Enjoy.
The Very Cold Night
Part 2
The Honorary Title of Devil
Derek had no idea of his cousin's fate. He thought in a few months' time he would be visiting Nathan again; but it all happened quite differently from what he had expected.
The Family Reunion thing (Lewis had belatedly named it "Bloody Harlan 1991", and he hadn't been joking) had showed him two things. One: He did NOT want to end up being like his father (although that was something he'd known for quite some time now), and two: His life was rather fucked up, as was his family, in a pointless, depressing way, and all of it made Derek rather angry. With his father for drinking so much, with his mother for leaving, but also with himself, for letting it all happen without doing a thing. He hadn't intervened when his daddy stabbed uncle Steve in the stomach (how could he have, he was only 15), he'd only screamed like a baby, and Derek felt weak for it.
His frustration started showing in school. Derek had never tried very hard, rarely did his homework, there was no one to control or reprimand him for it anyway, and only his natural wits saved him from being expelled. Lewis was almost never there, even though he tried, and Derek started hanging out with Tanner Dodd and his friends, who were virtually up to no good. It earned Derek many talks with the principal and a lot of hours spent in detention which Derek really didn't mind because it gave him a reason not to be at home. Since Bloody Harlan, Junior was drunk practically all the time, and even the sporadic shooting lessons in the backyard that Derek cherished had stopped completely.
In High School the pointlessness of it all hit Derek over the head, and he dropped out when he turned 17. Junior didn't even notice. The following year Derek wondered what he was going to do with his life. What COULD he do? What did he want? What was he good at, anyway?
He was good at shooting, because his daddy had taught him. Derek seemed to have a knack for it. At 13 he'd already been better at shooting than Junior would ever be. Derek was also good at picking locks, another thing his daddy had taught him. He was good at beating up kids in school, too. Derek Lennox was kind of a bully.
He spent a lot of time smoking weed with Tanner, and he wondered whether he should follow in his father's and uncles' and cousins' footsteps and join the Army, but he wasn't sure he wanted it. He wasn't even sure Nathan and Lewis had actually wanted to do it, or if they had just made that decision because it was an easy decision to give yourself over to a greater system where you were told what to do and could do good for your country. Doing good was not something Derek Lennox saw a lot of sense in, not even at that early an age. He hadn't received much good, so, he thought, why give it to others?
Derek made his decision the day after his 18th birthday. Junior had completely forgotten about it, and Derek wasn't surprised. At around noon he stepped out onto the porch, where Junior sat, bottle of Whiskey in hand, still covered in dirt and grime from his shift at the mine.
"Ey there, daddy" Derek greeted him, leaning on the railing of the porch.
"Son" Junior greeted back and seemed kind of confused. It didn't make Derek wonder. His father was confused by the simplest things.
"Y'know, I turned eighteen yesterday" Derek said, purposely not phrasing it like a question, because he did not want Junior to think he was accusing him of anything. Like forgetting his only son's 18th birthday.
"That's great, son."
"And I was, y'know, thinkin' what I'mma do now."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah." Derek stared at his shoes and struggled with what he was trying to say. How best phrase something he knew his daddy wasn't going to like?
"I's thinkin' bout joinin' the Army" he began. "Like Nathan and Lewis did."
"That's great, son… been waitin' forever for you to say that" Junior grinned at him. "Y'know I was always thinkin' that, s'long as I got a house and a son that's gon' make me proud some day, that's as good as it's gon' get."
Derek bit his lip. He was eighteen years old and this was the very first time his daddy had ever even insinuated being proud of him.
"Yeah, bout that. Uhm." Devil sighed. "I ain't gonna do it."
"Do what?"
"The Army, dad. I ain't gonna go there."
"What…?" Junior blinked at him. He seemed to wake up from his booze-induced happy dream. "What d'you mean? Course you're gonna do it."
"No." Derek frowned at him.
"The fuck you're talkin' bout, no! Of course you're gonna join the Army, and you're gonna go to Irak, or wherever they're goin' nowadays, and you're gonna fuckin' serve your country like all the other men in your family did!"
"No, I ain't, daddy. I'm…" Derek wanted to say he was sorry, but since he really wasn't, he didn't finish. "…not."
"What the fuck are you sayin', you little shit!" Junior threw the still half filled bottle away. It smashed to pieces on the hardwood floor of the porch and whiskey sprayed to all sides. Derek flinched, like he always did when Junior made sudden movements. The beatings had stopped after the family reunion, first because Junior was too sore from Nathan's leathering, then because Derek got stronger and learned to defend himself; but the fear in the back of Derek's mind had never shut itself off completely.
"I am not gonna join the Army, dad" Derek said, slowly, decisively. The urge to step away was overwhelming, but the railing was effectively holding him in place, helping him to stand his ground.
"You little… shit." Junior was wheezing. "You… you… YOU!"
He was turning around on wobbly feet, reaching for something under the bench he had been sitting on, and Derek only understood it was his sawed-off he was looking for when it was aimed at him.
"You… get the fuck away from my house."
Derek made big eyes. "Daddy?"
"You ain't callin' me Daddy, little shit, cause you ain't my son no more."
"Wh… what?"
Derek's body was moving on its own accord, taking him down the few steps to the brown-ish patch of lawn in front of the house. There was something wrong with Junior's face, Derek thought, because he had seen his father enraged a lot of times in the past years; but not like this. Never like this. Junior's face was a grimace of hate, and Derek knew it was fueled by the alcohol, but there had to be something real in it, too. When Junior had said that part about a son to be proud of, he'd been honest, Derek was sure of that much; he knew he was breaking a tradition by not joining the armed forces, and that it had to be confusing for a man who was so deeply caught in alcoholism that he was surprised by nearly everything these days.
