Fallen Angels Vol 1

by Mick Norman

  More laughter. Rat was not notable for his bravery or his fighting ability. His peculiar contribution to the Angels was his skill with underhand weapons – the booby-trap, or the knife in the back. He would not forget the insult. Gerry wondered why Brenda was taking so much on herself. She had come to stand by him and leaned close to whisper, her voice covered by shouting and joking at Rat’s expense.

  ‘Vincent wants to kill you. This is his chance. I’ve got to break the mood. Play along.’

  Gerry squeezed her arm.

  Vincent moved forward to face Brenda. His face was more like that of an animal, a creature thwarted of his prey, making one last effort to secure his kill. ‘Well, Wolf? Hiding behind this tart’s skirts again. She reckons you’re as good as any of us. Now you’ve got a great chance to try and prove it to all of us. Are you really that good?’

  Again Gerry’s body tensed ready for violent action. His back was against a wall, in every sense of the word. On either side of him he could sense Priest and Cochise moving into position to guard his flanks.

  ‘All right, Wolf. Show this crowd of freaks how good you are. Even with odds like these.’

  ‘Get her out of the way, Wolf, so she doesn’t get hurt. If anything happens to you, and I only want this to be a bit of a friendly rumble, like — but if anything should happen to you. Then I’ll take care of Brenda, here myself. I promise you that I’ll look upon that as a labour of love.’

  ‘Come near me with that diseased body of yours, and I’ll cut it off. Gerry’s ten times the man you are. There isn’t anything you’ve done that he hasn’t done. Not a ... Oh. No, nothing.’ Vincent leaped like a panther on to her hesitation. ‘Why did you stop then? What did you just think of?’

  Gerry had got to know the new, harder Brenda quite well, and he guessed that the hesitation had been a deliberate move on her part to postpone the rumble. The only thing he couldn’t figure was, what exactly had she thought of? He remembered the initiation and shuddered inside. He knew that she would never forgive him for her own nightmare initiation ceremony when she had been laid by every Angel in the chapter, more than once by some. Whatever she’d thought up to try and save his life, he guessed it wouldn’t necessarily be pleasant for him. Still, he thought resignedly, life was life.

  At Vincent’s question, she had stood dumb, as though regretting what she had nearly said. She shook her head. ‘Nothing. I wasn’t going to say anything.’

  ‘Yes, she was. Come on tart, out with it. You just thought of something that Vincent has done that Gerry hasn’t. What was it?’

  Good old Dylan, thought Brenda. She had known she could rely on him to leap in. Ever since Gerry had snuffed out Tiny Terry, Dylan had been worrying at him, like a terrier at the heels of a bear, waiting for him to slip. He thought this was it ‘It’s nothing. Honestly. It’s just that Gerry ... Well, he’s never had the chance to ... Sod it I’m sorry, Gerry. I didn’t mean ...’

  ‘What?!?’ The cry came from half a dozen eager throats. Sensing something between Wolf and his old lady. Something more than between Wolf and Vincent.

  ‘Come on, Brenda.’ The quiet command came from Vincent. ‘You’ve gone so far. You may as well go all the way. What hasn’t he done?’

  ‘It ... it’s just his wings. He hasn’t got any wings.’

  ‘Yeah! She’s right! Let him do it now!’

  ‘Later.’ That was Vincent, suddenly seeing his moment sliding from him. But, there was no holding the brothers when that kind of suggestion had been made. Gerry would have to show class straight away. He swallowed hard to try and hide his disappointment. He shouted to make himself heard. Might as well try and make the best of it. ‘All right, brothers. Wolf here is going to show us some real class and earn himself his red wings.’

  A great burst of cheering followed this. Drowned by it, Vincent spoke directly to Gerry and Brenda. ‘Fucking clever. Both of you. This time the luck’s with you. Don’t try and ride it too far – or too fast.’

  Dylan had leaped to the middle of the room. ‘Come on now, all of you lovely ladies. Which of you is going to oblige Wolf, here, and help him to his wings. Which of you’ve got the flags out?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘You, have? Hey, that’d be fine. Wouldn’t it, Vincent? Brenda here’s going to oblige Wolf herself.’

