The Last Chicago Boss

by Kerrie Droban

The boyfriend stuttered, “What do you mean?”

  “Am I speaking English?”

  Jessica glared at me.

  I realize my question was a little hypocritical considering I had no real job, but this was my daughter.…

  “I’m in between work right now.”

  I fixated on the creases in the boyfriend’s face, his dull, empty eyes, like small rooms with no heat. My hands clenched and unclenched under the table. Current rushed through my body. The whole right side of my face tingled.

  * * *

  “You turned into a version of the Incredible Hulk, didn’t you?” Debbie looked at my swollen knuckles. “Just can’t control your temper, can you?”

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  “It’s like a creature bursts through your skin and just takes over.”

  “He aspired to do nothing, never pay rent, and suck the living shit out of my daughter.”

  “How bad did you hurt him?” Debbie folded her arms across her chest.

  “I don’t think he went to the hospital.” The beating had been a reflex. I’d yanked him across the table by his ponytail and slammed his perfect nose into the wall.

  “Let me make it up to you,” I proposed to Jessica later. “I’ll take you shopping.”

  “Shopping?”

  I took my cue from Mr. Happy, and designed my own “Sam’s Club,” filled wall to wall with appliances, electronics, computers, radios, phones, designer jeans, even steak and lobster. I never actually “bought” any of the items; they were all “gifts.” Hence, Pete’s Rule #5: Never do anything for which you cannot afford to pay your lawyer a retainer.

  “Pick anything you like,” I said.

  “Did you steal this stuff?” She’d brought her friends.

  I ignored her question, just happy to spend time with my daughter, happy she’d dumped the boyfriend, and happy I could be some kind of father to her.

  8

  ROCK STAR

  Pete, Bastardo as a Black Piston, Mr. Happy riding the strip at Daytona Beach for Bike Week

  Financially, life was unpredictable. One week I’d be rolling in dough, two weeks later dead broke. I never saved any money. My safety net was another score. When I needed cash, I bought debts and maneuvered the trucks that cleaned out houses for the Outfit.

  “Sorry, man, just doing business.” I felt a little bad as stunned home owners watched whole furniture sets disappear.

  But being Boss required a certain style. Perception was reality—gold wristbands, Rolex watches, jeweled medallions, bracelets, and even a gold finger on my vest above the AOA patch where the swastika used to display.

  “I don’t imagine they make too many of those,” a cop remarked once.

  “Just one.” It had been a Christmas gift from the brothers and affirmation that they appreciated me.

  “What are you, some kind of rock star?”

  I played one.

  * * *

  I traveled first class to Daytona—twenty-two hours, eleven hundred miles, in a truck that hauled three trailers packed full with bikes. Mr. Happy, pumped on Red Bull, drove straight through, stopping only to gas up and piss. Once, a cargo of chickens spilled on the interstate in front of us; Mr. Happy swerved to miss the birds, but clipped several, sending plumes of feathers into the air. Clusters of bloody webbed feet stuck to the windshield. By the time we arrived at the beach, Debbie was green.

  “Where you staying?” Ho Jo, an Outlaw from the Red Region, asked when he called a few hours before we arrived. We had met several times before at other biker functions. He was weirdly affable, a stunted, slower, shorter version of me. We bonded almost instantly. Maybe that’s just what happens when you encounter yourself.

  I’d rented a suite in a five-star hotel overlooking the ocean, while others were going to cram several to a room and stumble over tiny, rumpled beds.

  I recited the address to him.

  An hour later, Ho Jo called again, whining a little like Joe Pesci. “Where are you guys staying?”

  “We’re here,” I said.

  “No you’re not.”

  “I’m standing in the hotel.” The lobby was crowded with Outlaws.

  “No you’re not.”

  My blood pressure spiked. Debbie chuckled. “He’s lost, isn’t he?”

  “No I’m not,” Ho Jo yelled.

  A bellhop unloaded twenty-five black duffel bags.

  “You must be Big Pete,” someone said, trying to shake my hand.

