Hard Road

by Peter Edwards

  Big Jack’s death wasn’t a total surprise to Guindon, even without the Siblock situation. “I figured that was coming sooner or later. He was acting as national president. It was going to his head. Nobody paid much respect to him.”

  —

  Looking across the Detroit River from Windsor, Ontario, it’s hard to imagine the Detroit cityscape is any more than a strong swim away, let alone in another country. In early 1977, the Outlaws and the Satan’s Choice met secretly in Windsor to put even less distance between them.

  On the Canadian side, only Satan’s Choice chapters believed to be loyal to Mother McEwen were invited. As the Outlaws’ war with the Angels raged on in the United States, the American club needed to boost its ranks, and it wanted to fill them with members of the Satan’s Choice—and not the ones preoccupied with keeping their club Canadian.

  Thunder Bay members took notice that bonds between clubs solidified when their old friend Howard (Pigpen) Berry hooked up with the Outlaws in the United States. “After Howard went to the OLs [Outlaws], it opened the door for even more association/biz,” Verg Erslavas wrote in his reflections on the era. “By the mid-70s, we were tight with the OLs in many ways.”

  Not all Choice members had agreed to wear the Outlaw-Choice brotherhood patch, a sign that tensions were building within the Canadian club. “A lot of the guys were patriotic, surprisingly,” Erslavas said. “ ‘No Yankee shit on my colours.’ ”

  There was a lot more to joining the Outlaws than just switching patches. For a biker, patching over to another club meant a profound culture shift. The Americans even rode a different model of Harley. Everything about the Outlaws was more rigid, aggressive, loud and in your face. “They were a different kind of club than the Choice. Some of the guys I met were from Detroit, Carolinas, Florida, Tennessee and other states. A lot of them rode rigid-framed choppers with open primary chains, which was a statement in itself by the mid-70s.”

  Behind bars, Guindon was livid when he heard about the meeting—and what happened next. In March 1977, the St. Catharines and Windsor chapters of the Choice joined the Outlaws, with Hamilton, Montreal and Ottawa following shortly afterwards. Toronto, Oshawa, Kitchener, Peterborough and Kingston remained loyal to Guindon’s vision of an independent Canadian club. With that, the Outlaws beat the Hells Angels across the border and became the first international outlaw motorcycle club with Canadian chapters.

  In the summer of 1977 the new Canadian Outlaws gathered to party with their American brothers at Crystal Beach, near Buffalo. They burned their Satan’s Choice grinning devil patches and accepted the skull and crossed pistons patch of the Outlaws. They also adopted smaller patches that read, “RIP Satan’s Choice MC.”

  Guindon fumed about Mother McEwen’s betrayal. Frustrated at his own helplessness, he sat in his cell and pounded out leather craft with a little hammer. “I couldn’t do nothing about it. Fuck was I mad. Especially at him. Stool pigeon motherfucker.”

  Guindon thought about his discomfort around McEwen since the first time they’d met in St. Catharines. “I had a negative feeling. I always get these feelings with some people. Maybe it’s a natural feeling. Be careful. Be cautious.” Part of the reason was that McEwen didn’t even look like a real biker. “He looked like a fucking hippie. I thought, What’s this guy looking for? He had a head shop.”

  The Hells Angels responded quickly to the Outlaws’ expansion. On December 5, 1977, the Angels landed in Montreal. They patched over thirty-five members of the Popeyes, whose ranks included killers like Yves (Apache) Trudeau. The Popeyes had travelled south to party with Angels charters (the Hells Angels are divided into local charters, not chapters as other clubs are) on the Eastern Seaboard for years. Now they were part of something much bigger. They could dream now about expansion, not just survival.

  The Satan’s Choice had been the mightiest of the Canadian clubs when there were no international clubs in the country. Now, within only months of each other, the two most powerful American-based clubs had set up shop on Canadian soil, and the Choice’s very survival was threatened. The dam was bursting and Guindon couldn’t do a thing but tap away at his leather craft and hope the remnants of his club had the nerve to stand their ground.