"You heard me, bastard, You ain't my son, get the fuck off my property!"
"Come on, daddy-"
"Don' fuckin' CALL ME THAT!"
Derek was about 30 feet away from Junior when he pulled the trigger, and Junior, who was a passable shot when he was sober, managed to miss, but not entirely. About a quarter of the pellets from Junior's fired round hit Derek in the right upper arm and ground themselves into his skin, making him stumble back and shout in pain. Derek doubled over and grabbed his arm. It was burning with pain, so much he almost forgot to breathe. After all those beatings he thought he would have been familiar enough with pain that nothing could shock him much anymore; but then again, he had never been shot before.
Running away, the pain, the blood running down his arm, the angry shouts from his father – it all happened in a haze. Tears stung in Derek's eyes, but they didn't fall. He later figured he had been in too much of a shock to actually cry. Derek dragged himself to uncle Evan's place. Lewis was on a Black Ops mission somewhere at the time, but Evan was home. His mouth fell open in surprise when he found his nephew bleeding all over the door mat in front of his house.
"Who the hell tried to kill you?" he asked.
"My daddy" Derek answered, and Evan Lennox, the rather cold, detached man, let Derek in and picked the grovel out of his arm with a pair of tweezers without saying another word.
Patched up, Derek seeked refugee with Tanner and his strange mom for a few days. He tried calling Lewis several times, but only managed to reach him on the fourth day, and when he told him what happened Lewis seethed, but there was little he could do from where he was, so he told Derek to go and live with uncle Evan, sleep in Lewis's bed for as long as he liked. Evan would want him to pay rent, so Derek would need to get a job. Derek, lacking options, agreed.
There were only few jobs to be acquired in Harlan when you were eighteen and hadn't finished high school. Derek needed money now, so he just went and started in the mines. There wasn't much to talk about with uncle Evan, who Derek had never had a close relationship with. After Bloody Harlan, Derek did not want to involve uncle Steve anymore. He was not looking for him to get stabbed again.
The work in the mines was hard, dirty, disgusting and, quite frankly, terrifying. Derek had never been especially afraid of the dark, but the rumbling down there, the explosions, the stuffy air, the fact that he blew black phlegm from his nose for about ten minutes after he'd gotten out of there, it scared him. Derek thought he now understood some of his daddy's anger. He regretted it, everything; not joining the Army, jeopardizing the relationship (if you could even call it that) to his daddy for it, for what – this? Dying of the black lung just so he could sleep in his cousin's bed and eat the shitty food uncle Evan would cook from time to time? Derek felt like he had made the biggest mistake of his life, and he didn't know how to make it all okay again. It could be so easy – just enlist, go back to Junior, tell him it was all a simple misunderstanding, forgive him for shooting at Derek.
But, well. There was the catch that Derek did not want that. He didn't want to join the goddamned Army, just to make a point, it felt – it felt just as weak as running away from it. Maybe the point Derek was trying to make was that you could be a man and NOT get yourself killed in some war like his grandfather did, or come back with human ears on a chain like his father had. He especially didn't want to forgive his father for shooting at him. It was one thing to hit your children, Derek thought, but it was another to SHOOT them for not doing what you wanted them to do.
Months passed, and Lewis called him several times saying he was trying to get leave, but it wasn't working yet, and Lewis told him to "hold tight, Moose, I'mma be home soon", and Derek could only shrug and say "Alright", because Lewis was most likely on another continent, and Derek felt that, now that he was 18 and truly alone for the first time, it was important he learned to care for himself. Lewis was ten years older than Derek and his brother and a father figure and his best friend all in one, but he was not here. He wasn't here, and Derek had to deal with it.
It was February and crispy-cold and Derek was still working the mines; he noticed changes in his body from the hard work, muscles had built up and he felt stronger and wished he'd been that way four years ago when Junior had still hit him all the time. He'd gotten into a few fights here and there and came out of them as the winner nine times out of ten. One guy who had started the mines about a month after Derek watched him and seemed nosy, kind of keen to make friends. Derek's mistrust in people had strengthened considerably since the fall-out with Junior, but he was still a people person, and he didn't really have any friends because Lewis was still off somewhere killing people and Tanner had started spending more time in Frankfort than in Harlan, and he hadn't heard from Nathan in years. Derek was lonely and didn't like it, so he made friends with this dude named Joe who asked him weird questions like, did he like working the mines (did anybody? Seriously?), what did he want to do with his life (like that was a question an 18-year-old could answer in one sentence), how was the relationship to his family? (Derek honestly tried skipping that last question, but Joe was an insistent fella and didn't let him.)
Derek gave evasive answers at first, but Joe seemed like a nice guy and tried again and again, until Derek told him the truth, because honestly, he didn't have anybody to talk to, not a single soul, at that time. It felt good to share. Joe was a good listener, too, nodded in the right places, made a shocked face when Derek told him about Junior and his sawed-off.
By the end of February Joe was the best friend Derek had ever had, if you didn't count his cousins. They were finishing their shift, and stood in front of their lockers, taking off the helmet and goggles.
"Hey, man, you wanna go have a drink?" Joe asked, and Derek, who only had some overcooked noodles and a stony-faced uncle Evan waiting at home, shrugged.
"Sure."
"Audrey's?"
"Audrey's it is" Derek said and slammed his locker shut.
Derek had been 11 the first time Lewis took him to Audrey's. It hadn't changed much since then, if at all. Time changed, tides changed, but Audrey's pretty much stayed the same. Joe paid for the first round which Derek found kind of strange, but he took up the offer without batting an eye. Scotch wasn't free.
"So, I've been thinkin'" Joe said.
"Have you."
"Yeah."
"Bout what?"
"Y'know, I've been doin' this thing lately, and I've been wonderin' if you might be interested…"
Derek shot him a look. "You comin' on to me?"
