The party is winding down as everyone leaves and it’s just my brothers around me.
“Ro.” Tally calls to me and then nods behind him to the stage. We walk up the stairs and through the front; I follow him behind the curtain and see the altar with the chairs around it, trying to keep myself from laughing out at the blasphemy that may actually be happening.
It’s fine, if I was actually religious, I may take offense to it, but the way I grew up, religion was never a worry with my foster parents… unless by religion you mean worshiping them. I know plenty of kids, even some while I was in the system, who had great homes, and they stayed with these families the remaining of the time, I’m just not one of them. And that still fucks me up. I don’t like to talk about the shit show that was my life growing up or even how Caroline and I met.
It’s fucked.
I’ve dealt with it in my own way. I’ve made a life for myself, and I have enough money now to keep myself comfortable. Well, I should have enough money… it’s just not here. I have to go back and get it.
Waiting, I watch where the rest of the men sit down and look around at the remaining seats. I watch as Tally nods to the chair at the head, but I shake my head, walking towards the other empty chairs at the opposite end of the table.
“What are you doing?” A couple of the men ask me.
I just shake my head looking around the table.
“Brother, we already voted on it.”
“Why?” I ask, looking around at all of them. Finally able to talk to them about everything.
“What why?”
“Why for everything? Why defect? Why do all of this work? And why me when I refused to even speak to most of you for years?”
“Prez.” Venom starts as Tally nods his head. “We got it when you didn’t talk with us. We all would have had the same thoughts that we were in on it. We defected because fuck them. We couldn’t trust them because they betrayed you.” I’m not able to disagree with them. “But you’re still the president of this MC.” He finally tells me, pointing his finger downward and pressing it into the table, and I hear murmurs from the rest of the men sitting around the altar as they nod along in agreement.
“You were gone for 4 years.” Tally starts. “Yeah, that’s a while, take as much time as you need, but we wanted you here before we talked about name, logo, bylaws, officers, all of the shit.” I stare at the rest of the table for a while before I slowly nod my head.
“Okay.” It’s the only thing I can think to say, but I’m a little worried if they’re still talking about me being the Prez. I’m not sure if I’m still in the headspace for that. “Where do we want to start?” I ask them and then just begin to answer my own question. “I guess it would be best to start with officers.”
It only takes a few moments before we decide to keep the club the same as it was before I went in. Venom back as VP, Wreck as our enforcers, Tally as the secretary, and Renegade as our Road Captain.
“Name.” I look around the club and they all nod, I can see the excitement in their eyes. They’ve all thought about this the entire time that they have been setting it all up. Everyone starts talking at once, random words being shouted out.
“Something with Diablo.” Top says.
“Nah, that’s obvious. Primal something.”
They start to talk over one another as I just look around and the old church that we are sitting in. On the old stage, at the fucking old altar.
How demented is it all? As perfect as it is for a clubhouse, I’m pretty sure that doing this is going to damned us to hell, that is if I believed in hell.
Damned… “The Damned.” I say and my brothers around me start to quiet down.
“What?”
“Nah,” I smirk, shaking my head. “The Damned & Demented.” The murmur of agreement echoes through the small area as they all accept it.
“Logo?”
“Let’s sit on that.” I say back to them, and everyone nods their head. “Tal, how are the books looking?”
“They’re good. We kept up a lot of the business.” He smirks and I continue to nod my head understanding that Khan definitely kept his promise. And they made sure that my guys were taken care of. He understood that with the club following me out, that they were okay.
“Alright, get the rockers made up and we can decide on the logo later.” I nod again as I lean over onto the table. “Bylaws, the obvious ones.” They all nod their heads meaning membership requirements, don’t fight, don’t show up to meetings/official business fucked up, don’t fuck with anyone’s Ol’ lady, bare knuckles when fighting one another, leaving means you give up your colors, etc.… “Fuck over the club or any of the members…” I pause as I wait until they hear me.
“Fucking better have a gravesite picked out.” They say in unison. Starting to become energized around the room.
Maybe I can fall back into the position easier than I originally thought.
