I worked for hours as part of a bucket brigade, removing debris piece by piece from the pile. No one knew if we were standing on something firm or something that would give way under our weight. Somehow, none of us seemed to care about our own safety. It was all about clearing the pile of debris and trying to get to any survivors, or victims, who might be buried there. At one point, I stared down through an opening in the debris and could see the remains of a parking garage far below me. I kept working.
I was there when members of the city’s sanitation department raised a symbolic American flag on the site.
The sights, sounds and smells will stay with me forever. It was at once a terribly sad day and yet an awesome one, too, as strangers got together and did what they could. I watched as well-coiffed women in expensive clothes lugged drinking water from trucks to the pile for the thirsty, dust-caked volunteers. No one yelled, no one barked orders.
I worked the bucket brigade until my knee became so sore I was a liability. I then secured the gear for the rest of our group and guarded the perimeter as heavy construction equipment, including backhoes and cranes, was brought in.
At one point, soldiers turned over two Middle Eastern males to me. They looked every bit like jihadists, had no ID and claimed they were Armenians. But they were unable to explain why they needed to be so close to the rubble pile. I turned them over to a very tough-looking and decisive sergeant from the NYPD. I never learned what became of those two men, but I am pretty confident that they cooperated with the cop.
A white stretch limousine slowly made its way through the rubble and heavy machinery, looking very out of place. It had no front license plate but carried a special plate bearing the New York Yankees logo—the one in red, white and blue, with the baseball, bat and top hat. When it got closer, I walked over, stopped the vehicle and asked the driver what he was doing at Ground Zero.
The driver popped out and said, “Mr. Steinbrenner wanted to get coffee to the workers. Can you help me?”
The entire vehicle was loaded with tray upon tray of Styrofoam cups, all filled with hot coffee. There must have been hundreds filling the interior and the trunk of the 10-passenger stretch. I hobbled over and started helping the driver unload his cargo. Other volunteers came over and pitched in, too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THE GREAT JAKE SLATER
I pulled into the lot for the Middletown Police Department right around 7:30 a.m., parked my Nissan Altima in one of the spots up by the communications tower and walked down to the sprawling one-story brick headquarters that had been my home base as a cop for the past 20 years. The year was 2003, and it was my last year on the force. I took an exterior stairwell down to a steel basement door reserved for police personnel and headed for the locker room.
Donning my uniform and gear, I headed for a large conference room where one of the sergeants would do the daily briefing before we started our shift at 8 a.m. The meeting was attended by all the officers who would be out on the shift, along with dispatchers, plainclothes detectives and other support personnel. The noise associated with the shift change triggered some shouting from the prisoners in the nearby cell block. All of us were inured to this and generally paid no attention to it. This time, though, one of the voices seemed strangely familiar to me.
“That your boy in there?” Lieutenant Cortland Best, a 30-year veteran of the force, asked.
I didn’t recognize the prisoner’s bellowing bass voice at first. Then it hit me. The voice belonged to one of the most feared motorcycle outlaws alive, the ferocious and feared former leader of the Sandy Hook chapter of the Pagans Motorcycle Club, Jake Slater.
The lieutenant knew me well—and he was also aware of my history with Slater. I often referred to my superior as “Lou,” short for lieutenant.
“Lou, are you telling me that’s Slater?” I asked.
Best nodded. “He’s being held on a warrant. He isn’t very happy about it at all.”
“Mind if I have a word?”
“Go ahead,” he said.
I nodded at the two uniformed officers guarding the prisoners and headed back to Slater’s cell. Like all the other cells, the one Jake was in was equipped with one wooden bench, a cheap blanket and a utilitarian toilet. Its cement-block walls were painted in an institutional yellow.
Slater looked a little older but otherwise just as I’d remembered him. Standing six foot two, with a massive, muscular upper body, he was still a hard-core tough guy. He exuded menace and had a predatory air. He was wearing the same sort of clothes that I remembered: jeans, a sleeveless undershirt and black engineer boots. He had shaved his head and sported a graying Fu Manchu beard with the chin whiskers grown long.
“Remember me?”
“Yeah,” he said, leaning on the gray steel bars, a look of doom on his face.
“You want a bottle of spring water, rather than that toilet shit?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“I’ll bring you some,” I said casually. “You know, guys like us got to slow down. Getting old. Let the young guys do the heavy lifting.”
“You’re right, but make sure you watch your back. Some people who you think are your friends, aren’t. You can’t let them fuck with you.”
I nodded and said, “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back with your water.”
When I returned, Slater and I talked briefly about some of the guys we’d known and ridden with, and I noticed that his mind wasn’t as sharp as his body. Soon I headed back to the briefing.
As the sergeant gave us the rundown—a private detective working a case in town, a car crash at a major intersection, a couple of breaking-and-entering cases and the chief wanting the cars washed—I thought about Jake and my time in the Pagans.
