I launched into biker mode, telling the group how I had a bunch of boys coming into town for the weekend and how they were all “in real need.” I played it tough, made suggestive comments to the girls and looked hard at their stoned boyfriends, who made no effort to confront me or otherwise get me to back off.
“Hey, this looks like a great place to party. I look forward to coming back, boys.”
My comments drew no response, but it was clear from the looks I was getting that they didn’t want me back, under any circumstances. Maybe they objected to me wearing a black Harley-Davidson baseball cap or drinking their beer. I headed for the door, tossing an arm around Mason’s shoulder as we left.
The three of us headed back to the Holmdel Police headquarters to process Mason, place the confiscated drugs in the evidence vault and figure out our next steps in taking down the supplier. Mason’s bail was low, so he was soon released from custody—just as we’d promised.
New Jersey’s undercovers rarely worked on Saturdays or Sundays, and Mullins had some personal business that he needed to attend to; I didn’t ask what it was, and didn’t want to know. We huddled with our supervisor, McCabe, and agreed that I would go back and hit the house with Armand “Armie” Ertle.
“Armie, we are going to give a gift to our long-suffering taxpayers,” I said. “There’s no need for drug-buy money this time. It’s time for the Norsemen Motorcycle Club to collect.”
The next night, a Saturday, Armie and I rolled on the house in Marlboro. Just like before, we were dressed like bikers and using our UC van. But there was no Mason this time.
I knocked on the door and then let myself in, as if I was family, with Armie right behind. I knew Armie was loaded for bear and hoping for some action. But I was hoping that this was going to be a simple takedown, with no need for violence—more of a “scoop and run” operation.
About a half dozen people were hanging out in the living room, with drugs sitting in plain sight on the coffee table, just like I’d seen the previous evening. I spotted the dealer, flashed a Kansas City bankroll—a $100 bill wrapped around a wad of singles—and asked him to bring out a load of coke.
The dealer disappeared into another room and returned with a sizeable number of individually wrapped glassine envelopes of cocaine. He dumped them on the kitchen table and waited.
“Fuck it, give me all you have. I’ll take it off your hands,” I said, holding my bankroll at eye level.
The dealer glanced at one of his party guests.
“This isn’t cool, man,” the guy said.
The dealer hesitated.
“I fucking told you I would pay for it,” I said. “Now let’s get this fucking done before there’s a problem. My friend is getting tired. He can be an asshole when he’s tired.”
The target turned and left the room again, returning a minute later with what appeared to be the rest of the stash of coke.
“Okay, let’s load this up,” I said to Armie.
Both of us promptly filled our pockets with coke. Armie said nothing. But the wide grin on his face said it all: he was psyched, and no one was going to get in our way.
The supplier took a couple of steps toward us and asked for payment.
“I ain’t paying you shit, motherfucker. You take one more fucking step toward me—any of you fucks—and I’ll fuck you all up and burn this shithole down. With you motherfuckers in it.”
“Let’s fuck them up anyway,” my partner shouted.
No one moved. The supplier and his buddies were frozen in fear. Armie and I weren’t even armed but were relying purely on our acting skills. It was a performance worthy of Bruce Willis, if only we could keep it going for another minute or two and make it out alive.
The supplier and his buddies did what they thought was the prudent thing: they allowed us to leave, carrying their coke in our pockets. I tucked my cash back into my pocket alongside the coke and followed Armie outside.
We walked with a slow but deliberate pace toward our van, which was parked on the street. Each of us took a glance or two back to make sure that no one was following us or coming out the front door with a shotgun. The supplier and the others stayed inside, and we left without incident.
Armie and I gave each other a high-five when we were safely away from the house and headed back to BNTF headquarters to log in the drugs. The following day, uniformed officers returned to the house to arrest the supplier on felony drug sale charges. He was subsequently convicted.
Later that night, Armie and I treated ourselves to steak and good Scotch. It wasn’t until the first burn of Scotch hit us that we realized what a crazy and dangerous stunt we’d pulled. We’d known nothing about the supplier and the other men in the house before we walked through the front door. Like the Bible says, “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
As I sat there, twirling the ice in my Scotch, I thought back to my days in the Pagans Motorcycle Club, some nine years earlier. If I was fearless tonight and able to pull off my undercover persona as a member of the Norsemen Motorcycle Club, it was because I’d learned how to act like—and be—a tough guy while riding with the Pagans. I wasn’t acting the part so much as simply reverting back to deeply ingrained behavior that I’d learned at an earlier age.
I could tell, looking at Armie as he hammered back one Scotch after another, that he was relieved to have survived the drug buy. Both of us were fearful that night. But there was a difference between us in the way we handled it.
My time in the Pagans, and my years in the army, had hardened me. I knew fear. But now I recognized the emotion and controlled it. My response in dangerous situations was measured. Fear heightened my senses and sped up my reaction times. I knew exactly what I’d do if someone pulled a buck knife or a gun on me, because I’d confronted those situations in the past. And if someone pushed me far enough, I could kill.