Joe rolled his eyes. "No! Jesus. Ew. You don't joke bout that kinda stuff."
"I think I just did, though."
"Anyway" Joe said. "What I mean is, I've been hangin' around with these guys. You ever heard of the Aryan Brotherhood?"
"Yeah, course." Derek frowned. "You go shootin' at them niggers up in Noble's Holler, right?"
"That ain't the only thing we do, Der. We're kinda like, well, like the name says. We're all brothers. And we try gettin' rid of the niggers and the jews, y'know, make society clean."
"Clean, huh." Derek raised a brow. His daddy had told him many a thing about the ugly chinks in Vietnam, and the nigger soldiers he had been forced to fight side by side with, how bad they smelled and how worthless they were. Derek had listened to it all with big eyes, not sure if that was really true, but he had never even MET a chink, so how was he supposed to know? He never completely bought into it, but hear-say and prejudice made it easy to believe, and most blacks were smart enough to stay out of Harlan anyway.
"Yeah. You see, we got a moral obligation to get rid of 'em, it says so in the bible."
"Ain't never read the bible." It was true, too; uncle Steve had taken him to church when Derek was in Memphis over the weekend, but he had never been told to read the bible then; and when he was home, in Harlan, nobody cared about it.
"Well, you should, man!" Joe pointed at him. "I'mma show you. It's all in there."
"Mmmh, sure" Derek murmured, not entirely convinced. Joe talked at him for the next three hours and kept buying Derek drink after drink, and then he took Derek to meet some of his "Brothers", and Derek knew in some small part of his brain that a lot of it was the booze talking (he had never been this drunk in his life), but the Brothers seemed cool. Derek was quite desperate to get new friends at that age, and he didn't quite care that they wanted to get rid of the niggers. Derek wasn't the one they wanted to get rid of, and that was good enough for him. He spent the night drinking more with them and woke up the next day with the worst hangover and his first alcohol-induced black-out, lying on a couch in a house he had never been in before. A gigantic Southern Justice Flag hung on the wall.
"Hey" someone said, and Derek slowly turned around, trying not to aggravate his headache any more than necessary. It was some giant bald dude who had spoken, and Derek didn't know him.
"Uhm… hey?"
"Good to see you 'wake, lil man" the giant bald dude said. "You were so shitfaced last night, I's worried we'd have to take you to the hospital."
"Nah" Derek said, though he didn't sound too convincing to his own ears, "'m fine. Or… somethin'. No hospital."
"Alright, lil man." Giant Bald Dude sat down in an arm chair next to the couch Derek had slept on.
"This might sound odd, but… who are you and where the fuck am I?"
"Hahaha, ain't surprised you don't remember nothin', you were proper wasted, man. My name's Harold, though everybody calls me Jab."
"Jab?"
"It's an Honorary Title. This is the seat of the Aryan Brotherhood in Shelbyville."
"I'm in Shelbyville?" Derek rubbed at his face "How in the hell did I get here?"
"Joe brought you here, said you's interested in a membership maybe."
"Yeah. Maybe."
Jab burped loudly and Derek winced. The room looked chaotic and like it was in desperate need of cleaning. Overflowing ashtrays and empty beer bottles filled the low table. Big muddy boot prints marked where people had crossed the room, and the air smelled stuffy. But for the first time this year the sky was of a clear blue, free of clouds, and Derek stretched carefully.
"Where's Joe?" he asked, because he realized that Joe was nowhere in sight.
"Oh, he left two hours ago."
"He what! The guy was my fuckin' ride!" Derek frowned. "I think. Can't remember."
"Yeah, he was. I can take you back. Where you from, lil man?"
"Harlan."
"Alright then. Tell me when you're ready to go, I'mma get me somethin' to eat."
Jab did drive Derek home, and he kept calling him "Lil Man", as well, even when Derek asked him to stop doing that (but Jab was really big and couldn't have earned the Honorary Title of Jab for nothing, so Derek didn't insist on it, either), and he turned out to be a rather amiable character, and when he talked to Derek about the jews and about how they had been responsible for the transmission of the Plague in the Middle Ages and how they were now taking all the money from people who had little money to begin with, like Derek, it all sounded a lot more plausible to Derek's ears than when Joe had gotten started about that whole mud people story. By the time Jab dropped Derek off at uncle Evan's place, Derek's decision was certain: He was going to join the Aryan Brotherhood.
Uncle Evan didn't ask any questions when tattooed bald men in combat boots started showing up frequently to pick Derek up and take him somewhere. In June he was officially initiated as a member and picked the AB Heart to be tattooed on his arm; that was when he finally felt like a man. He'd stood up to his father, he'd made some decisions on his own, and he'd gotten a tattoo – could you get any more manly than that at 18 years old? Derek couldn't imagine, at least.
Some of the older guys had adopted Jab's habit of calling him "Lil Man" which annoyed him, but it sort of reminded him of Nathan nicknaming him "Moose", and that softened the annoyance a bit. It reminded Derek that he didn't have that much family left, and that made the slight banter of the older guys easier to accept. Joe explained to him that in a few years time, Derek would have earned himself an Honorary Title, as well, and then the stupid "Lil Man" would be forgotten. Joe's Honorary Title was Fling, but he never told Derek why, and Derek had met him as Joe and never called him by anything else.
Derek stopped working the mines, too, when the Brotherhood told him he could earn a whole lot more money with dealing drugs, something Derek had never seen himself do; but it was easy, and it was a rather lucrative business, and soon some of the Brothers took him on raids to places outside of Harlan County, where they'd be wearing masks and emptying cash registers. Derek needed to get a driver's license before he was allowed to partake in those things, and when he did get his license (with the help of and paid for by the Brotherhood) he was the designated driver, waiting outside the gas station or liquor store or supermarket, keeping the motor running. Jab gave him shooting lessons, as well, but after five sessions Derek was already a better shot than most of the other Brothers, Jab included, so he was promoted to position of Gunman, the guy who had the gun trained on whoever was present in the liquor store so no-one would dare call for help.
