The Last Chicago Boss

by Kerrie Droban

  The jukebox blasted classic rock tunes in a corner. I hovered near the pool table with Mr. Happy, who looked every bit the porn star, with his perfectly blond coiffed mustache, clean pressed jeans, and unblemished skin. He could have stepped off a movie set. I scanned the room for slight movement, a slip of a hand inside a pocket, a stocking cap wedged beneath an armpit, a stumbling drunk who bumped into the wrong brother. Like watching ripples on a lake, noting which stones skipped, which sunk, which skimmed and caused waves.

  My gaze strayed to the floor, to the baggie of fine white powder at my feet. I couldn’t help myself; I was still, after all, an opportunist. It wasn’t weakness or addiction that drew me to the baggie—it was challenge and intrigue. And, truth be told, if someone was going to be so careless as to drop a baggie, who was I to pass it up? I nudged Jaws, and he hid the baggie with his boot. My heart raced at the thought of the score.

  Jaws grinned and pulled out his keys, and, in a dark corner, dipped the groove into the powder and inhaled. He coughed, shook his head. His eyes watered.

  “It’s not cocaine, Boss,” he sputtered. “It’s chalk, from the pool table.”

  * * *

  Slim, ex-Boss of the Fugarwes, bumped Crazy Tom’s elbow, an unforgivable insult that nearly knocked the Outlaw into a wall. But before Crazy Tom could recover his balance, Slim flipped over the Outlaw’s gold “Charlie” medallion—a Christmas gift—and patted the skull necklace: “Charlie’s backwards.”

  Slim was done. Club Rule #1: Never touch an Outlaw. Club Rule #2: Never insult the club. Club Rule #3: Refer to Club Rule #1. Club Rule #4: Retribution must follow.

  Pete with Medallion

  I swallowed the shot, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and envisioned Crazy Tom cutting Slim open with his bowie knife, right there in the clubhouse, in front of all the other brothers. But nothing happened.

  “Want me to fuck him up?” Mr. Happy waited for my cue, his eyes hungry for action.

  A pall of apprehension hung over the party. This wasn’t like watching football on television with teams no one knew or cared about. Here there were no replays, no commentaries, and no commercial breaks. Every fight had rules; Outlaws had rules, and none involved negotiations or huddles.

  As I gave the command to attack, Duke, the Fugarwe’s Boss, intervened. “He’s ours,” he said, and began to usher Slim into a back room.

  “You either handle him or I will.” It was an unwritten rule in the biker world that each club disciplined its own. The punishment for insulting an Outlaw was two black eyes.

  Adrenaline pumped through me like a drug. I wanted to pummel Slim myself, squeeze his fucking throat until his eyes popped. My whole body shook. The room spun. The caiman slept in his shallow pool, eyes wide open, mouth extended in a magnificent display of jagged teeth. Duke looked uneasy; blood drained from his face.

  “We’ll take care of it.”

  “If you don’t, I’ll be back next week to burn this fucking house down.”

  With that explosion, the party ended; lights flipped on, the music stopped. Brothers filtered into the alley. Broads headed for the exits. The scene consisted of littered shot glasses, half-full plastic cups, spilled liquid on the bar, pool sticks propped against the table, balls in some of the pockets, a buffet of uneaten food along the far walls. Upstairs a toilet flushed.

  “You’re a little over the top, Pete,” Mountain said in a low voice.

  My heart raced. “You’re either with me or against me.”

  The next day, Joker called me. “We have a problem.”

  “I don’t think we do.”

  “The Fugarwes are worried.”

  “So?” I leaned back in my plush leather chair and lit a cigarette.

  “Slim’s been handled internally,” Joker said. “They drilled both of his eyes.”

  I didn’t care about Slim’s punishment. I cared about perception. Big Pete did not apologize.

  “What do you want me to tell them?” Joker asked.

  “Tell them to keep a fire extinguisher handy.”

  Joker sighed. “We have to call them and tell them it’s okay.”

  “I’m not calling them,” I said. “I’m ordering you to call them.”

  “I’m not doing it. You’re the Boss.”

  Silence. Joker stuttered, “They won’t listen to me.”

