For the most part, Perry Countians still live to an old time work ethic. You are likely to get your money's worth from guys who care about doing it right. That, for darn sure, isn't common anymore.
Red Stoop has been barbering in Bloomfield since the monument went in. My battered mug raised a few comments among the shop's customers, but I passed the battering off as hitting a windshield in a minor car accident.
Red's haircut made me feel like a young American boy, and a pair of sunglasses further disguised me from all but the knowing.
By then my ribs were reminding me that I looked better than I was. I tooled the Datsun south on 34, then left at Meck's Corners. Duncannon looked just as it had a week or so earlier, before Big Blue and I took our lumps.
Across the Juniata Bridge I pulled up where I could see the biker's hangout. There were only a pair of Harleys parked out front, but someone was gunning an engine behind the building.
The old service station was concrete block. The front windows were plywooded shut, but the door hung open. I could see the end of a barbell laid across a pressing bench, and an old chair or two. The crudely lettered sign described the outfit as THE BIKERS' CLUB.
The lack of imagination was disconcerting. Motorcycle gangs were always "Outlaws", "Vagabonds", "Bandits", or some kind of "Runners".
A long haired, boot-heavy individual slouched through the club's door and worked his way past assorted junk to a gate in a chain link fence enclosing their backyard. He opened a padlock as big as a fist and heaved the gate aside. A helmetless rider skidded his machine through and wound his engine heading out Route 22. It was a short test run that appeared satisfactory, as the bike was quickly back and swung into line for the admiration of passersby.
I thought again how satisfying it would be to mow down a long row of bikes, maybe on a Saturday night when the whole gang was inside drinking beer. I could just pile into an idling diesel tractor over at the truck stop and be through before anyone knew what happened. It would be just like a Burt Reynolds movie—bikes ground into junk while the frustrated gang heaved their helmets in rage.
Only, I might not finish them all, and even one surviving cycle would ruin a getaway. Or, they could have a pickup or a car on hand. Even a passing motorist could aid a pursuit. The truck crunching idea sounded better than it was.
The club had hollowed a shallow swale and laid down a flat plank. When a rider came in, he dropped his rear wheel into the dip and was lined up with the others, rear end low and menacing. His kick stand came down on the plank, and the bikes even leaned alike.
The hell of it was that I liked motorcycles, particularly big, black Harley- Davidsons. The deep throated rumble of a Harley engine stirred primitive hungers in the male breast. No other bike had that sound.
A rider sat ON most motorcycles, but he sat IN a Harley-Davidson. He rode solid in the saddle, feet planted, with seventy-four cubic inches, or twelve hundred cubic centimeters, between his thighs. He felt powerful and firmly in charge of an awesomely dangerous and ferocious beast. Riding a big Harley was heady stuff.
Unfortunately, too many bad hombres enjoyed the same sensations. Beer swilling, black clad, dirty, profane, and trouble seeking motorcycle gangs took Harley-Davidson as their symbol. Bands of bearded and tattooed riders wearing German or war time tanker helmets ripped the guts out of their mufflers and roamed the highways. Most wore jack boots, and many sported huge wallets shackled and chained to their belts.
Tight leather gloves with the fingers cut away were de rigueur for such packs. Riders attained status with each other by appearing ultimately repulsive to the normal eye. The gangs had become caricatures of each other.
The biker scene attracted losers who otherwise failed to compete. Grossly fat and cadaverously lean bikers were common. So were boozers, drug abusers, the naturally vicious, and the nasties who wished they were as sinister as they tried to appear.
Decent people are intimidated by the packs and wisely avoid them. I had stumbled into one and paid a price.
But, unlike most, who had to take it and turn away, I, like General MacArthur, would return.
A good place to begin would be destroying that which the gang members held most dear. A nice Harley costs at least five thousand dollars. Few in such a rat pack would be fully insured. If I could get them all, my cup would begin refilling.
