Jersey Tough

by Wayne Bradshaw

I stood silent, and Tennessee and I finished our beers.

  Months had passed, but Tennessee’s story about Bandit remained permanently etched in my memory. As I considered my decision to leave the Pagans, I thought about Bandit’s fate and hoped that I wouldn’t meet a similar end.

  If my decision to leave the Pagans cost me my life, well, I only had myself to blame.

  The next day, I called Jake and told him only that I needed to see him. We arranged a meeting at his girlfriend Jean’s house in Atlantic Highlands, where he’d been staying. Jean’s place was only a few blocks from our clubhouse. It was a big, comfortable home with a wraparound porch, on a sloping piece of property just minutes off the busy Highway 36. Jake was still the unofficial sheriff in that town; the local cops were afraid of him and didn’t dare tread where they weren’t wanted. It was a warm Indian summer day in the fall of 1978.

  A buddy of mine who knew Jake, Jon Friedman, had agreed to give me a ride over there, at great risk to himself. Jon wasn’t a big guy, perhaps five foot 10 and 200 pounds, but he was very tough—and handsome, too. He’d never had enough money to buy himself a Harley, and he tended to hang on the fringes of the Pagans. I confided in Jon a lot because he knew all the guys I was riding with but was quiet and knew how to play the game. He was also a fighter, and he always had my back.

  Jon was the one guy I knew who had the fucking balls to drive me to Jake’s place. No one else would do that. No one.

  I barely acknowledged Jon as I hopped into his Chevy for the ride over. I held the colors in my hand for the entire ride, never once putting them down. I was in my own world, scripting the details of my upcoming meeting with Jake.

  My colors, nothing more than a sleeveless denim vest with the Pagan logo sewn on the back, were perhaps the most valuable thing I owned, and I was ready to give them up. I’d only had my colors for about two years. But we tended to wear them a lot, and so mine were already looking faded. There was nothing all that unusual or special about them; they were virtually identical to those worn by the other members of the Sandy Hook Pagans, though mine had picked up a few bloodstains over time.

  I knew I’d be dead if I showed Jake even a hint of fear; he could sense it even at a distance. I had to put my game face on and quickly get in and out. Would I be fighting a life-and-death brawl the second I handed him my denim colors? Would he be armed? Would anyone else be there—Tennessee or some other assassin? Would Jean’s blue Volkswagen Beetle be in the driveway, or would she be at work? I liked her, and she would no doubt see me as a betrayer. Would she be there, giving me snake eyes?

  If I’d had the money and the wherewithal, I would have sent the colors to Jake by FedEx, insured, along with a handwritten note saying “Suck on this”—and caught the very next flight to Phuket, Thailand. There were no known Pagans in Thailand at the time. But I had no funds and no skills outside those needed to be a mercenary.

  I wondered, too, what life would be like for me after I handed over my colors. Certainly I expected retribution of the violent sort. I had made one firm decision that was etched in stone: I would not involve anyone else. No enlisting others to shield me from the storm coming, regardless of how it shook out.

  Unlike most of the guys I rode with, I never felt myself drunk with power because of my club status. If people felt less inclined to deal with me because I was no longer this revered motorcycle thug, so be it. No doubt I would make associations with worthier people, as I was no longer a Pagan. For certain, it was going to be entertaining to see how some people who had been my “friends” would react to my clubless status.

  We passed the flagpole that stood in the center island between the four lanes of traffic on Highway 36. A couple minutes later, we arrived at Jean’s house. Jon pulled up in front, shut off the car and tossed an arm over the back of the seat. He knew enough to stay put.

  Wearing a pair of jeans and white T-shirt, Jake was sitting on the wooden front porch when we arrived, his black engineer boots resting on the red brick stoop. There was no one else around. His eyes narrowed and focused on me as I got out of the car, carrying my colors, and strode across the small front yard and up the steps. He stood up but otherwise made no move and offered no greeting.

