Three Rings SMC

Genres: Fantasy; Fantasy action & adventure; New Adult & College; Urban Fantasy

Synopsis

Book 1 of The Three Rings Trilogy

A Secret Motorcycle Club called The Three Rings have made it their mission to get revenge for the murder of their leader Billy. They also have to protect a dangerous secret. They can harness super-human abilities that lie dormant in all mankind. They know society isn't ready to handle the abilities they and their enemies, the Devil's Children know about.

Years later, Billy's son Jayden now leads the SMC and is hell-bent on seeing both missions accomplished. Their newfound success leads them straight into a world where the stakes are higher than they imagined.

Jayden learns that being in charge isn't all fun and games. He must figure out how to use their special abilities to accomplish their goals while keeping his brothers and sisters alive.

Release date: June 1, 2021

Publisher: Dog Down Under Publishing

Print pages: 426

Content advisory: Contains violence and strong language

Sample

 

INTRODUCTION

                I'm betting you don't actually believe in witches and wizards.  You realize that Harry Potter is just a story.  There's no such thing as magical people with mystical powers.  There aren't any mutants born with special abilities running around in tights and capes.  The truth is you're right.  They’re just stories were made up in the imaginations of normal people.

                Here's what people don't realize.  What’s written off as "magic" DOES exist.  It's as real as the car in your driveway.  It’s just not magic.  As a species, human beings are capable of great innovation.  Don't believe me?  Consider that within a single generation, technology evolved from the original Apple computer to phones with the ability to accomplish more than 100 of those computers.  Humans are incredibly strong. Think about those stories you hear about parents lifting cars off their children.

                These things get written off as being designed by the best and brightest of us, and just some maternal adrenaline rush.  The ability to access that much brain power and physical strength lies dormant in all of us. A resource waiting to be tapped.  We’re limited only by what we perceive as possible.

                My family was among the first.  They happened to be part of a motorcycle club back in the 60's.  They were there when a bunch of stoned out hippies floated around a "Hey man, what if" thought at a chapel table.  They were among the first to realize that utilizing the full potential of your mind and body was a matter of un-training yourself, removing the "not possible" that was ingrained in us as children. 

                To hear my old man tell it, THE first was a guy they called Reaper.  He’d earned his name by being the one they counted on to make people disappear.  One night, when the Minnesota chapter of the Devil's Children finished their weekly chapel, they decided to stick around and party together. 

                My Uncle Andy started talking about how weird it was that their bikes had engines that were such an improvement on the original flatheads, and how genius it was to have come up with the idea for the panhead.  This was when a guy called Shaggy responded with "No man, they're not geniuses.  Any of us could’ve come up with the idea.  Brains are all the same man, it's what we do with them that makes us different.  Like that lady that lifted the Mustang off her kid in St. Cloud.  She isn't stronger than anyone else.  She just needed that car off of her kid.  Her brain made it happen."

                I won't bore you with the details of conversation that followed.  The end result is really all that matters.  They collectively, and mind you, stoned out of their minds, agreed that the potential for feats that would be considered super-human always existed inside all of us, if we believed they were possible.  It was no secret to them that Reaper wasn't wired like most people.  It takes a certain mental flexibility to do the things he did and still see yourself as a good person.  Maybe it was that mental flexibility that allowed him to believe what a bunch of stoners were speculating about, but it worked.  He stood up, walked outside, grabbed my dad's Duo-Glide by the handlebars and threw it onto the roof of their clubhouse. 

                That was it.  In that instant, the world changed for them.  Scratch that.  The world changed… full stop.  It just happened that the only people who realized it were a bunch of stoned bikers.  People whose only life ambition was to finance living the rest of their lives with two wheels down and wind in their hair.  They weren't looking to change the world. 

                They kept their new-found knowledge to themselves.  Not because they realized our capacity for innovation and charity are matched only by our capacity for destruction and conquest.  Their motivation was protecting the revenue stream.  All things cost money, and the more they accumulated, the more secure their utopian dreams of brothers and bikes was.  It wasn't until years later that some of them started to think about things like legacy.  It wasn't until they started disagreeing with each other about how to use the skills, that the Three Rings SMC was born. 

 

 

CHAPTER 1

Jayden

                Fucking snow.

                Nothing kills all joy for a biker in Minnesota faster than the first snow of the year.  I'd pulled the battery and parked my V-Star a few days ago because the weather had turned cold.  But that didn't take the sting out of waking up to see the white shit falling outside my window.  You'd think that after this many years I’d be used to it.  But I'm not.  Every year, it's the same gut-wrenching feeling that comes with realizing it'll be months before I'll get to feel the sweet release that comes over you the second you pull onto the road.

                Fucking snow.

                I had a plan that year for the down time.  I needed to have my front fender painted to match the rest of the bike.  It was a perfect bike up until June of that year, when I’d hit an Impala.  I had Moose fix the damage right away, but painting the new front fender had to wait for winter.  When riding season is limited, you don't let your bike sit there collecting dust just so it'll look pretty.  That can wait.  Now that the snow was coming down, I’d get it painted.

                Since I was getting that painted during the winter anyway, I figured it was a good time to get a few other projects done too.  I was planning on getting rid of the stock exhaust, replacing it with Cobras, and some special mirrors and levers to go with the theme.

                My V-Star had a custom paint job.  The original black was covered with a dark shade of blue that was almost purple, in a swirling pattern.  On top of that were greyish brown flames outlined with silver.  On top of the gas tank, the battery cover, and tool compartment were grim reaper decals.  I called it The Grim Reaper.  I didn't even take it for a test ride.  It spoke to me, so I handed the guy my cash and brought it home. 

The levers for the clutch and front brake I bought for it were chrome and shaped like flames.  The mirrors were teardrops with little flames on the back, but the stems for them were also chrome with a flame shape to them.  They would look tits on the bike once it was done.  I knew they would be extra work since they were designed for Harleys. There’d be a little retrofitting necessary to make them work with a Yamaha.  Worth it!

                I woke up that cold-ass late October morning, and cussed the snow that was falling.  I went downstairs, started a pot of coffee, and hopped in the shower.  As I lathered the Irish Spring over my chiseled naked body with the water dripping off my... I'm just shitting you.  There’s nothing chiseled about my body.  I'm a solid 6 feet tall, 220 pounds.  Next to none of it is muscle, and I've got a few extra pounds around my gut.  If you saw me on a beach, there’s no way you’d think I'm capable of running fast enough to keep up with traffic in any given city, or that I could bench press your shitty little electric car without breaking a sweat. 