CHAPTER FIVE
GROWING UP CHUCK
Sometimes I wonder what my dad, Herbert “Bud” Bradshaw, expected me to be when I grew up. Pro sports is a pretty good bet—at least judging from what he enjoyed watching on TV at home in Middletown, New Jersey. I’m pretty sure that he was royally pissed with me when I was riding with the Pagans. And I guess he was pleased to see me turn things around and become a cop. But he never had all that much to say to me one way or the other. My brother Mike and I were expected to find our own way forward, for better or worse. Growing up, I thought I had an idyllic childhood in Middle America. But maybe, just maybe, my upbringing had some flaws that I didn’t recognize at the time.
My dad, who was born in nearby Fair Haven, had wanted to name me after John Wayne—which explains where my first name comes from. But my mother wanted to name me after my father’s father, Charles Bradshaw. At least on paper, my dad won the battle over what my name was going to be. But my mom, Pearl, won out at home—which was perhaps more important. Growing up, I was known as Chuck.
Bud Bradshaw ran a milk delivery business until the first 24-hour convenience stores put a stranglehold on competitive costs and he was forced to shut it down. He later ran for, and was elected, tax collector for the Town of Middletown. He would go on to become the town administrator—quite an accomplishment for a quiet guy who kept to himself and never attended college. Pearl stayed at home, taking care of me and Mike, who is a year and a half older than I am. Mom—who was also born nearby, in Rumson—spent much of her time trying to keep Mike and me from killing each other during the fights that broke out with some regularity.
My brother, Mike, left, and me with the family dog, Toughy, around 1962.
My dad’s heritage was English and Irish, two groups that have been fighting each other for centuries. My mother’s heritage was German and Russian—the two of which have also been fighting each other for centuries.
The family home was in a fairly isolated part of town that was dotted with small farms back in
the 1950s. It wasn’t uncommon to find a horseshoe while digging to plant a shrub or replace one of the many posts that held up the split rail fence out front. Our three-bedroom home was adjacent to the street; in the back was the small warehouse and cold storage that my dad needed for the milk business.
We had few neighbors, and aside from Little League baseball and Pop Warner football, I was mostly a loner as a kid. My brother, more socially adept, made friends with the few kids our age in the area. Somehow, I was frozen out of opportunities to hang out with any of Mike’s friends. To this day, I don’t know what he told our peers about me, perhaps that I was adopted from a gang of feral dwarves or that I was growing a reptilian tail. But as the Cold War continued between the United States and Russia, Mike and I were engaged in our very own cold war.
During the summer, we took turns working on the truck with my dad as he delivered fresh bottled milk to homes around Middletown—carrying four quarts at a time in one of those open wire baskets that haven’t been made in decades—and leaving the ice-cold bottles in small insulated metal containers outside his customers’ front doors. My dad’s milk delivery truck was small, with room only for the driver and one passenger. It was either Mike or me, not both. It wasn’t as if either one of us was going to fight for the opportunity to ride along with Dad on his early morning runs. The Marxist principal of no pay for work was strictly enforced.
Mike and I were both left alone to deal with breakfast on our respective workdays. My mother would be damned if she was getting up that early—around 5 a.m.—to see to it that we got a nourishing breakfast. Indeed, given the number of fights that she broke up between the two of us, it’s amazing that she even got out of bed sober and stayed that way during the day. Valium hadn’t been invented yet, and the notion of going to a therapist for counseling to deal with your day-to-day challenges was unheard of.
Evenings were often spent with the family, sitting in the living room, watching TV. During the summer, watching Yankee games was our routine. My father had first dibs on what was watched on the black-and-white TV in the living room, and that meant every televised New York Yankees game in its entirety. After 1964, the Yankees sucked but Bud was undeterred. He just ramped up the swearing at the tube. My father wanted second baseman Horace Clarke tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail. Those were among his more gentle thoughts about that study in baseball mediocrity.
My mom was unfazed by all the Yankee games. She quietly and serenely devoured books like a Benedictine monk devoured scripture. She could converse on any number of subjects, at any depth. She was considered wise. I suppose that was the one thing I coveted in my mother. Without ever saying anything to me, and strictly leading by example, she got me hooked on books. It was during my youth that my intense thirst for the written word was born.
My brother, Mike; Mom; Dad; and me at my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.
In those innocent days, my mom would take me to Woolworth’s, the local five-and-dime store, where I would buy Classics Illustrated Comics. They weren’t comic books per se but more graphic novels that were suitable for young readers. I read the Classics Comic version of Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans until it crumbled away in my hands. As soon as the Middletown school librarian approved, I read the unabridged version. I still remember reading it while the sporting world was rendered breathless by Cassius Clay knocking out Sonny Liston in Maine. It was a damn tough read. But in my mind’s eye I was in a war canoe paddling at the foot of Glens Falls, and there was nothing better for me than being transported to a faraway place like that.
As a kid, I often spent time playing solitary games or going for walks with my dog, Snoopy, a brown-and-white beagle. I doubt if anyone from the neighborhood even owned a leash for their dog, much less used it. I learned how to enjoy quiet time alone; I was the one person that I trusted the most.