  “Who the fuck are you?” I didn’t recognize his colors. His and his buddy’s three-piece patch designs were similar to those of the Unknown Few (not to be confused with another motorcycle club called the Chosen Few or the Insane Unknowns or Just Us Few), only smaller and darker. Same black and white colors, ape handlebars, and a dwarf-sized grinning skull with rotted teeth.

  “We’re with Ho Jo.” He seemed totally lost, unsure whether to retract his outstretched hand or leave it suspended in midair like an awkward extension of his body.

  “Ho Jo’s not here,” I said.

  “He’s at another hotel with the same name,” Mr. Happy said, lowering his voice and stooping to grab my bags.

  “What are you, my fucking valet?” I snapped at Mr. Happy.

  “We’re his support club,” the misfit tried again.

  “Never heard of you.” Though he hadn’t yet supplied the name.

  “But…”

  “How many are you?” I only saw two.

  Numbers separated the “serious clubs” from the posers. If a new club approached me with fewer than five members, I knew it wouldn’t survive a year; most dissolved after a week. Start-ups had to design their patches, ensuring the colors didn’t conflict or resemble an existing club’s. They had to draft an original constitution, prepare bylaws and mission statements, and recruit prospective followers willing to embrace a certain lifestyle just for the privilege of hanging around a one-percenter.

  “That’s none of your business,” the misfit said.

  Mr. Happy prepared to block my blow; he must have registered the subtle change in my expression from irritation to rage. “You’re wearing a ‘Support Your Local Outlaw’ insignia. That entitles me to know how many members you have.”

  “We can’t tell you,” Misfit’s buddy said. He resembled a potato: lumpy hips, bruised skin with patches of brown spots, bald skull, and flaps of excess chin. His T-shirt was practically a tablecloth.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re both banished to your rooms for two days. And you are forbidden from talking to any Outlaws.”

  I could tell they thought I was kidding—“banished” sounded so medieval. But after a dead silence, the two slunk off, dragging their twenty-five bags behind them. Mr. Happy smothered a smile. Debbie smirked.

  All I wanted was sleep. The little concierge gave me the card key and said, “I trust everything will meet your expectations.” I headed down the hall, so tired my legs barely registered the floor. But when I opened my suite, I saw unmade beds and bunched sheets, and what looked like a naked foot.

  “The fuckers didn’t even clean first.” I fumbled for the light switch.

  “Don’t kill us!” A blur of white sheets and pink light bulbs flashed across the room. A male voice swore as his big toe smashed into the coffee table.

  “Harrryyy!” A broad screamed. “What is he?”

  “Here’s my wallet.” The man practically threw it at me. Coins littered the floor. His hands shot into the air. “Don’t shoot!”

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Why are there people here?” Debbie gasped.

  “I’m not doing this again.” I slapped the key card on the concierge’s counter. “You walk into the next room.”

  “I’m so sorry, sir, wrong key.”

  “I’d rather be shot at than labeled a Peeping Tom, for fuck’s sake. I’m an Outlaw, you know; I’m with the Outlaws. Find one of their rooms—at least if you open the wrong one, I’ll still be with me.”r />
  * * *

  Ho Jo stumbled into the lobby. He came up to my waist.

  “Hey, Pete, Pete, I’m here.” Sweat moistened his forehead.

  “Glad you found the place. I met your friends. They’re lovely. I sent them to their rooms.”

  Ho Jo looked confused. “They’re with me, you know.”

  “They misbehaved.”

  I followed the concierge down the hall. Ho Jo tried to keep up, tripped, trotted along, tripped again.

  “Pick him up, will you?” I ordered Mr. Happy, who didn’t miss a beat. He scooped up Ho Jo by the armpits and floated him down the hall.

  “You have to let them out.…” Ho Jo whined.

  “I don’t have to do anything.”

  The concierge opened my suite. It smelled like ocean.

  “How long then?”

  “Tell you what.” I smiled at the bottle of wine and the two glasses on the balcony. “I’ll let one out in a couple days.”

