As sergeant-at-arms, I was expected to participate in whatever plan was decided on. Unlike the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Pagan law has no provision for refusal to follow illegal orders. I had no intention of getting myself killed for this asshole, but I was going to try to finesse the situation if I could.
Two of the guys got fed up with all the talk about torture. They grabbed Thunderstorm from the tub and dragged him out to the living room. They put a thin blanket over his head and torso and drenched it with gasoline. Thunderstorm started to shake violently and pleaded for his life.
Suddenly, the large plastic sheet on the floor beneath the man seemed irrelevant. If this plan went ahead, the whole cottage would be burned to the ground. I grabbed Slater and told him that we needed to talk, privately. We went into the kitchen.
“Bro, fuck that motherfucker, but we should play it cool and not fuck this guy up. We got to stop the shit,” I pleaded.
Slater gave me a look that was uniquely his, one that blended a threat with a condescending cocking of the eyebrow and a sardonic smile. “Yeah, and what the fuck are you suggesting about dealing with this piece a shit?”
“Listen, I am talking low so fuckhead can’t hear. We keep this guy tied up, but let’s at least give him some water,” I said. “Bro, when I was in the army, capture and torture was a heavy topic. But the best reason not to torture this fuck is because if you or any one of us gets taken, they won’t feel obligated to skin us alive—not if we treat this guy okay. I am not complaining about harming some motherfucking member of the Breed. But I am talking straight strategy. The kind of shit a president does looking out for his bros.”
Slater nodded, smiled and said, “Sometimes you surprise me.” He halted the abuse and even ordered one of the guys to get Thunderstorm some water.
Thunderstorm pleaded with Slater to let him go and swore that he would quit the Breed the second he was released. Eventually, it was decided that we would go ahead with the plan to swap our prisoner for Boo’s stolen colors. There was only one condition: Thunderstorm would have to remove the Breed tattoo, a rectangular red-and-blue flag that covered the outside portion of his left upper arm. Because there was no way for us to surgically remove it without severe physical harm, it was agreed that we would scrape black ink over the area to cover it. Thunderstorm readily agreed.
Slater contacted one of the Breed’s leaders, and they agreed to meet for the swap in downtown Red Bank, not far from where Whiskey Joe and I had had our showdown—and literally a few blocks from the Red Bank Police headquarters. Jake handled all the negotiations after conferring with some of the very hard-core guys in our group.
With bikers on both sides carrying loaded shotguns and driving heavily armed war wagons, Thunderstorm was swapped for Boo’s colors without incident. We didn’t see one Red Bank squad car, a lucky break for all involved—especially Thunderstorm.
In the late 1970s, the Orchid Lounge in the heart of gritty Asbury Park had a clientele that was overwhelmingly African-American. Most whites knew better than to walk through the door, which was popular with members of the Kingsmen Motorcycle Club, an all-black, non-one-percenter club whose members proudly rode Japanese motorcycles. Though we weren’t exactly friends, the Sandy Hook Pagans did have an open invitation from the Kingsmen to hang out with them at the Orchid Lounge. The only white males I ever saw at the Orchid were fellow members of the Pagans. Even as guests of the Kingsmen, we were always on the very cusp of a bloodbath. Still, they were good company and we genuinely enjoyed hanging with them.
One day before an Orchid Lounge drink-fest, I ran into a couple of guys in Asbury Park who thought it would be “really cool” to have some colors-wearing Pagans come to a party that their girlfriends were throwing at a nearby home on the following Thursday evening—which also happened to be meeting night for the Sandy Hook Pagans. The party was going to be in someone’s backyard, and there would be a live band playing. Frankly, I thought the guys were crazy for inviting Pagans to a house party, but it was their call, and I cheerfully agreed.
At the Orchid later that evening, I extended the invitation to the members of the Kingsmen MC. I painted a picture of sexually liberated chicks and lots of booze, and they immediately made plans to join us.