Chapter 3
I hid out for two more weeks, letting ribs mend and allowing the bikers' memories of beating up the Alaskan to fade.
Time weighed heavily, but I began easy exercising, consumed hours cleaning and repairing the cabin, and, of course, read book after book of lightweight fiction. I also kept thinking about the bikers.
Some days I could hear machinery running over at Spider Seeber's place, and I finally took the grown-over path across the ridge to see what was going on.
Spider and I had never been friendly, so I stayed in the woods and just watched for a while. Seeber was working a small rental backhoe, excavating a huge hole, probably for his garbage. He had enough of it; trash was piled in rotting masses around his back lot and even in his front yard. The machine was deep into the hole and going deeper. Spider would hit surface water soon, and I hoped the ridge between us would keep his filth out of my well.
Spider had gotten his nickname in grammar school where he had delighted in insulting sensitivities by eating flies. When reported, Seeber always claimed he palmed the insects and didn't really eat them, but he did. He kept at it until he quit school at sixteen.
None of the Seeber's had credited the township. They lived like confined hogs in the old farmhouse Spider was digging behind. Never much to look at, the house now sagged in most directions. A line of poles angle-braced a side, or it would have collapsed into the yard. The brick chimney had lost its upper third, but some tin pipe had been added to keep it useful.
Actually, I'd seen worse houses, but the Seeber yard clutter did challenge belief. A relative had once worked on cars, and those rusting monuments, overgrown with brambles, gave the place an aged battlefield atmosphere. A dozen or more mattresses had been abandoned on the place, and carpeting, long rotted through, had been spread outward from the almost floorless porch to kill the unmown grass and weeds.
Piles of kitchen trash dotted the yard borders, as though each cook vied with those before him in creating the most disreputable pile. Broken sofas, smashed chairs, some early model washing machines, and a few mounds of unidentifiables crowned the decor. The county had to be grateful that the Seebers chose to live in an almost unreachable hollow, out of sight and out of mind.
On the other hand, Spider's people possessed one redeeming characteristic. Most moved away and never returned. Spider was the last of them. Perry County’s gain was some other place's loss.
Spider looked about as I remembered him, taller than I was, but pole thin without the cordiness of muscle most skinny guys have. His hair was tied off in a long horse-tail that hung well down his back. Spider had acquired tattoos, but I couldn't make them out from a distance. Seeber wasn't likely to have been original. He probably had at least one spider and a dripping dagger and heart somewhere on him. If I didn't see the artwork any closer, I would not be disappointed—but I probably would.
As neighbors, Spider and I would be running into each other. Well, he probably wasn't especially eager to see me I either.
It was odd to see Spider Seeber working at his garbage burying. His best efforts wouldn't hardly dent the accumulations around him. I had to wonder if burying garbage closer to his water table was an improvement. If I were Seeber, I'd surely rather have to look at it than drink it.
+++
I didn't forget Lori Shoop. Without a phone, I couldn't make casual calls, but I used public booths when I went for groceries. When I felt good enough, I took her to dinner at the Quail Call, where I was sure the bikers would not appear. Jello and friends might remember Lori as the girl on the CB radio. When bad things began happening to them, I didn't want some thinker to su
spect her companion might be someone they had seen before.
Chris came along on our second dinner, but I spent too much time entertaining him. Thereafter, Lori left him with Pam and her children. I took that decision as a good sign, and it gave us opportunity to talk seriously.
Lori said, "You're not going to let those bikers get away with it, are you?"
I didn't have to ask, "Get away with what?" And I didn't plan on doing a lot of dissembling with a girl I found powerfully attractive.
"No, I'm not."
"What are you going to do?"
I had to sigh a little over that. "Well, I'm still working it out. I'm not wasting time with the police. You, Pam, and I might swear it was true, but a dozen of them would deny it, and the rest of their crowd would claim Jello was playing Monopoly in their clubhouse. We wouldn't win and from then on, they would be looking for us."
