Jersey Tough

by Wayne Bradshaw

  “Zorro,” a smaller and slightly darker-complexioned version of Father Christmas, showed up sometime later. He immediately referred to Steve and me as Pagans—even though we’d never even met a Pagan—and never let up with shitty comments about it. Whiskey thought he was awesome. I wanted to punch him in the throat.

  The evening ended without incident, and Whiskey Joe assured Steve and me that it was okay for us to hang around with the other guys in the club. He told us to catch up with him the following Friday at the same place. Because of the constant turf warfare between the Breed and the Pagans, members of both clubs were very careful about where and when they got together.

  That following Friday, Whiskey told us that we’d be going on a long ride upstate to Troy, New York, which was frigidly cold. I had the misfortune of drawing Crimes as my cage partner for the trip. He did little more than grunt at any comment or attempt at conversation, and I spent hours asking myself what I was doing with a member of the Breed. Still, some strange force seemed to be pulling me deeper into the outlaw lifestyle. It was as if I needed to work some kind of risky high-wire act.

  Our first stop in Troy was a motorcycle show, where we hooked up with some of our new buddies, including Whiskey, Grip and Cisco. Though no one was wearing colors or otherwise identifying themselves, it seemed clear that there were a bunch of other members of the Breed at the event. It was easy to identify who the heavies were—and it was also obvious that there was a great deal of sizing up and glaring taking place between certain subgroups. The tension was thick. Still, the cops seemed not at all intimidated. We were only at the show briefly before being commanded to head to a local nightclub by one of the Breed’s leaders—a soft-spoken, muscular guy who stood six foot 10.

  The nightclub was upscale and vast, with several bars, loud live music, a serious crowd, including lots of well-dressed women, and plenty of dancing. It also had some king-sized bouncers working at the entrance who said nothing and allowed all the Breed members to go inside without objection. The Breed leader, “the Giant,” had donned his colors, as had all the other members. Steve and I were the only hangers-on there.

  The Giant towered next to me at the bar. I found him to be an interesting drinking companion. There was probably not enough whiskey in Texas to get him drunk, but he gave it his all anyway. The cost for all this booze didn’t seem to be an issue for the Breed leader or any of the other guys. Somehow the bartenders got very forgetful about collecting what we owed.

  None of the guys from the Breed were willing to do any dancing—despite the sexy chicks on the dance floor. Bikers don’t dance. Pussies dance, jerk-offs dance, but not real bikers.

  After more than a few drinks, the Giant explained that he had to start his “dime” soon—a 10-year jail sentence—and so drinking good booze, and lots of it, was a good way to spend some of the free time he had left. As he drank his whiskey, the Giant explained that the sentence stemmed from a guilty verdict in a rape case, and that doing the dime was actually not so bad an outcome. It was all part of doing business, and if you couldn’t handle it, you shouldn’t play at that level.

  While I was busy chatting with the Giant, I couldn’t help but notice Crimes playing a bizarre game: calling himself “the Kissing Bandit,” he kissed and groped only those women at the bar who had dates with them—with impunity. He had strategically placed himself near the Giant and another member of the Breed, “Ape.” Weighing well in excess of 350 pounds, Ape was perhaps the most revolting person that I’ve ever seen—grossly fat, with long, unkempt hair and beard and clothing to match. He was a mammoth stinking asshole. But with the Giant and Ape nearby, none of the men at the bar dared to protect their dates from Crimes. Under Ape’s amused countenance, a lot of women fell victim to the kissing bandit, their dates sheepishly looking away.

  Hoping to curb some of Crimes’s moves, I asked the Giant what he thought about his buddy’s antics. The Giant just sadly shook his head and said, “It ain’t my way of doing business, but Crimes has had my back more than once. I would kill a motherfucker if they put their hands on my old lady like he’s doing. But as you can see, they don’t seem too concerned, now, do they?”