Derek was never actually supposed to pull the trigger, for one because gunfire was loud and attracted attention; also, robbing a liquor store was one thing, killing someone was another. Derek was handy enough with a gun he knew where to point it, though, and he never pointed it at the head. The tactic was to scare people into not doing anything, not to actually kill them. But obviously, the people whose store was robbed by five masked guys weren't told that tactic, and they always thought this was about life or death. Otherwise, the tactic wouldn't have worked. Most of the Brothers were not looking to get arrested for murder if they could avoid it.
People who were scared for their lives, sometimes they did stupid things. And someone who had a gun trained on these people, even if that someone had fired a lot of shots before, would have been twitchy, because none of those shots had ever been aimed at another human being. Derek knew what it felt like to be shot at with a sawed-off, but he had never done it himself, shooting someone. Knowing he wasn't actually supposed to was comforting to some extent, but knowing he was the one with a gun, and hence the only one who COULD shoot, should push come to shove, made him nervous, edgy.
And then one day, a cashier of a liquor store (some fat, small dago) made a sudden reach for something underneath the register, and one of Derek's Brothers, his name was Mart, yelled, "Dude, he's got a fuckin' gun!", and Derek did the only thing he thought he could. He fired.
The shot hit the dago in the shoulder, made him cry out in pain and stumble back, but he wasn't dead, he was bleeding and yammering in his strange blabber of a language, probably cursing them, still rather alive. The others just stood there for a few seconds, mouths agape (although you couldn't tell, what with the masks and all), looking from Derek to the dago and back.
"Nice shot, Lil Man" a Brother called Boot said. Derek realized he was sweating profusely. They heard sirens in the distance then, and Mart stood strait.
"Alright now, someone musta heard an' called the polies on us, so pack up, guys, we're gonna get goin'!"
They did as told, and Derek sat himself in the backseat of the hijacked car. He was still sweating and his hands were shaking so much he sat on them so the others wouldn't see. He had never shot at a person before, even if it had just been one fucking dago and he was alive still, too. He'd never shot a person before.
The Brothers either didn't notice the state of shock he was in or they ignored it. Derek was just congratulated on his well-timed (and, more importantly, well-placed) actions, and a guy named Jack said this called for celebration.
"First time you shot someone, man!" He said from the passenger's seat to Derek, grin spread all over his bearded face. "You've earned yourself somethin' good!"
Derek couldn't quite agree yet, but he didn't disagree either. The "good" thing he'd earned turned out to be a rather attractive whore (she must have cost a fortune, Derek thought when he saw her), and he was thankful. The real good thing came a week later, though, when Jab and Joe picked him up at Evan's place in the morning and Joe threw something in his lap. Derek picked it up and looked at it. It was a leather vest, something a biker would wear, maybe, a vest like few of the older Brothers had, theirs already covered in dozens of colorful patches. Derek's was still fresh, though, and so new the pleasant smell of leather filled out the entire truck. There was only one patch on it for now.
"Is this…?" Derek barely dared say it.
"This is it, Lil Man" Jab stated. "You're one of us now."
The one bow-shaped patch high on the right shoulder of the vest said "1995".
Tanner and Derek met up about twice a year since their ways had parted when Derek left school and Tanner started spending most of his time in Frankfort. When Tanner had seen the AB heart on Derek's forearm, his eyes had bugged out, but he'd just asked if this was some kind of joke, and when Derek explained that it was most certainly not, Tanner didn't ask about it anymore. Derek told him how he shot that dago in the liquor store and that he didn't even know if there had actually been a gun beneath the register, or just some kind of emergency button, but that he was proud he had done it.
(The thing Derek was most proud of, which he didn't dare tell anyone, was that he'd managed such a clean shot in the shoulder that would most likely let the dago live. He knew others would have shot him closer to the heart, not caring. He also knew there were even some of them, the older, more extreme guys, who would have aimed for the head because it was the head of a fucking dago, even though it went against the policy of not killing when on a raid.)
Tanner listened, and they had drinks at Audrey's, and Derek listened when Tanner told him he was getting involved in something called the Dixie Mafia, which Derek had never heard of before. Tanner said it was a sure way of making money, and since everything seemed to be about that, Derek congratulated him on it.
It was October that same year and Derek's 19th birthday was coming close. The Brothers threw a big party for "Lil Man", an entirely new experience for Derek, whose biggest celebration for his birthday had been when Junior had given him his first shooting lesson when he turned 8, and his 12th birthday when Lewis had been there on leave and took him hiking in the hills. The AB house was full with people that night, most of whom Derek had never met before.
At some point around 2 am, he started to feel claustrophobic in the stuffed, confined space of the building and stole away to the backyard without anyone noticing. It was another cold night, clouded, the grass was wet with dew, but Derek laid down anyway. Being surrounded by that many strangers who all celebrated HIS birthday, it had started scaring him all of a sudden. It wasn't so much a matter of social anxiety as it was a bad habit – Derek didn't know how to deal with that much positive attention, and he didn't even know why that was. He just feared that at some point everybody in there would realize he wasn't worth celebrating over and then they'd just leave. Kick him out, take his precious vest away, shoot at him if he didn't leave immediately.
Stop being ridiculous, Derek told himself. It's just the screw your daddy knocked loose when he tried to kill you. You just fucking pull yourself together now.
Derek knew he was likely to be right about that; but he didn't go back inside.
At some point the sound of the back door snapping shut echoed through the yard and Derek was pulled out of his musings. Sitting up, he saw a girl standing on the dirty wooden patio lighting a cigarette. When she saw him she smiled and slowly walked over to him.