In a way, looking at him was like looking into some crystal ball and seeing what I would have been had I continued to ride with Slater and the Pagans rather than becoming the first man in the U.S. to leave an outlaw motorcycle gang and become a decorated police officer. It was a place I most clearly didn’t want to be.
But for the grace of God, it could have been me incarcerated that humid summer day in the Gray Bar Hotel. To be sure, Slater was anything but pathetic; he was still practiced in the art of intimidation. But upon closer inspection, you could sense he was close to rot. The world had passed him by. He was going to have to make a lot of noise to get the attention that had come his way so easily before. Rap gangsters and tattooed white kids with sideways ball caps and pipe-cleaner arms were the “in” bad boys.
I thought back to some of the great Hollywood westerns, like The Wild Bunch, the 1969 classic about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, and about Patrick Floyd “Pat” Garrett, the American lawman, bartender and customs agent who became famous around the turn of the century for killing Billy the Kid. How did aging outlaws deal with getting old and not being very special anymore?
The warrior/sage Tecumseh said, “The hardest thing about growing old is that people don’t fear you anymore.”
And I no longer feared the great Jake Slater.
EPILOGUE
The warm tropical sun beats down most days in my new home in southwest Florida. When I married Barbara in 2008, I went from single with no children to having a large family, with three grown kids and a slew of grandkids—which is a blast. The number of grandchildren just went up to seven. And I have never even changed a diaper. Renzo Gracie still teases me on that score. Hell, I have never even said no to any grandchild over the age of 10. They must wonder who this far-out old man really is. I hesitate to say read the book. My father, Bud, passed away in 2010, and my mom, Pearl, is in an assisted-living facility in New Jersey. My brother, Mike, is married and still living in New Jersey.
I was recently interviewed by a reporter for the local Fox affiliate here in Florida about the biker massacre in Waco, Texas. She observed during a break that I must have had co
untless incidents in which I should have wound up dead during my days in the army, biker clubs and undercover narcotics. I realized that a day hasn’t gone by during which some situation or another doesn’t remind me of how very fortunate I am.
I’m reminded of one of the iconic films of my generation, Apocalypse Now. One of the many memorable scenes is the “Charlie don’t surf” segment, in which Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall) tells one of his soldiers, “What do you know about surfing, Major? You’re from goddamn New Jersey.”
The end of that scene hits home for me. Kilgore kneels in the sand on the beach and speaks lovingly of napalm. Then Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, narrates: “He [Kilgore] was one of those guys that had a weird light around him. You just knew he wasn’t gonna get so much as a scratch here.”
Discussing women’s defensive tactics with the hosts of Fox 4 Rising in Cape Coral, Florida, around 2009. I was a regular on the show for three and a half years.
When I was traveling toward Ground Zero soon after September 11, 2001, that phrase about coming back without a scratch drifted through my mind and rattled my senses. Detective Jeffrey Barner and I were discussing the risk factors at the devastated site. Suddenly Barner’s face went blank for a second.
“That’s you, man,” he said, referencing the scene in Apocalypse Now. “Oh yes, man, that’s you. You have that weird light, I’ve felt it for a long time.”
I had no reply. But two days later, when debris was raining down on my head during that partial building collapse at Ground Zero, and I was running for my life, the thought soothed my mind.
Oddly, retiring to South Florida has not ended the close calls for me. I still find myself in some strange and dangerous situations under the semi-tropical sun. But there’s some space between the incidents here and my dangerous past that I’m thankful for. One night, Barbara and I experienced—and then put down—an attempted home invasion at gunpoint. Another time, some gangbangers tried to box in my vehicle in an attempted carjacking on a desolate roadway. That was quickly solved by my constant companions, Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson. My grown stepson, Bernard, was there with me that day; it was one that he likely won’t soon forget.
Me and my wife, Barbara, during a Mexican vacation in 2006.
At another point, I was involved in an alleged kidnapping involving a Russian Muay Thai fighter wanted for crimes in Central Europe and a famous retired member of the New York Yankees—anyone who has followed the team over the last 20 years would be well aware of him. We did not part as friends from our benighted meeting. Too bad; I dig the Yankees. If he reads this: hint—dark sunglasses and backward baseball cap isn’t as threatening as you may think.
Like William Holden in Network (my favorite movie), I designed to write my memoir and do what one does in the autumn of one’s years. Or, as Charmian is told in Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers, “I desire to serve God … And to grow rich, like all men.” I know that I am being dragged into this digital age, no happier about it than a Luddite. Anachronistic to the end, I roar like a lion in defiance at the winds of change, and they ignore me universally. But I will continue to roar until the next phase takes me.
Jerry Garcia nailed it: “What a long strange trip it’s been.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As you read through Jersey Tough, you may have noticed that there are very few pictures of my Pagan times. Simply put, using a camera would likely have gotten me killed. Some members were wanted felons or on parole and forbidden from associating with other Pagans. Pagan hierarchy considered pictures with a person wearing colors to be club property.