  In the wee hours of the morning, the Giant decided he was done and headed out. Crimes decided that the rest of us should head over to Ape’s house to continue the evening’s festivities. On the way there, Crimes got so excited about his kissing bandit exploits that he rolled the car window down and began firing his pistol wildly. It didn’t make a damned bit of difference to him where the bullets landed, so long as he didn’t hit anyone from the Breed. With his drunken demeanor, it was highly unlikely that he was actually going to hit anyone or anything.

  Ape’s sprawling old house was spacious enough for about 14 of us in all, including 10 Breed members, a couple of women the guys had picked up at the bar, and Steve and me. Crank (crystalized methamphetamine) and beer were plentiful, and the conversation was mostly about the savage beatings that Breed members, including Ape, claimed to have laid on Pagans. Thankfully, Zorro wasn’t there, so Steve and I didn’t have to defend ourselves against claims of being undercover Pagans.

  It wasn’t long before Ape brought out a film projector and showed the most disgusting bestiality films that I’ve ever seen. He howled with laughter, even seeing to it that the women there watched as well. His film “collection” seemed to be his pride and joy.

  If there was a way to do it, I would have volunteered for electroshock treatments to rid my mind of the images I saw at Ape’s place.

  After returning from the frozen north, Steve and I continued to spend occasional evenings with Whiskey Joe, whom we both truly liked, and some of the others, most notably Grip and Cisco. The winter was the time for Northeastern bikers to dismantle, repaint and repair their choppers.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ENTERING THE LITTLE BIGHORN

  Most guys with Harleys tend to put them away for the winter under a cover in their garage. For Steve and me, things were different. Our Harleys were the most valuable and important possessions we owned—and we kept them in the living room of our bungalow year-round. That was where we cleaned them and did basic maintenance. Motorcycle parts were strewn all over the living room floor. It wasn’t like we were inviting the guys over to have a Super Bowl party anyway.

  That winter, Steve needed to have some serious work done on the front end of his dark-blue Shovelhead Harley, something that the two of us couldn’t pull off in our living room. Steve told Cisco that he’d put a longer front fork on the bike and that he needed someone to adjust the rake on the front end to keep the bike properly balanced, and Cisco agreed to take care of it.

  What we hadn’t expected was Cisco’s decision to break into our place to retrieve the part for repair. He smashed a window by the front door, reached in and opened the door. From what we could tell, he left only with the bike’s front end, but it was kind of hard to tell if anything else was missing. Steve and I were pissed, and we knew that Cisco was making a statement—that he was dominant, the alpha dog.

  Neither of us was intimidated by this guy, and we wanted to make sure he got that message, no matter whether we were hang-arounds or not. I am sure that Cisco was rarely challenged by the people who crossed his path. He was tall, muscular, never smiled and looked like a hard-core outlaw. But Steve and I had seen this act before, and we weren’t going to stand still for someone breaking into our place.

  Two days later, Steve and I were sitting in my cage with Cisco and Whiskey Joe, and Steve decided the time was right to bring up the break-in.

  “This is fucking bullshit,” Steve said. “I asked for help with my front end, but this is my house.”

  “I would kill the motherfucker who breaks into my house,” I said. “I got no problem with Cisco coming in anytime, but fuck breaking in. What the fuck?”

  Both Steve and I spoke with more bravado than we felt. But we had no choice. We knew th
at Cisco would keep coming back for more if we didn’t put an end to this now.

  “I couldn’t give a fuck to what some fucking hang-around thinks,” Cisco said. “These fucks ain’t wearing a patch. Whiskey, I am seriously losing patience with this shit.”

  Steve and I looked at each other but said nothing.

  “Everybody calm the fuck down,” Whiskey Joe said, laughing. “Cisco, you got to understand these cats are going from a triple-A club to the big leagues overnight. You guys better learn how to deal with patch holders right quick. This shit is real. It’s not a fucking game. Figure it the fuck out.”

  Before we broke up that day, we agreed to meet at Whiskey’s place and get together with “Crazy Horse” and the guys on Staten Island—very solid Breed territory that Crazy Horse ran with an iron fist. Afterwards, Steve and I headed back to our bungalow, where we had cardboard covering the broken window and a nice chill breeze blowing through the place.