  * * *

  Ho Jo called an official meeting at the tiki bar the next afternoon, said he had “serious business” to discuss concerning a growing Outlaw chapter in his Red Region. Several Bosses and I gathered around picnic tables pushed together on a wooden deck. We stirred piña coladas with pretty umbrella straws. The sun warmed our cheeks. A high tide crashed against nearby boulders. The burning tiki torches smelled like French fries.

  Ho Jo adjusted his oversized lenses, his short, stubby legs skimming the sand.

  I sucked the paper from my straw, my mind wandering to spitballs. I shut my eyes behind my Ray-Bans, letting Ho Jo’s voice lull me into a half sleep. He sounded like Morris “Moe” Greene, the character in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. Based on Bugsy Siegel, Greene worked as a mobster hit man for the Corleone family and later became a casino proprietor. He received “a Moe Greene special” when an unknown assassin surprised him one day and shot him through the eye.

  The wrapper formed a small ball in my mouth, and the more Ho Jo spoke, the more vigorously I soaked the paper with my spit. I was almost ready. I cracked open one eye. Bright sun beat against the lid. Ho Jo droned on; the others at the table politely drained their piña coladas, then ordered seconds from the waitress in the red bikini and stiletto heels.

  I focused on making the perfect spitball as little beads of sweat slipped behind Ho Jo’s lenses.

  I paid no attention to his words. Something about “voting” and “rules” and sham “elections.” Part of me wanted to interrupt and say, “No one seriously votes for anything in this club, do they? It’s just critical to let them think they’re voting.” Ho Jo asked for a show of hands. Was he serious?

  Aim, steady, fire.

  The spitball struck like a dart, hitting Ho Jo full on in the left eye before settling on the inside of his giant lens. The effect was pure comedy. He stopped mid-sentence, his hand in the air. He shook his head, probably hoping to dislodge the wet ball. The Bosses at the table had their hands raised too. They looked a little startled.

  “You’ve been Moe-Greened,” I roared. And just then the waitress returned with the pretty drinks. The Bosses dissolved into laughter, dropping their hands, pointing, some barely able to catch their breath. The waitress smiled.

  “I love you too, brother.” Ho Jo whipped off his glasses. I could tell I had embarrassed him. He was conducting a “serious vote” about something “serious,” and I had turned his meeting into a mockery. This was bad. This was really bad.

  Then it happened: payback. Ho Jo wiping his glasses with an edge of T-shirt, me stirring my frozen drink and thinking about an apology, and the waitress jiggling her tits as she slid the drinks across the table, and … plop! A lone seagull flying above me had shit on my head.

  “Now we’re even.” Ho Jo smirked.

  “Tell you what.” I didn’t bother wiping the poo off my head. “I’ll release your captives.” Ho Jo brightened. I reached into my jeans pocket and threw a set of keys on the table. “And I’ll give you these—they open the North Side clubhouse. You’re welcome anytime.”

  “You can be a real asshole sometimes.” Ho Jo grinned.

  “Only part of the time.”

  9

  WE, THE PEOPLE

  I was invited to speak at NCOM’s next patch-holders meeting. Twenty-eight chapter chairmen were to gather in the Great Hall to recite their clubs’ accomplishments: arranging for stop signs on busy roadways, addressing profiling issues and a “handlebar bill,” adopting lane-share options for motorcyclists. Mundane. Mundane. Mundane. My goal for NCOM was unification and education, not street improvement projects that made it easier for motorcyclists to navigate the square world. NCOM wasn’t about “Us and Them,” it was about “Us.”

  “What will you speak about?” Debbie asked.

  I had no idea yet, but “The Omega Glory,” a Star Trek episode, had been rerun on television the night before. Captain Kirk found Captain Tracey of the USS Exeter violating the Prime Directive and interfering with a war between the Yangs and the Kohms (which Kirk concluded finally were just euphemisms for Yankees and Communists, though that seemed a far-fetched story line). Us and Them. Captain Tracey’s phrase, “E Plebnista,” a bastardized version of “We, the People,” replayed in my head as I stood at the podium and stared into the expectant crowd.

  “We the people,” I borrowed from Kirk’s speech. “They’re the most important three words in the English language. We are the people, not some people, or sometimes even people. We are people. We’re not fighting for road equality. There is no Us and Them, there’s just us—we the people, one united front.”

