Most people looking at the Street from the outside would think it was a heartless thing with no soul. Purely motivated by the hustle, the grift, and the lust for pieces of dead trees with dead white guys on them. Sure, from the outside looking in that might be a reasonable judgement, and sure there were crews that did run their corners like that. But, if you looked deeper at the people running successful corners that lasted more than a year or two you saw that they were the ones that had heart. That had something that rooted them to the community and the world. 91'er's had the Black Panther legacy and the memory of what Haven City had done to Freeport. Los Vagos had Chicanismo to frame themselves as fighting back against a system that made them criminal. Regulators had that too, only sometimes it hadn't been so easy to tell. You pull together people with all different color skins, different backgrounds, only common denominators being place and time then you needed something that brought them all together while allowing them to look past their differences.
On 13th Street, lesson number one was 'blood is thicker than water.' Not in the new sense that meant that family was more important than the people actually watching your back, but in the original meaning. Family was the people who shed blood with you, not the people who could trace their lineage back to the same gash or ball sack. Regulators were built on the blood, their code written in blood, because from the beginning the decision to stand together despite past loyalties and disagreements meant that if they were going to stand together, they needed to be committed to dying together as well. Of the guys that Jon and John had recruited to help them start this thing, over half of them had been part of another gang who wanted to come for their blood for leaving. The OG's had made them reconsider the wisdom of that line of thinking.
These were the thoughts on Jax's mind as he beat his alarm to the punch by at least an hour, resting his head on a soft pair of DD's. A couple of beers, some bud, and the best tricks of a professional lover still hadn't been able to remove all of the weight that the crown had on his head. His sleeping had been restless, fitful, and his dreams had been visited by the boys who had died in the squabbles that had popped up because other crews had wanted to test his mettle and see if he flinched. He had also been visited by the faces of the men he'd killed. Nine of them total in only four years. There were no illusions that they wouldn't be increasing in number as the years came on. That there weren't triple there number who were dead simply from his word, regardless of who pulled the trigger.
Rising from the bed he turned the alarm off on his phone, not that he would be needing it anymore, and slipped away before he could wake up the red-headed goddess who was sleeping so soundly in bed. She would just try to fuck the thoughts away, and he would normally thank her for it, but this morning he needed to be inside his head for a minute. The first birthday of your first daughter was a big day for a man like him, and it was good to begin it by reflecting on all that had come before, that had led to the reason for the occasion to celebrate today. Throwing on a pair of jeans he slipped on his belt, strapping his knife to his right hip and hiding his .45 behind his back. Then he threw on a black shirt and his colors. As he creeped down the steps he ran his hand over the bit of ceiling heading down the steps, thinking about the man who had owned this house before him.
Melvin Reznik had been a solid soldier once, a real OG, but he'd started using the rock instead of just moving it. Which explained why the house needed so many repairs. Jax had bought the place off of him at a good price, and had
Che Verga drive Vin out to the rehab center by the Rez where Jaide was apparently staying.
Moving through halls that had once been filled with the smell of crack smoke and the sound of crack orgies Jax looked in on his sleeping son and daughter. On the outside he could often appear hard, heartless even, but he was a white man in a ghetto that had grown tired of white men before his mother was even born. He needed to be hard, he needed to be ruthless, he needed to be ambitious, he needed to be loyal and he needed to show the Street that he wasn't just some white boy trying to play 'White Savior' just because his father and godfather had not been as bad as everyone had thought. He had always needed to be the one to do the wildest things, to back the toughest plays, and eventually make the toughest calls. That had earned him respect, and that respect had gotten him where he was. He needed to act like he knew what he was doing, both as a father and as a leader. It had taken him too long to realize that no one really knew what they were doing, they just did what they thought was best and let the chips fall where they may.
Slipping on his boots he took to the street, needing a walk to clear his head. Not entirely sure where he was going or what he was doing.
Tyler Freeman had been on watch last night, Tyrone's little brother. Sitting on the stoop with a shotgun resting in his lap. When Jax came down the steps Tyler moved to stand, he was there to protect Jax more than he was there to protect anything else. But Jax waved him down. "Watch out for my people Tyler, I won't be gone long. And I won't leave the 'hood. Don't worry." Jax said, knowing that Tyrone had drilled into the heads of every one of Jax's hand picked guards that anything that happened to Jax on their watch would happen to them ten fold. Sometimes Tyrone could be a bit over-protective. Which, considering Jax's life might just be protective enough to keep him alive long enough to see JJ and Izzy grow up.
