by George Rowe
Leading his posse into Johnny’s Restaurant that night was Big Roy Compton, a thirty-four-year-old tattoo artist with a muscular frame covered in ink, from the VAGOS MC on the back of his shaved and goateed head down to his steel-toed riding boots.
The president, or “P,” of the Hemet chapter, was a convicted felon who once made his living transporting illegals, picking up Mexicans after they’d crossed the border and running them as far as Arizona. He and his old lady used some of those profits to bankroll a tattoo parlor in Hemet called the Lady Luck, which they opened right next door to a Baskin-Robbins. Little tykes would be licking ice cream cones on the sidewalk while large tattooed men stood nearby cutting farts and smoking weed.
Big Roy first hooked up with the Vagos in the nearby city of Corona, where the chapter was led by Mumbles, a wild man who could fling a knife into a knothole at fifty paces. But Roy had bigger ambitions. He wanted a Vagos franchise of his own. According to club bylaws, that required at least five warm bodies and the blessing of the Vagos international president, a potbellied gnome named Terry the Tramp, who, for sixteen years, had lorded over Green Nation from his home in Southern California’s High Desert.
Johnny’s Restaurant (since renamed) on Florida Avenue.
With Tramp’s benediction, and using the Lady Luck as his base of operations, Big Roy got busy recruiting. First to come aboard as chapter vice president was Todd Brown, a man Roy had befriended during a stint in rehab. Big Todd was a juicer who’d slammed so many steroids in his thirty-six years that he looked like Captain Fuckin’ America, all jacked up and cruising Hemet aboard a $30,000 Harley-Davidson—every nut and bolt of it stolen.
I never liked Big Roy and his amped-up bad-boy act, but I really detested his dirtbag sidekick Todd. Besides being one of the sneakiest sucker-punchers I’ve ever met, Big Todd was a backstabber who took pride in fucking a brother’s old lady, then bragging about it. Hell, that sonofabitch would slip his dick in a rattlesnake if you held its head.
The other two Vagos in Big Roy’s entourage that night were Todd’s older brother, Doug, and a tough little Mexican from Northern California named Iron Mike. Big Doug was a loose cannon, usually spun out of his bald-headed gourd on crank. Even his closest buddies walked on eggshells whenever Doug was tweaking. You never knew what that scary fuck might do. Just as tough as Doug but nowhere near as crazy, Iron Mike had earned his cred with Chicano street gangs. That little hombre was a true outlaw, always down for the club. If Green Nation needed a volunteer to pop a bullet in someone’s head, Mike would be first in line asking, “Which ear?”
From the moment Terry the Tramp granted Big Roy his club charter, the Hemet Vagos were off and pissing on their hometown like dogs marking turf. The way Roy had it figured, the city was Green Nation property now, and any objections would be overruled by brute force. Through fear and intimidation, the Hemet chapter demanded respect for that Loki patch on their backs, making life miserable for everyone in town. Young or old, male or female, didn’t matter. When the Vagos appeared, the locals would lower their eyes and turn heads, afraid to make eye contact.
Just a few weeks before the baby shower, some of the Hemet boys were getting hammered at the bar when a mentally disabled young man with a hunched back accidentally bumped Big Todd on the way to the bathroom. Without waiting for an apology, the Vago spun and shoved the kid hard into the wall.
“Don’t fuckin’ touch me, freak!” Todd exploded at him.
Before the young man understood what was happening, Big Todd followed with one of his patented cheap shots, a roundhouse right that caught that dude flush in the head and dropped him like a sack of potatoes. And since Todd had his victim defenseless on the floor, he figured why not stomp him for good measure? So that’s what he did. Over and over again.
It was ugly, man. Big Todd Brown was raging on steroids and completely out of his mind.
When the father saw what was happening, he rushed from the dining area to save his son. But the man didn’t get far. Invoking the sacred outlaw motto, “You fuck with one, you fuck with all,” the remaining Vagos intercepted that poor bastard and gave him a savage beat-down.
Their dirty work done, the gang scattered like cockroaches from the light, leaving father and son broken on the floor, covered in blood and boot prints.
And why?
Because Big Todd felt disrespected.
See, here’s the thing about respect. In my experience, those who demand it most are usually the ones who deserve it least—like Hemet’s jackbooted thugs. For motorcycle outlaws, giving and getting precious respect is probably the closest thing there is to a chiseled-in-stone commandment. Hell, it’s almost a religious principle. In fact, every card-carrying member of the Vagos MC wears a patch on his cut that proclaims, We Give What We Get. In other words, give us respect and respect is returned. If not, you’ll pay the price.
But the Vagos who were out to claim Hemet as their own had no fucking clue what “respect” meant. They figured it was something to be extracted with the heel of a boot and the twist of an arm. Hell, even a dumb bastard like me was smart enough to know that terrorizing civilians—anyone not part of the outlaw world—was a really bad idea. That kind of bullying does nothing to earn respect. What it earns are lifelong enemies . . . including one in particular who would come back to bite those bullies in the ass.