                The only thing that would stand out to you if you saw me standing on a beach would be all my tattoos.  I’ve got tattoos on pretty-much every part of my body.  None of it particularly means anything to me.  I usually forget they're there.  But they do serve a purpose.  They're usually the first and most notable thing people remember about me.  They never notice I've got a ring on my left hand with a grim reaper in the center, my right pointer has one with a valknut symbol, and my right ring finger has one with the letter L on it.  I don't want them to.  The only people I want to notice those rings are my SMC brothers and sisters, and the people we consider friends.

                I washed my pitiful dadbod and got dressed.  I walked into the kitchen, grabbed some coffee, and headed upstairs to my office.  It's a bedroom that I never bothered to do anything to since the day I bought the house.  There's an L shaped desk in the center of the room with 2 monitors and a laptop on a docking-station.  Monday to Friday, from 8 to 4:30, I punch a clock just like you.  Living without a legitimate income would draw unwanted attention.  I have enough money from years of moderately smart investing and a large inheritance that I could live very comfortably for a lifetime without working.  The only reason I work a job is to keep up appearances.  Once that’s not necessary, I’ll never work another day in my life.

                I adjust claims for a national auto insurance company.  It’s mundane work, but it lets me work from home, and that was something a person in my position needs.  As president of the Three Rings, I sometimes get a lot of traffic, and at home it doesn’t draw attention.  There’s nothing exciting about 8 hours of staring at a computer screen.  For your sanity, and a little for mine, let’s just assume every time I say the words "I worked", it means there was nothing notable about that eight-hour period of my day.

                I worked.

                At the end of the workday, I went into my closet and grabbed my leather jacket. I went to my bedroom and grabbed 3 silver rings from my bedside stand, put them on their appropriate fingers, and headed downstairs.  In an hour I had to be at The Reef for what would be the final full-table meeting of the year.  A few members of the club work seasonal jobs during the winter.  They spend their winters working the fishing boats, plowing roads or in the cities. They’d be gone for several months.  This gave them the freedom to spend their summers on their bikes.  With people getting ready to leave for the year, we had decisions to make that night.  Some decisions need unanimous consent.  One of those decisions was whether-or-not to bring my friend Angel into the flock. 

                The Three Rings were big on ceremony and rules.  Too big on it in my opinion.  You aren’t offering some way to spend your life on your bike without a real job. The only thing you have to offer is that feeling of family and a common goal.  The understanding that you’re part of something bigger than yourself.  Uncle Andy, Mark, and Ross knew that when they started the SMC, so they invented a lot of ceremony to make it more real to the people they were asking to join. 

                They spent too much time focusing on being ready for a day that seemed to me would never come if the club kept scrambling around without a focus.  As soon as I was invited to prospect, and they told me the club’s goals, my head swirled with big ideas of how to accomplish them.  It didn’t take long to realize that they felt the ceremony and rules were a bigger priority.  Keeping the club from fizzling out was more important to them than becoming good at doing it, so we could accomplish those goals.  The result was that, by the time I got my president ring a few years ago, the SMC wasn’t any closer to achieving its goals than it was the day they started it.  All the real success we’d had was very recent because of changes I’d made.

                When I first met Angel, my interest in her was romantic.  She's got even more tattoos than me, covering a body that doesn't stop. And her eyes—she has these big brown eyes that expose an immense joy for life.  Looking into them, you feel like you're the only person on Earth that matters to her.  Someone making you feel that way with just a simple look is rare.  It didn't take too long to realize that she wasn't interested in me that way though. 

                In my opinion, that worked out better.  She was too fierce, too strong to stand on the sidelines.  The kinds of things that happened to her as a child, nobody should have to endure.  Most don't ever get over things like that.  They end up on stripper poles working out their daddy issues on whomever they can latch onto.  They end up banging dudes in the toilet for whatever drug gets their fancy.  Not Angel though.  It makes her empathetic to the pain of others.  It drives her to heal them.  She never met a broken person that she didn't want to save.

I had to be there in an hour, but I'd told her to show up in two. There was another person up for consideration as prospect.  We’d need time to discuss them both, and vote before we would take the first step of their induction.  Before that part was started, we had two current prospects that we needed to make a decision on.  Whether or not to give them a hand.  This may sound silly, but we were deciding on whether we’d give them rings. To get your hand was more of that useless ceremony. An officer from one of the clans had to accept you into their clan. This would determine your path and ensured you brought value to the club. 

                There are 3 clans, each with a specific ring worn on your right-hand pointer finger, signifying your role.  I'm a Viking—the warriors. All of us fight, but the Viking clan leads during battle. We’re planners, strategists. Our clan is represented by the Valknut symbol that adorns the pointer-ring. There are the Ninjas, our spies.  They specialize in information gathering and getting into places that are impossible to breach unnoticed.  Their rings are adorned with the Japanese symbol for intelligence.  The last clan is the Irish clan.  They’re our drinking buddies.  I don't mean that in a bad way.  The Irish are known for their ability to pound down the ale… and there’s no better way to get to know a person than to be there when they get shitfaced.  This was an important part of building a network of allies we could count on when in trouble, and who can be trusted with at least some of our secrets. 

                When one of the clan officers accepts you into their clan, they’re accepting responsibility for you. It's a bond for life.  They are your mentor and you their student.  You trust them to prepare you for what you’ll need to do, and you obey them without question.  The next part is the vote.  Though it’s mostly a formality, all club members must cast a yes vote to allow you in. 

                The reason for this procedure is what happens if even one person doesn’t raise their hands. Refusing to vote you in is sentencing you to death.  By the time there’s a vote for your membership, you know too much to be allowed to just leave.  It’s only ever happened once in the history of the Three Rings. It was a long time ago, before my time.  Nobody refuses to vote someone in without good reason.  Still, when the voting starts, my stomach turns until it’s over. 

                My mood was turning sour as time raced toward when I would have to leave for The Reef.  I knew that even those who get their hand may someday die in service of this war that’s been boiling for forty some years now.  The only solace I took was from a conversation I had with Uncle Andy when I was a teenager, years after my dad was killed. 

                He’d finally told me what happened to my dad, and I was struggling with it.  He said, "We all chose this life, Jayden.  We all knew that it's likely to end in blood for us, your dad included.  Someday you'll decide for yourself whether or not you choose this life too.  You'll do it knowing it might be the end of you."

                "Why do I even need to make that choice?" I'd asked, "Why tell me about it?  Why not let me live a normal life like everyone else?"