Lori nodded agreement, and I went on. "I intend to pay back all of them, and I'm going to cost them more money than they cost me.
"Just how I am going to do that is a question, but I've got time because I want to be fit and ready when I open the game."
+++
Getting fit had to wait until my ribs got strong. Ribs heal fast, but it was almost August before I could forget them.
I used the time to advantage. I nailed 2" x 4" blocks randomly along the end of my cabin. The blocks were for a popular rock climber's trick. When I was well, I would swing on them, gripping with only my fingers, climbing like a real spider, up and across the wall. The exercise worked the upper body unmercifully, and climbers that practiced it developed grips that could crush a cue ball.
Running would be my other major conditioner. It would not be the road racer's light shoed, perfect striding. I would tackle the woods and the ridges wearing my mountain boots. I would run through the fires in my thighs, lurching, stumbling, fighting it until legs and lungs were beaten. Three times a week I would run hard. On the off days there would be sit-ups and a few gut and back stretchers. Those, I particularly hated. They were boring as well as exhausting, but I would do them.
It wasn't that I intended to call out Jello and hard-man fight him until he quit. In books, little guys whip big guys by wearing them down, making them appear clumsy, then cleaning them out with masterful right crosses and left hooks.
In the real world, it seldom works out that way. A brute like Jello wouldn't chase me around, and he wouldn't waste effort swinging wildly. Eventually, I'd get too close and he would pounce. Once he had a grip, it would be all over.
Jello could probably bench press more than four hundred pounds, and just his body weight would collapse and pin an ordinary mortal. Oh no, my conditioning would be for saving myself if something went awry, if or when I fought Jello, I'd have arranged for every unfair advantage I could get.
To know your enemy is to gain an edge. I began a systematic tailing of Jello and his big, black Harley. It was easy following. Jello did not ride overly fast. He just rumbled along, looking as large as a tri-axle truck and as menacingly brutal as a cape buffalo.
I kept my nondescript Datsun well back and began learning Jello's routines. They varied little and soon grew boringly predictable. Most lives fall into patterns that become worn-in ruts, with few ventures beyond them. Jello was no exception. He lived upstairs in a Steelton four-plex. At night he rolled his motorcycle into an attached shed and padlocked the door.
By day, Jello worked at one of the few steel mill jobs left in the town. He moved heavy plates by forklift, but I often saw him heaving the massive things by hand, as though he enjoyed pitting his strength against the ungiving iron. Seeing Jello hoist weights unmovable by ordinary measure made my hair stand on end. Such strength could easily pluck living flesh from a victim's bones. The man could have set records as a power lifter.
Jello had a last name. Loitering near a group of workmen, I waved a thumb as his motorcycle loafed by.
"Now there's a big one. What's his name, anyway?"
The man I spoke to grinned with a corner of his mouth.
"That's Gorse; works over in shipping." My informant laughed shortly. "They call him Jello, but his first name is something else. Good man to stay clear of. Likes to fight and don't get hurt doing it."
The advice sounded right to me.
Jello Gorse ate at fast food joints and drank at three different taverns. He did not get drunk, and he retired early.
If Jello had gotten stupid drunk with any regularity, I would have considered breaking his helpless bones with a length of iron bar. The Marquis of Queensberry had not laid out his rules of fair play for Gorse's kind. All that counted in Jello's world was that you won.
I checked each bar after Jello had tucked in for the night. I found nothing unusual in them. They favored sweaty crowds and blasting music. I expected their regular patrons would be stone deaf by fifty and dead of liver cirrhosis soon after.
I almost ran into Spider Seeber coming out of the biggest place. I was far enough away to go unnoticed. Seeber knew I was around, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway.
Spider and I had passed going in or out a few times, but we hadn't spoken until a supper at the Ranch House restaurant up on 11 and 15. Seeber was seated across the room, but I could feel his eyes on me more regularly than they should have been. Sure enough, on his way out he stopped to swap words.
