Livin' After Midnight

by Tom Nelson

  Both men lean in and give each other a handshake and a quick brotherly hug before Tom exits through the front door of the apartment. Tom makes his way through a row of parked cars and walks across the street toward another row. He has to park a half-block away due to the fact that most of the spots in the village are taken by residents.

  Suddenly gunshots begin to ring out. Loud. Close. Semiautomatic and automatic. Hell, it sounds like World War Three is kicking off at the Aliso Village projects in Downtown LA!

  Tom quickly draws the 9mm from the rear of his waistband and crouches as much as he can with $12,000 stuffed down his pants. Moving in a crouched position, Tom heads in the direction of his car. Gun barrel up with a two-handed grip, he makes his way through the parked cars. The gunfire is still going on but seems to be diminishing somewhat.

  Tom makes it to his 1970 Dodge Charger. He had to get rid of the IROC-Z following the shootout in Downtown LA a few days earlier. He crouches by the driver’s side front quarter panel, gun barrel still pointed upward, and happens to glance at his watch: 12:01 A.M. January 1, 1993. Happy fucking new year!

  “Shit!” Tom says as he stands up feeling completely foolish and fires several shots into the air.

  “You’s crazy, motherfucker!” Johnny shouts from the front door of his apartment, but Tom’s ears are still ringing from the shots he’s fired, so he can’t hear what the other man is saying. He is sure it isn’t good, though. “Crazy!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Tom shouts back. “Good night, Johnny!”

  ~~~

  Tom stands alone at a cliff overlooking the ocean in Malibu and is reminded of the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas. Tom and Red would drive here to be alone and get away from all the craziness of the city they lived and worked in. Tom was the only person who showed up for Red in the end, her family having forsaken her over a decade earlier. He’d had her cremated and brought the ashes here.

  Red’s ashes floated on the wind over the beach where she once ran free. It had been the one place where Tom got to see the other side of Red: the once innocent little girl she had been before her life became a living hell. She always seemed happy here, Tom remembers, and sighs a sigh of loss and pain.

  ~~~

  Tom drops off a kilo of coke at Johnny’s apartment in the Aliso Village projects in Downtown LA. He knocks on Johnny’s door with his motorcycle helmet still on but leaves the visor up so Johnny can tell it’s him through the peephole. He can see Johnny’s shadow on the other side of the door, and a second later the door opens and Johnny lets Tom inside.

  Tom has been riding motorcycles all his life, having been introduced to them as a youngster on Jack’s farm. Good times, he quickly recalls. In recent years, however, he has been going up to the track at Willow Springs and doing some racing. Of course, he also does quite a bit of street racing and is a regular at the Snake on Mulholland Highway.

  Tom has the reputation of being a little crazy up at the Snake and is known for pushing the limits as far as possible. Tom’s concern for his own life sort of died with Red, he realizes, and he is on a very self-destructive path. Will it stop before or when he dies? He doesn’t give it much thought really and doesn’t particularly give a shit either way.

  Once inside, Tom removes his helmet and Johnny makes a face that says ouch, but he doesn’t actually speak. His lips purse and then he says, “Oooohhh. What the fuck, T?! You been down at dat goddamn park again, haven’t you?”

  “What can I say?” Tom responds. He told Johnny about the park after showing up with scrapes and bruises on several occasions. Despite being a very good fighter, Tom still takes a reasonable amount of punches, kicks, and throws to the ground. Through the years, he has been stabbed twice and shot at more times than he likes to think about. Tom’s saving grace isn’t his incredible speed or agility. It is that most drug dealers, addicts, and drunks can’t shoot for shit! He has been very lucky on a number of occasions.

  “Gettin’ yourself all beat up ain’t gonna bring her back, T. It ain’t gonna bring her back.” Johnny never met Red, because Tom’s life in LA and Hollywood is so different that they almost never overlap. Of course, he knows all about Red because of Tom talking about her so much. “Stupid ass white boy,” Johnny says to himself, “fell in love with a hooker!”

  “I know, Johnny,” Tom says. “You got anything nice to say tonight?”

