“We do well, all the shops, the garage,” she continued quietly. “But everyone likes doing better, especially when that comes with getting more. You give your brothers more, Joker, and their families. You should know that’s lost on no one and it’s appreciated.”

Still not able to come up with anything to say, he just jerked up his chin and muttered, “Thanks again, Cherry. And set it up with that magazine. Whenever they’re ready, I’ll be here.”

“Okay, honey,” she replied softly.

Joker nodded to her and took off.

He went back to work liking a fuckuva lot what he was feeling.

He also got it.

It was about what he did, what he loved doing getting recognized. It felt good, that shit coming from out there, outside this garage, outside their world.

It felt better coming from his brothers.

But it was more.

As he worked, he came to the understanding that he would never pay back the people in his life who put him right there. Who gave all they could give to keep him sane and show him there was goodness in this world, which kept him from being buried under the dark.

But they didn’t need payback. If you’re a good person, you do good things. Simple as that.

But they knew, like Joker now knew, that good built good. So what they gave Joker meant that he’d not lost hold. Didn’t give up and become a junkie, a felon, a jackhole banging women on his couch, drinking himself sloppy, or making babies only to fill their lives full of black.

Instead, he was in the position to give back. To his brothers. To Carissa. To Travis.

The good he got from the people who cared about him set him up to return it, maybe not to them, but to people who deserved it.

And that was what it was all about. The meaning of life. Why every person on the planet was there.

They got what they gave and then they gave what they got, and it was the measure of you if you could endure the shit that came with life and still find it in you to focus on the good and put that out there.

He was that man.

And he was glad to be that man.

So he kept working, giving goodness to his brothers until it was time to call it quits and go home to his woman and her boy, where they’d also give him goodness they didn’t know they gave just by breathing.

And he would take it.

And give it back.

Carissa

It was late when I got home. I’d had an unusual afternoon shift that Sharon tried not to give me when I had Travis, but she couldn’t play favorites, so it happened.

I heard the TV on but saw no Joker in the kitchen so I plopped my purse on the counter, walked through the kitchen, and into the living room.