by Aden Lowe
The whole street outside my window was lit up like a Christmas tree with headlights and tail lights. Bikers called back and forth, and an occasional rebel yell cut through the engine noise.
Throughout the night and the following day, hundreds of bikes passed the motel. I finally got curious enough to go looking. Several blocks down, barricades closed the street to traffic. Beyond, hundreds of custom bikes, and restored classics, complete with bikini-clad models hanging over them, wowed the crowds passing by on foot. On the opposite side of the street, vendors sold everything from exhaust systems and carburetors, to funnel cakes and beer.
I wondered around for a while, taking it all in. A flash of movement between two box trailers caught my eye, and I turned just in time to see two guys holding another one down. A fourth man delivered a brutal kick to the downed man's ribs. For all I knew, the man on the ground was a pedophile, or worse, but I hated to see a man get kicked while he was down.
I ducked between the trailers, breathing hard, as if I'd been running. "Hey, you caught the motherfucker."
The guy doing all the kicking glared at me. "Who the fuck are you?"
I pointed to the man on the ground. "I'm the bastard that tracked his sneaky ass all over the state. Now I'm going to kill him." I lunged forward.
"Whoa! What makes you think I'll give him up?" The man made a menacing move toward me, while the other two continued holding the victim down. The front of his leather cut had a Sergeant At Arms patch over the name Timber. At least one of his buddies wore a Saxons MC Georgia patch on his back.
I didn't know the Saxons from Adam, but that didn't stop me. Hell, for that matter, I knew next to nothing about MCs, beyond watching a couple movies here and there. "Because if you don't, I'll fucking kill you to get to him. Motherfucker knocked my baby sister up. I got a whole lot of ways to make shit hurt."
The guy called Timber fucking laughed. "Well, son, maybe you should'a kept a better eye on that sister." He looked down at the man on the ground. "She hot? Maybe we'll pay her a visit next." The buddies laughed.
The man on the ground tipped his head back to see me, and I could have sworn he raised an eyebrow. "Fucking sizzles, man. You gotta tap that. You'll think you been fucking cows all your life."
The guy with his back to me leaned back, relaxing his hold. "For real, man?"
"You watch it, fucker, that's my little sister you're talking about." I took a half step forward.
"For fucking real. Pussy tighter than any other bitch's ass." The guy gave a low whistle. "And the tits, my fucking god, magnificent."
The man leaning on his other shoulder eased back, too. The man on the ground exploded with a flurry of kicks and punches, quickly disabling the pair who'd been holding him.
The other one, Timber, pulled a .45 from an inside pocket, and leveled it at the guy. Maybe I should have waited, but I've never been long on patience. My feet left the pavement as I reached for my belt and the thin bladed knife I kept there. By the time I landed beside Timber, the edge pressed against his carotid.
"Move, motherfucker, and you're dead. I told you, I'll kill to get him."
Timber swallowed hard and glared at me. "You just made a big fucking mistake."
"Aw, hell, now you tell me. While I've got a blade ready to spill your blood all over this street."
"The Saxons will get you." His face reddened with anger. "They will hunt your ass down and every one of them will have that sister of yours. Don't matter if you kill me."
I let the blade sink just a little, enough for a bead of blood to show and the nick to sting like crazy. "Funny thing about that. I don't have a sister. And I don't exist, either." I glanced at the guy I'd just rescued.
He shook his head a little. "Too many civilians around."
"A'ight, then." I disarmed Timber while my new friend checked the others for weapons. "Be seein' you, Timber. You take it easy, man." I shoved him back and sheathed my knife, stepping back out from between the trailers.
"This way." The man I rescued double-timed it through the crowd, and I stayed on his heels. He detoured past a food booth with a handy-dandy trash can right beside it, and paused long enough to drop off the confiscated weapons. It seemed like a good idea, so I followed suit. Two blocks later, he slowed to a walk.
"Thanks, man, I owe you one. I'm Crank, Hell Raiders." He headed down a side street, filled with more vendors, though not as high-end as those on the main drag. "Haven't see you around."