"There y'are" she said. "Birthday Boy. Why're you out here? S'is your party inside."
"They even notice I'm gone?"
"Not as far as I can tell."
"There you go" Derek said and turned his gaze back to the sky; he heard her muffled steps on the lawn until she was right beside him and he could see her high-heeled boots sink slightly into the wet ground. He had seen this girl at the party, his gaze being drawn to her because she was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen before; long, REALLY long legs, and hair of the darkest red you could find. He had no idea who she was, though.
"Well, most of 'em probably don't even know what you look like" she said and sank to the ground.
"Yeah, probably. And who are you? I'd have remembered if I'd seen you before."
"Ida." Ida took his hand and shook it. Derek's skin burned where she touched him. "I'm Ken's sister. You know Ken, right?"
Kenneth McRory, called Ken, was the guy who had been the driver when Derek had shot that dago; Derek knew him alright.
"Yeah, sure. You his sister, huh?"
"Yeah. He told me some things bout you. Do tell me, why d'they call you Lil Man?"
Derek was glad for the dark. He was pretty sure he was blushing. "Cause I'm the youngest, I guess. Jab jus' started this shit, and everyone else kinda went along, probably cause they ain't got no better ideas."
"How old are you, then?"
"Turned 19 today. Ehm" Derek corrected himself when he remembered it was early in the morning now. "Yesterday."
"That's pretty young. You got any idea what you wanna do?"
"What d'you mean?"
Ida shrugged and looked at him from under her lashes. "I mean, you wanna stay with the AB forever? Cause I heard you got some skills."
"What… skills?" Derek said slowly. He wasn't quite sure why, but he had the feeling this beautiful girl was flirting with him.
"Heard you's a pretty good shot." Ida put a hand on his forearm, right onto the AB heart, and rubbed her fingers over his skin. Derek suddenly felt the air had turned a lot warmer. "Maybe you could, I dunno, show me some time?"
"Show…?" Derek blinked at her. "What?"
Ida sighed. "Jesus" she drawled. "You do realize I'm flirtin' with you, right?"
"Oh. Yeah. Sure."
"Good" Ida said. Derek had had quite a few drinks, and Ida was obviously sober, because she had the entire situation in her hand, and Derek wasn't sure how it had happened, but he was lying on the lawn now, the back of his shirt getting soaked, and Ida was above him, unbuttoning his pants. When she kissed him, it felt like fire; the most intense pleasure Derek had ever felt; he had never been this attracted to a woman before.
"Ken's gonna kill me" he mumbled in between kisses.
"No, he ain't" Ida said, "trust me."
This was the first time Derek fell in love.
It had all happened so quickly, and even years later Derek would still wonder what Ida had seen in him, why she had taken such an intense interest in him of all people. Ken wasn't happy when he learned of it, but he only grumbled on about how "It coulda been a lot worse" (which Derek chose to understand as a compliment). Most other Brothers clapped him on the shoulder and congratulated him. Ida was such a beautiful girl most couldn't believe Derek had lucked out like this.
For Derek, though, it wasn't all about looks with her. She got him off like no girl had before, she pushed him to be braver, she made him laugh, she made him move out of uncle Evan's house and get a place of his own where she moved in with him. For Derek, who didn't really have any comparison, it was love.
In early 1996, Lewis got a Medical Discharge; he never dwelt on it, but he didn't have to. Him and Derek both were sons of men who had fought in Vietnam, and they both knew what war could do to you.
Lewis came home in March, and when he found his old room empty of not only Derek, but also all of Derek's belongings, he stomped off onto the back porch where his dad was lounging, throwing stones at birds.
"Where the fuck's Derek gone?"
"Moved out" Evan said. "When'd you get back?"
"Half an hour ago. I've greeted you twice already, Dad. Where to?"
"Where to what?"
"Where'd Derek move to?"
"No idea. Ask round at the mines, think he works there."
So Lewis went to the closest mine shaft, but the only thing he was told was that Derek had quit working here about a year ago and nobody had seen him since, but that Lewis should go ask some guy named Joe that Derek seemed to have grown quite close to. One of the miners gave Lewis Joe's address, and Lewis drove to Joe's place, but Joe wasn't there; he asked a neighbor, who told him that Joe was probably at the "House".
"What house?" Lewis asked, getting annoyed.
"The AB house" the old man elaborated. "Everybody knows that fella's involved with them Brothers."
"The AB? As in Aryan Brotherhood, AB?"
"Same one, son."
The old man gave Lewis the address, and the soldier started to get nervous. Aryan Brotherhood… what the hell had Moose gotten himself into?
The AB house, when Lewis finally found it, was almost empty. A huge man whose leather vest patch identified him as "JAB" was bent over the engine of a white SUV.
"Hey" Lewis greeted him. "I'm lookin' for a Joe. Any idea where he's at?"
"Nah, man. What d'you want from him?" Jab said, wiping his oily hands on an oily rag. "Maybe I can help?"
"Well" Lewis said, hesitating. "Actually, I'm lookin' for Derek Lennox. You know him?"
The big guy grinned. "Yeah, sure I know the Lil Man. What d'you want from him, then?"
"He's my cousin, not that it's any of your business."
"Oh, so you're Nathan?"
"No, I'm Lewis."
"Oh, Lewis! Shit, dude, the Lil Man talks bout you a lot. You're a Ranger, right? With the Army?"
"Yeah" Lewis said, frowning, and shook the huge oily hand Jab held out.
"You on leave?"
"Nah. Can you jus' tell me where the fuck Derek is?"
"Lil Man must be at his place, I guess" Jab said and shrugged. Lewis rubbed at his temples in impatience.
