no; it’s over. That’s all she wrote.
The president at the time I prospected was Chaos’ dad, Vic. At first, he seemed to have his head on straight. Then again, hindsight is twenty-twenty, and maybe it was all a façade. I can’t go back and change it, not that I would. Every moment, the good, the bad, and the oh-so-very-ugly have brought us to where we are today.
For me, I was a lost soul seeking a bond. The family I had was gone, not that they were blood anyway. Life had me by the balls. I had previously experienced another club but never made it beyond hang-around. They had too much internal conflict for me. I’m no-nonsense. Politics never outweigh brotherhood. Money never outweighs brotherhood. We ride together, we die together. The Kings of Carnage MC offered me a place where I am accepted as I am— both a broken man and the complete badass that I can be. The lost boy inside me felt found.
I have my place here. It’s even better than it was when I earned those first rockers. See, shit got ugly for a while. Vic lost his mind, and the direction wasn’t right. I didn’t say much because I’m not that kind of guy. But I have to admit, back then, I was worried maybe I had made a wrong decision to patch in. Thank fuck, it didn’t last. Chaos stepped up, and I’ll never look back. Not after knowing where we could have been and seeing where we are now is so much better.
Today, Chaos has a handle on things, and as Road Captain, I find honor amongst the brotherhood that I never imagined possible.
That’s what these Rail Wreckers lack: honor.
I can see the flicker through the weeds of the fire they camp around tonight. In the summer nights, they will quiet down, the Georgia humidity no doubt keeping them uncomfortable. A night like tonight, though, they want to party loud. Mother nature gives these little fuckers some comfort tonight.
Deciding not to deal with a bunch of drunk and high fuckers, I go inside my house to shut out the world. Tomorrow, it’s time to address the issue with the conductor. He knows I don’t like any uncalculated risks. These modern-day hobos can bring unwanted attention to our set up.
This is unacceptable.
Pulling up to the train station, I head to the spot. A small office that runs as the hub to the freight station. Each week, I make my way here to deliver an envelope of cash to the train conductor, who then gives me the rail number and car of my goods for this shipment. Every week his payments are the same, and my boxcar is different and always in a separate location from the last. Never let the shit move the same route twice. It’s a logistical nightmare for an outsider to sort out where the shit is coming from and where it’s going after it’s offloaded. I do this shit on purpose.
The conductor sits in his chair eating a sandwich as I walk into the office building. Four cream walls with a phone plugged into the wall with a table in the middle of the room. The back wall has a single desk with an old desktop computer that I swear is from the eighties. Whatever keeps this place off the radar works for me.
This particular train station is freight only. Seclusion is optimal in my business. With the tracks running through Uprising, well, this is perfect for the businesses in Atlanta to get their products in a cost-effective manner. For me, this is the best way to move my merchandise without any suspicion into what could be in the cars. There are less stops for each route, and no weigh checks at the state lines like when running shit in trucks. The DEA and law enforcement agencies have checks, of course, but since the trains run on a schedule, the agencies tend to follow a pattern in their investigations. Plus, Sly being the man he is, he secured us the intel to know when and where each check of a train will happen.
I pull the envelope from my cut and lay it on the table in front of the man wearing blue coveralls and a soot on his face. He retrieves a paper from his front pocket and slides it to me.
Without a word spoken between us, I snag the paper, taking a look at the information, but remaining in place,