"How long you back for, Perry?" Seeber was his usual sociable self.
"Haven't decided, Spider."
The man stood there, sort of bent forward like a praying mantis. I saw a leggy spider with a red heart centered on its body tattooed along Seeber's upper arm and almost laughed at its predictability.
Spider's long face wrinkled in apparent thought. "Where you been anyway?"
I lied easily. "Mostly down in Alabama, just working around." Seeber didn't need to know my business.
Spider wanted to say more, and his face worked with the effort. The result wasn't particularly notable.
"Well, guess you'll be movin' on again before long."
I didn't answer, and Seeber's eyes flared a little before he moved away. The acquaintance I was eating with said, "That guy doesn't want you around, Gene."
"Oh, Spider and I go way back. I had to lick him a time or two when we were little. Old Spider's never gotten over it, but he's naturally unpleasant with everybody."
The man was right, though. Spider Seeber was concerned over my reappearance. As far as I knew, he'd never given a rap before. I decided to keep my neighbor a little more in mind.
+++
Chapter 4
Coming into Duncannon in a pouring rain gave me my plan for a first payback against Jello and the other bikers.
It was noon on a weekday. The bikers' clubhouse was closed and deserted looking, but I never passed without looking the place over. The rain swept off the roadway and gathered in puddles until overflow sent small streams pouring through planned drainage and finally into the river.
The shallow groove dug by the club to align their rear wheels was awash with inches of water, and that showed me how to make my first strike.
Even then, I went home to think about it and work out the moves in exact detail. A good plan is always a simple one, but that did not mean you could be careless. Usually, even the best schemes go awry and require changes right in the middle of things. My experience in mean underhandedness was limited, and I needed time to get my ducks in line.
I was also bothered some by what I was going to do.
Most of us have moral codes that descry destroying property. It's shabby to tear down fences, slash tires, or sugar gas tanks. That kind of stuff shames the perpetrator about as much as it hurts the victim.
What I figured on doing was a thousand times more destructive, so I had to make sure my track ran true, and that I would not feel guilt later on. I gave it a night's reasoning and satisfied any reservations that cropped up.
First I drove up to Williamsport and filled a twenty gallon drum mostly with kerosene, but topped
by a couple of gallons of gas.
I had prepared the drum by chiseling out one end and disposing of the lid in a community dumpster while passing through Lewisburg.
I filled the container at a rural, pump-it-yourself station, where the attendant stayed inside beneath his air conditioner and took your word on how much you owed.
Next, I stretched fifteen plastic garbage bags over the filled barrel's open end and sealed their edges to the drum with half a roll of duct tape. I threw the rest of the roll away on the way home, so nothing could be traced to me. Not that I expected any tracing, but I took no chances.
Nondescript buildings separated the bikers' club from the Riviera Bar, where customers came and went with some frequency. During early dark, I muscled the fuel barrel into an inconspicuous spot alongside the building closest to the clubhouse. My sore ribs protested, and I tipped and wheeled the one hundred and fifty pound drum that I would ordinarily have carried away.
I had picked a good time of night. No traffic highlighted my activities. I pulled away and circled back to park where I could watch. No one appeared to investigate, and I would have been surprised if they had.
In daylight, the drum barely showed and would arouse no interest. Now I had only to wait.
Saturday was the club's busy night. My Saturday was typically August, hot and dust dry. Rain would have put me off, and not many bikers would have appeared.
The Harleys came in, and music thumped torrid beats. The barbells clashed, and voices shouted. Beer was flowing, and best of all, Jello Gorse was right in the middle of it. So was his motorcycle.
I made two driving passes before deciding the mood was right. Then I parked in deep shadow behind the truck stop. When there was no traffic I crossed the highway up where the bridge begins. I had only two pieces of equipment, a railroad flare and my jackknife.
The Sweet Taste (Perry County) Page 4