"Could ya tell me where 'his place' is, then. I only found out he left my uncle's place when I came back this mornin'."
"Sure thing, Lewis" Jab said, and he was quite friendly, Lewis had to admit. He was still a bit uneasy about being here, but generally Lewis's opinion on life had shifted quite a bit while he had been in Mogadishu, fighting for his survival; let Nazis be Nazis, he thought, life is too fucking short.
Hence he forced out a "Thanks" to Jab while retreating to his beloved 4runner (that Derek had taken good care of in his absence, he could tell). If he arrived at this address that this Jab guy had given him and Derek wasn't there, he was officially reporting his cousin as missing.
It didn't come to that, though. Lewis knocked on the apartment door and heard mumbling behind the door before it was ripped open and Derek dropped the dishtowel in his hand in surprise.
"Lewis, Jesus fuckin' Christ!"
Derek caught his cousin in a bear hug; if it hadn't been too girly he would have cried, he was so happy to see Lewis again after all this time.
"S'alright, Derek. Ahem. Let me go." Lewis freed himself. The Lennox clan had never been much of a hugging family.
"Shit, Lewis." Derek grinned at his cousin. "When'd you come back?"
"This morning." Lewis stared at his little cousin. God, but how he'd changed since they had last seen each other; Derek had grown a beard (and that he was actually old enough to grow a beard only started filtering through now), and he had a tattoo on his left forearm, and Lewis was aware that it was impossible, but Derek seemed taller now. He looked good, but Lewis also took notice that in the 18 months they hadn't seen each other Derek had aged about 8 years. Lewis's gaze was drawn to Derek's right upper arm, not covered by his shirt. He saw the scars, undoubtedly the result of a fired round from a shotgun, and he didn't wonder any more.
"When'd you move out?"
"Bout five months ago."
"And when'd you quit the mines?" Lewis couldn't hide his frown.
"Shit, that was ages ago, man. Last year, February, I think." Derek gnawed on his lip. "I wanted to tell you, but I couldn't reach you. A lot of shit's happened while you were gone."
"Tell me bout it. Uncle Evan thought you's still workin' the fuckin' mines."
Derek chuckled. "Yeah, well, he wasn't ever the attentive type, was he."
"Nah, he really wasn't. I should know."
Derek clapped him on the back. "So great to see you, man! How long are you gonna stay?"
Lewis closed his eyes. He hadn't told anybody yet, and he didn't really want to, either, but Derek would wonder. There was just no way around it.
"I ain't leavin' again."
"What d'you mean?"
"I'm home." Lewis gave him a pointed look.
"For good?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Med discharge" Lewis said and didn't dwell on it, and Derek understood and didn't ask.
"Well, in any case, my man, it's good to have you back."
Lewis met Derek's beautiful girlfriend Ida, then, who lived with Derek in the small but homey apartment. He wasn't keen on living with his inattentive daddy. Derek immediately made room for him, and even though Lewis knew Ida wasn't happy about it, it was never questioned. Lewis didn't trust this Ida person, and he didn't like her much, either. She seemed cold, and like she was only ever interested in her own advantage. But Derek liked her (thought he loved her, even), and in Lewis's opinion that kid had been through too much already, and he didn't want to be the asshole that had been away when Derek needed him and then came back, barging in and taking away the only good thing in Derek's life.
Lewis and Ida never warmed up to each other, but it never made Derek wonder since Lewis wasn't actually the type to warm up to people, period. Ida seemed to understand pretty quickly that Lewis saw something in her Derek couldn't see; Lewis never understood what Ida's game was, and neither did Derek. Derek Lennox would take quite a while to figure out Ida had a game at all; for him their relationship was an anchor. Nothing more, nothing less.
Life led itself good for Derek, or so he liked to think. Lewis, having come back from the war a changed man (the changes weren't radical, but they were there to see for the one person that knew him well enough), never dared judge him for the decisions he made, although unspoken they agreed that they could have been better decisions. Derek, at only 20 years old, wasn't the most self-reflective type, and although he would still think back to the one decision that had led him to where he was now, he would listen to Lewis's screams at night, caught in some nightmare or other that Derek couldn't begin to imagine, and then he wasn't too sad he had decided against the Army.
One of those scream-filled nights, Derek had been wide awake to begin with, his mind filled with those inconsequential what-if-I-had-done-things-differently thoughts, and when he heard Lewis start growling in his sleep, he decided to do him a favor and wake him. It was another decision he ended up regretting because the second Derek started shaking Lewis's shoulder the older cousin sat up and flung his fist at Derek's face with such abruptness and skill (respectable for a sleeping man) Derek never had time to block it. The punch hit him in the side of his face, close to his ear, and he almost blacked out. Lewis hadn't had lessons in hand-to-hand combat for nothing.
Lewis woke up from the pain in his hand and the sound of his alarm clock flying from the living room table and smashing to pieces on the floor. He didn't really understand what had happened; he'd had another nightmare, he knew that much. He heard someone moaning; it sounded like Derek.
"Christ Almighty, Lewis" Derek groaned. His ear was ringing so loud he thought for a second it was the phone, and it hurt a lot.
"Wha… Derek?" Lewis blinked through the dark and wondered why the hell he was doing that. He turned on the light. Derek was half-sitting, half-lying on the carpet in front of the couch Lewis was sleeping on, holding his ear.
"What happened?"
"I tried to wake you. Ain't doin' that again."
"Jesus Christ." Lewis rubbed his head. "I am SO sorry. You can't do that, Moose. Don't do that. I coulda fuckin' killed you. Jesus."
"Me? Nah. Remember who I grew up with. This ain't nothin' new."
Derek said it without putting too much thought into it, and after he said it the two cousins turned silent. Both their gazes were drawn to Derek's right arm, where the scars were faded, but still visible, especially to the both of them.