                Andy didn't hesitate to choose his words.  "This choice is yours to make.  If I hid this from you, it wouldn't be less true.  I’d be stealing your ability to make a decision.” He paused for a second before putting his hand on my shoulder.  Just as stood and moved to leave, he looked back at me.  "If you decide that the Three Rings isn't for you, nobody will think less of you.  It's a difficult life. Not everyone welcomes it.  That thought shooting around in your head right now, it’s exactly why we never have the right to hide this life from those who think like we do." 

All these years later, the thought that was rolling around in my head as he walked away still stuck with me, reminding me why I had no choice but to bring Angel to the table as a possible prospect. I wanted to join the club because I couldn’t sit by while other suffered. For people like my family, my club, and for people like Angel, the choice is ours to make because we have the ability to make it. 

                It was time.  I needed to be on the road if I was going to be there on time.  As I walked into the garage, I eyed the Grim Reaper sitting to the side of the crappy Ford F150 sitting in the center of the space.  It looked just as defeated as I felt, sitting there with the battery cover on the seat, where it would be sitting for the next several months.  I climbed into the cage.  Fucking snow.

                After about 20 torturous minutes of freeway traffic in the snow, I was finally at the 21st Avenue East exit.  As I was waiting for the light to turn green, I noticed my cousin Moose behind me in the rear-view.  I flipped him the bird to say hi.  Eventually, the light turned green and we pulled across London Road and turned into a lot that used to house a gas station across from McDonalds. 

                Moose looks a lot like me, if I took care of myself better.  He was big, muscular, and didn’t have the tattoos that I did.  Other than that, you’d be hard-pressed to tell us apart in a lineup if you didn’t know us personally.  He didn’t have all the muscle when we were kids.  Back then, he was scrawny like me.  Not long after he got his hand, his clan officer sent him away for a couple years.  There was some guy down in Arizona or something that he went to learn from.  It was supposed to make him better at their job than they were prior to that, since they weren’t awesome at it yet. 

                When he got back, there were noticeable changes to his demeanor.  He was still the smart-mouthed asshat I’d always known, but there was a reserved quality about him.  Almost like he was two people at the same time.  He was less open about things.  The most noticeable change was that he’d put on a lot of muscle.  He never talks about that time voluntarily, so I don’t ask about it.

                We didn’t park at the Reef during the winter.  The parking lot was way too small to fit all our cages and still have room for paying customers.  During the summer it wasn't too bad.  We could all park our bikes along the back edge of the lot facing out, and we would take up a total of 2 spots.  In the winter though, there’d be no room left for customers with that many cages in the lot.  So, we bought the lot across the street several years ago when the gas station closed.  Now we use it during the winters. 

                We walked across the street together in silence.  There was nothing that needed to be said.  Knowing it was our last full-table meeting for the year had us both inside our heads.  It wasn't until we reached the front door of the bar that we finally spoke to each other.  Moose opened the door to let me in first, muttering, "Fucking winter," as I passed.

                "Fucking winter," I responded with a bitterness in my voice as I grabbed the inside door and let him pass in front of me.

                We owned the Reef.  More accurately, I owned it.  It was Uncle Andy who bought it not long after my dad died, and went to Duluth.  One thing that can be said for drug distribution, it left people in the chain with a LOT of expendable cash.  Andy was no exception.  He left my dad's money alone and gave it to me when I turned 18.  He used his own money to buy the bar outright.  When he first bought it, he was always there, operating it.  During that time, he remodeled the basement, adding a rather large meeting room we call the chapel.  There were two storage rooms off opposite walls on each side of the chapel entrance.  One side held a small armory and the furnace and water heater.  The other side was a large storage room where bar supplies were kept.  Access to the bar storage was the only door accessible without an electronic key card.  

Around the time I got my hand, the same year Moose prospected, Uncle Andy retired from working in the bar.  He had plenty of money, and he was sick of doing anything that wasn’t with the Three Rings.  The bar was never intended to be a source of income for anyone to begin with.  It was a place to build our chapel and keep people from taking notice of our activities.  The money was a bonus.  Because we didn't need it, we were able to pay more to employees than other establishments might. The first hire that Andy made was Tommy, the bar manager. 

                When Tommy was hired, he was given three rules.  Rule one, Reaper Rings don't pay for drinks.  Rule two, nobody goes to the basement except staff and people who had the requisite 3 specific rings in specific places.  Rule three, no matter what you see happen, if it involves anyone wearing rings, you never call the law.  As-long-as he accepted these rules, the club would keep 10% of profits, and the rest was his.  He could run the place however he saw fit.  It wasn't long after that when Tommy started having events there to grow the business. It was working great.  Eventually, he had to hire additional staff.  As he hired them, he always paid them well enough to ensure that they followed the three rules to a T. 

                Tommy was there when we walked in.  Over the years, he'd gotten accustomed to our general routines, and made sure his was the face we saw behind the bar when he knew we’d all be there.  It was still early, so there were only a handful of customers.  They were all sitting at one of the tables between the doors and the bar, cheering on some sporting event.  As we walked up to the bar, Tommy put down the glass he was wiping off, walking over to greet us. 

                "Get you guys anything?" he asked as we leaned against the bar, our hands habitually on the bar for display. 

                "Not just yet" I answered, "but send down a couple of pitchers of golden light with a stack of solos in an hour or so." 

                "Will do," he responded. He stood there, looking from the rings on my fingers to the ring-less Moose, then back at me, repeatedly.  There was a look on his face; he was looking for instruction on what to do.  It took a minute for me to realize he didn't know if he should be letting Moose into the basement with me without any rings.  He knew Moose, knew he normally had rings on, but didn't want to break the rules as a condition of employment.  He was waiting for me to tell him to let Moose pass without a ring.  Until that point, I hadn't even realized his hands were empty. 

                I was about to say it was okay, assuming they were still at home on his dresser or something when Moose started digging into his pockets.  "Sorry, didn't put 'em back on after work." He pulled three rings and put them on his hands.  A grim reaper on his left middle finger, one with a Chinese symbol on his right pointer finger, and one with the letter R on his right ring finger. 

                You could see relief wash across Tommy's face as he reached under the bar and hit a button that would unlock the door to the basement.  "Thanks Tommy. One ring passes tonight, and there'll be 2 tonight without rings. A girl with tattoos on her neck, and a heavy-set kid attempting a beard.  His ID will say Dusty on it."  Tommy nodded his comprehension as Moose and I passed through a door to the right of the bar. 