  CHAPTER 27

  The Big Split

  I don’t like to say anything bad about anybody, but Garnet McEwen—he was a backstabbing fucking prick.

  Former Satan’s Choice member VERG ERSLAVAS

  Cecil Kirby quit the Satan’s Choice in a dispute over pizza with a member named Billy the Bum. Shortly before the big patchover to the Outlaws, Kirby felt he was being threatened by someone who was involved with him in motorcycle insurance scams, and he wanted the Bum to watch his backside while he went into a home to sort things out. Billy the Bum replied that he couldn’t at the moment because he had just ordered a pizza. That meant Kirby didn’t get the backup (or any pizza), and he quit the biker club in disgust. Not long after that, the Commisso crime family reached out to him to do some work as an enforcer.

  Around this time, someone pulled up outside Mother McEwen’s home in St. Catharines and opened fire on him. McEwen considered his survival a miracle, and he credited it to a higher power rather than poor marksmanship. “That’s when I seen the Lord,” he later said.

  Something bigger than patches was changing as international clubs were pushing into Canada. A love of motorcycles and riding wasn’t always at the core of life in outlaw motorcycle gangs now. Clubs revolved around business. “I don’t think the cops were ready for what happened afterwards, and they were certainly powerless to stop it,” Erslavas said. “After 1977, it became a much different game.”

  Outlaw bikers had become an increased priority for police fighting organized crime. In June 1977, Inspector William Sherman of the RCMP told the press that 75 percent of drug trafficking in Ontario was controlled by biker clubs. As if to support his case, in August 1977, police seized more than a million dollars’ worth of drugs during raids in Toronto, Kingston, Wasaga Beach, Hamilton and other communities. Most of the people arrested were Satan’s Choice and Vagabonds.

  Surprisingly, and to the chagrin of some of the remaining Satan’s Choice, the club maintained relations with the American Outlaws, and their fugitive exchange program continued. It was an uneasy balance, as the remaining Choice members valued their independence while the Outlaws wanted to further their expansion onto Canadian soil.

  While Guindon languished in Millhaven, a couple of American newcomers appeared in St. Catharines. They seemed to ask too many questions, with the story that they were fleeing American charges relating to vaguely explained gun crimes. They were turned away by other Choice members who weren’t convinced by their stories. “You never know who the fuck they are,” Guindon said. “They’re going from chapter to chapter. They could be anybody. They could be a police officer. Undercover…He might be a pigeon…You always wonder.”

  One visitor who came to Southern Ontario under the mutual aid pact with the Outlaws was Harry Bowman of Detroit. He was known inside the biker world as “Taco” because of his Hispanic appearance, and authorities also knew him as Harry Bouman, David Bowman, Harry J. Bowman, Harry Joseph Bowman, Harry Joe Bowman, David Charles Dowman, Harry Douman, Harry Tyree and “T.” Whatever the name he was using at the time, he was always recognizable by the multiple tattoos covering his body, including a skull and crossbones with crossed pistons and the words “Outlaws” and “Detroit,” and a swastika and a Merlin the magician figure on his forearms.

  Bowman became chapter president of the Detroit Outlaws in 1970 when he was just twenty-one, and rose up to become north regional president later in the decade. He moved about Motor City in an armourplated Cadillac and later developed a war wagon with gun ports and bulletproof panels and glass. Often appearing psychotic and paranoid, he could also be charming and accommodating.

  Bowman was at the Kitchener Choice clubhouse when Oshawa member Lorne Campbell got into a near punch-up with another American
Outlaw named Brillo, who had ridden up from Nashville with a stripper. Brillo’s Harley Panhead broke down, and Kitchener Choice members were rebuilding its engine when Brillo got word that an Outlaw had been killed in the United States. The news meant he needed to rush back to Tennessee. Before he departed, Brillo left his old lady with Campbell, telling him, “Look after her. I don’t care if you fuck her. Just make sure she’s not abused.”

