Now They Call Me Gunner

by Thom Whalen

  * * *

  The weather was good on Wednesday – clear, sunny, and cool. Fresh was a good word to describe it.

  Riding with Randal was a challenge. He didn’t slow down any. Maybe he’d forgotten that it was my first week on a bike or maybe he figured that slowing down would be patronizing and insulting to me. I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I was too busy trying to keep up with him without dumping my bike on the corners.

  At least, if he wigged out again and imagined himself back in ‘Nam, I didn’t have to know about it.

  For all I knew, he was pushing it because he thought that we were racing through ambush territory.

  If that were true, I’d rather be ignorant.

  It was the first time that I’d seen him wearing a helmet. It was like a Nazi storm trooper helmet, but chromed.

  I looked like a candy apple; he looked like an outlaw. If things got rough, I knew who was going to get his ass kicked. It wouldn’t be Randal.

  When we started climbing into the mountains, my bike coughed, sputtered, and died. I rolled to the side of the road and kicked down the stand.

  Randal didn’t notice and disappeared around the next corner.

  It was several minutes before he came back and found me poking ineffectually at the engine. I had no idea what I was doing. I just hoped that I would accidentally poke it in the right place and wake it up again.

  “You got gas?” Randal asked.

  Gas? I’d been riding the bike for a week and had not once thought about putting gas in it. That made me feel stupid.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Where’s the gas gauge?”

  “Don’t have one. You got a reserve tank. That’s why there’s two filler caps. That handle there.” He pointed to a small silver knob on the front end of the tank.

  I poked at the knob. He leaned over and showed me how to operate the petcock. “That opens the reserve tank. Try her now.”

  The engine roared to life as soon as I cranked it over.

  I was thankful that this hadn’t happened when I was riding around with Katie. I’d hate for her to think I was a dufus.

  Oak Falls was a pretty little town nestled in a forested notch between two pretty little peaks.

  Randal pulled into a gas station on the edge of town and we filled up. He didn’t need as much gas as I did.

  “I’m looking for a motorcycle club called the Road Snakes. You know where I can find them?” Randal asked the gas jockey.

  He shook his head. “Nope. Never heard of them.”

  Obviously they weren’t prominent citizens in town.

  “There a motorcycle shop in town?” Randal asked.

  “Jerry’s our mechanic,” the man said. “He fixes motorcycles sometimes. But if he can’t do it, he sends them over to a guy in Old Forge. What’s his name? Can’t remember right off, but he works in a garage behind the hardware store on the west side of town. You can’t miss it. Just look for the hardware store and then go around back. If you get to a big, ugly, tacky, souvenir shop, then you went a ways too far. The guy there’s a good mechanic from what I hear. He’ll fix you up.”

  “How far from here?”

  “Ten, twelve miles. Not far.”

  We raced down the highway for another few minutes and found the village of Old Forge. The hardware store was not big but it was prominent. We didn’t have to go far enough to see the big, ugly, tacky souvenir shop.

  The garage around back was a rust-dappled corrugated sheet metal building that smelled of motor oil and gasoline. There were bike parts and half-assembled bikes scattered around, outside and inside.

  As soon as Randal and I pulled onto the little asphalt pad in front of the big doors, a squat, ape-like man shambled out.

  He looked over Randal’s chopper. “Nice bike.” He glanced at me and then back at Randal. “What can I do ya for?”

  “I’m looking for someone who knows the Road Snakes.” Randal unstrapped his helmet.

  “Why you looking for them?” The man’s manner was instantly defensive, his posture stiff, his eyes hard, and his voice harsh.

  “Just a courtesy call,” Randal said. “We’re riding through and want to give them our respects.”

  “Who do you ride with?” he asked.

  “We’re independents,” Randal said. “Not affiliated with anyone.”

  He looked at Randal’s bike again. “Nice ride for an independent.”

  “Originally it was a sixty-seven XLB Police Sportster,” Randal said. “But there’s not much stock left on it.”