Of course, not every one percenter was a scumbag who behaved like an animal, raping and pillaging through life like Attila the Hun. That’s way too simplistic. I met decent men who rode Harley-Davidsons and flew outlaw colors while recognizing the moral and social boundaries that should never be crossed.
The four Vagos who walked into Johnny’s Restaurant that night were not those kind of men. These were the rotted apples spoiling the whole fuckin’ bunch—low-life gangbangers in every sense of the word. Big Roy and company were bullies who got their kicks intimidating others, backed by the collective might of Green Nation.
As usual, the Hemet boys were looking for trouble the night they showed up in the middle of my buddy’s baby shower. Far as Roy was concerned, a sign should have been hung over the bar announcing This Establishment Property of the Vagos. Of course, that ownership included the table where David was shooting pool, so Roy marched up to him and demanded it for the club.
Fact is, my friend had no idea who this arrogant prick was. David had never had a close encounter with the outlaw world before. He just knew he wasn’t giving up the cue stick just because some bald-headed asshole with a patch on his back was commanding it.
So he respectfully declined.
Well, that was not the response the Hemet P was accustomed to hearing. So Big Roy gave Dave a shove.
Then Dave shoved back harder.
And that’s right about where I walked in.
I’d noticed the row of Harleys parked on their kickstands behind Johnny’s and knew who they belonged to. I’ve got full-sleeve tattoos on both arms, many of them inked at Big Roy’s Lady Luck. I’d worked on tree service crews with Big Todd. And since I rode Harleys and used to fight bareknuckle on the underground fight circuit, both those Vagos figured I’d make a kick-ass soldier for Green Nation and had tried recruiting me into the club.
“Freedom. That’s what it’s all about,” Todd had once explained to me, pitching the outlaw life. “You’ve got all these guys behind you, George. We can do whatever the fuck we want. We’re gonna sell dope and people will pay up because of who we are. You gotta come join us, man.”
Fuck that shit. I could see prison sentences coming for every one of those punks. My buddy, Freight Train, who lived as an outlaw with the Hells Angels and understood the culture’s downside, had experienced firsthand the brutality of turf warfare and the constant harassment from law enforcement. The road taken by the one percent was a bitch to travel, he’d warned me. Better to steer clear.
Ol’ Freight Train had been preaching to the choir. At that point in life I was forty-two years old and had experienced my share of tim
e behind bars. And that was never time well spent. No goddamn way was I getting busted again. I needed that Vagos patch like a fat kid needs another heaping helping of mashed potatoes.
As I stepped through the back door and entered Johnny’s Restaurant, I fully expected to meet Big Roy and his jolly green men. What I never expected to see was my friend Dave knocking the Hemet chapter president flat on his ass.
And, man, it was beautiful.
It also sealed my buddy’s fate.
Before Big Roy could climb off the deck, his three bodyguards sprang into action. While David’s wife and guests watched in horror, the Vagos punched, kicked and stomped the shit out of my friend with bare knuckles and steel-toed boots. Almost before I could get between them, the bartender was calling for cops and an ambulance.
A week after paramedics hauled Dave’s busted carcass from Johnny’s, the man was out of the hospital but not out of danger. A few days later the father of two, with a third on the way, disappeared. I don’t figure he’ll turn up anytime soon, either . . . not without a solid lead, a good shovel and a whole lot of luck.
3
Midgets and Mayhem
Among the businesses scattered along Highway 74, the main thoroughfare that ran through the sprawling east Hemet neighborhood of Valle Vista, was a liquor store, two gas stations and, directly across from a trailer park, the broken-down apartment building that I once lived in and managed for a friend. There were three units in that single-story shitbox, each with a tiny kitchen, living room, bedroom and bath. The place was first built as a chicken coop, then converted into housing for Mexican laborers. Now it was just an eyesore begging to be torn down.
We called it “the chicken shack” or the “shack,” or just “box of shit” on a bad day. A few weeks after David dropped off the planet, Detective Kevin Duffy of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department knocked on my apartment door. Duffy was the lead investigator on my friend’s case and had heard I’d been inside Johnny’s the night of the assault. Everyone knew the Vagos had something to do with David’s disappearance, but no one was willing to talk to the cops. It was too dangerous.
Detective Duffy’s investigation was dead in the water.
Duffy was a fair and honest cop, a decorated narcotics officer who had climbed the law enforcement ladder all the way to homicide. I’d known him since I was a young punk and he was just a kid deputy from the neighborhood. We had history, Duff and I. In fact, his was the first loaded gun ever pointed in my direction.
My friend Detective Kevin Duffy of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
I don’t know who was more scared that day, me or Kevin, but I can still picture that service revolver trembling in his hands, finger hard on the trigger and the barrel looking wider than a fuckin’ drainpipe. I was eighteen and about to face charges that could put me behind walls for a long, long time.
Two years before facing the business end of Kevin Duffy’s revolver—and just months after turning sixteen—I’d finally had enough of my adoptive father’s bullshit. After Pat busted my arm, I vaulted the backyard fence for the last time and kept running.
It would be another twelve years before I returned to even the score. I can still picture the look on Dodi’s face when I walked through the door as a grown man and asked to see her husband. She knew what I wanted by the look in my eyes.