That Thursday evening, I briefly met up with some of my Pagan brothers at our clubhouse in Atlantic Highlands before getting on our Harleys for the half-hour trip south to Asbury Park. Along the way, one of the guys had trouble with his bike, so we all sat and waited while he sorted out the problem and got it roadworthy again. It was after midnight when we finally rolled into the city by the sea.
As we got closer to the address that I’d been given, members of the Kingsmen MC raced past us in the opposite direction, headed away from the house party. We saw red lights from marked police cars in the distance, and heard more police responding at high speed with sirens blaring. It was clear that some serious shit had gone down, but we had no idea what.
Dozens of partyers were rioting and fighting with the cops in the home’s front yard and in the street when we arrived. The cops had their nightsticks out and were making it quite clear that they would restore law and order, no matter how many citizens had to be taken down. Before we could dismount, a group of police from nearby Long Branch descended on us. It looked like the Asbury Park cops had called for mutual aid from other departments. One of the cops grabbed my handlebars with his left hand while holding a nightstick at the ready in his right.
“If you don’t take this bike and get the fuck out of here, I’m gonna hook it and you fuckers are going down hard,” he said.
None of us wanted to see our bikes taken away on the back of a tow truck for the trip to a police impound. We all looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and rode to a nearby nightclub, where we drank without incident.
I had no remorse for the problem my invitation seemed to have caused. The Kingsmen were stand-up and knew very well how the game was played. A week or so later, I had a beer with some of the Kingsmen members and we talked about the party. They said the sexy and seemingly willing white women were less than sexually liberated when it meant crossing racial lines, and the white guys seemed intimidated and defensive. As a result, the scene got real ugly, real fast.
When the cops came, the white guys at the party got shitty with them for failing to protect residents against the intruding bikers. The complaints from the crowd prompted the cops to focus their attention on the invited partygoers—and ignore the bikers, who didn’t seem to be doing anything wrong. While the partygoers and the cops fought it out, the Kingsmen jumped on their bikes and headed out of town. They thought the night was a blast and were not in the least put out by the cops or circumstances; it was just another night on the other side of life.
The Jersey Shore area where the Sandy Hook Pagans rode was mostly rural until after World War II, when it blossomed and became a major rail hub to New York City. Economically, the area was unusually diverse, spotted with wealthy enclaves including Highlands, Rumson, Deal and Wanamassa, and impoverished areas including Keansburg and much of Asbury Park. In the half hour it took us to ride our chopped Harleys from Atlantic Highlands to the bars and nightclubs in Asbury Park, we would cruise by weathered summer bungalows; dark, rat-infested apartments; and stunning high-end homes surrounded by manicured lawns and privet hedges.
Most nights that we rode together as a club were spent at dive bars. But on some evenings we’d check out more upscale places—like Tradewinds, a sprawling oceanfront club with a beautiful pool and the very best entertainment on the Jersey Shore. It was just a short ride from Atlantic Highlands.
One hot Saturday night in 1977, a bunch of us headed for Tradewinds. Members of other Pagan clubs had heard about our plan and decided to join us. As usual, Jake Slater was in the lead. When we got there, Jake palmed a wad of money to one of the preppy young bouncers out front, and a dozen of us headed inside the packed club.
The bouncers seemed uncertain how to handle our presence, and they paced nervously. Somehow, the hours spent in climate-controlled gyms, building those biceps and pecs that drove the teen girls giggly, were not so formidable in the presence of outlaw bikers wearing colors. The girls for the most part seemed to be doing their best to look cool and check us out when they thought we weren’t looking. The males at the bar seemed to be drinking faster.
The tension in the air was the sort we enjoyed the most, as the girls seemed drawn to the bad-boy bikers in their midst and the males grew increasingly jealous. We knew that it was only a matter of time before a brawl started, that some jock three sheets to the wind would say or do something tragicomic, thus opening the doors to what the thugs in A Clockwork Orange called “a bit of the old ultra-violence.” I was pacing my drinking because I felt, given the numbers, that we would be fighting for a while. You can’t fight at your best if you’re half in the bag. Most of our guys seemed similarly inclined. Still, the mood among us was loose and jovial.