  Applause.

  “These are not holy words.” Kirk echoed in my head. “They do not just apply to the squares—they must apply to everyone or no one at all.”

  More applause.

  There was no chance anyone else had seen the rerun or the cheesy trailer … I hoped.

  “We are the people who let this shit happen to us.”

  The crowd went nuts.

  And the Starship Enterprise shot into the galaxy, leaving the Yangs to contemplate the meaning of liberty and justice for all.…

  * * *

  “Hey, Boss, there’s this club that wants to remain neutral,” the Outlaw named Rider reported to Frank later that week.

  “Neutral?”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “There’s no such thing. They’re either with us or against us.” Frank swiveled on his bar stool.

  “They insist they’re independent.”

  NCOM patch-holders meeting

  “They rejected the Angels too?”

  “They want to be neutral.”

  He continued to spin. “All right, fuck ’em, let them try solo, see what happens.

  * * *

  The Odeum1 Swap Meet happened. The large-scale event organized in Chicagoland represented the first in Outlaw history the club did not control. Translation: school. Outlaws customarily contacted the owner for a “meeting of the minds.” It was important everyone understood the “rules”: No Angels allowed. If any slipped through, “there might be bloodshed.” The owner listened politely to our demands and then hung up on us. This left us convinced the swap meet was an “Angel” show.

  “We’ll set up a perimeter,” Backlash said, launching into attack mode.

  He suggested we prepare the Outlaws’ fortified war wagon—an armor-plated van with a gun port, equipped inside with handguns, rifles, a submachine gun, bulletproof vests, smoke grenades, ammunition, and walkie-talkies.

  “We’ll circle the venue in case things get shitty.”

  But Joker, the recently named new Regional Boss, vetoed Backlash’s idea, thinking it “excessive” and “hardly necessary.” He had his own “attack plan,” one he had used “quite successfully” when he was a member of the High Spirits, a small “ma and pa” club comprised at the most of ten members. Joker lacked experience; he was no wartime Boss, but he was trying to put up a good front.

  “We’
re going to march inside as a united front, and arrive at the same time,” he announced.

  “At the same time as what?” I wasn’t being an asshole; I really didn’t get it.

  “The Angels—you know, so they’ll know we’re there.”

  “Then what?” I tried to envision his plan: Outlaws and Angels charging the same field at the same time and just flailing about, weapons drawn, each hoping for victory.

  “We’ll all arrive together,” Joker “clarified.”

  “Sounds like Massacre 101.”

  Whatever happened to basic military arrangement: infantry in the center, cavalry on the wings, adequate reserves? Even standard Roman legionnaires’ maneuvers included tactics like the Tortoise, shell-like armor soldiers used to shield against incoming arrows (or, in this case, bullets); the Wedge, the short knife useful in hand-to-hand combat; the Saw, an army’s response to the Wedge; the Skirmishing formation, a widely spaced line up of troops that allowed for greater mobility; the Repel Cavalry, first, second, and third rank walls of soldiers with their shields and spears drawn, poised for assault as each wall fell; and finally the Orb, a defensive position in the shape of a circle in case all other methods failed.

  We relented and followed Joker into battle. The day the swap meet opened, security stopped everyone at the entrance and confiscated knives, pistols, and ammunition.

  “He says we can purchase these inside at the booths,” Santa shouted as I rode up.

  “What are you doing?” I dismounted my bike. The line snaked into the street. Hot sun beat down on citizens and support clubs. Some pushed empty shopping carts, hoping to fill them with merchandise; others had backpacks.

  “We’re waiting to get in.” Santa motioned to his entourage. They were all shorter than him by inches.

  “Get out of line,” I said. Santa flinched as if I had just slapped him. “We’re Outlaws, for fuck’s sake.”

  Santa hesitated, then gave up his place in line. He and his little people trotted behind me toward the gate.

  “Let us in,” I barked to the guard. “We’re Outlaws.”

  “Enjoy yourselves,” the man said with a nod, and ushered us inside the three-story building.