                "Winterize Marilyn yet?" I asked Moose as we headed down the stairs.  ‘Marilyn’ is his Yamaha V-Max.  He’s always been a sucker for Marilyn Monroe, so when he got it, he’d gotten her face airbrushed on the tank. He’d been calling it Marilyn ever since.  He’d replaced the seat last spring with one made from red leather.  It seemed out of place on an otherwise charcoal grey bike with a lot of black aftermarket engine parts, but he swore it had something to do with a dress she was known for or something.  And he loved it.

                "No," he responded.  "I was hoping we'd still get another week or two in before the snow hit.  I'll have to get to that this weekend."  I wasn't surprised by his response. He wasn’t naive, but he usually waited until he had no choice to put his bike away.

                "Let me know when you're done with that.  I was thinking we could show the new prospects a few things."

                "Sure, that works.  I have a dance recital for Andrea tomorrow night, so it'll have to be short."  Andrea is his oldest daughter, of two.  She's in all kinds of extracurriculars.  Dance, cheerleading, something called "Spirit Squad," and gymnastics. 

                She has no idea that her dad is part of an MC.  All she knows is that he spends a lot of his free time riding with friends and family... an illusion that he goes to great lengths to maintain.  I imagined how hard it must be for him to be two different people depending on who he was around.  While the club gave him permission to share the secret with his family years ago, he liked them living in a normal world.  Having grown up in the world we did, I completely understood that impulse. 

                The only person he told was his wife, Lana.  She was only told that he was part of a secret MC, and there were things he couldn't share with her.  He didn't like keeping secrets from her, but he felt like it was asking too much to give her all the secrets and expect her to just accept them.  Not knowing protected her.  He only told her enough so that she would understand when he had to leave with no notice sometimes, and why she couldn’t ever call the law should he not come home one day.  

                We approached a set of steel doors, each with a cross on them.  Nobody in the club believed in some made-up deity.  Once you know what we do, you stop believing in miracles.  But tradition has its place in the world, and to any MC, chapel is chapel. I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and put it against the little black pad to the left of the doors.  There was a beep, and a loud clank from the locking mechanism releasing the doors.

                The chapel was about 15 feet deep, and 30 feet long. The table was to the left of the doors as you walked in, as far back as you could go and still allow room for a chair to be pulled out without hitting the wall.  It was four feet wide by 10 feet long.

                Moose and I sat down in our chairs, his directly to my right.  We have a semi-assigned seating situation at the table.  President at the head of the table, with officers from the clans the President didn’t originate from flanking him. This gave them an ease in gaining the President’s attention to council on bigger issues. For the officer of the President’s clan, they sat directly opposite the President. They could still make eye contact and convey their opinions on things easily. 

Moose was in the Ninja clan.  When we were kids, I used to call him the deer whisperer.  Deer are very easily frightened.  The slightest sound, or smell sends them off in the other direction at full speed.  He bagged multiple deer most years, some as close as 10 feet away from him.  His innate ability to mask himself from his surroundings and patiently wait as-long-as needed translated well into his Ninja role.  It was easy to understand how, when his officer, Wayno was killed in a car wreck five years ago, Andy gave him the K, making him their officer.  Less than a year later, Andy appointed him as Vice President, after Dean was killed by a Devils Children member, replacing that K with an R.

We had anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes to pass before people started rolling in, so I decided to continue our conversation.  “Another dance recital this weekend, huh?  When does that end for the year?” I asked.         

“I don’t know, I think like 3 weeks” he answered.  “Then cheerleading starts up so I won’t have to go to another damn event for a while.” 

“Till they do those competitions at least”

“No, that’s all Lana.  I worked it out with her that I don’t go to any of the cheerleading stuff.  I’ll be a free man for at least four, five months.”  Moose acted like he was some tough guy who had to suffer through being a supportive dad of two girls.  I knew better.  I’d seen him get up on a stage in front of hundreds of strangers, a man with a fear of public performances of any kind, and do father-daughter dances with both of his girls. He absolutely loved his girls; loved being able to see them shine at anything they did.

I couldn’t ruin his self-assessment of being Mr. Macho, though. “How did you manage that one?”

“I promised to take them on a vacation to Disney and Universal in Orlando this winter sometime.  That bought me a get-out-of-jail-free card on the cheerleading events.”  I was about to explain to him the best way to avoid all those dance classes and cheerleader squad events was to not have kids, like me, when the door opened to the chapel. Mark, Jasper and Scott walked in. 

Scott took his spot next to me.  He was the officer for the Irish clan.  It made sense that he would be a bigger guy, since so much of his time is spent drinking and palling around with people.  To look at him, you’d think he was the anti-Santa.  All the same physical features of Mr. Claus, but brown hair and beard instead of white, and the red jumper was replaced by a worn-out jean jacket with a leather vest covering it. 

As Mark and Jasper took two seats next to him, Scott started telling a joke about two northern people named Oivo and Toivo.  By the time the joke was finished, resulting in Toivo having misunderstood a request to join in humping a sheep, the rest of the table filled with our current membership.  Since several people hadn’t shown up until half-way through the joke, only a handful of us actually started laughing at it… until Scott took notice that people weren’t laughing along.  Something about the guy just invited you to laugh anyway out of some desire not to be the asshole who didn’t understand the joke.  Pleased with himself, Scott turned to me.  “Fucking snow eh?”

“Fucking snow,” I responded, immediately followed by a chorus of other members agreeing.

 

CHAPTER 2

I smacked the black gavel on the table three times, calling the room to order.  “We may as well get this started.  Are they in the lobby?”  I looked across the table to Ross, the officer of the Viking clan.  He was a muscular guy for someone in his 60’s.  The years had put a few extra pounds on him, but the muscle was still there.  Grey was peppered into his short, thinning blonde hair.  He looked at Mark, the gangly blonde guy from our clan sitting next to him, nodding his head toward the door. 

Mark got up and hung his head outside the doors to the chapel, then turned and nodded.  “Who do we want to start with?” I asked the group collectively.  Mark closed the door behind him so that the prospects wouldn’t hear our conversation but remained standing by the door.

Ross spoke first.  “Let’s start with Chris.  Vikings will take him.”  It was customary for the officer of a clan to claim a prospect when suggesting them for the vote. What was unusual was that Scott jumped in right away with a response.

“Hold on now, the Irish want Chris. He’s a funny guy and gets along with everyone he meets.  He’s perfect for our clan’s mission.  It’s like he was born for it.”  Now, in the 20 plus years that’d passed since I’d stood while the voting took place over whether I’d be a member, I’ve never seen 2 clans claim someone at the same time.  I hoped that Ross would concede without any discussion.