  “I gave her a couple,” Campbell said, referring to consensual sex. True to his word, he also found her work as a stripper and made sure nobody gave her any trouble. Brillo returned to Kitchener and started grumbling. “I left my old lady with Lorne and he ended up fucking her,” he said during a visit to the clubhouse. Sitting in the television room, Campbell overheard the Outlaw’s complaint. He stormed out of the room, grabbed Brillo and growled, “I’m gonna throw this motherfucker down the stairs!” There was a certain amount of protocol involved even when tossing someone down a staircase, so Campbell added, “Go get Taco!”

  As he waited, Campbell drove Brillo’s head against the wall. Bowman quickly materialized, mollifying Campbell and saving Brillo from a bumpy descent to the main floor. “He was a nice guy,” Campbell said of Bowman.

  Though he wouldn’t hear of the incident until much later, Guindon always appreciated how Campbell wasn’t about to be pushed around by the Americans. There was a fine line to be walked with the Outlaws, and the imprisoned Choice leader could only hope that others like Campbell would keep their club alive until his return.

  The Choice were far from finished after the big patchover. They were left with approximately two hundred members at the end of 1977, a drop of about a hundred from the club’s heyday a decade earlier. Guindon had suspected the worst about Mother—“He was a stool pigeon”—and now those suspicions seemed confirmed. McEwen realized that the international Outlaws would be a more attractive target for police than the Choice, so he led his club there to improve the price of his co-operation. “That was why he went Outlaws.”

  In the wake of McEwen’s treachery, feelings among the Choice were raw, akin to when a family is torn apart. “Every single chapter had to make the choice,” Erslavas said. “Each chapter had to make the call, and each member had to make their own call.” Some chapters, like Ottawa, split right down the middle, with an equal number of members deciding to keep their old patch and members deciding to switch.

  “I don’t like to say anything bad about anybody, but Garnet McEwen—he was a backstabbing fucking prick,” Erslavas continued. “Mother was in it for his own personal reasons…his own gain. He thought there was a payday in it for him. Probably the biggest reason was [the Choice who switched] thought they had something to gain from doing business with the Outlaws. There was nothing noble about it.”

  Up in Thunder Bay, there were a half-dozen locals and three members from Ottawa in the chapter. It seemed to be fizzling away, and there was no return date scheduled for Guindon, who could revive things. “There was no way we were going to go Yankee, go Outlaw,” Erslavas said. “We decided to fold up, up there…Maybe we felt after that there wasn’t a future there. We let the guys know. They understood and respected it.

  “I myself struggled. I loved the club. When I joined, I truly thought I had found my station in life. In 1977, I was only six years in and I didn’t want to quit what I thought was the best thing that had ever happened to me. At that time, it was the toughest choice of my life. I then had to write the letter to Bernie, who was still in jail, and tell him about our decision. Believe me, that was tough. We all signed it, but I recall I wrote it. I looked up to Bernie, and it was hard to find the words.”

  Thunder Bay members made a trip down to Windsor during the time that was known as “The Big Split.” They were in the border city to pick up a couple of motorcycles that were being worked on by a custom painter, and stopped by the old Choice clubhouse. This time, the familiar home-away-from-home feeling was gone. The clubhouse and the men inside it had been stripped of anything to do with the Satan’s Choice, and the crest of the Outlaws, with its skull and crossed pistons, was everywhere. “Things were tense, to say the least,” Erslavas said. “Some of the guys were packing side arms openly—the same guys who a couple of weeks before were our brothers.”

  Mother McEwen was at the clubhouse, which only made a tense situation tenser. “Some words were exchanged, but I couldn’t really speak my mind,” Erslavas said. “To do so then would have been foolish. I think the only reason we walked out without anything happening was because we knew some of the Windsor guys pretty well and there was certainly some mutual respect.” That mutual respect didn’t extend to McEwen, as far as Erslavas was concerned. “As for Mother, well, he was a piece of shit to sell out. I think everyone on both sides agreed.”

  Soon, there was word that Mother McEwen had fled west with a contract on his head. He had been kicked out of the club for embezzlement. Now he was considered a traitor, a stool pigeon and a thief—all good reasons for getting stomped on or shot in the biker world. Guindon heard from behind bars that Mother had weathered a severe beating, which made Guindon jealous. “They beat him with his wooden leg. I wish I would have.”