  The two of us stood toe to toe on the front porch. “I ain’t into this shit anymore,” I said, looking straight at him while handing over my colors.

  Jake’s stare burned into me; he was silent as a cobra. He took my Pagan vest but otherwise stood rock solid.

  I turned around and walked back to Jon’s car, not knowing what to expect and not knowing if I’d still be alive the next morning. The two of us drove away without saying a word.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE WARRIOR’S SPIRIT

  Slater never did come after me, nor did he send Tennessee. I can only speculate why there was no effort to retaliate. Perhaps it was because Jake’s sentencing in the Plotnikova case came soon after I left the Pagans. Being in prison would certainly have been a diversion, though he could easily have gotten word out to other club members if he’d wanted to.

  There may have been other factors at play, too. For one, I didn’t have any knowledge of murders or major drug transactions that would have made me a liability. I’d also learned that Jake opted not to tell other club members for some time that I’d left the Pagans. Maybe he was reluctant to make my departure known because he’d vouched for me and was loath to explain his miscalculation to those higher up the chain of command. I knew, too, that he genuinely liked me. Perhaps he thought that I’d reconsider and ultimately rejoin the Pagans.

  Jake knew that I could defend myself, too, and that might have been a factor, though that seems unlikely. The Pagans had certainly killed others more dangerous than me. If the club’s leadership truly wanted me dead, I’d be six feet under. For whatever reason, no one came after me, and for that I am thankful.

  My decision to leave the Pagans was an obvious turning point in my life—but danger and numerous tests of character were still ahead. In many ways, my years in the army and riding with the Pagans proved an extraordinary training ground for my subsequent 20 years as a police officer.

  My brother, Mike, and me at his karate school in Red Bank with three of his Jamaican connection fighters.

  I had done my time in hell and was eager to put things right.

  No longer being a notorious outlaw biker changes your social calendar, and your life. Your aura is weaker; you simply are not hot shit anymore. I embraced this newfound anonymity. There was a freedom to not having to be the nastiest lion in the pack. But there was a void as well. And nature abhors a vacuum. I filled the void with something that was challenging and required a strong sense of focus—the martial arts.

  I spent more time training with the Jamaicans, karate star Tadashi Nakamura’s elite, at Mike’s school in Red Bank. These men were first-class gentlemen and ferocious fighters who seemed impervious to pain and fatigue. Clearly the group’s leader was Leroy Bennett. He was a taciturn gentleman with a compelling edge to his voice when he spoke. I can still hear his Jamaican accent as he uttered commands in Japanese. Bennett, his brothers and his friends rocked my world, as well as pushing my spiritual and physical envelope. They were an inspiration to me and reminded me of the words of a Van Morrison song, “Tupelo Honey,” which talks about having insight and being unstoppable on the road to freedom.

  My time in the army brought me from a place of innocence to a feeling that life was a battleground, a place where only the strong survived without any real sense of what it was to really even be alive. I wasn’t too far off, but my concept of what constitutes strength was where I was wrong. My time with the Pagan Nation was a completely different situation. I willingly and knowingly walked into the wolf’s lair and ran with the wolf pack. I did that of my own free will. I could not shake the idea that I had so easily adopted the ways of those so brutal and in so many ways decadent and destructive. I can consol
e myself with the notion that I was thrown to the wolves during my military experience and that the ways of brutal survival are not so easily shed. But, and it’s a big but, a lot of people went through a similar experience and didn’t wind up on the dark side. And I do not believe that people can lie to themselves with any tangible success.

  In my mind, the scales had to be evened. I wasn’t a contributor to anything positive or in any way enduringly good. This was serious spiritual baggage; it gnawed at me, and it leapt out at me in the wee hours of the morning, when I struggled to sleep. I could train Korean Karate and lift weights until complete exhaustion, as I often did, but my journey to wholeness was incomplete.

  One of the people I trained karate with was Dan Horkelor, a CPA by training and a superb fighter in his spare time, who lived in nearby Tinton Falls.