Turning left on 13th Street he walked the block, waving to the few old heads that were awake this early. Cutting past the fence on the Gayle property he walked up the thinly marked trail that led back into the hilly, wooded Glenwood Park. A little bit of the wild left in Haven City. 645 acres sounded like a lot when you heard it, but it wasn't damn near enough when you knew that on the other side was Glenwood, Nords turf. Once a whole ocean hadn't been far enough away from Nazi's for America, now he was supposed to feel comfortable and safe with a little more than a square mile between him and them. It wasn't enough. It was never going to be a enough. As he snaked through the stoner's trail, moving through the mist, he passed trees painted with graffiti and bits of stuff that had been set up as little hang outs for them when they came up. Somewhere up on top of this ridge was the spot where he had fingered Jaide for the first time. He had carved their names into a tree up here somewhere too. But damned if he could find either spot. Looking down into the valley below he could see a lot of things, including the spot where his father's body had been found. That was a spot he'd always be able to find. Gayle had consistently used the funds he had coming in to keep the park up to date. So the swings weren't the same swings that Jax had been pushed on as a kid, the spinner was gone entirely, whole new different style of playground set than when he was a kid, lots of changes. But it was still the same damn space.
Jax didn't move towards that spot, the place where his blood soaked into the grass and the rock. Where the crime scene photos had been taken. Jax had paid a cop to see those photos once. The word 'mutilated' didn't even begin to cover what they had done to his old man. The ME report had been worse. He didn't want to think about that today though, he didn't want to see those things again in his mind. Today was about the living.
Off to the right, there was an amphitheater, where bands would play for concerts and where local groups would have productions. Last spring Oak Hills High School had done Shakespeare in the Park. Jax had attended as a patron. Appearing to everyone to be a businessman with interests in the community. The silent partners behind a lot of businesses. Jax made his way down the hill towards the amphitheater, knowing what he was looking for was behind it.
The smell of paint was loud in the air, as well as the sound of the working hands and feet. When Jax rounded the bend of the amphitheater he found six young men, three black men, two Latino and one Asian, working on what was a giant mural against the back wall.
Painter was standing back behind them looking at a reference piece to instruct them on what they were to be doing. The work wasn't done yet but Jax was already able to make out the man that was center to it. Still, he looked away from it, not wanting to see the mural until it was absolutely as Painter envisioned it. He would be satisficed looking at the reference piece though.
"Jax my man, what the hell are you doing out here this early?!" Painter asked while smiling and hugging the younger man. Painter had been an artist back in the day, did his best to stay unaffiliated, but had gone to the Regulators for protection when he needed it. He was the one who had designed the thirteen they used as a symbol, the ink that many of them wore, most of the art that now adorned Oak Hills walls was either done by Painter, or by his students. This one though, this one was going to be his masterpiece. The man had been talking it up to Jax for months.
The Unholy Dead he had called it. At the center was John Jackson, his hair buzzed short like when he was at his best, wearing a black tank top, arms crossed so that they rested on his shoulders. M1911 in his right hand, KA-BAR in his left. The tattoos were accurate, the eyes, the eyes were Jax's eyes. Just older. The sun was shining bright behind him, in the middle of the sun was the thirteen with thirteen stars. Off to one side there was
Sampson Mitchell, Fo-Fo, Dasia's dad. He'd been a 91'er, but he'd grown tired of all the senseless violence and had come around to Gayle's side. Risking his life to do so. A beating from dirty cops had left him near dead, and then they'd delivered him up to his old gang members to have him finished off. The Reg who had made that right was the only one to catch a death penalty. Rocko was riding the chair right beside Fo-Fo. On Johns right side was a man who everyone said looked like Jax, but Jax didn't see the resemblance, he hadn't even been four when his uncle
Benjy had been shot down in the street. The first Reg to die and the impetus for everything that followed. In total there were fifteen Regulators pictured or referenced in the mural. The hope was that it would be done in time for August when the community would have an event and he'd be able to unveil it. Painter had put out the word that if anyone messed with this mural it would be seen as an act of war, and Jax had backed him up.
"I just couldn't sleep Painter, thinking about them." Painter had been one of the men who had put Jax in the position he was in now, which meant he was one of the ones that were required to bend an ear when Jax needed to vent.