One day, I took Snoopy on a walk through the fields and woods near my house. As I emerged from the woods, I crossed paths with John Mangione, who was a couple of years older than I was and already an accomplished house burglar at the age of 13. He was also the first child I ever heard say to his mother (or any adult for that matter), “Go fuck yourself.” Papillon’s life in the notorious French penal colony on Devil’s Island would have been akin to living in paradise compared to what I’d experience if I ever said anything of the sort to my mother.
On that particular day, Mangione was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun when he confronted me. I knew that the shotgun had been a gift from his father, and it struck me as odd that his dad would have given him any kind of firearm, much less a shotgun. The teen jacked a shell into the chamber and pointed the barrel at my chest, with his finger on the trigger. I innocently told him he should never point a loaded gun at anyone.
Mangione raised the gun so that he could sight along its long barrel.
When I looked like I was going to shit in my pants, the kid lowered the weapon and laughingly meandered into the woods, much to the chagrin of the animals who lived there.
With the exception of my early run-in with my shotgun-carrying neighbor, there is little doubt that growing up in the ’60s was both idyllic and innocent. We practiced nuclear air raid drills in elementary school, crawling under desks or sitting next to a cement block wall in a hallway with our hands over our ears—as if that could have done anything to save our lives.
Hell, this was the time of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), when both the U.S. and the Soviets had aircraft with nuclear payloads airborne 24/7, 365. There was little to no dissent about it, either; the threat of a nuclear World War III was very much on the minds of the Americans living in the 1960s. We believed that America was the land of the free and the home of the brave; it was a nation that was all about mom and apple pie and, of course, baseball. The fact that the heathen communists in Russia didn’t even play baseball was reason enough to exterminate them, as far as I was concerned.
But the new medium of black-and-white television gave us a much more frightening scenario to scare us into wanting all things Soviet to be no more. There beyond the fuzzy reception and horizontal lines on our heavy wood-wrapped consoles, we observed the face of the enemy. Nikita Khrushchev, fat, bald and intimidating, banged his shoe on the wooden podium of the United Nations, shouting at America, “We will bury you.”
We took his words to heart. I knew deep down that when I was of age, I would be training to kill Russians. Those of us growing up in the era of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show spent our waking hours with a radioactive nuclear background music “blowing in the wind.”
One day in November 1963, I remember feigning illness to stay home from school. I must have put on a first-rate act, because second-rate performances held unpleasant disciplinary consequences. While my father was napping that afternoon, the front door burst open and our neighbor Mr. Stobo came running in to say the president had been shot. The world stopped for a few days and Walter Cronkite took over the airwaves. Then Jack Ruby amazingly sauntered in and killed Lee Harvey Oswald. Even at my tender age, it was very apparent something had gone terribly wrong, and that life in the U.S. was going to be different for everyone.
As my brother and I got a bit older, we found new ways to amuse ourselves—often at the expense of those around us, including my dad. Once, Mike and I found a way to remove the device that controlled the flow of gas in the oversized globe-shaped cigarette lighter that our father used. Removing the “governor” on the lighter ensured that the flame would be far larger than ever needed. When we were done with our modifications, we placed the lighter near my father’s easy chair and waited out of sight to see what would happen next.
Dad reached for the lighter and used it to light up one of the many Winstons he needed to calm his nerves from sharing his home with Mike and me. The lighter sent out a truly prodigious flame, nearly igniting my father’s hair. My brother and I fell to the floor, laughing uncontrollably. Our pleasure was short-live
d; we were both confined to our rooms for a week.
Much of how we spent our time was left to our active and untamed imaginations. Once, we created our own day of the living dead, using nothing more than ketchup. Mike generously applied it to my face and limbs and then helped position me on the side of the road. It didn’t take long for a middle-aged couple to pull over and check on what looked like a child lying in a bloody heap. As they bent down over me, I jumped up, screaming maniacally, my “bloody” limbs flailing. Leaving the Good Samaritans frozen in shock, I ran into the woods, laughing so hard that I choked.
Our “good fun” led to some unanticipated and near-tragic consequences for our neighbors the Kluins. Somehow, in the intellectually barren dark days prior to video games and the internet, Mike and I got instructions to build a UFO. Using clothes hangers to construct the base, plastic dry cleaner’s bags for the hot air balloon sections, lighter fluid and some other odds and ends, we created our contraption. We launched it one Saturday night in the middle of summer and were shocked to see that it was actually capable of flight—uncontrolled flight, that is.
“Shit, Mike, this thing is going to burn the Kluins’ house down,” I shouted as our UFO crashed onto the roof. The gasoline-soaked cotton rags used to “power” the craft’s flight continued to burn majestically. We had a choice: run and warn the Kluins that we’d just set the roof of their house on fire, or stand where we were and contemplate the potential risk we were in. We stood there and watched, wondering what the food would be like in reform school.
Someone was watching over us that evening, as a gust of wind suddenly blew the burning remains of our craft onto a vacant lot next door. Mike and I stayed mum in the following weeks as the Kluins and our parents speculated about what might have caused that large and unsettling scorch mark on those roof shingles.
Jersey Tough Page 6
