by Iain Parke
I shook my head. Tiny was obviously seething with anger. I just had overwhelming feelings of doom and sadness that it had come to this.
‘So what happens now?’ I asked.
Tiny just shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
*
It didn’t take long before we found out.
I suppose we should have expected it, by way of a test if nothing else. Normally clubs that wanted to patch over had to apply and then waited years to get into any of the big six clubs. The Brethren would keep them dangling, make them show some class to justify their application, perhaps have them do some time as a support club first with their colours adapted to show their new allegiance. And even when they went ahead and admitted a new club, the whole club would come in as strikers for a year or so before getting the full patch.
This was different, The Brethren had invited us in as a full club, as full members from the get go. Dazza had been very clear that was the deal. But there was always going to have to be a catch.
So when Tiny and I met with Dazza and Butcher the next day to report back, the message was very clear. The Brethren were upping the stakes.
‘It’s simple,’ Dazza announced, ‘You guys want in and we won’t stand for a club of refusniks on our territory. Either they disband or you guys take their patches.’
‘OK,’ I said, ‘but let me have one last chance of talking them round.’
‘Popeye’s never going to come over,’ said Tiny shaking his head.
‘No, I know he won’t, but I think I can persuade Gut, and if I do that it brings the whole of Westmorland over.’
Dazza sat back in his booth and thought it over for a while.
‘Well I don’t need Northumberland, if they want to stay out, fuck ’em. We can deal with them later if we want to. But I do need Westmorland.’
I nodded. As a small club with half a dozen guys or so, Northumberland on its own wasn’t of interest to The Brethren or any of the big six. It was only by having merged together into a larger regional club that The Legion had become a piece, albeit a small one, in the game. We had made ourselves into a takeover target.
It was the needing Westmorland bit that puzzled me. What did he mean he needed Westmorland? What for? Most of their patch was just small towns, villages and open countryside. When you thought about it there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot in the territory for a club like The Brethren, so what would Dazza think he needed it for? It just didn’t seem to make any sense.
‘OK then,’ he said leaning forward, ‘But this is the last chance they get. Just make them understand one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
He smiled, ‘No one says no to us twice.’
With a heavy heart I rode down the twists and turns of the escarpment road to the valley floor below and dismounted outside the Boneyard.
I had come on my own to make my last ditch attempt to appeal to Gut to reconsider. I found out that was a mistake the hard way. There were five of the guys in the yard when I went through who decided that they wanted to send The Brethren and the guys that were going over a message. I went down when the crowbar hit me across the back of the head, after that it was a boot stomping.
They dumped me outside A&E bleeding and unconscious. At least I should be grateful for that.
The cops came round once I was awake. More for the sake of form than anything else they asked me what had happened and did I know who had done it. They got nothing out of me.
So I missed the war, I sat it out in hospital.
My Flying Tigers bike was missing and I never saw it again.
I guess Gut scrapped it.
*
Sharon sat by the side of my bed. She had drawn the chair up close and had grasped my hand tightly, asked how I was, doubted what I was telling her. She seemed upset, she had screwed herself up to say something, I could see that, but what I couldn’t tell until she started.
‘I’ve never asked you anything like this before.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well I’m not even really asking as such,’ she corrected herself, ‘I’m just saying.’
‘Saying what?’
‘You know I never tell you what to do.’ Now I was wondering what was coming. ‘Well it’s just this, all of this, it seems to me that you’ve got a choice…’
She tailed off, as if uncertain now she had started as to how to go on.
‘A choice?’ I said quite gently.
‘Yes, to stay in or get out. And I just wanted to say, that if you wanted to quit, if you wanted to leave, then it would be alright by me.’
I looked at her blankly as she stumbled on.
‘Look, you’ve always been a biker, you always will be. I know what it means to you and I’ll love you whatever you do, but all I’m saying is there’s a change going on here. The Brethren, that’ll be something utterly different from what it was before, you know that and I know that. You’re not patched up with them yet. You have a moment to choose. To patch or not?’
‘Like you mean retire?’
But I wasn’t really there for a moment. I was miles and years away, back in my memories of those first days when I’d become involved, the thrills of buying my first seven-fifty, the unfolding and enveloping sense of power in riding with the pack, it had been like finding myself for the first time.
I belonged. That had been the reality of my life for the last ten or twelve years or whatever it was. The club was my home, my other family. Could I ever leave it? My brothers?
‘But this is all I have!’
‘No it isn’t, you’ve got me, and what we could have together outside of the club. Listen to me. Just this once…’
‘Leave the guys now?’
‘But it’s not your guys any more is it? It’s all going to be different from now on. You know that. You just need to have decided that it’s really what you’ve decided that you want to do, that’s all I’m saying.’
‘Listen love, I made my choices a long time ago.’
‘So did I, and I don’t mean to change it whatever you decide, but you, yes, you had made a choice, you made it years and years ago when you were a different guy, just a kid really. But you were starting to make a different one over the last couple of years, weren’t you? You know you were.’
She was right of course, or partially right in any case. I lay back in bed and stared up at the ceiling. Sharon sat there by my bedside holding my hand and waited. Could I leave? I asked myself. Could I really make that change? Is that where I had been heading the last few years?