Me and my custom Harley-Davidson Sportster during the summer of ’77 outside my parents’ Middletown home.
The way we gauged the climate for battle was simple: when a high enough percentage of the people in the nightclub started giving us glares of outright hostility, or began mocking us, the time for confrontation was growing near. Our policy was the same as that of the Prussian general and military theorist Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz—a brutal frontal attack, followed by more of the same. We also shared the Prussian’s penchant for total war. This did not mean we shot and sliced the enemy (at least not under the circumstances presented by the Tradewinds crowd) but that we were completely and ruthlessly committed to the task at hand. We knew our opponents were woefully unprepared for the battle that was sure to come.
Around 2 a.m., a chant rose from the crowd to “kick the Pagans’ asses.” Ironically, we hadn’t done anything to provoke the anger. We had been hanging out at the bar, drinking and talking among ourselves. Though there were plenty of young chicks in the place, we hadn’t bothered any of them. It was as if we presented an alien aura, and our unsmiling and sardonic attitude toward the patrons seemed to fuel their passions. Many of them were also drinking heavily.
Some muscular 21-year-old guy shoulder-checked one of our men, Snake, near the bathroom. Snake was considerably shorter than the guy who bumped him. But what the 21-year-old didn’t know was that this particular Pagan would strike if given the slightest provocation—which is why he had that nickname. Snake head-butted his antagonist and beat him with his fists and elbows into a limp, bloody pile on the floor. A bunch of the other jocks jumped into the fray and were quickly dispatched with the aid of wooden bar stools and fists.
Someone in the back flicked on all the emergency lights in the club, and many of the patrons headed for the doors rather than get involved.
We, too, thought that the fight was pretty much over. Jake told our guys to saddle up and get out of town before the cops arrived. He and I hung around near the bar for another few minutes, talking to one of the bouncers who’d actually stood with us against the crowd.
The two of us looked out the exit doors and saw a mob standing there, demanding revenge. We glanced at each other for a split second before moving to take care of business. Jake threw the doors open and walked outside, with me a half step behind.
Slater dropped two guys with one punch to each of them from his massive right hand. He then swung his helmet like some Roman gladiator, shattering the faces of several more attackers. That seemed to be the end, or at least that’s what we thought. Exhausted and exhilarated, we walked toward our motorcycles.
As I turned my head to say something to Jake, I saw some big guy racing toward him, ready to attack. I threw my helmet like a Nolan Ryan fastball and caught the guy in the center of his face. The impact knocked the attacker off his feet, and he crumpled onto his back in the street. I grabbed him by his arm and pulled him onto the sidewalk so he didn’t get run over. His face was a mess, blood pouring from his nose and mouth.
Jake and I turned and continued walking toward our Harleys. We’d find another bar to finish out the night.
Me and my faithful companion, Big Foot.
More than a decade later, at a Tai-Chi seminar in Red Bank, I ran across the guy I’d dragged off the street. By then, I was heavily into the martial arts and working as a cop in Middletown. When I walked into the event, several old friends were standing off to the side with amused looks on their faces. They said nothing to me but seemed intent on observing what I was doing. After a few minutes, I introduced myself to the guy standing next to me. He told me his name—Chris Stevens—and said that we’d met before, in Sea Bright.