  The man nodded. “So how do you know Billy?” he asked.

  He had recognized Billy’s bike.

  Randal shook his head. “Guess you ain’t heard yet. Billy’s dead. Murdered down in Wemsley three weeks ago. I bought his bike a week before he was killed.”

  “You don’t say. Billy loved that bike.”

  “I don’t blame him. It’s a sweet ride. But he needed money bad so he sold it to me. I guess it wasn’t enough money to keep him from getting killed.”

  “Or maybe it was enough to get him killed.”

  “Could be. We’ll never know, most likely.”

  “So who’s the kid?” The man looked at me.

  “He’s Gunner. I’m Randal.”

  “They call me Monk.” He didn’t step any closer or offer his hand. He didn’t know who we were, yet.

  I wondered why they called him that. Because of his ascetic lifestyle? Or because he was a grease monkey? Or because he resembled an ape? I wasn’t about to ask.

  Monk frowned. “You’re here riding Billy’s bike, looking for the Snakes, and saying Billy’s dead. This isn’t a courtesy call.”

  “Sure it is. It’s a courtesy to let Billy’s friends know what happened to him.”

  “We’re Billy’s friends? Billy tell you that when you got his bike off him?”

  “It was known to a select few.”

  “Not to us,” Monk said.

  “The Road Snakes, you mean,” Randal said.

  “Who are these select few who’re so badly misinformed about Billy’s affiliations?”

  “No one in particular. Just the word on the street.”

  “Right.” Monk looked disgusted.

  “It’s okay,” Randal said. “If you say he didn’t rattle and roll with the Snakes, then he didn’t. I’ll take your word for it over Billy’s.”

  Monk grunted. It only made him seem more apelike.

  “We’d like to meet a few of the Snakes.”

  “They don’t want to meet you.”

  “You the president?”

  Monk shook his head.

  “No disrespect, but I’d like to pay my respects to the president.”

  Monk grunted again.

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Halfway between here and hell,” he said.

  Randal stepped close to Monk and placed his face directly in his. He had to look down on the smaller man to do it. “That’s not a respectful answer. Are you and me going to have a problem?”

  My heart leapt and I began to sweat. They looked like they were one wrong word away from violence. If they mixed it up, I was going to have to decide if I was a spectator or go in swinging.

  I didn’t know much about fights between bikers but my limited understanding was that there were no spectators.

  “Not unless you make one.” Monk kept his eyes on Randal. He wasn’t backing down.

  The shop was littered with bike parts. There was a piece of tubing on the floor, close to Monk’s foot. He had long arms and a slight squat. The tubing was not far from his right hand. If the situation got bad, it could get real bad.

  “I stop to make a courtesy call on a club, I expect to talk to the leader. That’s the way it’s done. So either you tell me where I can find him or you pass a message along telling him where he can meet me. If you take it on yourself to speak for him without him knowing it, he’s going to have a problem with your disrespect. You follow what I’m saying?”


  Monk licked his lips. “I ain’t disrespecting nobody.”

  “I’m sure you’re not. None of us wants to disrespect nobody.”

  It seemed that I wasn’t going to get any teeth knocked out or ribs broken after all. Not this time.

  “But I can’t tell Wasp that he’s got to meet you, neither. I don’t tell him what to do.”

  “I understand.”

  “So you can stop by the clubhouse this evening and if he’s there, he’s there. If he ain’t, then he don’t want to meet you.”

  “As long as you give him the message, it’ll be okay. There’s no downside for him to hear what we got to say.”

  “I’ll tell him that you want to pay him a courtesy call.”

  “That’s all I want. Where’s your clubhouse?”

  “Kenny Mill on Route One two miles north of Oak Falls.”

  “We’ll drop by this evening.”

  We roared out of there. I left my helmet strapped to the back of my seat and did a credible job of not stalling or dropping the bike.

  I don’t think Randal noticed, but I was pleased with my professionalism.