"Not from around here." I debated giving him my name, and decided to hold off. "Did I step in on the right side back there?" No time like the present to get that out of the way.
"Well, from my point of view, hell yeah." Crank laughed a little. "Those guys were hassling a chick, and I stopped them. Guess I got their attention pretty effectively."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Hey, if you're not doing anything, you should drop by the Hell Raiders camp. We got a prime spot, plenty of beer, plenty of pussy. What more could a man want?" He pointed out the road where all the clubs had set up separate camps. "Meantime, let me buy you a beer."
"Definitely won't refuse that." We headed for the nearest beer vendor, took our plastic cups of bad warm beer, and found a family of four leaving a nearby table.
"What's this club shit all about, man? Some of the people I've seen here look like office workers, or some shit, but they're wearing badass cuts and patches. Then others are like your buddies back there, Hells Angels rejects." The whole damn thing made almost no sense to me. If you're a biker gang, okay then, but why would average Joes pretend to be criminals and gangsters?
Crank shrugged. "Depends what you want it to be, mostly. That damn TV show made MCs popular. Now everybody wants to be a little outlaw. For every legit outlaw club out there, seems like there's at least ten weekenders." He downed half his beer.
"And your Hell Raiders?"
"Straight-up. Let's just say, some of our business interests might not appeal to the soccer mom crowd. However, there's another level, like the Saxons. Bunch of dirty motherfuckers. They want a woman, they take her. They want your house, they take it. If you don't like that, they fuck you up, or bury you. They dip pretty heavily into their product, and it shows in their social skills." The rest of his beer went down.
I still didn't get it. "So what's the appeal?"
"Lots of things. Freedom. Loyalty. Being able to disappear. And more."
"Disappear?" That part seriously caught my attention.
Crank grinned. "We all got a past, man, but in the MC, nobody asks about it unless it effects the club. You're nothing more or less than the man you are at the moment."
"That sounds good to me. I sure as fuck don't want to relive my past." We talked a few minutes longer, about nothing in particular, until one of Crank's MC brothers spotted him.
The way the man carried himself as he approached the table made me wary as fuck. Unless I missed my guess, that was one dangerous motherfucker. "Yo, Crank, where you been?" The President patch rode proudly on the front of his cut.
"You know how it is, man. Nothin' much. Pissed off a couple Saxons, got my ass handed to me. Just a normal day."
The guy pulled out a chair and joined us. "Saxons, huh?" He turned to me suddenly and stuck out a hand. "I'm Kellen, by the way."
I accepted the handclasp, but once more, didn't offer my name.
"Dude saved my skin, Kellen. Ol' Timber and a couple of his boys were messing with a girl, maybe sixteen, had her scared to death. I stepped in, and they got the drop on me. I was just about lights out when he came along."
Kellen gave me a closer look. "Yeah? How'd you get Timber off him?"
I shrugged. "Told them I was going to kill him for knocking up my baby sister. Crank played along and got them all distracted. He took out the two holding him down, I got Timber."
"A baby sister, huh?" Kellen laughed. "That's a new one on me. I'll have to remember that." He stopped to light a cigarette. "You ought to come out to the camp in a while.
We owe you one for saving Crank's sorry ass."
"I might head out that way later. Ain't got anything better going on."
Kellen stood, and from the look he gave me, I was pretty damn sure he saw every secret I ever had. "Make sure you do. The boys'll be glad for the chance to bust Crank's chops. Motherfucker is in trouble every time I turn around." He slapped Crank's shoulder. "Later, man. Gonna go put some pussy on lay away."
Crank and I parted ways shortly after that, and I wondered around some more. Being around all those motorcycles sort of gave me the itch to have one myself. I had the money, and nothing but time, so why not? My path took on more purpose as I headed for the section where bikes for sale were on display.
The custom machines were wicked, but I preferred to avoid the attention they would bring. Nondescript worked a hell of a lot better for me, so I headed for the lower end sellers. Near the end of the row, a guy had several older bikes that looked like trash.