Suddenly, I realized that Stevens was the man I’d hit with the helmet. His father and my dad were actually good friends. Chris and I later trained in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu against each other, quite aggressively. Neither of us ever spoke of that night in Sea Bright, and he never made any effort to get even with me for the injuries that he still wore.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ALL THINGS MUST PASS
The orders came down from Jake Slater, as they usually did: it was time to ride to Long Island for a war party. There would be no questions, and attendance was mandatory. When we arrived on the island late that night, we gathered in a pitch-black industrial park near the Long Island Expressway. The guys from the Pagan national headquarters had heard rumors that a group of Hells Angels was coming onto the island as part of an effort to flex their club’s muscle and expand into our territory. Though most of us had ridden there on our Harleys, we had a couple of war wagons with us, loaded with clubs and at least a few shotguns. The cars varied; there were some sedans, and one of the guys had a Chevy El Camino.
The Sandy Hook Pagans rarely ran drugs, but some clubs used drug sales as a way to generate cash. The bigger your club’s territory, the more cash you could generate. The Pagans had long owned all of Long Island, but the Hells Angels had control over New York City and wanted to expand their territory to the east.
I don’t know who handled the battlefield logistics for the Pagans that night, but whoever it was seemed to have at least some military experience. A bunch of us were directed to take up positions in an L-shape that would have allowed us to ambush the Hells Angels if they started anything. I was carrying a 12-gauge pump shotgun with a sleeve of extra shells.
Surprisingly, the night ended quietly. Some members of the Hells Angels did ride into town, but they kept their distance and there was no confrontation. I put the shotgun back into the trunk of our war wagon, and we all rode back to Atlantic Highlands in the still of the night.
I had seen my share of Hells Angels, and it seemed to me they were very much like us in appearance. Our colors were different: the Hells Angels used leather jackets while we used denim, and their jackets carried a patch on the lower portion of the back—more accurately, a “bottom rocker panel”—that announced what chapter of the outlaw gang they rode with. We were at war for territory with both the Hells Angels and the Breed. That was the way it had been for years, and likely would remain well into the future.
There were a couple of other times when we believed we’d clash with the Hells Angels. I remember one day when there was a motorcycle rally on Long Island that drew mostly non-one-percent motorcycle enthusiasts. We’d heard that the Hells Angels were going to attend the rally in a show of strength. The move was unacceptable, and we had no choice but to respond. So we gassed up our bikes, loaded our war wagons and headed across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to the island.
After a tense period, we learned that the Hells Angels were elsewhere, and there would be no chance of conflict. Some of the guys were so anxious for a fight that they got into a brawl with enthusiasts attending the rally. The enthusiasts had done nothing wrong but had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Several of them got punched out because they were around pis
sed off Pagans who had no one to fight. The enthusiasts meekly accepted their beatings and dared not fight back. No one was in a good mood. The beer didn’t even taste good.
In time, I could feel myself beginning to burn out. As a club, we’d all been running too fast and too long in the hopes of proving to the national leadership that we were worthy of wearing colors. The tension was evident, and I was certain that it would only get worse. One of the chapter’s members had already been demoted to a prospect, and our vice president was in deep shit because he couldn’t find his colors. We were all feeling something of a sensory overload, and it was taking a toll.
Slater was on a wild ride of pure, unadulterated megalomania. He fed off the dark landscape that we patrolled on our choppers. His capacity for long party nights riddled with ultra-violence fueled his ego. He led from the front, to be sure, was generous with his money and could be downright charming. But he was hypoglycemic, and alcohol turned him into an utterly fearless and less than tactical general. Jake consumed whiskey and soda in large beer mugs that seemed to unleash a fury within. Add green to the mix and, as William Shakespeare said, “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.”
Jake was capable of acts of wanton cruelty. And then, in seconds, he could shift gears and talk kindly to a person in a wheelchair. If sufficiently sober, he would also spend time with a child stricken with cancer and conduct himself with remarkable compassion. He seemed to follow some sort of inner guide that none of us could understand or predict. But he was mostly dark and violent. He certainly possessed a high IQ and could be amazingly perceptive. Being his sergeant-at-arms meant keeping my head on a swivel and never showing weakness. When you rode with Jake, you were always watching your every move—and ready for the unexpected.
Jersey Tough Page 20