It wasn’t going to be my lucky day though.  Almost as quickly as Scott had made his argument, Ross responded.  “He’s been through cop training.  He knows tactics as well as anyone else in our clan, and probably knows things we don’t understand yet.  He’d be a much better resource for this club leading people in a fight.”  Well fuck. 

I’d thought I’d spent a lot of time with the prospects over the past year, and knew a lot about them.  I had no idea about the cop thing, though, so maybe I didn’t spend as much time with Chris as I should have.  I knew he was a funny motherfucker, and was really-easy to get along with.  I completely agreed with Scott, until Ross gave his reason for wanting him.  That made for a difficult choice… one I didn’t want to have to make. 

Moose was my only out.  I looked over at him, mentally begging him to speak up and tell me what to do without me having to ask what the protocol was.  He nodded once, very slightly.  I looked back at Scott, and over to Ross.  “You both make good arguments.” I fixed my gaze on Ross.  “Do either of you concede your claim on the prospect?” 

In stereo they answered no and began arguing their cases over each other.  You could barely tell what either of them was saying.  I smacked my gavel on the table until they fell silent.  Before anything else could be said, Moose jumped in and saved me.  In a fake Escanaba accent, “You know da rules boys.  It’s a majority vote over who gits ‘m.”  The fake accent cut the tension like a knife and people started laughing.  Even Scott. 

I smacked my gavel again to silence the laughter.  “Chris is probably the first prospect ever to have two clans argue over him.  I guess he’ll be the only one with a vote being mute when he joins us in the room.”

“That’s not true,” Ross cut me off.

“Well it’s not like anyone will be likely to vote no on a guy who they just voted to decide—”

“Not that, the clans.” Ross interjected.  “When you swore in, the Ninjas wanted you too.” 

“I didn’t know that. Nobody—"

“Of course not,” Ross cut me off again.  He was starting to get on my nerves. “We agreed it was best for you that nobody talk about it, so you wouldn’t question your place in the club.  But you’re President now, you’re kind of a part of all of the clans.  When it happened with you, there wasn’t a vote.”  He turned his gaze toward Moose to make the point that he was wrong.  “Andy made the call.” 

Andy was the first President of the club. He gave a big speech when he stepped down.  How he saw me as too good a leader to be wasted leading battles.  He demanded that he be given a choice of clan to serve under as a family member, and that I be voted the new President.  Moose was already his Vice President by then, so his endorsement of the idea went over well.  Everyone voted in agreement, and I was the new President. 

I wasn’t surprised that Moose agreed to it.  He liked being in a position to influence and help a leader, but didn’t want the added responsibility of being in charge.  At least, that was always the impression I’d gotten since we were kids.  I never really believed Andy’s speech though.  I was pretty-sure he’d realized that after 30 years, the club hadn’t made any big progress, and he’d hoped Moose and I would work to improve the way we did things, so something real would get done.

It’d been a slow process moving the club away from focusing on building a tradition and feeling like they’re doing something good… to working at being good at their roles, so that we could start doing more.  But we were starting to make headway.  Our recent successes were proof that the club needed to move in the direction we saw things going.  The politics around the current situation were proof the old way didn’t work.  It was frustrating that I had to worry about tradition instead of just deciding what way it would be. 

I looked over at Andy sitting with his Irish clan brother, Blue.  He had a deer in the headlights look on his face.  “Was that protocol, or making the call?” I asked, knowing he would understand the question, having worn my shoes.  “Is this a rule, or just one of the many judgement calls that a President makes just to move things forward?” 

“There’s no rule,” he answered.  “I made a call at the time because I felt like Ross had the most need for you in his clan.  We weren’t hurting for Ninjas back then.”

This left the choice in my hands no matter what.  Fat lot of good it did, asking him for an answer.  For fuck sake.  Either choice was a good one because he would be great in either position.  I just hated feeling like a fucking dictator. “My call on it today is a vote.” I started, knowing Ross would be disappointed in me.  I gave my reasons as I made a decision, mostly because I didn’t want the silent judgement. 

“A strong leader admits their weaknesses, and finds ways to solve for them.  I would be too tempted to choose the Vikings because that’s where I came from.  To avoid that temptation, it would be easier to choose the Irish.  The problem with that is I can’t be sure I’d be choosing Chris’s home because he’s everything Scott says, and not because I don’t want to choose the Vikings.  In this situation, I can’t be impartial.  So, to solve for my weakness, I’ll lean on you to make this choice for me.  You’ve all spent time with Chris over the last year.  All those in favor of the Vikings, clan the table.”

Clanning the table is when you place your right hand to the center of the table with your arm straight.  It’s not any better than raising your hands, just another one of those ceremonial things.  Since there were ten members in the room, I skipped voting to avoid a tie.  I counted the arms on the table.  Counting Ross, there were 5 arms on the table.  With Mark’s vote from the door, that made an even 6 votes for Vikings.  “There we go.  The Vikings get Chris.  Bring him in Steve.”  I didn’t need to tell her what I meant; she was a bright girl. Steve’s real name is Heather, but we knew her as Steve. She got up and accompanied Mark to get Chris.  Ross got up and walked over to the door, holding it open for them. 

A few seconds later they walked through the doors, each grasping the arm of a tall, skinny guy with long brown hair, brown eyes that almost seemed too small for his face, and a scruffy attempt at a goatee.  He was around 35 years old, but he obviously wasn’t able to grow much in the way of facial hair.  You could tell by the look in his eyes, which ordinarily would have a devious grin in them, he was a bit concerned at being brought in with people holding onto him firmly.  When a prospect chooses this life, they know going into it that at the end of their year, the alternative to being voted in is death.  Being dragged in by both arms doesn’t make you feel an overwhelming sense that everything is going to be okay. 

Once the door was closed behind them, I started my required speech.  “Chris, you’ve completed your year of prospecting, and learned the skills we use and protect.  You know our mission.  You’ve learned many of our secrets, and you’ve spent time with everyone in this room.  Before you’re judged, do you have anything that you wish to say to anyone in this room?”  Although normally this is just a formality, the intent of this question is to give a prospect time to consider their interactions with each person carefully, and what impression that may have given them.  During this time, they have an opportunity to change the opinion of someone they may have given pause to.  This day though, given how the last formality of a clan accepting them went, I wasn’t ruling out the possibility of it being another messy situation. 

Luckily, I was wrong, and this was just a formality.  After considering things in silence for a minute, he responded.  “All good brother.”  He wasn’t counting himself in before he was in, and everyone in the room knew that.  With Chris, everyone he met was brother.  I saw him call Vivi, another of the two women in our club and in my opinion a complete knock-out, brother without even thinking about it.  It was just his way. 