  Bernie Guindon, right, with his older brother, Jack.

  Their father, bootlegger Lucienne Guindon.

  A couple of French Canadians growing up in Oshawa. Guindon and Suzanne Blais, 1958.

  Guindon learning his notorious left hook in the ring.

  Guindon (lower right) in the Oshawa Boxing Club.

  The Satan’s Choice Motorcycle Club rides as one, 1969.

  The Chicken Race makes the news (The Globe and Mail, August 6, 1968).

  Wild Thing.

  Guindon puts his fists to work representing his country.

  Captain of Team Canada, touring Scandinavia in 1971.

  Rod MacLeod (centre) and the Montreal Satan’s Choice. (Ian Watson photo)

  Garnet “Mother” McEwan, who led the SCMC in Guindon’s absence, straight into the arms of the American Outlaws.

  SCMC heavyweights Armand (In the Trunk) Sanguini and Howard (Pigpen) Berry, wearing his dead-skunk boutonniere.

  Pigpen looking normal—and to his peers, more dangerous.

  Montreal hitman Yves (Apache) Trudeau.

  Training with a mountain of a man at Stony Mountain Penitentiary.

  Boxing in Millhaven.

  Out again, with Lorne Campbell (left) and Bill (Mr. Bill) Lavoie.

  Growing up in Oshawa as ordinarily as possible, Harley Davidson Guindon.

  Guindon marries the woman he could never forget, Suzanne Blais.

  Two constants in a tumultuous life, Guindon’s mother, Albini (Lucy) Guindon, and Suzanne Blais-Guindon.

  Prison pal, John Mazzotti.

  Harley, his dad and Montrealer Gregory Woolley.

  The prison record Harley never wants erased.

  Fighters and friends, Guindon with Canadian heavyweight champ George Chuvalo.

  An enemy so long he became a friend. Johnny Sombrero died in 2016.

  CHAPTER 28

  Prison Blues

  You just sit in the dark. It’s just a hole. You’re just in a square box. You wouldn’t know what fucking time of day it was.

  BERNIE GUINDON on prison punishment

  Despite his extinguished hopes for Olympic glory, Guindon worked out harder than ever. Prisoners in Millhaven had at least an hour a day to work out in the yard, triple the time available during his days in the Kingston Penitentiary. “You had time to work out,” Guindon said. “Put your mind in a different perspective. When you’re getting yourself in shape, doing the exercise, you’re getting away from the institution.” He made a commitment to get in top shape for the distant day when he would again walk free. This would be his own personal Olympics. It would also help him cope with the upheaval in the Satan’s Choice and survive until his sentence expired. “I’d try to mind my own business and watch over our own guys. What else could you do? I’d work out so I could take care o
f myself.”

  Guindon devised a punishing workout program to increase his core strength. It involved doing sit-ups while holding heavy weights and gradually decreasing the amount of weight. The most he managed was 350 pounds, almost 200 pounds more than his own weight. “Nobody picked up more weight than I did for a sit-up. Man, that was heavy. I’d have a guy sitting on my legs and I’d almost pick him up.”

  Like many boxers, Guindon avoided free weights. Muscle-bound fighters look tough, but their punches don’t snap and cut as they should. In the Millhaven prison yard, free weights were also dangerous, in particular around the bench press. “Guys will come by and drop weights right on you. Drop a two-hundred-pound weight right on your chest. Whoop! Right on your chest. I’ve seen it.”

  Guindon prided himself on taking care of his own problems inside, like the time someone smacked him in the head with a steel bar. “I did get even with him. I think I dropped a weight on him.” Guindon knew enough to mind his own business when trouble started in the yard, but sometimes he couldn’t. Sometimes men he considered brothers were involved. Behind bars, bikers tended to hang together in the yard, even when they were from different clubs. “You’d look after them. They’d look after you. It works both ways.” That sense of fraternity extended even to some Outlaw inmates he met inside. “I didn’t have any problems with them. I had a good name.”