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The Silver Sinners had their compound on the south side of the town line. It consisted of a clubhouse and several other wooden structures situated on the crest of Abbot Hill. The whole perimeter, including the road leading up to it, was protected by high voltage, electric fencing. The club members sat up there looking down on us like mad kings over a feudal town. They came and went on their loud Harleys like locusts. They stocked up on beer, porn and motor magazines, gas, cigarettes, and anything else they wanted. The Silver Sinners didn’t pay for a damn thing ever, and even worse they collectedShield Moneyfrom the downtown merchants. This, of course, meant that if you paid a large monthly fee, your business would be shielded from the Sinners smashing out your windows, beating the shit out of you, stealing all your product, and ruining your life. Their presence sent a kind of tension that hovered over the town like a too tight bandage. It was suffocating and thick and hung in the air like a malignancy.
Things with the Sinners got worse and worse until one day everything just blew up, literally. It was right around my eleventh birthday that the Silver Sinners did some really bad things, and this time they were caught and held accountable.Blackmail, Murder, Mayhem, and Witness intimidationwere just some of the headlines in the newspapers. Worst of all, they had been responsible for a deadly fire on Glenville Ridge. The Ridge, as we called it, wasn’t a ridge at all but a long section of road that was filled with small, shady bars and dark corners. The Ridge was the kind of place that mammas warned against ever going near. Just before that long stretch of badland stood a cluster of row houses that were so down and out, that they made Paradise Gate Trailer Park really look like paradise. No surprise that the Silver Sinners were running an expansive meth lab in one whole block of those apartments. When that laboratory blew, it left a hole in the sky that could be seen for miles and miles. The explosion took the whole block with it. More than a dozen families died in that blast, half of whom were small children.
That story made its way around the country. It put our little town on the map—and not in a good way.The national president of the Silver Sinners created a media storm when he held a televised press conference denouncing the actions of what he calleda rogue few.Deke Harding, who had a personal connection to River Falls, made it clear that the Sinners were not only fully cooperating in the investigation but had started an investigation of their own. Despite, or maybe because of this, it wasn’t long before the FBI was crawling all over town. They brought in the dogs and turned Abbot Hill upside down with their searches, confiscating all kinds of stuff and leaving a ton of arrests in their wake.
It wasn’t long after that that Deke Harding had roared into River Falls with his crew. The earth shook as Deke and his brothers thundered down Maine Street on their chromed-out Harleys and black leather everything. And for a while after that, the whole community held its breath. We all hoped for the best but expected the very worst. Front doors were locked and bolted, businesses closed early, mothers walked their children to school, and neighborhood watches were formed.
However, although this new crew was a whole lot bigger and of a grimmer variety than the scraggly, circus clown crew of the past, these newcomers spent all their time straightening up whatever needed to be straightened up on that hill and left the rest of us alone. When they did come into town, there were never more than two of them at a time, they paid for everything they bought, and never lingered for long.
Eventually, the families of the Silver Sinners started to migrate into the area. The whole town held its breath once more and watched the new arrivals with ambivalent interest. But surprisingly, the influx of new townspeople brought with them some unexpected advantages to the community. Real estate enjoyed a boom for the first time in a decade, business ledgers showed a rise in commerce, and taxes on Abbot Hill had begun to be paid again. Some of those funds were funneled directly into the school system which resulted in the purchase of new computers for every student in the district.
The whole town was pleased when Deke Harding and his club opened a badly needed full-service garage out on the corner of Windermere Avenue. Up until this point, the only motor repair place was fifteen miles away down Route 64. Fat Joey was an honest man, but his garage was always booked weeks in advance and his towing prices were high. So, the event of a garage opening in River Falls was met with celebration. Even if it was owned by the Silver Sinners MC.
Ultimately, Deke Harding started making more frequent appearances in town, and he seemed to be of thespeak softly and carry a big stick variety. His approach to matters was reasonable and calm, but everyone involved knew with just a nod of his head, that he could blow the whole thing straight to hell. When he spoke, the town officials tended to listen.