  ‘Very nice too. As long as it’s genuine.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Vincent, it is. In fact, there’s bound to be enough for you.’

  ‘I’ve got my wings, sweetheart I don’t need to show that sort of class any more. Come on, then, Wolf, let’s see you get at it.’

  Gerry stood still, thunderstruck by the weird turn that events had taken. Brenda had saved him. That was true. But, he was going to have a price.

  As the remainder of the Angels and their women made themselves comfortable round the walls, his mind raced ahead to the ritual he was going to involve himself in. He shuddered, despite himself, and breathed in to try and clear his head. He spat on the dirty floor, relieving his mouth of the thin bile that had risen to it. He hoped to God that he didn’t throw up. That would finish him.

  Vincent ushered Brenda, with a superb send-up of a doddering old verger, to a battered armchair, and helped her to sit in it.

  Looking back on it later, Gerry found that he could not remember it in any kind of sequence. Just a series of random and disconnected images.

  He’d read about earning wings in several of the great Hell’s Angels’ novels and magazines. It was one of the ways that a brother could show class to the rest of his chapter. A way to blow the minds of the righteous citizens. There had been an interview with an American Angel in an old magazine. He’d talked about winning wings, but the magazine had taken the safe way out and described it as “a singularly unpleasant sexual act, the details of which are too revolting to describe here.”

  The Angel had gone on to describe one of the finest examples of class he’d ever seen. It had been a West Coast brother called ‘Smackey Jack’. A waitress in a hamburger joint had been rude about his appearance so he’d simply vaulted over the counter and knocked her out. While she was still unconscious, he’d pulled out five of her teeth with a rusty pair of pliers he always carried with him. Then he’d screwed her. Now, that was real class!

  But, he’d showed class, and he now wore his red wings proudly on the breast of his colours. They’d been hard earned!

  Brenda’s face, proud and arrogant ... the cheering ... his knees grating on the filthy floor ... her Levis round her ankles, and her black pants ... nearer her ... noise muted as his ears were covered ... prickling at his mouth ... tongue ... salt... sticky ... pressure on his head ... juddering ... over ... more cheering ... class ... Brenda, satisfied with a double victory. Class!

  After, before he’d even wiped his face, Vincent coming to him. Having to counter with greater class. That was what it was all about being President. Taking him by the shoulders and pulling him close. Kissing him, thrusting his tongue deep into his mouth. Both mouths slobbered. Horror piled on horror. The ritual, then the kiss.

  Worst. Something that he would never ever admit to any person, as long as he lived. During the kiss, in the moment of closeness to Vincent, he had felt a stirring in his groin. A swelling of pleasure.

  He had enjoyed it!

  Eight – ‘Riding High Over Concrete Skyways.’

  An extract from a sociological study by Mike Olsen, called; ‘Hell’s Angels – A Key To Unlock The Head Of Uptight Society.’ Arkadin Press, 197-

  ‘Mess around with the Angels and you mess around with the inside of your own nightmares. Tangle with the men in blue denim riding stinking keening high and few far across a lone Bergman skyline death on their shoulders and dope burning up their veins and you tangle only with your cave sabre-tooth past’

  ‘Side with Hayes, big Daddy security blanket Hayes, Leader of Light, watching over the small children. For him you can Kill an Angel for God. For him you can band in your friendly neighbourhood ghett
oes and stab and hunt and kill the animals that threaten your pure Anglo-Saxon wife and fair-headed, blue-eyed children. Vigilante. Vigilance. Keep a vigilant vigil on your plasterboard castle, walls thin and tumbling down, down, down into dark.’

  ‘Underground Angels. Hiding from light and riding the night. Alone. Mrs Middle-Class’s favourite rape fantasy nightmare. You wouldn’t want your daughter to marry one, your son to become one, your wife to encounter one late at night, your husband to ... anything. Fill in the blank yourself.’

  ‘Where did they come from, where do they go? Out of poverty and dissatisfaction in rural urban Amerika. Get stuffed white-collar Republican! Freedom-riding, easy-riding. Take the freeway down to Oakland and see how the Angels grow. Black disaster at Altamont. Rock ‘n’ Roll murder. Just one of the days that the Music died.’