  “No!” Johnny sits down in his usual seat, and Tom takes his. “You gotta stop dis crazy shit!” The two are alone in the den of the apartment and share a few blasts of coke. It doesn’t matter that Tom is on his motorcycle, since he is high almost every second he’s awake anyway. High is his norm.

  Tom pulls the cocaine from inside his motorcycle jacket and hands it over to his friend. Johnny hands Tom an envelope containing cash. The two men discuss why Tom feels the need to go fight random people in the park. It isn’t only about Red, Tom explains, and tells his friend about his childhood and subsequent years in prison. And, of course, the fact that he is trapped in a life that he can never get out of. Till death do us part is the Peruvians’ motto. Tom can validate his self-destructive path with all sorts of crazy excuses.

  After a while, Tom stands and leaves. He rides his Kawasaki GPZ 1100 as fast as he can from Downtown LA back to West Hollywood. It makes him feel alive to challenge and cheat death!

  1994

  Tom and a couple of his track buddies are out on the town. A guy named Bruce and another rider named Jackie. Jackie has always seemed like a girl’s name to Tom, but he isn’t about to tell Jackie that. As he has found out through conversations at the track, Bruce is learning kung fu from Jackie, who happens to be a kung fu master. Bruce is the bigger of the three men, while Tom is the most muscular, and Jackie is shorter with a thin wiry frame covered in ropy muscle that belies his abilities.

  The three men have met at a small bar in the West LA area and are loitering around one of the pool tables, bullshitting and having a beer. Nothing about them seems threatening at all, but that doesn’t help them this evening.

  A big guy comes out of the men’s room at the opposite end of the pool table and walks right toward the three men. There’s plenty of room for the man to pass between them and the pool table, but he bumps into Jackie pretty hard as he walks by. And not only does he bump into Jackie, he lays into him a little bit as though trying to hurt the smaller man.

  “What the fuck?” the big guy shouts, as though Jackie has bumped into him. “What the fuck?” he repeats. “You trying to get some of this, man?” The big guy is drunk and being belligerent and obviously needs someone to bully in order to make himself feel better tonight.

  “No,” Jackie replies calmly. “No, man. I’m just standing here.”

  Ah, fuck, Tom thinks, here we go. Why do people have to do stupid shit? The bully is picking on someone he believes he can push around, but he couldn’t have made a worse choice of people in the bar to pick on. Tom is praying things don’t get out of hand.

  “Oh,” the drunk man shouts again, “you trying to be smart?” He is standing in front of Jackie and repeats, “Huh? You trying to be smart?”

  “No, sir,” Jackie says. Tom is impressed with Jackie’s calm. Tom would have knocked the other dude’s block off by now and kicked him in the balls a few times. But Jackie just stands there calmly with his hands at his sides. In fact, he almost seems to be smiling. “Not at all.”

  “Fuck you, man,” the bully continues. It’s apparent the two men are involved in two completely different conversations, despite the fact that they are speaking directly to each other.

  “Hey, man,” Bruce interjects, “why don’t you just head on back to your friends over there?” He nods toward the group the big guy has been hanging out with. “You don’t want to fuck with this guy anyway.”

  “What?!” the bully asks, seemingly insulted. “This punk?”

  “Yeah,” Bruce says, “him.”

  The drunken man obviously isn’t liking the insinuation that a man as sma
ll as Jackie can be a threat to him. He is twice the guy’s size, for god’s sake. He had been quarterback of his high school football team.

  He turns and says, “Fuck you!” to Bruce. “And fuck you!” he shouts at Jackie as his hand moves toward the smaller man. He is trying to shove Jackie.

  Tom watches as Jackie turns his body to the side, easily dodging the other man’s hand, and—faster than anything Tom has ever seen—raises his leg and kicks his would-be assailant on the side of the head where the outer part of the eye socket, the temporal bone, is located.

  “Aaahhhh!” the big bully screams in pain. His head is lowered and his hand is holding his face. He screams again and looks up.