I had inherited the same dark expression my father had when he was about to destroy someone. When I was ten years old and my uncle gave me a black eye, Dad checked himself out of a VA hospital and paid a visit. When he saw what his brother had done, I swear I saw that warrior’s eyes go charcoal black. Dad stormed through the house, found my uncle and repaid him with a couple of shiners that lasted more than a month. I called that asshole “Raccoon” after that.
Now, twelve years after I’d vaulted the backyard fence to escape Pat’s abuse, I was back as a twenty-eight-year-old man looking for some payback. And Dodi knew it too.
“Pat!” she finally called out. “George is here!”
“George?” came a puzzled voice from down the hall.
A moment later Pat appeared.
“We’ve got business,” I told him straightaway. And he knew what I meant.
“Let’s take it out back,” he said.
I remember the grass was high. When I was a kid I used to mow the backyard and rake the leaves, but now everything was an overgrown mess.
“Well?” said Pat as he turned to me.
I didn’t waste time. I hit the man hard. He fell to the ground, then tried to get back up. So I hit him again and he stayed down. And that was the end of it.
Fuck . . . is that all?
Me at sixteen years old, just before dropping out of high school.
Seeing my adoptive father bleeding in that tall grass might have given me a brief moment of satisfaction, but it was followed by a lifetime of regret. I wasn’t proud of myself. I should never have done it. I should have let bygones be bygones.
As I reentered the house Dodi said to me, “I knew this had to happen someday.”
I gave her a hug and walked out the door, never to return.
There’s one thing I have to say in Pat’s defense; the man might have been a hard-ass, but he provided for his family the only way he knew how. I took that work ethic with me—that and his knowledge of landscaping and tree trimming that I’d picked up while watching him work at Hemet’s park and recreation department. These were skills I used for earning my livelihood after dropping out of high school at age sixteen, and I would return to them whenever my other ideas of turning a dollar turned to shit.
I started a landscaping business of my own, but my utter indifference to education and the five years I’d lost on my extended fishing trip to the Cascades soon caught up with me. It was a real wake-up call when I discovered that business accounts and contracts require reading and writing, never my strong suits. So I went out and hired me a midget with a high school education to handle the business end of things while I did the grunt labor.
This arrangement worked fine until I needed a new truck for my expanding operation. When I asked my partner to cut a business check, the little guy stalled and tap-danced around my request. Suspicious, I went to the bank and was told the entire business account balance had been wiped out.
The fucking midget had ripped me off for over sixteen grand.
Slightly ticked off, I grabbed my .30-30 Winchester and drove over to his house, a real nice place his father owned on a golf course. I announced my arrival by firing a rifle shot through the picture window while that thieving little bastard sat watching television. Then I informed his dad that the next bullet would go through his son’s pint-sized head.
But that’s not what got me arrested.
The midget’s old man, a business executive in town, said he would keep the cops out of the matter and pay back half the sixteen grand his son had stolen if I’d call things even. I figured half was better than none, so we shook on the deal. That should have been the end of it, only I had this so-called friend who knew the whole story.
Pretending to be me, that asshole phoned the businessman, then threatened to rape his daughter and shoot more holes in his fancy house unless the remaining eight grand was dropped into a designated trash barrel outside the local Sambo’s restaurant.
The midget’s old man agreed to the blackmail, then called the cops.
The next day I’m hauling mulch in my pickup when I see a curious sight. My buddy is sprinting down San Jacinto Street with four sheriff’s deputies in hot pursuit. Within minutes sirens are wailing, I’m surrounded by cruisers and a young deputy is ordering me out of the cab at gunpoint.
“Don’t move!” shouted Deputy Duffy as I emerged with my hands up.
I found the kid deputy’s tone decidedly unfriendly.
“Don’t you fuckin’ move!” he repeated.
So I didn’t move. Kevin cuffed my wrists, read me my Miranda Rights, then hauled my ass to jail on felony charges of ext
ortion, attempted rape and attempted murder.
Now my name was known across the San Jacinto Valley for all the wrong reasons. The district attorney, up for reelection, was determined to prosecute—apparently with the aid of my cock-sucking friend, who’d cut a deal with the D.A.’s office and agreed to testify against me in exchange for leniency. I was eighteen years old and looking at serious hard time: three consecutive fifteen-year prison terms.
But the superior court judge, who happened to be the same magistrate who’d handled my adoption, took both parties into chambers and pushed through a plea bargain. Afraid of going to trial, I pled to extortion and got ninety weekends in jail and 120 hours of community service, which was spent picking up discarded cigarette butts outside the county courthouse.
Now here I was twenty-four years later sitting in the shitshack across from Detective Duffy, who had become a good friend once he’d quit pointing his gun at me. After discussing the assault at Johnny’s Restaurant, I asked Kevin point-blank, “When are your people gonna do something about the Vagos?”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re causing chaos all over town, man. And I know those fuckers did David. We both know it.”
“No, George, we don’t. There’s no proof they did it, and no one’s talking. I haven’t come up with a single lead.”
“Well, you’d better find one quick. Because if someone doesn’t stop these assholes, I guarantee more people will get hurt.”
“And what do you expect me to do about it?”