  Now he had my attention. I jammed my cigarette into the ashtray. Interesting—they viewed him as Joker the Joke. This was huge.

  “We can’t risk sending them into the arms of the Hells Angels. They want an apology,” Joker continued.

  I waited a day, let Joker sweat it out, then made my victory call to the Fugarwes.

  “It’s fine. It’s enough.”

  And so, Duke resigned. He had no choice really; stalemate was not an option. He had to exit gracefully.

  * * *

  I often did my best thinking grocery shopping; I found it relaxing to roam each aisle and read ingredients. I marveled at pies that came in cans, ready-made graham cracker crusts, frozen spaghetti and tomato pastes that passed for sauce. I studied the shoppers, too; laser-focused, harried, most bought the same items every time, choosing familiar, safe, easy. Pieces of a televangelist’s speech swirled in my head: “What we buy is a reflection of what we are, what we want, what we become. When we are born we are all given the opportunity of a life [and] time. We can save time, pass time, buy time, waste time, do time … even kill time.…”

  When I tired of food items, I browsed toy sections, incredulous that square folks actually bought this shit. One day, I pressed the paw on a stuffed bulldog named Barney and it barked. I pretended to be a ventriloquist.

  I wasn’t remotely funny, but when my old lady found me sometime later in the dim hallway, pretending Barney spoke, she gushed I was “amazing,” “wonderful,” and should seriously consider a comedy career.

  I replaced the toy on the shelf.

  “You know you suck, right?” Mr. Happy rolled his eyes.

  “You really were funny.” Debbie smiled.

  * * *

  The Fugarwes held an annual pig roast on twenty acres of Cook County forest preserve. The event attracted biker and one-percenter clubs from all over the city and offered prime opportunity for Outlaws to gather intelligence, recruit prospects, and flex muscle. Under a large pavilion, broads flashed their tits in wet T-shirt contests, paraded on stage in thick makeup and chunky high heels, and, doused by hoses, wiggled shiny G-string asses to crowds of salivating wolves. Nearby, a beer truck flowed, replenishing kegs and pitchers until the air reeked of alcohol. Food stands surrounded the glazed skewed pig rotating on the open fire rotisserie style.

  Yellow crime tape circled the Outlaws’ section, where I sat in the middle waiting to be served. Probates guarded the perimeter, asking my permission each time for a civilian or other club to enter. By so doing, they perpetuated the illusion of my greatness, leaving the hundreds of spectators still waiting in line to gaze at me as if I were a showpiece, or an event.

  “Boss,” the probate barked, “citizen requests permission to enter.”

  I watched the faces in the crowd, their curiosity piqued, some slowly chewing their corn, others removing their sunglasses, cups of beer suspended in midair. Whispers, nudges, smiles from the broads; I felt like Tony Soprano, a wax figure about to come to life.

  I nodded to the probate; the citizen entered and presented me with a plate of steaming food and pig parts. Junior brought me a bottle of Crown Royal and placed it on the picnic table.

  A drunk stumbled in and tried to kiss my hand. With a slight nod of my head, Mr. Happy grabbed the stray and the probate and whisked them into the woods. When they returned a few minutes later, both had black eyes.

  “Hey, Boss, ever heard of Reapers, Inc.?” Junior stood next to the picnic table.

  “No.”

  Mr. Happy was already on it. “Boss wants to talk to you,” he told two Reapers as he escorted them toward me.

  “W
ho are you?” The two Reapers wore black vests prominently displaying a skeletal figure holding a red, white, and blue scythe.

  “You said it was okay.” The member squinted at me.

  “I’ve never heard of you.”

  “Chef approved us.”

  “Corleone?”

  “Yeah. And Chopper Johnny.”

  “You do realize there’s another club called the Grim Reapers and their logo is nearly identical to yours?”

  “Yeah, we perverted the name—you know, a little gallows humor?” He chuckled, but I wasn’t laughing.

  “Colors are sacred,” I said, giving him a crash course in patches. “Bikers kill for these rockers. Identity is not a secret. We wear these on our vests like a neon sign.”

  “We were thinking of Murderers, Inc., but thought this one sounded better.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sergeant Sal Luciano.”