But one in the back caught my eye. Someone had started to restore it, and apparently ran out of money, time, or interest. The black tank was scraped up, dirty as fuck, but the handle bars and muffler gleamed with new chrome.
I nodded to the guy. "Tell me about that bike." A half hour later, I owned an '85 Harley Low Rider. It ran, but it wasn't pretty. I arranged to pick it up later, after the crowd thinned out, and went on my way. I would have to haul the damn thing around on the back of my truck until I found a place to pause long enough to get it running right. The more I thought about it, the better the MC life sounded to me.
3
Fabio(Caleb)
Once I took delivery of my new bike, and got it secured on the back of my pickup, I decided I might as well take Crank up on his offer. A few beers and being around other people might not be a bad thing, since I'd strictly avoided anything resembling social interaction since I bolted from that office in Pennsylvania. Besides, a bike rally was about the last place anyone would expect to find me.
While the office clerk was busy with new arrivals, I headed out, Dog at my heels. I preferred not to risk being caught with a massive, stinking dog in the motel room. Things like that usually meant a big fee, on top of getting tossed out.
Even though many of the vendors had closed up shop for the evening, plenty of people still moved in the streets. The families out to see how the rough side lived had disappeared with the sun, and the carnival atmosphere evaporated with them.
Cops crawled the streets, clearly on the lookout for anyone not following the rules. Beer flowed heavily, and unless I missed my guess, plenty of other substances went along with it. The rowdy, but mostly good-natured, crowd seemed content to cool their sunburns in the evening air. No doubt, that could change in a heartbeat, and it didn't take a genius to figure out nearly every person there carried at least one weapon.
I meandered along the edges of the crowd, keeping to the main drag. Dog clearly wasn't comfortable with so many people, staying pressed close to my legs and watching everything carefully. People gave us wide berth when they noticed his size and watchful manner, which suited me just fine. The thicker knots of people held no appeal for me, either.
Several Hell Raiders patches caught my eye as we turned and headed down toward the camps. I fell in behind them and followed at a distance, observing carefully. Most of the other bikers I passed seemed drunk as hell and just having a good time. A few looked like they would welcome trouble, and some actively sought it, deliberately bumping into others, spilling drinks, and leering at women.
Crank's buddies were a little quieter, and a bit more watchful, like they expected trouble, and wouldn't run from it, but wouldn't make it, either. That suited me fine, since I had a similar philosophy. Only fools made an effort to cause drama, unless a purpose lay behind it.
The closer I came to the camps, the thinner the crowd became. The party had only begun for most of the bikers, I assumed. Several lone women, obviously whores, called to passing bikers, looking for their next date. I figured they would get all the business they could handle later, when the party moved back toward where the clubs bedded down.
I looked around with interest as I followed the Hell Raiders into the campground. It looked to me like the organizers has used their brains. Each club had an area marked off with white tape, similar to the yellow crime scene tape. Lanes, a dozen or so feet wide, separated the camps from one another and provided easy access. Most of the areas were practically empty, probably with only a small guard left behind while everyone else enjoyed the big party.
The Hell Raiders either had a prime spot, or a shit spot, depending how you looked at it. Their section lay to one side of the main campground, with only one neighbor, instead of being surrounded by other clubs. Personally, it looked like the best spot to have, since having potential enemies on all four sides would make me itch.
A flag with their patch—triple skulls on a winged gear over a field of flames—hung suspended over the entrance, and a bored as fuck looking kid loafed nearby. "Yo, man, you lost?"
"Crank said look him up if I was in the neighborhood. He around?"
The kid gave me an appraising look. "You the one that saved his bacon from the Saxons earlier?"
I shrugged a little, not comfortable with the kid's tone. "Guess you could put it that way." Dog leaned hard into my leg, not seeming too happy about it either. "Just tell him I stopped in." I turned, careful to keep my hands away from my sides. No sense giving anyone a reason to shoot me in the back.