“Okay then, by show of hands, who here thinks that Chris Simon should be family?”  As I finished asking, I raised my hand. Partly because I thought he should be, and partly because I wanted to influence others to vote for him by showing he had my faith.  I’d had enough surprises for the day.  It appeared that the day wouldn’t be limited to one uncomfortable situation.  Something happened when I looked around the room. I counted seven hands in the air including my own.  I knew that there would be two missing because neither Mark nor Steve would vote until I said so.  All eyes were on the same person I was looking at with disbelief.

Despite just raising a fuss to try and get Chris in his own clan, there sat Scott, both arms crossed at his chest, staring at Chris with a quizzical look on his face.  I couldn’t believe it.  This was a side of Scott I’d never seen before.  I couldn’t believe that this was happening.  I was about to say something to him about the choice he was making, when he burst out, “Ah… I’m just fuckin’ with ya brother,” as he raised his hand in the air with a shit-eating grin on his face.  I turned my head toward Chris, staring at Mark and Steve. When they finally looked in my direction, I nodded my head, and they raised their arms too.  Chris had this look on his face that said he was glad to be breathing again, and might need to change his underwear later. 

I let the light mood continue for a few minutes before banging the gavel down to get attention focused again.  Once the room finally went quiet, I looked at Scott.

“You fucker” I joked.  I looked at Ross and nodded my head. He walked to a cabinet against the wall opposite of the doors, opened the top drawer and pulling out a ring, closing the drawer as he turned.  He walked to the center of the room facing the doors and stopped.  When Chris looked in his direction, he pointed at the floor in front of him.

Once Chris was in position, he began to speak.  “Historically, Vikings were great warriors, able to best any foe that dared face them.  They accomplished this not because of their faith in multiple deities who never existed, but because of a sacred agreement they had with each other.  They knew without question that every other Viking had their back and would protect them at all costs.  They accomplished the impossible because no matter the loss it may mean to themselves, they would have the back of all their brothers. 

Our clan is tasked with accomplishing what at times seems impossible, and leading our club, our family, to victory.  We take this responsibility with a heavy heart, knowing that if our brothers and sisters die in battle it will not be because they have failed us, but because we have failed to lead them.  As your officer, I promise that I will give you the tools to lead them to victory.  For if you fail, it is because I have failed you.  I will not ever place you in a position where your responsibility exceeds your skill.  Christopher Simon, I invite you to join my clan, the Vikings.  Do you accept?”

Without the slightest hesitation, Chris responded with maybe a little too much enthusiasm, because everyone chuckled a little. 

Ross pulled a knife from his pocket and cut his own finger at the tip.  Then he put his hand out for Chris to be cut.  Chris raised his right hand and placed it in Ross’s hand. Ross began speaking.  “Chris, you are now my ward.”  He cut a small slice on the top of Chris’s pointer finger at the base, and rubbed some of the blood from the tip of his own finger into the wound.  “Our blood is now one, as that of a family.”  He placed a Viking ring on Chris’s finger directly over the wound.  “Our bond is now protected from harm by the symbol of our clan, to symbolize the bond we have and it’s protection by all who wear this ring.  Never leave home without this ring.” 

Ross turned and faced the table, then took one step backwards.  Chris moved to follow his lead, but he held a hand up to let him know he should stay put.  I stood from my chair at the head of the table, and walked over to the same cabinet where Ross had pulled the ring from.  I opened the same drawer, and pulled out another ring.  I walked directly to the spot where Ross had been standing. 

It was my turn to speak.  I’d memorized the speech when I first became President.  Andy insisted that it was important to maintain the pageantry of it all, even if I thought it was ridiculous.  “This room is our home.  We are a family.  In our home, every family member has a voice.  In our home, every member has a purpose and responsibility to the rest of the family.  The decisions each of us make have an impact on all our family.  No family member would ever betray the trust that you give them.  You can never betray the trust your family gives to you.  Our bond is one of love.  We refuse to betray each other not out of obligation, but out of our love for each other.  We celebrate the triumphs of each family member because their victory is our victory.  We mourn with our family because their loss is our loss. 

Tonight, each person made a personal decision to love you.  To celebrate your victories with you, to feel your losses with you and to support you in any way that any family would.  I am the head of this house.  This house is my house.  As such, the decisions I make for this home family are final.  All have given me the authority to make those decisions for them, and have agreed to follow my decisions without question.  It’s my responsibility to everyone who calls this house their home to always put their needs before my own.  It’s my responsibility to ensure that they never suffer needlessly.  It’s a debt I owe them for having placed their trust in me.  It is a debt I will owe you.  Chris Simon, do you accept this family as your own, and agree to the rules of this home and place your trust in me to make decisions you will follow without question?”

Again, Chris responded without any hesitation.  “I do.”

“Have you been advised by the clan officers and myself as to the rules of this house, the mission of this family, and agree to them without misgiving?”

Another quick response. “I have and I do.”

“And finally, do you have any questions or doubts which would cause you to rethink your decision to join this family, which is a lifelong obligation between us?”

“None, brother.”

I turned toward Ross, and put my left hand out.  He placed the knife in the palm of my hand.  When I wrapped my fingers around the handle, he pushed his finger against the blade, allowing a small amount of blood to trickle down the point.  I turned toward Chris, and pushed the blade against my own middle finger on my right hand, allowing my blood to mix with Ross’s.  I put my right hand out toward Chris’s right hand, and nodded.  With that, Chris put his right hand in mine, and using my left hand I cut the top of his ring finger at the base.  Then I rubbed the blood from Ross and I into the wound, handed the knife back to Ross, and produced the ring, with the letter B engraved on the top. 

“Our blood is now one.  Yours, mine and your clan officer.  Our bond is forever.  We belong to you and you to us.  As the leaders of your clan and your club, we swear that our decisions and our actions will always put your needs before our own.”  I placed the ring on his finger over the wound.  “Our bond is protected by your family, which is represented in the ring you now wear.  As long as you wear this ring, you will always be a member of this family.  We will all love you, and you us.  Do not leave your home without this ring.”  I gave him a hug, then turned him to face the table.  Ross moved to the left side of him, so we were standing on opposite sides of him.

