us of it. She joked if anything ever happened to Pops, she would pack her shit, leave the nursing home and run the Vipers herself. She had my vote.
Her blue hair was done up in some sort of poof I thought looked like a cotton ball but would never tell her that. Not if I wanted to leave the room with my manhood intact.
She held the phone in her hand but looked to the side.
“What kind of fuckery is this,” she asked to Stash, I assumed.
His voice came through, “Gram, please. Don’t say that word.”
She was actually his grandmother by blood. Stash had been raised in the club and was third generation Viper.
“I’ve been saying fuck since before you were born. You’re not married to a man like your grandfather without fuck being a mainstay in your vocabulary.”
I busted out laughing. As far as I was concerned, this woman was the best thing ever created and I loved the shit out of her. She heard my laugh and finally gave me her attention.
“Tight, my love. How the hell are you, boy? Stash tells me you went and got yourself ambushed and shot. That’s a special kind of stupid, isn’t it?”
Stash’s voice came through again, sounding defeated, “Shit, Grandma.” He grabbed at the phone tilting it toward him.
”I did not tell her. I only told her you’d been shot. She came up with the rest on her own.”
Everyone knew it was taboo to talk club business, but she had a way of getting information out of anyone.
“Speak up, boy. Did you or did you not get shot?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And was it or was it not stupid for you three to go into that situation?”
“Gram, you know I can’t talk about it.”
She shook her head, telling me how disappointed she was. But I smiled as big as my dry lips would allow as I noticed she had her Old Lady cut on.
“Love the cut, Gram.” I said.
She winked and smiled with lips she still colored red every day. She knew she wasn’t allowed to wear it. Pops put the end to it when Gen was killed. He didn't want anybody to be able to identify the women as one of ours.
His heart was in the right place but Gram Lil put up a fight worthy of any of the brothers.
She reminded him she’d went through the fires of Hell to be an Old Lady and informed him nothing gave her more pride than being married to Stash’s Gramps and being property of the Vipers. And then she told him to go fuck himself and he would have to pry it off her cold, dead back.
They’d made a compromise.
She could wear it in her room at the nursing home. The club also employed special people to take care of her and the Administrator and Director of Nursing had been on some pretty lavish vacations since Gram became a permanent resident. All financed by the club.
“Can you at least be more careful?” She asked with an unusual soften in her voice. My heart warmed as concern passed across her face. “The thought of something happening to one of you boys, well, it scares me to death.”
“I’m sorry, Gram. I promise I will be more careful, just for you.”
She threw her head back and laughed, “Fucking liar!”
Braxton and I busted up. I grabbed at my side, the laughing causing pain but I didn’t give a shit. Gram was a treasure and I wanted to absorb as much of her as I could.
“Ok, boys. I’ve had about enough of this.” She lifted a finger toward the screen and her voice turned stern. “Come and see me when you get out of that hospital.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said.
She ran her finger over the screen, like she was touching my face. “Goodbye, boy.”
“Bye, Gram.”
The screen went dead and I felt a little lonely. A personality like hers engulfed everyone in her midst. She came into your world, swirling like a tornado and when she left she took all the thunder with her, leaving only the aftermath of her beauty.
I yawned. Braxton took it as a sign and stood. “I’m going to head out. Do you need anything?”
I shook my head.
“Ok, Brother. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow,”
Bethany Lopez
Cheris Hodges
Nicole Green
Nikki Wild
Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson
Jannine Gallant
Andrew Solomon
Howard Goldblatt (Editor)
Jean C. Joachim
A.J. Winter