  Dan was lean, maybe 175 pounds, and about six foot two. He spoke with a very educated, polite flair and would likely appear ripe for a beating in the wrong environment; he looked like a geek. But Dan had the most powerful kicks and punches that I’ve ever seen. He had mentally broken down the kinesiology of martial arts movement and was able to attack with devastating efficiency. He had a side kick, reverse punch combination that crushed the toughest and most skilled opponents. To me, Dan was an iconic figure. He had real credibility among the leaders in East Coast martial arts.

  The combination of his very meek appearance and deadly martial skills fascinated me, so periodically I’d try to strike up a conversation with him in the gym, to no avail. At first I think he saw me as uninteresting, an uneducated knuckle dragger. Then things changed.

  One evening after a spirited karate session, Dan and I went out for a couple of beers. I was excited to get some face time with the guy, whom I saw as a true living legend. But I wasn’t looking to talk fighting techniques with him. I wanted to pick his brain on literature germane to oriental spiritual philosophy. I told Dan of my thirst for books that could help me grow philosophically and emotionally from the field of oriental spiritual discipline.

  “I have been really into Castenada,” I told Dan. “I recently saw a book by a Buddhist scholar named Suzuki who thinks Castenada is really writing about oriental philosophy using a divergent background.”

  Dan just smiled. “I am familiar with Suzuki. But not that subject. Are you serious about understanding oriental spiritual discipline?”

  “More serious than you can imagine. What’s the point of training so diligently and not understanding the concepts that drove the creators who put their lives on the line to spread their message? There is no doubt there are deep underlying principles at play here.”

  “Not understanding is akin to driving a car, but only in circles. I would strongly recommend Nitobe’s Bushido. This is the code of the Japanese warrior. It’s almost poetic. Then the Hagakure, the bible for samurai. It was written in parables—like the Western Bible—about the year 1590.”

  Dan also recommended I reread Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan, by Carlos Castaneda. It had nothing to do with the Code of the Bushido or anything oriental, but it had everything to do with the Toltec’s concept of the warrior. Find the nexus between the first two books and the third, Dan urged.

  “Drink in the contents and apply them to your life,” he encouraged. “You have to expand your consciousness. The world may not at all be what you currently feel it to be. More importantly there is a way of life, a way of personal conduct that you can embrace. It can make you whole.”

  Dan had given me the key to the door of oriental wisdom. It was a gift more important than anything he could have taught me in Mike’s school. I attacked Dan’s recommended books with a zeal I had never felt before. I sensed I was on the cusp of something truly cathartic and at the same time life-enriching. As I searched to find the nexus between the books, a new way of being unfolded in front of me.

  I realized that all of the trials I’d been through, both in the military and with the Pagans, were trials that I could use as a foundation for a new, more deeply insightful way of living. I would never even attempt to explain it to another living person. It wasn’t the sort of thing that one explained anyway. It was too intensely personal and important. I had the building blocks, three books that burned deep inside me. Not only did they set in motion a new and exciting view of life, they also helped drive an unquenchable love for the written word that continues to this day. I began to devour books and see the past and present world in a crescendo of different voices.

  I identified three key concepts from the books Dan recommended:

  The Bushido: “A man can weep tears from the beauty of watching a cherry blossom fall from the branch of its origin. That same man could cut another man in half with his Katana and feel only the touch of justice.”

  The Hagakure: “A samurai is in need of but three qualities. All things are extensions of these qualities: Compassion—One must merely compare themselves to others and put them ahead of you. Courage—One must view danger and death and move forward. Wisdom—One must listen to others, truly listen.”

  Journey To Ixtlan: “We have inherited but two and only two choices from the creator: strength or misery. Choose.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SHOOTING AT THE WRONG CLUB

  With my Pagan connections and colors gone, I needed to find another way to make a living. I wasn’t even a qualified laborer on a construction site. If I used a hammer and nail, my thumb was constantly at risk. I had no mechanical skills whatsoever and didn’t even own any tools. I doubted the army was looking for me to re-enlist. I was still a tough guy, though, and knew I had the look and skills to be a bar bouncer.