"Y'know, you could just get a tattoo there, cover 'em up" Lewis said after a few minutes of silence. Derek mulled it over.
"Why not" he said.
Getting the Southern Justice flag from the AB house tattooed onto the scars Junior Lennox had left him with was not only a covering-up of the past, it was also a welcoming of the future for Derek. It helped him let go. As the years passed he thought of Junior with an increasing infrequency, and he hoped that at some point he might be able to forget he had a father at all. He'd gotten pretty good at forgetting he had a mother, too, it had only taken him ten years; he thought, now that the scars were covered, maybe he could do the same thing again. "Time heals all wounds" really seemed to apply in this case.
Lewis could have lived with Derek and Ida without paying rent, Derek was too glad to have him back in Harlan to demand anything of him, but of course Ida didn't agree, and neither did Lewis; it was the first and the last time Ida and Lewis agreed on anything. Hence, Lewis needed an income, and he chose a spot as a carpenter over crime. Derek didn't understand, but he accepted it with a shrug.
Derek did good work with the AB, rising up in the ranks, gaining in credit and status. He was still called Lil Man, even though he wasn't the youngest anymore. Lewis gave him some insight as to why that was; he guessed, he'd said, that maybe the older guys felt he was their little brother, and Derek could live with that. He'd never had an actual brother.
Ida seemed unhappy and increasingly cold towards him, though, and Derek didn't know why that was. He might not have been the youngest in the AB, but he was only 23 and still so goddamned naïve about some things, mainly Ida. That was the reason why he never saw it coming when he came home one December 31st in 1999 from a camping trip in the hills with Lewis and caught Ida having sex with Joe in Derek and Ida's bed.
Derek didn't remember most of it. He remembered bits and pieces, a punch here, a jab there, he thought maybe Ida had shouted at him to "stop, you're killing him!", but even so, he hadn't stopped, because maybe he'd MEANT to kill Joe. Derek knew he could have. He couldn't even remember why he'd stopped at some point. He just stopped and blinked, and saw a bloody mess of what was supposed to be Joe lying underneath him, naked, in Derek and Ida's bed. Did I do that?, Derek asked himself. He heard Ida sobbing in the corner, and he knew that, yeah, he'd done that alright.
His hands were hurting really bad, and his heart was racing so fast Derek thought he would die of a heart attack. He didn't die, so he stumbled out of the bedroom, out of the apartment, and since he didn't know where to go he sat himself in Lewis's good old 4runner that was parked in front of the building. Ida had to have called an ambulance, because there appeared one on the street, lights flashing and alarms blaring, they pulled into the parking lot and stormed out of the car. Polies came, too, but they didn't see Derek sitting in his cousin's truck.
Lewis was the one that found him an hour later, still sitting in the passenger's seat, pale as a sheet. Lewis had meant to ask him why the fuck he was sitting in the truck, but when he opened the driver's door and saw Derek's bloody hands, he was afraid to ask. He knew it couldn't be good.
"Hey, Moose" Lewis said carefully. "You alright?"
"Dunno" Derek said, and his voice sounded rather strange. "Can't say."
"Alrighty then. Uhm. You wanna let me take a look at your hands? Lots of blood, y'know. Don't want that gettin' on the seats."
"S'his blood, mostly. I think. Can't 'member."
"Whose blood, Moose?"
"Joe. He fucked Ida, Lewis. In our bed. Why'd he do that?"
Lewis closed his eyes in that moment and wished he'd said something four years ago, when he'd come back. "I don't know."
"Why'd SHE do that?"
"I don't know."
"Yeah" Derek said and let himself be pulled from the safe refuge of the 4runner. "Me either."
Around noon that day the polies came and arrested Derek. Joe was in a coma. The bed in Derek and Ida's flat was a bloody mess, as was Derek's mind. Ida had been an anchor, as had the AB. Now both things were somehow gone, both all at once, and Derek felt a bit like he was floating. Lewis tried his best to care for him, testify in his defense, but Ida's statement outweighed everything, and Derek spent the turn of the millennium in investigative custody. He was sentenced to 10 years for first degree assault, no parole, no questions asked, and Derek didn't even have anything to say on the matter, because really, Joe had had it coming, and if Joe had left that day, Derek would have hit Ida, and Ida would have broken a lot faster, and if Derek had ever been close to turning into his father it had been that day. Never had Derek hated a person as much as he hated Ida when he was led to a cell somewhere, in some prison.
It was the Huttonsville Correctional Center in Randolph Country, West Virginia that he was sent to, incidentally. The Aryan Brotherhood was represented quite strongly there, and they had a clear connection to the outside world, as well, so they knew who Derek was and what he had done before he'd stepped foot into the canteen for the very first time.
Murmurs followed the young man around where he went his first day at the HCC. The niggers and dagos looked like they wanted to kill him, but that hardly surprised. It was the looks of the fellow white guys Derek couldn't interpret. The next day at lunch he was unbanned from his wondering.
"So, you're that guy they call Devil, huh?"
"Huh?" Derek said and turned around to the skinny man who'd sat himself next to him unbiddenly.
"You're the guy who beat this other guy into a coma with your bare hands. From Harlan."
"What's it matter to you?" Derek asked.
"Cause they're callin' you 'Devil', man, they showed me pictures. Don't know where they got those police photos from, but man, the guy looked like a bunch of hash, not like a person."
Derek didn't need to hear it. He knew pretty well how Joe had looked. "So?"
"So you're this guy, then, huh? They're callin' you Devil."
"Think you already said that. Now piss off."
The guy didn't piss off, but kept chatting at him, and Derek didn't listen to him. So the AB guys here called him Devil, because of what he'd done. Devil. Devil? Devil.