Retire? I’d never thought about it before as such. Never had to face the question. The idea had never really crossed my mind.
And if I ended up not being a patched guy, what would life be like? On the outside I mean.
Blokes who left clubs had usually been kicked out in bad standing, stripped of their colours and made to have their club tattoos inked out if they were lucky, removed if they weren’t.
Guys did retire from clubs as well of course, older members who decided that they couldn’t keep up the lifestyle any longer could apply to hang up the colours. And if they were of good standing then they might get the club’s permission, have a retired date added to their club tattoo and off they went. Of course if you ever did retire then you were never really free of the club. You inhabited a sort of twilight world, not a member, so not part of the club or any longer enjoying the respect a patch holder would expect as a right. But you were still always tied to the club and expected to support, never knowing when some of the guys might decide to descend on you in need of a bed for the night or a meal or a drink. Your position was always a bit uncertain, depending on how well respected you had been within the club before you left, and how powerful your remaining mates within the club were and how far they could or would go to protect you.
Unless you broke away completely that was. Started again somewhere far away where you were free from the influence. And to do that either took dosh, serious dosh that we just d
idn’t have and I could see no way in hell of getting, or meant turning grass and getting the plod to look after you and I was fucked if that was a way I was going to go.
The door opened.
‘Hi Dazza!’ I said looking up. He was a surprise visitor. Sharon’s eyes fell.
And then it was too late
She had been right. I had had a choice. But I think it had just walked out the door.
‘Not interrupting am I?’ he asked, pushing open the door and walking in.
‘Dazza mate, no, course not, good to see ya.’
‘Hello Dazza,’ Sharon said turning to him.
She made her excuses and left us together, ‘I guess you guys’ll have loads to talk about so I’ll get off now then. See ya later.’
‘OK love, see ya then,’ I said as she leant over and kissed me.
‘See ya Dazza.’
‘See ya,’ he grunted. ‘Good looking bird that of yours,’ he said to me approvingly as the door closed behind her, ‘you’re a lucky bastard really aren’t ya mate?’
‘Thanks, if you say so.’
He pulled up the chair that she had just vacated, sat down next to my bed, asked me how I was, and gave me the news of how it had panned out. The antis had lost of course, outnumbered there had been little doubt about how that would end. Gut and the rest had eventually all been hunted down and had the patches stripped off their backs. They had been forced to agree to disband their remnants of the club.
‘But I’m not just here for that.’
I raised an eyebrow inquisitively. It was about the only bit of me that could move without hurting.
‘Yeah. I need to clear some shit up with you. Stuff from way back when. It’s stuff that we can’t have in the way between us or hanging around going forwards.’
I tensed. I didn’t know what was coming here. He could only be talking about when I’d gone clean five years ago. He sat calmly in his chair, as self-possessed and quietly menacing as ever with his dark charisma. I looked straight at him.
‘Well I can guess what this is about.’
‘Can you?’ he smiled. ‘It might not be what you think.’
‘Look,’ he leaned forwards, his voice dropping in tone, his eyes boring into me. ‘You think I’m fucked off about you walking out on me back then after Gyppo snuffed it. Am I right?’
I met and held his gaze without flinching. Whatever was coming was coming and I would have to deal with it, whatever state I was in, hospital bed or no hospital bed. I shrugged. ‘Yeah, I always wondered why you didn’t give me more grief about it then. So what’s up with it now?’
Was this payback time after all these years I wondered? Had he just used me to help achieve the deal, but now he wanted me out of the club as I wasn’t into his stuff?
‘Well, I’ve got news for you,’ he said, ‘Your going straight. I guess normally you’d be right. Normally no one walks out on me. But that one time it wasn’t a problem. I had Billy and Sprog to take up your end, I knew you would keep your mouth shut. And hey, you’d decided what you wanted to do and you came right in to me at the pub and said it to my face with all my guys just next door. That took balls, you could have got well fucked over that day and you knew it, but you didn’t give a fuck. You just came right in and did it and you didn’t take any shit from anyone. Tell the truth, I wasn’t keen on it at the time, but I can respect your decision and I respected the way you did it.’
‘In fact now, it’s not an issue at all. Now it’s useful.’
‘In a club like ours, we’ve got a lot of guys that are good with their fists. But not enough that are good with their heads the way you are. To really make it work we need both.’
‘Because,’ he said, relaxing back comfortably in his chair, ‘once you’re back on your feet I want you to do something for me.’
That had been a long speech for Dazza.
‘What sort of something?’ I asked. He must know that I didn’t want to go back into the business again I thought. Not after all these years.
He settled even further back into his chair with a grin and folded his arms. What came next was an even greater surprise.
‘I want you to be my financial advisor.’
‘Your what?’
‘My banker. It’s what you do right isn’t it? Look after peoples’ investments for ’em?’
I just nodded.
‘Well then mate, you’ve just got yerself a new client. I want you to look after my dosh for me.’
Why did the expression ‘Oh Fuck’ keep coming to me whenever Dazza appeared on the scene, I asked myself once he’d gone.