  I had a vague idea of what Crazy Horse was like, and it wasn’t pleasant. Even the Giant and Ape shook their heads in serious respect for his violent and tormented state. “That Crazy Horse is a sick fuck, but he takes care of business,” the Giant said that night in Troy. “You don’t have to ever clean up after him.”

  The original Crazy Horse was a brilliant military leader of the Sioux Indian Nation. Given to trances and prophetic omens, he was both a shaman and a gifted killer feared for his excellence in combat. He was a believer in the spirit Wovoka, who gave the Sioux Nation the ghost dance. He was a serious problem for General George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry at the Little Big Horn. The Crazy Horse I met on Staten Island was a brutal and psychotic megalomaniac—and far worse in real life than I had imagined in my pre-meeting nightmares. He shared only a name with the leader of the Sioux Nation.

  We drove to Staten Island in two separate cages. Steve drove my car, with me riding shotgun and Whiskey stretched out in the back seat. We followed a car with Crimes, Cisco and Grip inside. When we were close to the Staten Island nightclub, Crimes pulled over to the curb and Steve pulled in right behind him. Steve and I wondered why we were stopping, but Whiskey told us to just sit tight.

  Steve and I watched as Crimes and Cisco got out of the car, walked across the street and confronted a group of about six men and women who’d been hanging out chatting. Crimes and Cisco pulled out handguns, and we could see them collecting belongings from each member of the group. Then they slowly sauntered back to our cars as the group watched them in stunned silence.

  Cisco headed over to us and popped his head in through the open back window, looking at Whiskey. “We just took them off for their drugs and money,” he said calmly, handing Whiskey a wad of cash and a small plastic bag of marijuana.

  Whiskey stuffed the cash in his pocket and reached forward to jam the weed into the pocket of my black leather jacket. “Hold on to this shit,” he said.

  Cisco and Crimes headed back to their cage and we drove to the nightclub. There were several places on the same block, so we had our choice of where to party. A group of men and women, all wearing Breed colors, were standing outside one of them.

  Crazy Horse stood about six feet tall, with a wiry build and wavy black hair that hung to the middle of his back, and the colors he wore were extremely faded—an obvious sign of being with the Breed for many years. His flowing, long hair reminded me of some historic image of an American Indian on horseback—only this guy was not the sort of person you want to smoke a peace pipe with. He looked at Steve and me as if we were pieces of shit, but said nothing to us. His “bitch” just sneered at us.

  Steve and I shared a look as we asked ourselves what we were doing here in the company of these people, and wondered if any of the six people who’d just been ripped off by Cisco and Crimes had called the police. Steve whispered that he didn’t think anyone in the group had taken down my license plate number. Both of us had visions of a lengthy stay at Rikers Island. Now if we could just leave and celebrate away from this plague of locusts that we had stupidly decided to party with.

  Crazy Horse turned around and headed toward the workingman’s club nearest to us, his woman in tow. The bouncers stood aside and made no attempt to collect the cover charge from anyone in our group. All the upstanding citizens behind us had no choice but to pay. We followed Crazy to the bar, where he pushed people aside and swept their glasses and bottles to the floor with a sweep of his arm. This was our territory now.

  “Me and my fucking crew need beers,” Crazy announced. “Give them Bud, in bottles, not glasses. Give me that whiskey and a bunch of shot glasses, too.”

  The bartender did exactly as he was told and didn’t ask for a dime.

  “Get me a fucking tire iron, hang-arounds,” he said. “And make it fucking quick.”

  Crazy fired one of the shot glasses at the lights over the pool table to emphasize that he wanted the tire iron immediately. Broken shards dropped onto the table as stunned patrons backed away but said nothing. The bouncers, too, were silent.

  “What kind of tire iron do you want?” I asked sarcastically. My comment was not well received, and I decided that I would be wise to find a tire iron promptly. Steve and I made our way quickly toward the door. Behind us, we could hear Crazy Horse shouting something about “fucking hang-arounds.”