"It your baby girl's first birthday and you're thinking about them? Man, how are you not laying in bed just getting your frustrations out right?" Painted smacked the younger man on the back and the two shared a laugh at that as they watched the artists work. A lot of murals and art that Painter had done, got done fast, but for this piece they were taking their time and getting every bit of it perfect. As if it was inside a church or something. Which, in a lot of ways Glennwood was sacred site to the Regs. Watered by the blood of saints.
"I guess I'm just thinkin', we know what it's all for and everything, but I still don't get why you gave the crown to me. Why not Che or
Wylld or somebody from back in the day?" They were silent for a moment as Jax crossed his arms, looking at his father's eyes on the wall. Like all of them years were looking at him and measuring him up to the legends of the Street that had gone before.
"Because you ask that question Jax. And because you'll keep asking that question, and you'll keep feeling the weight of every brother that catches a body or a charge and you'll raise holy hell for every single one of them motherfuckers. Because the head that wears the crown because they think they deserve it? That's the head that'll bring us all down man. Now get the fuck out of here and fuck your woman. Go! Motherfucka before I go up there and do it myself!" Painter gave his boss a push and Jax laughed knowing that the man would never even think of trying on stepping out his wife.
That was the most important lesson of 13th Street, the one Jax thought about on the walk back to the house. The female of the species was more deadly than the male. It had been the women who had brought all of the men of the Regulators together for the first time; the women who often cooked the rock and loaded the guns. The women who called the lawyers and paid the bail when the man was behind bars. Without the women the world didn't run at all. Scar was awake by the time he came home, so he slipped in behind her in the kitchen and gave her a good long kiss. They ate breakfast, dressed the kids. Showered. And then it was time for people to start arriving. Tyrone and
Marisol were the first ones to show up; Marisol carrying their son Tyr, Tyrone pushing
T Freeman in his pimped out golden wheelchair. Jax and Tyrone needed to lift the crippled man up the steps, but beyond that it went well. Javier and
Dasia weren't far behind them, Dasia sporting a two month baby bump and Javier fretting over every crooked step.
"I'm gonna get my peoples up here
ese we're going to get you set up right." Javier said as he gave Jax a hug. His father
Hernan Ortiz was driven in by
Rico, Rico had done a ten year bid up at Denne for arson and had looked after Jax back when he had been there. Now he was one of his best bodyguards. Hernan had run 13th Street for Los Vagos once upon a time. Now the man was semi-retired running a landscaping business. Apparently you could make a lot of money growing weed in old lady's back yards. Not everyone came in with their families, but the ones who were real family came together.
Ken,
Song , and
Nicky Takashi arrived with
Moshe Wolfsham in toe. Ken and Song might have aged remarkably well, but they had gone to high school with Kate; Kenny being one of her oldest friends and Song being a few grades lower. Ken had knocked Song up not long after Kate got pregnant, and when his dad died he'd stepped up as the steel-eyed wheelman for the men who would become the Regs. Moshe was the main owner of Wolfsham & Takashi Gym on 12th Street. Now older and mostly confined to a wheel chair, the nonagenarian coach simply needed to roll up his right sleeve and show those six numbers to convince anyone he was the most badass man in the room. The old Jew had taught Jax everything he knew about fighting, and it was hard for Jax to look at the man who was like a grandfather to him, knowing that they'd probably be burying him before the year was out. More and more people showed up, girls from Phantasies, friends from the day care who would be good to show up on 13th Street. More and more gang bangers by the minute until the house was packed with people and there was food filling the tables in the yard. Kate was bouncing little Izzy on her knee sitting and chatting with Joan and some of the other moms while Jax was moving through the crowd mingling and JJ was in the living room playing COD with some of the boys his age. His nerves were starting to fray as the day went a bit longer. Not because of anything that was going on at the party, it was going great. But because of who wasn't there yet.
Che Verga had been Los Vagos, like Hernan, Rico and Rocko, but he was also connected to a lot of other things going on in the world and had been the biggest and most controversial pull to the Regulators. Even with having stepped back in order to spend more time with his family on the Rez and take care of Jaide, Jax had been certain that he would ahve been the one to take over the Regs. There was always that tension in the air, that Jax had something he felt Che should have, and that Che wanted his grandson to know his mother. Not be raised by two white people. Jax was starting on his third beer when he moved over to Scar at the grill, drumming a beat on her back. Of course, he knew that Che was not going to miss out on an opportunity to see his grandson. It was just -
"He's still not here yet, Queen." Jax wasn't usually this nervous.
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