  Jackie’s kick has shattered the man’s temporal bone, in addition to a few others, and his eye has fallen completely out of its socket! The man is holding it in his cupped hand and screaming in pain. It is one of the craziest things Tom has ever seen. The three men quickly head toward the back door of the bar and outside into the alley. They’re hoping to be on their bikes and out of there before the cops show up.

  But the police arrive in what seems like seconds. And, before you know it, the three men are being pointed out by a few bargoers who are leading the cops to the alley where they’re gearing up.

  “That’s them!” A blonde girl points, and the police move up on the three motorcyclists. Those who accompanied her from the bar are also pointing and muttering in agreement.

  The cops park their cars and get out to confront the trio. They walk up with a swagger that only men licensed to carry a 9mm have, and the lead officer asks, “Hey, guys. Were you in the bar tonight?” He is asking questions he already knows the answers to in order to gauge the three men’s level of cooperation.

  “Yeah,” Bruce says.

  “What happened in there tonight?” the cop asks. They must have seen the man holding his eye in his hand as they made their way to the alley. It was quite the spectacle, after all. “Looks like somebody busted a guy up pretty bad.”

  “We don’t know, officer,” Bruce goes on trying to bullshit the cop. “We were just having a beer and now we’re headed home. We all had only one beer,” he adds in explanation.

  “Yeah?” the cop asks. “What about the guy who was bleeding out front there? What can ya tell me about that?”

  “Nothing,” Bruce replies. Tom and Jackie are staying silent in hopes that Bruce will get all the attention. But no such luck.

  “How about you?” the cop asks Jackie. His partner is walking around checking out the guys’ bikes, as though he knows what he is looking at, and now comes around to join him.

  “I didn’t see anything,” Jackie responds. “I musta been in the bathroom.”

  “Oh, yeah?” the officer turns to Tom. “How about you? What happened in there tonight?”

  “Like my friends said, officer, we didn’t see anything.” The cop isn’t buying their story.

  “Then, why are a dozen witnesses telling us that one of you guys kicked that guy’s eye out?!” the cop says the question with authority. He gives the three men a good looking over. “Let’s see your driver’s licenses, registrations, and proof of insurance.” He stands there waiting for the men to comply, and they do. Fuck!

  ~~~

  The cops finish running the licenses, registrations, and insurance of the three motorcyclists. Other cops have been at the scene taking witness statements and getting as much info as possible for their reports.

  The general consensus is that the guy holding his eye starts a fight with the smaller guy who kicks his eye out. Self-defense. However, the guy is holding his eye in his hand, which is a clear case of mayhem. In the end, the cops handcuff Jackie and take him to jail for the assault. Tom and Bruce are allowed to leave but will undoubtedly be contacted later for further questioning.

  “Shit,” Tom says to Bruce after the commotion dies down and the cops are gone. “I’ve never seen anybody get their fucking eye kicked out!”

  “Me neither,” Bruce agrees. “That was freaky!”

  “Yeah,” Tom says. “Well, Jackie shouldn’t be in jail but a minute,” Tom explains to Bruce. “He’ll probably get released on bail, or his own recognizance, once he goes to arraignment.”

  “Yeah,” Bruce continues, “his wife will bail him out if the court doesn’t let him out.”

  “Cool.” Tom thinks about how great it would be to have a partner, a wife, someone who would be there for him when he needed someone. The two men get on their motorcycles and ride to Tom’s apartment. They take Tom’s car back over to the bar to retrieve Jackie’s motorcycle. It will be stored at Tom’s apartment building until Jackie is released from jail. At least the cops didn’t have it towed.

  ~~~

  Tom is on his motorcycle. Street racing at the Snake on Mulholland Highway. His bike is laid over in a tight turn. He catches a brief glimpse of the rider directly behind him as the two men race up the winding road.

  Tom stands the bike up and leans in the opposite direction as the road offers up another turn. He lays into the turn and his left knee touches the ground just enough to shred a small hole in the leather. He immediately tucks his leg in closer to the motorcycle in order to avoid trashing his knee, then stands the bike back up for the home stretch.

  Tom hears a scraping noise, followed by the sound of a motorcycle winding out its gears, and knows the rider behind him has laid his bike down in the last corner. Oh well, Tom thinks, that’s the risk you take up here.