  “You’re a cop?” Now I was really curious. “How about you and I meet later and hash this out?”

  A hint of fear skittered across the sergeant’s face.

  * * *

  “What the fuck, Corleone,” I said later, pacing in my clubhouse. “I never approved Reapers, Inc.”

  “They wanted to run some charity thing.”

  “What charity thing?”

  “I don’t know; they wanted to raise money for some charity.”

  “That’s a onetime deal. I never said they could fly colors in Chicago.”

  * * *

  I met Sal at Corleone’s restaurant in Melrose Park. The day was overcast, windy. Still, we sat outside.

  “We’re third-shifters.” The sergeant grinned and ordered sausage and peppers.

  “You’re still cops.”

  “We have a different philosophy. We’re about quality, not quantity.”

  “We have a different philosophy too,” I said. “Outlaws and cops don’t mix.”

  “We’re just having fun.”

  I considered that it might be handy to know a few coppers.

  “Tell you what: You can play around with the biker thing, but you can’t show up at any of our events.”

  Sal nodded. “Fair enough.”

  * * *

  A week later, a group of us Outlaws stumbled out of a bar in Chicago, drunk on margaritas, reckless, determined to sober up at the fashion show we were going to. We mounted our bikes, swerving in and out of traffic; the last thing we needed was a DUI. No one messed with us until we reached the suburbs: Cicero, Northlake, Elmwood Park, Lyons, Melrose Park.

  “Shit.” Wig-wags lit up the patrol car behind us. Sirens chirped and a voice boomed through the bullhorn, “What’s going on?”

  The cop pulled up next to me and rolled down his window. “Sal!”

  The officer grinned. “You need an escort?”

  What the fuck? His squad car shot ahead of us, sirens blaring down the freeway. We had to drive so fast to keep up with him that we missed our exit. He honked at us, pointed to a ramp going the wrong way, and promised to “be a lookout” for us while we flipped the bikes around into oncoming traffic.

  “We thought you were chasing the cops!” a few onlookers remarked later.

  And I could see how it might be confusing.

  But after that first police escort, we took advantage of any public misperception, and Melrose Park, third shift, became a sanctuary where we could essentially do whatever we wanted. We could count on Sal and his third-shift crew. More often than not he showed up at whatever bar we were at, dressed in full uniform, ready to give us his blessing.

  “You’re not getting in trouble for this shit, are you?” I said.

  “We’re just having fun.” Sal laughed.

  But a newspaper warned that the officers were “treading on dangerous terrain”:

  “Members of a Melrose Park motorcycle club called Reapers Inc. look the part of rough-and-ready outlaw bikers. They ride Harley-Davidsons, sport tattoos, hold parties at their clubhouse, pose for photos with middle fingers extended.…

  “But to hear it from the club’s president, the group in no way embraces the damn-the-rules lifestyle espoused by the likes of the Hells Angels and Outlaws—two of the largest and better-known “outlaw,” or “1%-er,” biker organizations that have been repeatedly targeted by federal authorities for drug trafficking and other alleged gangland activities.

  “After all, the Reapers club was founded by Melrose Park cops.…

  “‘We’re nothing but a bunch of guys that like to hang out … and ride together,’ said a patrol officer in the west suburb. ‘All we want to do is have a good time.’”

  At least we had that in common. Still, neither of us forgot which team we were on. Word of the outlaw/cop alliance spread and soon other graveyard crews were participating. Nicky, a third-shift cop who worked Northlake, tossed me his keys one night while I drank with Mr. Happy and other Outlaws.

  “Ever wanted to drive a squad car?” he asked. Was he kidding?

  I climbed into the front seat, borrowed Nicky’s checkerboard hat, instructed Mr. Happy to replace the police department’s logo with the Outlaws’ insignia, “Charlie,” and sped off, waving to other cars and pedestrians.

  “I think third shift should wear Outlaw support patches,” Nicky announced one night as he drove me home. I was too intoxicated to respond, but the next day I made sure third shift, Northlake, received patches and T-shirts.

  They thanked me by posting club photos on Facebook; the members’ vests all read, “Support Your Local Outlaw.”