Derek mulled it over while poking at whatever unidentifiable mass on his plate the people here called food. Devil. Maybe it was adequate. Could a devil get its heart broken? Probably not.
Joe had been right, then, Devil thought. He'd gotten rid of the Lil Man; he'd gotten his Honorary Title, at last. Shame it had to go that way.
Time went by slowly in prison, Devil thought. Some guys seemed wary to talk to him; Devil didn't want to talk to most people. Some members of the Aryan Brotherhood tried approaching him, and Devil didn't tell them to piss off, mostly because he didn't want to get his ass kicked, but also because, as heart-broken as he was, he was still a people person, and keeping just to himself was not gonna work if he really spent the next ten years of his life behind bars. Devil knew he needed friends, and he knew he was not bad at making friends, at least superficial ones that told you they were your brother and then fucked your girlfriend while you went hiking with your cousin.
Said cousin visited him as often as the visitors' hours allowed, which wasn't that often. One time, Lewis brought Jab with him.
"Hey there, Lil Man" Jab said carefully into the receiver.
"Case you ain't heard the news, I ain't the Lil Man no more" Devil snapped.
"Yeah, I heard. Derek, I'm sorry-"
"Me, too. Lewis, why the fuck's he here?"
Jab sighed and handed the receiver over to Lewis; his breath fogged up the glass in the cubicle.
"Derek-"
"Why the fuck's he here? I don't want him here. I don't want any of 'em here."
"I think you should tell him that" Lewis said and handed the receiver back to Jab. Devil rolled his eyes.
"What is it, Lil Man?"
"I don't fuckin' want you here. I don't want none of you lot here. In fact, I don't wanna see you again. I'm out."
"You serious?"
"Hell yeah, I'm serious" Devil said and hung the receiver up, holding up his cuffed hands. "Hello, waiter, 'm done."
The guard had a harder grip on Devil's arm than necessary, but Devil honestly didn't mind; he kept agitating the guards on purpose, calling them "waiters", and occasionally he called them "Fuckface" which never went over well. Devil wanted to feel some physical pain. He wanted to get into fights with other inmates, sometimes, but most of them didn't want to fight him, the niggers and dagos because he had the AB still standing up for him, and the whites because they'd heard why he was doing time.
Since time was going by slowly Devil couldn't say what month it was when Lewis came to visit him one day.
"Got fantastic news, Derek" Lewis greeted him. Devil only grunted.
"Joe woke up."
Devil stared at him blankly.
"Did you hear what I said? Joe woke up from his coma!"
"Congrats."
"He's droppin' the charges against you, man. They have to let you go. Moose." Lewis knocked on the security glass between them. "You're gettin' out of here."
Devil didn't have it in him to smile. Was this good news? It didn't quite feel like that yet.
Devil got his release on a sunny day in April. Lewis drove him back home. The apartment they'd shared with Ida was gone, Lewis had taken one look at the bedroom and cut ties with the place immediately.
"Ida's left town, don't know where she went" Lewis said while they passed through Pikeville. "Guess she knew Harlan County ain't no safe place to be for her now."
Devil didn't comment on it.
People showed up on their doorstep the first week after Devil's release. Jack and Boot didn't want to believe he'd quit the Brotherhood, so Devil told them to their faces. They looked sad, but Devil didn't feel sorry. Ken, Ida's brother, came by, as well, and Devil had no idea what to expect from him. Ken just stood in front of the door for a few minutes, silently, and Devil could sense Lewis hovering in the background, ready to jump in between whenever it got necessary.
"'m sorry" Ken finally said. Devil didn't answer, because there was nothing left to say.
Tanner showed up about two weeks later, and when Devil saw him, for a short moment he felt like little Derek Lennox in middle school again; when that moment passed, he wished he could be that kid again. Even though he didn't like hugging all that much he hugged Tanner, tightly, and Tanner was too much of a friend to comment on it, although he didn't look Devil in the eye after. Lewis was out drinking with friends that night and Devil and Tanner got wasted and Devil told Tanner everything. Tanner clapped him on the back.
"That's some messed up shit, brother" he said, and that about summed it up.
Life got a bit easier after that. Devil didn't want to work the mines, but he didn't hang around the AB house in Shelbyville anymore, either, so he didn't have much to do; he didn't bring any money into their little bachelor pad, but Lewis didn't comment on it yet. The flat was really small and shitty, so the rent wasn't high.
And then one day, a month into this weird arrangement, someone knocked on the door at noon. Devil had just gotten out of bed and he wasn't expecting anyone. Lewis's shotgun was resting against the wall next to the door, and Devil kept shooting looks at it. Hopefully it wasn't going to be an unpleasant surprise. Looking through the spy he only saw a man he didn't know, so he just opened the door.
"What?" he said in way of a greeting. The man turned around, he appeared to be only a few years older than Devil, same height, maybe a bit skinny, and his hair was black and his grin wide.
"Hope I ain't interruptin' somethin' important?"
"Nah…" Devil frowned.
"Am I correct in assumin' that you are in fact the man that they call Devil?" the guy said and Devil thought that question could have been phrased a LOT shorter.
"Yeah? And who're you?"
"Oh, I do apologize for my rude ways, Devil" the guy said and took Devil's hand, shaking it twice. "My name is Boyd Crowder, and I came here to have a chat with you bout an occupation."
"…occupation?"
"It more resembles a suggestion at this present time, but my hope is that you'll cogitate about it and acquiesce."
"…huh?"
"Devil, may I come in?"
Devil let him in, if just because he hoped that if Boyd Crowder got what he wanted he would start using words that you could understand.
In case anyone is wondering, yes, The Penny Part 3 is in the making. I just had to learn that studying at University and actually taking it seriously demands a lot of time. Shame. But it's definitely in the making. I'm afraid it might take me till summer to get it done, though. Sorry.