Deke and his MC had been in town about a year when he brought his son to live with him. He moved them both into the large Victorian house that sat just before the rusty welcoming arbor of the Paradise Gate Trailer Park. The home had once been a jewel in the River Falls crown but now stood in a state of wanton neglect and disrepair. Deke bought it for the price of back taxes, and once again the town officials were pleased. The area was a bustle of activity for a while as the Silver Sinners descended on the house like worker bees. They had plumbers and carpenters and painters working day and night to make the needed repairs to the old dwelling. People in town didn’t hold back either, they walked or rode by in droves checking out the repairs being made to what had been a beautiful home turned eye sore. The renovation was met with wide approval, and the opinion of Deke Harding rose even further in the community.
So, the new and improved version of the Silver Sinners settled into River Falls and by most accounts, everything was just fine and dandy. But every time I walked through that gate and passed that newly renovated Harding home, I eyed it with skepticism. Because if anyone knew how fast a good thing could turn bad, it was me.
And as it turned out, it wasn’t long before that exact thing happened.
The minute I laid eyes on Deke’s son, Kid Harding, I knew he was going to be trouble. For one thing, while the rest of the kids waited patiently for the crosswalk monitor to let us cross the street, Kid would hoot and holler at cars going by. Then, while the rest of us were standing quietly until the bus came, Kid would climb the branches of the trees, do cartwheels across Mrs. Floyd’s lawn, and stick out his middle finger to cars passing by. Sometimes he would bring big bags of candy and give handfuls freely out to everyone. Except for me. He would gladly hand out brightly wrapped chewy goodness to every single kid at that corner but me.
“Not on your life, pretty Liddy.” He would taunt me. “You gotta ask.”
For some reason from the first moment we locked eyes, Kid Harding decided that it was his job to make my life a living misery. And that candy was just the beginning. I became the object of his unwanted attention early on. When he first came to school, he was always getting in trouble for fooling around, or talking out loud. But soon he got bored with all his usual antics and that’s when Kid Harding decided that the best way for him to entertain himself through his day was to ruin mine.
I was skinny and flat-chested with knobby knees, tons of corkscrew orange hair, and a slight overbite that we didn’t have the money to correct. Even though I had lots of friends at school, I wasn’t very smart, and I thought if I made myself invisible no one would notice how dumb I really was. But then Kid Harding made me his business and the jig was up.
Our teacher Miss Bonticello was pretty, young, and kind of dumb. It was obvious that Kid Harding was the teacher’s pet. She gave him all kinds of chances for all the things he did wrong and lots of special attention for the things he did right. One time I swear I saw her on the back of Deke Harding’s motorcycle, but I couldn’t be sure.
Anyway, what made Miss Bonticello really stupid was the fact that she had a three-strike-out policy. One infraction would get your name on the board, two would get the dreaded check next to your name and the third check would get you the discipline du jour. To be fair, for most of the kids, that system worked like a charm. We all took those warnings pretty seriously.
But not Kid.
Kid Harding saw it as an opportunity to be bad twice a day without paying the price.
“I don’t want French braids today.” I said one day to Aunt Betty. She paused from parting my hair in sections with her special silver rat-tailed comb.
“What’s it gonna be then, Honey bear? How about a ponytail or a bun, or we can leave it down and I can put a ribbon through it?”
“How about if we just cut it all off?” I asked hopefully. But I knew the request would be met with a firm no. Because if there was one thing my aunt loved to do, it was to fiddle with my carrot-colored mess. God bless Aunt Betty’s sweet soul, she didn’t see the flaming tangled curls as clown hair at all, but as a blessing from the great hair god in the sky. I crossed my skinny arms over my skinny chest and made a face.
“What’s going on, Liddy?” Aunt Betty raised an eyebrow and put her hand on her hip.
“Nothing.”
“You never talked about cutting your hair before. And that face you are making could freeze the nose off an Eskimo.”
I crossed my arms even tighter as my face began to heat up and angry, fierce tears started to form in the corner of my eyes.
Aunt Betty put her special silver rat-tailed comb down on the table. “What’s going on, Liddy?” She repeated. But this time there was a no-nonsense edge to her voice that demanded an answer.
“I ain’t a tattletale, Aunt Betty.” I frowned at her, but everything in my heart wanted to spill the beans on Kid Harding.
“Liddy, there’s a difference between tattlin’ and tellin’. And I know you know what that difference is.”
“Yes, ma’am. I do.”