This time, Ross and I spoke in unison.  It was a cadence we’d practiced a few times in private so it didn’t sound all garbled up when we did it tonight.  “Brothers and sisters, we present to you, your new brother, Christopher Simon”

The rest of the room spoke to him, mostly in unison.  It could have been a little tighter, but it was still the kind of thing that sends a little chill up your spine when you’re there to hear it.  “Welcome Chris, to the Three Rings SMC.  We are your family, and we will never betray you.”  Everyone started cheering and clapping, walking over to hug and congratulate Chris on his official membership in the club.  I couldn’t blame them.  They all spent over a year getting to know him and he had spent an entire year proving that he was one of us, that he belonged with us.  It was a joyous occasion for him, and I wanted to let him have a few minutes to enjoy it before reigning it in to move onto the next prospect. 

When all eyes were on Chris, I leaned over to Ross, and pulled him in for a quick hug.  “Congratulations.  I’m glad you got him.  You’ll do him proud.”

A hasty “Thank you” was Ross’s response.  I wasn’t surprised by this.  He was never much of a hugger, and wasn’t particularly sentimental.  I knew there were no hard feelings that I didn’t just side with him to begin with.  There would be some disappointment with my hesitance to make the decision myself, but that wasn’t anything he’d hold a grudge about. 

After a few more minutes passed, I walked over to my seat at the table and started cracking the gavel again.  Chris took a seat next to Jasper, my guess was so that he could follow his lead as a fellow Viking.

                “Are there any takers for Thor?” I asked, hoping that only one clan would answer.  Instead I found silence following my question.  Nobody was speaking up. I waited a few seconds for a response, but none came.  I couldn’t believe the luck I was having that night.  First I have to solve a dispute between two clans over who got someone, and now I was facing the possibility of having to kill a man because nobody wanted him.  “Come on guys, surely SOMEONE thinks he’d make a good member of their clan.”

                “We’ll take him,” Moose shot in “I was just giving Scott the chance to take him if he wanted first.”  He looked over at Scott with a look that said “do you want him?”

                “We can’t use him.” Scott answered.  “He’s a good guy, but he has a tendency to enjoy stirring the pot.  We can’t have someone like that out ruining relationships that we’ve been cultivating for years.”  I had to admit, he had a good point.  Thor was a really-good guy, the kind of person you knew would have your back without ever thinking twice about it.  But his personality was a bit abrasive at times, and he did seem to take pleasure in getting people rhyled up for nothing. 

                “We can use him… he’s built for us” Moose repeated.  Thor isn’t a name he was given because of his brute strength.  It was one of those nicknames that meant the opposite of what it implies.  He was a scrawny guy, and had only been riding for about a year when he first started as a prospect.  He was only about five-foot-two and had no real muscle mass on him whatsoever.  He didn’t have any fat either.  The kind of guy who can wolf down a family sized pizza and not gain ½ a pound as a result.  Being small and wiry like that is a good trait for someone who is going to be expected to hide or disappear easily. 

                “Okay then. Let’s get this over with.”  I nodded my head over to Mark and Steve, who immediately went out to the lobby, and came back in with Thor between them, held the same way Chris had been.  He didn’t seem as nervous as Chris had been.  My guess was that he’d heard the cheering through the wall, and it put him at ease.  As soon as they had him positioned near the table facing me, I went through the same questions with him as I had with Chris, and everyone voted him in.

With the vote over, I nodded to Moose, who began the ring process. As Thor was walking over toward him, there was a knock at the chapel door.  Thor stopped walking at the same time that Mark walked to the door to answer it.  It was Sabrina, one of the waitresses from the bar, coming to deliver the beer I’d ordered on my way in.  “Come back in ten minutes,” Mark told her, though it was more an ask than an order. He pulled some money from his pocket and handed it to her.

Moose gestured for Thor to continue to him, and he complied.  When he stood in front of him, Moose began his speech.  “We’re the Ninja Clan.  The silent assassins who carry out our missions without anyone knowing we were there.  We’re the fly on the wall gathering information.  We don’t fail.  Our failure would expose our family to the world, and to our enemies.  We are the protectors of our club’s secret, of our existence.  As your officer, your mentor, it’s my duty to prepare you for the missions we carry out.  To make you invisible.  It’s our discipline that enables us to gather information without anyone knowing we took it.  I promise that I will teach you our ways, and make you the very definition of a Ninja.  It will not be an easy life.  We survive because we live a life that never gives an inch, never accepts anything less than perfection.  Aaron Thor Prana, do you accept the life of discipline I offer you, as one of my Ninja clan?”

“I do.” Thor responded as quickly as he had answered every other question asked of him.  He was certainly eager to get in. 

Moose continued the same way Ross had. “Aaron, you are now my ward.  Our blood is now one, as that of a family.  Our bond is now protected from harm by the symbol of our clan, the Chinese symbol for intelligence.  It’s there to symbolize the bond we have and it’s protection by all who wear this ring.  Never leave home without this ring.”  When he was done he turned and took the place Ross had previously been standing. 

I repeated my whole thing again too.  When it was done, we announced him as a member, and everyone gave their end of the ceremony.  I looked over at Mark.  “Wanna call Sabrina for those pitchers?”  While everyone was hugging it out, and Mark was going up to get our drinks, I walked over to the cabinet and pulled out two rings with the grim reaper engraved on the top of them, bringing them to my place at the table.  I gave them another minute of celebrating, and started banging my gavel on the table as Mark walked in with a tray containing 2 large pitchers of beer and a stack of red solo cups. 

Steve walked over and grabbed the tray from him and carried it the rest of the way to the table.  Like a bunch of vultures, they scrambled for a cup and started pouring themselves a drink.  Everyone except for Scott, who grabbed three cups and filled them, passing one to Moose and one to me before filling his own.  It wasn’t a requirement, just a nice gesture from a man who knew we wouldn’t bother to go after a glass for ourselves otherwise.  A man who always saw to the needs of others before his own.

Once everyone was settled, I got started.  “Okay, before half of you disappear for the winter, we have more business we need to attend to.  You’ve all gotten a chance to spend a little time with Angel and Dusty over the summer.  It’s my recommendation that we offer them a chance to prospect.  What do you have to say?”

At first, everyone started looking around awkwardly at each other.  I was about to start calling a vote when, of all people, Moose spoke up.  “I got nothing against Mark’s nephew.  He seems a bit lazy and slow sometimes, but he seems like he would step up when push comes to it.  It’s your girl you want to bring in that concerns me.”  He paused a second to collect himself.  I was about to speak when he raised his hand a few inches from the table, telling me to hold off and let him finish.  “She’s been through a lot man.  Like, a lot.  I just wonder if she can even trust the men in this room after everything she’s been through.  Wouldn’t everything we do in this club be piling onto that?”