Chapter 5 – THE TAKEOVER
The guys had some group photos done with their new patches. I wasn’t in it of course, I was still laid up in hospital, but I’ve still got my copies.
It was a happy, sunny day by the look of it and they are all drawn up in the clubhouse courtyard arms across each others’ shoulders. From the upstairs windows someone had hung a huge Brethren club flag to act as a backdrop, a blood red rectangle with a white circle in the centre emblazoned with a stylised version of the club logo in stark black. There’s two versions of the pictures, one from the front showing the grinning faces of the scurviest gang of thugs you wouldn’t ever want to meet, and a back view, with so many guys that to get them all in there are two ranks of colours proudly showing, one standing, one kneeling.
So many faces, with, in the centre, flanked by Tiny and Butcher, Dazza and Polly, current president of The Freemen and so de facto head of The Brethren in the country. Polly was short and stocky, his face all straight lines, planes and angles, with not a curve to be seen, and wiry short silver-grey hair like a fresh brillo pad. He was there to welcome the new guys to the firm, and to take a good look over what The Brethren had just acquired.
So many faces, and so many that wouldn’t make it.
It was like any other takeover I guess. Even while we were getting our new club tattoos, The Brethren, but in reality Dazza, were clearly both talent spotting and cleaning house right from the start.
By the time I got out of hospital Butcher’s boys, the hatchet crew from Wearside, had been appointed Dazza’s unofficial hit squad and personal bodyguard. There had been a couple of objections from some of the older fashioned die-hard Geordies in Newcastle but Dazza had soon used his new crew to silence dissent within the existing Brethren members. There had always been a difference between Dazza and the others. They were all Brethren of course, but Dazza always seemed part of an inner circle, almost a club within the club, I guess that was partly because he was coming close to joining The Freemen, but partly it was his air of self-control, his self-assurance, his watchfulness. Even at a party he was always serious, maintaining a distance.
Then it had been the ex Legion’s turn.
Dazza had been happy to take in the club and thereby to obtain the territory, but he clearly didn’t have any personal loyalty to the club’s individual members. We may have all come into The Brethren, but we certainly weren’t all going to stay. If your face didn’t fit, or if Dazza as judge and jury decided that you weren’t going to make The Brethren grade, then you were soon going to be out. And you’d have one chance to remove your club tattoos before Butcher and his crew did it for you with a hatchet if you left in good standing. If you left in poor standing you didn’t get the option.
I didn’t like Butcher. I respected him, but I didn’t like him, or his crew. He had the dangerous brittle intensity that seemed to mark the coke head and Christ he was a miserable fucking hardnosed prickly bastard. I remember we were riding once and there were some kids coming the other way. Bikers wave to each other, or nod or do something to acknowledge each other, it’s us against the car drivers after all.
So I remember the first of these kids on their 250s or whatever they were, he lifted his arm in greeting as we approached.
And Butcher just looked straight ahead, blanked them completely from behind his wrap round shades. Apart, of course, for the one finger salu
te. It was so fucking funny to watch. What a complete and utter arsehole he was.
But I just thought, why the fuck did you have to do that? It had been a respectful enough greeting. If it hadn’t been I’d have been with Butcher like a shot in pulling round, catching them up and giving the little wankers a good kicking. But it hadn’t been. It hadn’t been presumptuous, it had been civil, so what was the problem?
Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t think they had to like us, it wasn’t anything like that. When you’re in a club like ours you know you ain’t going to be winning any popularity contests.
But so long as they feared us, that would suit me fine.
You never knew who might be useful at some point in the future. You can’t control whether people like you and even if they do, you can’t rely on them doing what you want them to because of it. People forget friendship and gratitude and all that shit really quickly when the chips are down.
But you sure as hell can control whether people fear you. And you can rely a lot more on people doing what you want them to if they’re scared of you and the swift and sure retribution that will come their way if they fuck-up or wimp out.
But you can be feared without being hated, all you have to do is avoid unnecessarily disrespecting people or stealing their gear, and being hated can be dangerous. Someone who hates you will actively work against you.
So avoid being hated and you will stay feared but respected; and successful was my rule. Waste that respect by behaving like an arsehole the way Butcher did and all you do is breed resentment and hatred that can work against you.
And that was something Butcher never really got. That’s why he was a tool. A good one and very useful to Dazza no doubt for some things, but one I recognised as ultimately disposable that could and would be sacrificed with impunity when it suited Dazza.
Mind you he had his funny side as well. Fat Mick had been moaning one evening in the bar about not having been made up before the vote the way Wibble had been. We’ve a strict rule about no fighting in the club house, you get fined. So Butcher just calmly reached into his pocket, took out his wallet and plonked his fifty quid on the bar. Then he turned round and just coldly smashed one straight into Fat Mick’s face that took him completely by surprise and dropped him straight down to the ground where Butcher then launched in with a good kicking, stomping him good and proper for a few minutes, shouting all the time about how he was fed up with all Fat Mick’s whining and moaning until Fat Mick was a bloody foetal ball that managed to roll out of reach under a table, while we all stood around with our beers in our hands and had a laugh or shouted encouragement.