  I began work in October 1978 at what can best be described as a fight club on Route 35 in Sayreville, New Jersey, called Loose Encounters. It was quiet on weeknights and a drunken and drugged free-for-all on the weekends. The music was by New Wave bands like the Cars and the B-52s. Across the traffic barrier and on the other side of Route 35 was another club that played different music but was identical in outward appearance.

  Forget what you may think of tough guys dispatching drunken scoundrels to the delight of sexy young women. The reality for bouncers is far different. The pay sucks, the fair maidens are usually not that “fair” and if things go bad and some drunken loser gets hurt, the club manager will blame you. I worked weekday nights alone, my only “backup” the club manager, who was of absolutely no use in a fight. He was good-looking and cocky, and had plenty of “nose candy”—cocaine—if any of the Jersey girls caught his eye. I generally had little to do with him and hung out in the nightclub’s outer lobby, where there was a small TV and a pay phone. As people walked through the front door, I checked for IDs and forbidden intoxicants.

  One evening, while the manager and I were watching TV in the lobby, the ultimate big-haired Jersey girl strutted in, wearing a short, ass-hugging skirt and stiletto heels, and noisily chewing gum. When I asked her for ID, she fed me a line of bullshit. Good looks or not, she wasn’t getting in. But the horny manager saw things differently and escorted her in. A few minutes later, the manager was back in the front lobby, looking glum. His best pickup lines had apparently failed him.

  “That drunken bitch is trouble,” I said.

  Seconds later, the chick was back and headed straight for the pay phone. “This fucking club fucking sucks,” she said, looking disdainfully at both the manager and me. “I wouldn’t come to this fucking shithole if it was the last place on earth. Fuck this fucking place.”

  She was right: the club was something of a shithole. Still, no one had dragged this woman in. She’d walked in of her own accord. The club manager was apoplectic. He grabbed her by the back of her neck, quick-marched her through the lobby door and smashed her with real force face-first into the pavement. Damn! Her face was bleeding, she was crying hysterically and she was kicking her high-heeled stilettos. She really got whacked.

  The manager
retreated to the sanctity of his office. Even though I truly disliked the woman, I went to help her. She pushed me away and screamed that her brothers and the cops would retaliate. I watched as she stormed over to her car, got in and took off down Route 35.

  Sometime later, the woman came back trailed by two cops who seemed quite anxious to help her. The police told her that all she needed to do was identify her assailant, and they would make an arrest.

  She looked angrily at me but said nothing. All I could think of was the scene at Joey Miles, where I’d gone to the aid of Plotnikova and ended up getting arrested for aggravated assault. The cops went inside with Big Hair and looked around. But the woman was unable to identify her assailant, perhaps because the manager had retreated to his office, as he often did when trouble broke out. With no one to arrest, the woman left, and so did the cops.

  While working as a bouncer, I also found the time to get married to my girlfriend, Jane. We stayed married for 19 years before calling it quits in 1999; we never had any kids together. In the classic movie Network, Peter Finch says, “I was married to 30 years of shrill, shrieking fraud.” My marriage wasn’t shrill or shrieking. It also wasn’t a fraud. But it wasn’t a great and passionate love affair, either. It just was.

  Jane was always around when I was a biker. She didn’t demand leading-lady status. But she had my back. When I was released from the county lockup, she was there with a mug of gin and tonic that would make a rhino stutter.

  She proved a theory I had and still firmly believe in: if you treat the right woman honorably, there exists on this earth no creature with greater loyalty. This trait that I so highly value was alive and well in Jane’s persona. So if infidelity wasn’t an issue and neither of us wanted children, why then did we get divorced? Because life is complex, and people are true creatures of change.