  He pulls his bike to a stop at a small parking area at the top of the cliff overlooking the Snake and hops off. All the other riders who have been watching the race are at the edge of the cliff looking over for a glimpse of the downed rider. A couple of guys are running down the road to help the other man, and Tom runs down as well.

  The rider who has crashed is groaning a little but can move all his limbs. That’s a good sign! His leather and racing gear definitely protected him today. There are obvious signs of road rash on the man’s clothing, which would have been his skin if not for the protective layers he is wearing. Ouch!

  The other man’s motorcycle had slid about forty feet and slammed into the lower bank of a cliff. It has some scrapes, scratches, and mud, and the left rear turn signal is missing, but the bike seems to be in decent shape. One of the men who ran down to help gets the crashed bike up, starts it, and gingerly rides it up the road to the small parking lot. It’s still rideable, so the crashed motorcyclist will ride it home at the end of the day.

  Once the rider is on his feet, everyone walks back up the hill to where Tom is parked, and where the crashed bike is waiting for its owner. The rider will be fine. The group of men laugh about the crash now that they know he is all right. He has been shaken up quite a bit and had the shit scared out of him, but he is fine. Every one of them know that one wrong move up here can be their last!

  1995

  Tom, Bruce, and Jackie are on their motorcycles riding the Chumash Highway, the 154 in Santa Barbara County. Tom has been riding in the Santa Ynez Valley area for many years and always jumps at the opportunity to ride these beautiful mountain roads. His soul always feels at peace here. Even at 110 mph!

  Jackie had been released on his own recognizance the second day after his arrest for mayhem. The district attorney assigned to his case decided not to press charges against Jackie. After all, he was acting in self-defense; he is half the injured guy’s size and at least two dozen witnesses have corroborated facts favoring Jackie’s case. The DA probably sees that as three strikes against the city of Los Angeles and decides not to waste the city’s resources. Justice done.

  The three men pull into a biker hangout known as Cold Spring Tavern in the mountains above Santa Barbara and brush off some of the road dirt. Cold Spring water is the cleanest, coldest water anywhere around, and Tom always has several cups from the coolers that the proprietor keeps around. Cold Spring Tavern was originally an outpost for stagecoaches along the San Marcos Pass but has been adopted by bikers of al
l sorts from around the area. It’s a cool place to stop, get refreshed, and grab a bite to eat.

  “I can never get enough of that highway,” Tom says, referring to the 154. “I’m going to live up here someday,” he says with confidence.

  “Yeah,” Jackie agrees, “it’s incredible up here.”

  “I know,” Bruce also agrees. “It would be great to have a house up in these mountains.”

  The three men walk into the small log cabin bar to purchase their ticket to stand in line for the most amazing tri-tip sandwiches they’ve ever tasted. Little does Tom know that they are manifesting his future right then and there. It’s a good day.

  The three men are up at the bar and Tom sees a beautiful blonde lady bartender he has been playfully flirting with for a couple of years. There are two jars on top of the bar containing money. One is for tips and the other reads Candy. It is obviously meant for the purchase of candy being sold at the bar to help sponsor a local Little League team. Jackie and Bruce have their tickets and are waiting for Tom.

  Tom asks for a sandwich ticket and is paying, then leans forward slightly, nods toward the jar, and asks the beautiful bartender, “Are you Candy?” She immediately blushes, then looks over Tom’s shoulder.

  “She sure is,” comes a low, grumbly voice from behind Tom that sounds like the actor Sam Elliott. Tom turns around to see the bouncer of the bar, who is a biker and, as Tom finds out, the husband of Candy. The two men and Candy laugh, as do Bruce and Jackie. Now that was funny!

  Bikers, no matter what type of motorcycles they ride, are often thought of as outlaws, badasses, and drug dealers. But 99 percent are just like everyone else in the world. They have families, careers, own homes, and can afford to own really expensive motorcycles. Their hobby just happens to be getting out on the open road and feeling free with their machines.

  Of course, Tom just happens to be part of that 1 percent of bikers who actually are outlaws, badasses, and drug dealers.