  “Fuck, Steve, maybe we should just drive away,” I said to my buddy once we were outside. “That motherfucker is stone crazy, and he is going to bring all manner of trouble down on our asses.”

  “Yeah, but these fucks will kill us for sure if we run off,” Steve said. “We got to show some balls here.”

  I knew Steve was right. The Breed would have come after us in force if we had fled.

  “I am not gonna show them nothing like fear,” I replied. “If we have to go down, let’s go looking that motherfucker in the eyes.”

  “If we make the night, you want out of this shit?” Steve asked.

  “Fucking right. Best get out early before we get one goddamn inch deeper.”

  The two of us shook hands and popped open the trunk to my car to look for a tire iron. I thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that I left a tire iron in the trunk. If Jesus knew what that tire iron was for, he would no doubt take it up with me later, assuming that I got to Heaven one day. I was pretty sure I wasn’t in any danger of bumping into Crazy Horse there.

  Steve snuck the tire iron past the bouncer and presented it to His Majesty, who was screaming at people, telling them not to leave the bar, because the party had just started. Whiskey Joe and the other members of the Breed seemed not to care about his shouts. They’d evidently seen this show more than once before. But dozens of bar patrons seemed unsure what to do; they stood quietly and tried to avoid body or eye contact with anyone wearing colors.

  Crazy took the tire iron and smashed out what was left of the lights above the pool table. Then he used it to smash open the change reservoir from the inside of the pool table. Bits and pieces of the table went flying as the guy continued to hammer at it with the tire iron while screaming some nonsense at the crowd. His woman and a couple of the other chicks that were hanging with us pocketed the coins. No one seemed to see anything, and the formidable-looking bouncers were nowhere to be found.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of this dump,” Crazy Horse suddenly announced. “We gotta take this party to the usual spot.”

  I guess even Crazy Horse felt a little awkward about sticking around in the place he’d just ripped off—not to mention destroying both the expensive pool table and the light fixture that once hung above it. All of us headed out to our cages. Just as the three of us were about to get back into my car, I saw a bunch of New York Police Department officers approaching us. Two of them headed straight for Crazy Horse—one holding a pair of handcuffs.

  One cop grabbed Crazy Horse by the arm and shoved him face-first onto the trunk of a nearby police vehicle. Other cops c
ame in close and took multiple shots at his body. His woman was tossed to the ground as another officer put a knee on her back and reached for an arm. Crazy Horse laughed hysterically, shouting to Whiskey that the cops were arresting him on a warrant for some prior scuffle with the law.

  The cop closest to me slammed the car door on my leg as I was trying to get in. My leg hurt like hell, and I bent down to rub it. At the same time, I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out the bag of marijuana and tossed it under the car. I had almost forgotten about the drugs, with the Wild West show going on around me.

  The cops demanded ID from all of us, which we provided. All of us, even Whiskey, addressed them as “Officer” and were firmly polite.

  “I guess you didn’t see my leg, no problem,” I said to the cop who’d slammed the door on me. “I just got out of the army. Shit happens in jobs like this. We’re clean, if you want to check.”

  The officer took a good, long look at my military ID card. It seemed just enough to keep him from getting real shitty with me and seeing what would shake out. I had no idea that I’d be the one playing tough cop in just a few short years.

  No one had spotted the bag of grass I’d tossed under the car, and I figured I was good.

  The cops told Steve, Whiskey and me to get the fuck out of Staten Island right fucking now.

  Whiskey insisted on taking the wheel this time. He was determined to find the precinct that the cops would take Crazy Horse to. Fortunately, he had plenty of cash to bail out our fearless leader, thanks to the armed robbery the guys had pulled off just a few hours earlier. Foot to the floor, Whiskey blasted through five red lights in a row. We actually beat the cops back to the precinct. I suspect that the cops spent a little extra time with Crazy Horse outside the bar, adjusting their captive’s attitude.