When you attempt to write your first book as you are nearing sixty years of age, it is reasonable to expect a great deal of polite smiles and a good many condescending glances. I got a few of those, but mostly people were very supportive:
My wife Barbara’s support was, at times, heroic due to my ongoing scorched earth war with all things computer. The battle lines are drawn, and I am losing; but the war drums always beat.
Renzo Gracie, to whom I owe Giri (a debt so steep it is all but unpayable); the gift of your love and friendship has deeply enriched my life.
If there was no Mike DeGiglio, there would be no book. I owe you Giri also, my brother.
Charles Varrone, the undisputed heavyweight champion of life and mero mero of KB Security Consultants Inc. A book about you would unleash a thousand ships.
My brother, Michael, and his wife, Elaine, both of unflinching belief in this project.
Toni Cariero, who had to hear about this project in triplicate. A sage for our times.
Jonathan Cariero, the first proofreader. I think he still likes me even after removing a layer of the onion.
The four doctors who against all odds keep me straining at the leash of life. Dr. Rocky Seckler, Dr. John Ardesia, Dr. Ronald Gardner and Dr. Brian Arcement. All have gone beyond the call of duty.
My trusted agent and friend, Frank Weimann. If you value your money, do not play poker with this man.
The crew at ECW, indefatigable and creative. Jack David. For his vision. Erin Creasey, Crissy Calhoun and Susannah Ames. For dealing with my Quixotic and often mercurial personality. Emily Schultz, I thought you would cut me with a sword. But with grace, you pointed me to a star.
George Sammet. When this cat has your back, you can sleep very tight.
Karel Pravec and Frank “The Tank” Camiscioli, the warriors of Silver Fox Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Academy. Fighting from your foxhole would be an honor. Josh Madama and Milo Esteves, in the foxhole to our right. Come one, come a thousand.
Douglas P. Love. Welcome to the jungle.
Louis Wesolowsky. Filmmaker extraordinaire. LouisWes.com.
Cliff O’Hara. A rock.
To the countless standup cops, prosecutors, lawyers and selfless citizens, it has been a distinct honor to have shared the same space with you.
To my dear family and many friends, my very humble thanks.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wayne “Big Chuck” Bradshaw is an Army veteran, former member of the outlaw Pagans motorcycle gang, and 20-year veteran of the Middletown New Jersey Police Department. After he retired, he began teaching self-defense classes to women. Bradshaw lives in Florida, with his wife, Barbara.
Douglas P. Love is a writer, editor, and publicist who lives in New York.
TRY ANOTHER GREAT READ FROM ECW PRESS...
THE ASSIMILATION In the early 1990s, Maurice “Mom” Boucher and his fellow Montreal Hells Angels, reputedly the most ruthless and vicious bikers in the world, subdued all comers except the tough-as-nails members of the Rock Machine. Founded by Salvatore Cazzetta, an ex-friend of Boucher, the Rock Machine had every intention of standing up against the Hells Angels. Seven years of bloody conflict, which left over 160 people dead and countless injured, was the result. Heavily outnumbered, the Rock Machine appealed to the worldwide Bandidos Motorcycle Club, who rivaled the Hells Angels in terms of membership and strength. In January 2000, the Rock Machine ceased to exist and became a probationary Bandidos chapter – the first to be established on Canadian soil.
Biker Edward Winterhalder was assigned by the Bandidos to coordinate the transition. Although the stage had been set for an end to the biker war and a positive outcome for all, it was anything but. Starting with the arrest and unsuccessful deportation proceedings of Winterhalder by the Canadian authorities, more intrigue, assassinations, and double-crosses, Winterhalder found himself in a situation even he found impossible to control.
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Copyright © Wayne Bradshaw, 2016
Published by ECW Press
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To the best of his abilities, the author has related experiences, places, people, and organizations from his memories of them. In order to protect the privacy of others, he has, in some instances, changed the names of certain people and details of events and places.
library and archives canada cataloguing in publication
Bradshaw, Wayne (Wayne Evans), author
Jersey tough : my wild ride from outlaw biker to undercover cop / Wayne “Big Chuck” Bradshaw.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77041-261-3 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-77090-842-0 (pdf); ISBN 978-1-77090-843-7 (ePub)
1. Bradshaw, Wayne (Wayne Evans). 2. Pagans (Motorcycle club).
3. Motorcycle clubs—United States. 4. Motorcycle gangs—United States.
5. Gang members—United States—Biography. 6. Police—New Jersey—Biography. I. Title.
hv6439.u5b73 2016 364.106’60973 c2015-907281-6
c2015-907282-4
Cover design: Michel Vrana
Interior images: courtesy of the author
Jersey Tough Page 31