Before I made it a hundred yards back the way I'd come, I ran into Crank and two others. "You owe me a beer, Stella. Tol' you the man would show up." The others laughed. "Come on, man, let's get you that beer I owe you."
"I was heading back, figured I'd missed you."
Twenty minutes later, I sat in a collapsible chair with a cold beer in my hand and Dog snoring on my feet. Several Hell Raiders wondered in and out of camp, but as the evening wore on, more came and fewer left.
An older guy Crank introduced as Badger sat on the ground nearby with a disassembled .45 on a cloth before him. "I should'a knew better than take Beretta's fucking word. This damn thing is a piece of shit." Several others ignored the grumbling, so I did, too.
Loud music started up in another area. Several giggling women passed by, accompanied by wolf whistles and cat calls from everywhere.
Kellen, the President, dropped into a chair nearby. "Heads up, boys. Civilian bitches. We mind our own business when that particular shit hits the fan."
I must have looked confused, because Crank explained. "They're not part of club life, so they don't know what to expect. Sometimes they don't like what they find."
Badger snorted. "They ain't got no business around here. Bitches beg to pull a train, then wake up hungover and holler rape, ruins shit for all of us."
"Why are they here, then?"
The one called Stella reached for Badger's reassembled .45. "They watch a TV show, read a book or two, and decide they want a bad boy biker. By the time they figure out the real deal is not so much like the pretend ones, it's too late."
"Yeah, they think they want a little walk on the wild side, until they see wild." Crank grinned. "Better to stick with the tried and true. Plenty sugar-pies and whores to go around, and they don't make demands, or expect anything."
I filed that info away for later. "Sugar-pies?"
Crank shrugged. "Lots of different names for 'em. The girls that hang around the clubs to party with the Brothers. How it works depends on the club."
I laughed a little. "Good to know." Not that it mattered. I'd tried a couple of times since I came back, but they weren't Justine, and I couldn't do shit. She fucking doomed me to a life of celibacy with that little letter of hers.
Stella fired up a joint and passed to Badger, but Crank waved it off, and I did, too. Not many substances worked too well with my frame of mind. I either ended up a blubbering mess, or homicidal, so I'd learned not to take the risk.
The conversation moved on to other to
pics, and gradually came around to the bike sitting tied down on the back of my truck. "Don't even know why the hell I bought the thing. I had a dirt bike when I was a kid, but these days, I don't have a place to keep it, or work on it. Probably end up getting rid of it in the next town."
Kellen raised his beer. "You could always just head up our way. Plenty of room for it to sit in the barn until you're ready to do something with it."
"Might take you up on that. Sounds like a good solution."
Someone mentioned cars, and the others proceeded to bust Stella's balls for his habit of buying cars just one bolt away from the scrapyard, but I couldn't get past a man being called Stella.
Finally, my curiosity got the better of me. "So how does a guy go about getting a name like Stella? Your old man just a mean son-of-a-bitch, like that Boy Named Sue song?"
Badger laughed and Stella took a half-hearted swipe at his head. "Nah, nothing that interesting. Fucking Badger just can't pronounce my last name, so he shortened it. Bastard refused to let up until it stuck."
I couldn't help but laugh.
"You just wait, motherfucker. You hang around this bunch long enough, you'll get a name, too." Stella grumped and took another drag from his joint. "Take all that hair you got, for example. You tryin' to be that Fabio dude they put on all them mommy-porn books back in the day?"
I cringed a little. I hadn't cut my hair since I left Pennsylvania, trying to be less recognizable. And maybe I wanted to connect with my roots just a little, too. So my hair swung nearly to my shoulders. "Fuck, no."
Crank cracked up. "Yeah, I think that's it. Yo, Fabio!" He fist-bumped Kellen, who grinned like a bastard.
"Guess you have to hang around with us a little. Can't just get a name and bounce. That'd be fucking rude." Badger traded back slaps with Stella.
"First fucking thing I do tomorrow is get a damn haircut."
"Won't matter, Fabio, you're stuck with it now." A member I hadn't met yet came up to join the group. "I'm Hack, by the way. VP."