  ‘Now they’re here and gone in England. Look over your shoulders, people. Walk gentle into the good night, but watch the shadow that rustles unseen in the hedgerows. Careful, mister. Don’t turn your head! Because you know a fiend that you helped make doth close behind you tread. Waiting for you to make one mistake. Then it will be on you. Mighty, nails rending, teeth tearing at your throat’

  ‘Remember what Himmler said. Remember who Himmler was. Remember that this is a quote that the Angels like. Remember. As you are, so I was. As I am, so you will be. Remember.’

  ‘For the Angels that ride up from the eighth circle of a new Renaissance Hell. There is only one way they can live. They must go on. On and up. Through blood to the stars!’

  Nine – ‘So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams.’

  Richard III, Act One, Scene IV.

  The bank raid in Holloway and the rape and kidnapping of the manager’s daughter had brought the Hell’s Angels back into the public gaze. There was no way that Home Secretary Hayes could pretend that they didn’t exist. There was the plain evidence for all to see, blazoned across the headlines of all the daily papers and blaring out of the video and television sets. Everyone knew what these hooligans had done. People even knew exactly which window of the hospital where Reginald Pinner had been recuperating from his beating has been left open. An ‘X’ marked the window, and thick white dots down the side of the building (in the picture) showed the path followed by the falling body, while another ‘X’ indicated the place where the manager’s corpse had come to rest. Colour news film had gloated in close-up on the pool of blood and lighter brains that still stained the concrete after the cadaver had been removed.

  The verdict of the Coroner’s Jury was, of course, ‘Suicide while the balance of the mind was disturbed’. But the police had made a public statement that any Hell’s Angels caught anywhere in the South of England would be arrested and charged with murder. Quite right too, mouthed the leaders of the local vigilante groups and they sharpened their sickles or loaded their shotguns. Housewives took to carrying keen-edged carving knives in their shopping baskets. Just in case!

  Apart from the magazines, papers and television people, other forms of the media were interested in the revival of the violent cult. Repression had long made any glorification of violence illegal, but here was an opportunity for someone to cash in. They could make a block-busting film about the Hell’s Angels and, by tacking on a moral epilogue, justify it as a moral film about immoral people. Calvinist film critics would loathe it but the public would queue three times round the block to lap up the mayhem. And there was only one director who could make such a film and get away with it: Donn Simon! Leading film critic turned film-maker. Advocate of the ‘auteur’ theory of directing. Donn had been the only major critic to knock the key film of the sixties, ‘Easy, Rider’, claiming it was facile and catered to the worst elements in the youth cult. What he meant was that he was highly pissed-off that he hadn’t thought of it first!

  Now he was looking at the Hell’s Angels. Not since that darling of ‘Cahiers du Cinema’, the once-great Roger Corman, had made ‘Wild Angels’ had there been a film of any distinction about the cycle outlaws.

  ‘Now has to be the time. Incest is now as dead as can be and the public are going to be looking for some new kicky experience at the movies. Right?’

  ‘Right, Donn.’ The yes-man was the gay figure of Rupert Colt, assistant director of Donn Simon on most of his best films, and sometimes bed-fellow when the director happened to be swinging in that direction.

  ‘Okay Rupert, baby. I’m glad you dig the idea of something new. Just exactly what do you suggest we do that will really blow people’s minds at the box-office?’

  ‘Well, how about some Black Magic? Or, maybe some more of the Poe flicks?’ Sensing a chilling in master’s eyes, Rupert staggered on. ‘Or, yes, I’ve got it.’

  ‘Well, don’t give it me sweetie, whatever it is.’

  ‘No, listen, Donn. It could be great. Nothing like it. There can’t be an idea to match this. We make a big violent Western, with the Mormon Brothers as the white hats and the Thompson Six as the black hats. Lots of love interest for the weenie-boppers. Bags of violence and a whole double album of great new songs. What do you think? Eh, Donn?’

  ‘Rupert, I want to ask a little favour of you.’

  ‘Anything, Donn. Just name it’

  ‘I want you to have that idea typed up for me, with three copies. Right?’

  ‘Yes, sure. Then what?’

