Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,9

answers of enforcer, though.

I mean he was tall and packed and ripped.

You know, Rocky-style ripped.

We had no money to go to a gym, you hear what I’m sayin’?

But he’d put on that Rangers baseball cap backwards, his cutoff sweats and you didn’t talk to him.

The man could do pushups from his fingertips.

[Shakes head]

Yeah.

His fucking fingertips.

But, until we went on the road, I had no idea Preacher was a bruiser.

And Dave?

Dave was a crackpot.

[Chuckles]

So, they weren’t big fans when people threw their beers at us just because people can be assholes, especially when they’re rednecks and drunk.

Because we did not suck.

We weren’t awesome, but we didn’t suck.

No reason to throw your beers at us.

And in order to play those bars, me, Dave and Tim had fake IDs. Wet behind our ears. We’d barely been out of Mooresville, Indiana, and when we were, it was with our parents to go to Florida to hit Disney World when we were kids or a beach when we were older.

You know?

So yeah, right now I will confirm the lore. In the beginning, there were brawls. And there were a lot of them.

And yeah, right now I’ll confirm that Preach was protective and he didn’t allow shit to fuck with the band.

And last, another yeah, the second Dave saw Preacher’s arm go up to pull off his guitar, he’d jump his kit and be all in.

And since those two were in, Tim and me had to wade in because, man, these were our brothers. You took their backs.

But then…

[Pause]

We met Tommy.

By this time, we’d been on the road, I don’t know, four, five months.

Summer was over, I know that.

Felt like we’d been on the road four, five years, I know that too.

And we were outside Chicago.

I know that too.

I’d have to look up my notebooks to know exactly when it was, but it doesn’t matter.

I was pissed as shit because we were in that camper where we rode and slept, and they all fucked chicks.

But I wasn’t pissed about that.

It was cold as fuck, and Dave was alternately smoking a bong—and we barely had enough money to eat, and Dave got his hands on weed, probably using our money, which did not make me happy—and holding ice to a fat lip.

And Preacher’s knuckles were all split and he was lying on his back with his long-ass legs up the side of the camper, his head hanging over the bench of the table that turned into a bed ’cause his nose wouldn’t stop bleeding.

Two of my knuckles were split and I had a tooth loose.

And before we even left the joint, Timmy had a shiner.

That was when someone hammered on the door.

Preacher was on his feet in a flash and Dave was mumbling shit like, “Fuck, I can’t fight. I’m high,” and Timmy had his head bowed and was staring at the crappy-ass carpet of that camper, probably hoping what I was hoping. That no one had come to kill us after we got out of that last brawl that included Preacher having to deliver a beatdown to the bar manager who didn’t wanna pay us.

And after that, we had to haul ass.

In a camper.

When that knock came, I was in the middle of delivering a lecture, something I did a lot before Tommy, something that made me feel like I was my mom, which I fuckin’ hated.

I was doing this reminding Preach and Dave we kinda needed all our fingers to work so we could play music.

I’d learn, you know, later, where that shit came from for Preach.

I’d think about it a lot.

Hell, I still think about it a lot.

Wondering…

[Pause]

You know, if I should have let him…

[Trails off]

If he’d been able to get more of it out. If he’d have been able to work it out of his system.

If we hadn’t met Tommy.

Needless to say, Preach shoved me out of the way and opened the door.

Tom was outside.

I think Tommy said something like, “You’ll wanna let me in and listen to me.”

Now, Preach was a brawler and Preach had shit he was dealing with but Preacher was far from dumb.

Tommy Mancosa, as you know, was five foot eleven. Preach had five inches and probably fifty, sixty pounds on the guy.

But Tommy was also a former marine, still had the buzz cut, no neck, and he did not get the nickname “Bulldog” for nothin’.

There never was a Preacher versus Tommy smackdown.

From the beginning, total simpatico with those two.

But if it had happened, I wouldn’t lay money on