I had to admit he wasn’t saying anything that hadn’t crossed my mind over the past several months.  When she was a kid, there were some pretty horrible things that her father did, and her mom just sat silently, letting it happen.  It was bad.  I wasn’t remotely surprised that she hadn’t spoken to either of them in over ten years.  Even sitting there at the table, hearing someone else bring a voice to concerns I’d had myself, I was starting to question whether I was doing her any favors by suggesting her.  I sat for a second thinking about what he’d said, and finally responded.  I hadn’t planned any speech.  I just started saying what came to mind as it got there. 

“I agree, she’s been through a lot. There’s a possibility that she won’t be able to handle it.  But that’s a risk we take with everyone who we prospect.  Even Steve has been through that and she’s sitting at this table.  It might not have been as bad, but it was similar.  It’s never stopped her, or been more than she can handle.”  Steve raised her hand, like she had something to add. “Just let me finish first.”  I held my own hand up toward her. 

“The thing that made me decide to bring up Angel is that it doesn’t bother her.  She’s wounded, without question.  But it motivates her.  She seems to just FIND people who are broken too, and she adopts them.  There’s some part of her that can’t help herself.  When she sees someone broken, she needs to help them.  It would be easy to pretend I don’t see it, but it’s there.  She would make a good member BECAUSE of what she’s gone through.  If anyone is going to be willing to do whatever it takes to protect people, surely it’s someone like her, who already does it without us.”

I barely had time to get my argument out before Steve started to chime in.  “The two aren’t the same Jayden.  I was forced to give a guy a blow job at gunpoint while I was drunk.  Hell, I barely remember it I was so plowed.  That’s not nearly as bad as having your dad do things to you repeatedly while you’re still a little girl.  I’m not saying she couldn’t handle what we do. I agree with you on letting her in, but don’t pretend that what she went through was the same as a one-time thing that happened to a grown ass woman.”

Everyone in the room, except for Chris and Thor, knew the exact event she was talking about.  It happened a couple of years prior.  She’d been out drinking with her boyfriend and they’d gotten into an argument.  She’d demanded that he pull over and let her out.  Steve can be pretty-insistent, and there isn’t any telling her no when she’s decided something.  So, naturally, her boyfriend let her out and she took off across some park. 

At some point she’d stumbled into a guy and asked for help finding her way home.  He’d pulled a gun on her and advised she would get directions home when she finished giving him a blow job.  She told us about it the next day, and it didn’t take long for Vivi to track down who the guy was because of his description and where the park was.  Needless to-say, we saw to it that guy would never harm anyone again. 

I knew from conversations with her since it happened, it still haunted Steve.  I was pretty-sure there were times when she considered running away from everything.  Us, her boyfriend, her family.  Just disappearing.  Being a guy, I couldn’t pretend to understand what it put her through.  I certainly wasn’t trying to make light of anything that happened to either of them.  But not being able to really understand what impact it had on either of them left me at a disadvantage when needing to speak intelligently on the topic. 

In the end I decided it wasn’t any point to try and justify my own thinking, and there wasn’t any point in dragging that topic to the top of the conversation right then either.  I decided to just apologize and move forward.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”  I couldn’t think of how to finish that sentence, so I left it there… hanging.  “Anyone else have thoughts on Angel?”

As soon as I decided I wanted to bring her to the table, I’d told everyone about her.  Everything I knew about her was already common knowledge here.  They had a right to know everything about her if they were going to choose to risk our secret with her.  We have a rule at the table, an unwritten one.  “We keep secrets everywhere but here.”  When nobody said anything further, I turned my attention directly to our newest family members.  “You don’t know what we all do about her, just what you’ve figured out for yourselves being around her.  Do you have any questions for us?”

Thor was first to speak.  “Nope, I’m good”

I looked over at Chris, who looked directly at me.  “You trust her?”

“I do,” I responded.

“I trust you.” He responded, “If you trust her, that’s all I need to know.”

I didn’t see any reason to delay.  The outcome would be whatever it was, and there wasn’t going to be any changing people’s minds right then and there anyway.  “All those in favor, clan the table.”  I put my hand down at the same time that everyone else did, everyone except Moose.  His hand sat a few inches over the table over while he had a strained look on his face like he was forcing a shit after a greasy pizza.  I sat there motionless, not breathing for what seemed like forever,.

Finally, he opened his eyes and looked at me for a few more seconds. He wanted to make sure I knew what I was signing her up for. We both knew what happened if she felt it wasn’t for her. I nodded my head.  I knew what was at risk. He dropped his hand on the table, “Fuck it.”

That was that.  Angel was going to be offered a ring.  It hit me just then, how much shit I’d gotten her into, even if she didn’t know it yet.  I knew she could handle it.  But I had to question whether she would be glad I had, once shit got real.  There was no sense in dwelling on it now.  The decision was made.  There was no taking it back, and we had another decision to make.  “Dusty… any objections?”

I knew before I even asked that there wouldn’t be any objections to Dusty’s nomination.  Everyone at the table knew him.  Mark helped start the SMC with Uncle Andy, Ross, and another guy named Virgil.  Dusty was his nephew, so we’d all been around him some, even before he turned 23.  Some of us had been at the hospital with his father when he was born.  I was freshly clanned, and Moose was a prospect then.  Waiting for him to turn 23 was just a formality.

The club has an official rule about people not being able to prospect unless they are 23 or older.  This way, they were pretty much the person they were going to be. 23 was old enough to know whether someone was going to go nuts or not. The rule allowed two years to pass after their 21^st birthday before a person can prospect, to be sure who we give our secrets to is the person we will have with us for good. 

When nobody said anything in response, I moved forward with it.  “All those in favor, clan the table.”  Two seconds later it was done.  We would be inviting both of them to prospect tonight.  I looked over at Steve.  “Wanna run and get ‘em?”.  She giggled a little as she got up and left the room. 

Everyone knew exactly what she was giggling about.  We all took amusement in the part that came next.  I took a drink of my beer, watching the table all turn to face the door.  Everyone except for Moose and me.  I’d made it a rule that this part was something the President or Vice President do.  I could just make Moose do it, and avoid the embarrassing part, but I never do.  Instead, we agreed to take it in turns.

“I think it was me last time.” Moose said, even though we both knew that was bullshit.

“Thor, who did it last year?” I asked.  Nothing to argue about once there’s third-party confirmation.

“It was you,” Thor responded.

“Shit!” Moose swore, getting up and removing all his clothes.  Everyone kept their attention toward the doors.