  At two in the morning, I sat alone in a sports bar bordering Northlake. A heavy weight bag swung from the ceiling and patrons took turns hitting it. After a while, the punches were resounding like buckshot in my ears. Punch. Bang. Punch. Bang. I called Nicky.

  “What’s up?” he said when he arrived at the bar, dressed in uniform, looking weary.

  “You hear that?”

  Nicky nodded.

  “Give me your gun.” I pointed to his waistband.

  “Now hold on, Pete.” Nicky blocked my hand.

  “I want to blow his fucking head off.” I twisted the napkin under my shot glass.

  “How about we take a ride?”

  Nicky tossed me the keys to his squad car. And in my inebriated, strung-out condition I drove us to the deserted police firing range. Floodlights glowed over the dark silhouetted figures of torsos and heads on a rope with bull’s-eyes for faces.

  Nicky gave me his pistol.

  I didn’t bother with earplugs. I just aimed and fired over and over until his gun clicked.

  * * *

  Several weeks later, a SWAT team pulled me over as I rode near Stone Park. Sirens chirped. Streetlights flickered. It was one o’clock in the morning. I slowed, lowered the kickstand, shut off my bike.

  “You don’t have to do that,” the officer pulled alongside me. “I just wanted to introduce myself.” He held out his hand. Introduce himself? What the fuck?

  “What’s this all about?”

  “You’re Big Pete, right?”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “No.” The officer chuckled. “I just wanted to say hello.”

  “I’m not a prize pig.”

  “We’re just curious.”

  “You realize we’re not on the same side, right?” We were never going to be friends. I made a distinction between “good cops” and “cops that were good for us.”

  * * *

  But when the officer was killed the following week in a bike wreck, I attended his funeral. The service was flooded with reporters. But while it was advantageous to have cops and reporters sympathetic to the Outlaws, it wasn’t something I wanted broadcast.

  “Lets just keep this between us, okay?” I said to one reporter.

  But he didn’t; instead his article highlighted the public’s “fascination” with bikers and the “striking similarities” between us “misunderstood Robin Hoods” and “true believer” cops.

  “Peo
ple hear ‘club’ and think ‘gang,’” one Wild Pig cop/member explained in the article, the difference between ninety-nine-percenter and one-percenter clubs. “We have rules of law; gangsters have codes.”

  “A gang, which we most definitely are not, acts territorial or confrontational, uses profanity, vulgarity and antisocial messages on their cuts [jackets], bikes, Web sites. Gangs openly display/carry weapons in public and hang out with other like-minded individuals. They gravitate to brotherhood, attend functions, promote charities, and support gang activities, because they feel socially isolated from the public at large and have a human need for acceptance.”

  I could see how we were different.

  * * *

  Familiar dread cramped my lungs.

  “I’m taking off for a while,” I told friends, and hid in my bedroom for days, curtains drawn, dark shadows moving across the walls. Sometimes I needed to detach, disconnect, cross into a portal and flick a switch. A morose quiet engulfed me. I dozed on and off. My answering machine blinked at me like an angry red eye. Then Butch tapped at my window. He wore his embroidered black dress shirt.

  “Hey, Pete,” his voice exploded in my ear. Tap. Tap. Tap. “Pete? I’m dead. I’m deeeeead … I’m free. I’m finally free.”

  I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart racing. Room empty. Rain spit at the window.

  My hand shook as I depressed the message button expecting to hear Butch’s voice. Strangely, days before, he had left a message on my house phone; I’d recognized his caller ID. I never answered him. Now, the machine crackled. I hit rewind, hoping to hear his voice. Nothing.

  “Debbie!” Panic took hold. She appeared in the doorway. “Did you erase Butch’s message?”

  She shook her head. “What message?”

  * * *

  Santa organized Butch’s funeral and held the reception in an abandoned hotel because “it was cheap” and he “got a deal.” Inside, the empty ballroom had a muggy, locker-wet smell. Sweat compounded the stickiness. The place was being remodeled. White tarps draped over built-in bars and stools. Mirrors circled the room, and a rickety chandelier dropped from the low ceiling. I half expected Butch to appear, not in a bloody, gory way but chuckling through the hollow corridors and tapping on the bullet-riddled glass.