MARGOT AND I spend the next few minutes discussing Mr. Beck's behavior. I agree that he's acting strange and I drop a hint that I might not be the only person in town who thinks so. I let her think that she talks me into putting Jeremy's needs of my own concern for Mr. Beck's shady dealings. Sure minds me that I was just following orders given to me by my boss and that she has run a personal errand or two for him in the past as well. After all, she says, what does the school board expect us to do? Still, I express concern over being involved in something questionable. I just want to be proud of the job that I do here, I say.
If there is anyone that I feel guilty about involving in all of this, it’s Margot. She has nothing to gain if Jeremy gets his permit, nor does she have anything to lose if I choose to go through with reporting Mr. Beck to the school board. I trust that the advice she gives me is based purely her concern over the welfare of Jeremy Whelan and his family. Margot can be a little lax and her time management skills can certainly use some improvement, but her heart is solid. In talking with her, I wonder if she would ever be the kind of person to do something like I just did. I have my reasons for doing what I have; but if Margot knew the truth would she understand?
Those thoughts plague me as I make the drive across town to work Grady's house. When I enter the house, I’m more than a little surprised to see Jeremy and Cheyenne sitting on the couch, far closer than I think Grady would like, both zoned out with their attentions focused on the television. It’s the tail end of another news report about Darren Jennings.
“Who would do something like that?” Cheyenne says, almost absentmindedly. Jeremy’s knee bobs and he gives her a sideways glance.
“Maybe he deserved it,” he says. There’s something different about Jeremy right now—something throwing me off. I just can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s just his comment that’s unsettling me. I try to make nothing of it, but something is off about his response. The teller at the bank already made the suggestion that it could have been one of the students who banged the guy up, though I have no idea what a college senior home for the summer could have done to a high school student that would warrant the kind of violence he suffered.
Cheyenne, too, is surprised by his comment. She turns to her side and looks at him with her brows drawn together. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” he says quickly and turns his attention back to the television.
“Oh no you don’t,” she says and elbows him in the ribs. “Do you know something the cops don’t?”
“I don’t know anything the cops need to know,” he says cryptically. It takes me a moment, but I look him over and realize what’s different about him. He’s wearing a leather vest with a few patches on it. Forsaken patches. A memory from that night, weeks ago, when that Italian had shown up at the high school resurfaces. I was here in Grady’s house and walking down the hallway. I didn’t know he’d be home just yet, but then as I was entering the living room, the shadow of a man with a guy had scared me. I screamed and both Grady and Jeremy had shown up. My brain didn’t make the connection then—maybe it just didn’t want to—but now I feel like an idiot. I should have known.
Jeremy needs his permit so he has an excuse to be on club grounds. He’s prospecting—a term that Grady taught me—to become a fully patched member. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before, but it all makes sense now. Jeremy telling Grady I was at the pharmacy. No wonder he’s been able to know when I leave campus during the day despite the fact that he doesn’t have a guy in the parking lot save for when I show up to work and when I’m ready to leave. Not that it’s any of my business, but I’m not entirely certain how I feel about the idea of a teenage boy prospecting to be a part of the club. I know Ryan and Josh joined the club when they were young—right after turning eighteen, in fact—but Jeremy isn’t even eighteen yet. He has like another month to go. How can a seventeen year old boy make a choice like this?
I just want to make my dad proud, he had said.
Of course. His dad’s in prison, I knew that. His mom is gone and his sister is his only means of support. Of course he’s prospecting for the club. He’s trying to earn a living the only way he knows how. I feel like I’ve been lied to. I try to remind myself of what Grady had told me about the club. If the club is the federal government, then our relationship is the state government. We can function entirely separately and on our own terms unless I ask shit of him that forces him to choose between me and the club. He’ll choose the club. I respect it, but I don’t know how I feel about knowing that I’m automatically on the losing end of a fight I didn’t ask for.