  ‘Then my little fairy friend, I would like you to roll all three copies up into a cylinder, tie it up with red ribbon and seal it with your favourite purple sealing-wax. Are you still with me?’

  ‘Right on, D.S. Then?’

  ‘Then stuff the whole thing up your flabby arse.’

  The conference collapsed into helpless laughter at the speed with which Rupert’s face dropped. But, Donn was still talking so the laughter stopped like someone threw a switch.

  ‘Hell’s Angels. That’s what we’re going to do. They seem big here in England. Killings, rape and robbery. The last rebels. Guerilla fighters on chopped hogs. Raiding the highways. Them against us. It’s a cert to catch the imagination of the kids.’

  ‘Wonderful, Donn. But …’

  ‘Rupert, I like the wonderful” but I’m not so hot on that quavering little “but” stuck on the end. It’d better be a good but, or you’ll be out on your big butt.’

  ‘It’s this censor guy, Hayes. He’s got a tight ruling about subjects for movies. They have to be real moral and lay down a clean line.’

  ‘So we play a straight line. We use Tarquin Wells as the hero – wipe that leer off your face Rupert. Tarquin may be a little gay. He’s also very careful about the company he keeps. He can be a straight who joins up with a chapter of the Angels and becomes their leader. Then we can have Nancy Thompson for the leading lady. She’s the original dyke that the little Dutch boy had his finger stuck into. She and Tarquin should be great together. They won’t be able to decide who does what to who.’

  ‘Who to get to play the Angels? How about the “Wreck” stunt team? They’ve got some lovely leather clothes and some big powerful motorcycles.’

  ‘No. I’m going to use real Angels. Just like Roger did with “Wild Angels”. That way we get a barrel-load of free publicity and we don’t have to pay the bastards much. A few bottles of beer, and they’ll pull anything that we ask them to.’

  ‘Great. Just great! I figure you may have to pay them something though. I don’t think you’d get them for a few bottles of beer any more. But, Donn, where are you going to find some real Angels? They’ve all gone underground. If this politician Hayes can’t find them, then how are you going to get to them?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Great! Really great, Donn! You’ve got a plan to get them to come to you?’

  ‘No. You, Rupert, are going to get them for me.’

  ‘But. But. Donn. Hey, you’re joking. You are. I can always tell. Donn. You are joking? Come on.’

  ‘Okay everybody. That wraps it up. We meet again in seven days’ time when Rupert here will have made cont
act with the great unwashed battalions from the maw of Hell. At next week’s meeting Rupert, you’ll have a feasibility study made for me of costs for the film. Budget for ninety per cent location with a minimum team and no names apart from Tarquin and Nancy. Right. Any questions? Rupert, you got any questions? No? Good. Don’t let me down, Rupert baby. You do well for me, I might get you a new lollipop to suck on. Right?’

  ‘Right. Right, Donn. Seven days.’

  Although Donn Simon treated his assistant as something less than human, it was partly a pose. He had learned from bitter experience that Rupert didn’t work well if treated with kindness and consideration. Therefore he pushed him and leaned on him as hard as possible. That way he got superb work from the best assistant in the film business. Rupert also got what he wanted which was to be ill-treated and dominated by a good-looking man. Every now and again, as reward for a particularly fine piece of work, Donn would go to bed with Rupert and let the little man service him in the way he liked best. In some ways, Donn actually looked forward to the times when Rupert would have done something outstanding for him. If he got to the Angels, he would have earned, maybe, two nights.

  Rupert had one advantage that George Hayes didn’t have, for all his resources and man-power. Rupert had money. Access to lots of money.

  All he needed to do was put a full-page advert in both the daily newspapers printed saying that a film was to be made dealing with the activities of the motorcycle outlaw gangs and that large sums of money would be paid to anyone coming forward offering any information that might help the makers of the film.

  Rupert gave a phone number and a box number so that anyone who mistrusted the universally-tapped phones could try writing. He struck mountains of dross, most of it abusive or obscene. The tiny specks of gold that filtered through to him gave him a blurred and indistinct picture of a hideout somewhere in Hertfordshire, or, maybe Essex. Three days had passed and he wasn’t even close.