by George Rowe
Of course, that didn’t stop me from screwing her. Hell, no. I downed another glass of Wild Turkey, then Jenna and I did the nasty all night long. The next morning, after I’d driven her back to her girlfriend’s place, Billy called from the detention center, anxious to know if I’d talked to Jenna about dropping the charges.
“Check this out, Billy,” I said, swallowing my anger. “I fucked her instead.”
“Wait? What’s that?”
“Yeah, I did your old lady last night. Not only that, but I’m not gonna ask her to drop the charges. How’s that sound?”
The phone went silent a moment before Billy spoke again.
“Well, that sounds fucked up, George,” he said bitterly.
“Not as fucked up as you. What kind of man are you anyway? Christ, I’ve never seen a woman beat up so bad. And she doesn’t even own a decent pair of shoes.”
Figured I’d throw that one in for good measure.
There was another long pause before Billy said, “Know what? I’m okay with it, George. I probably would have done the same thing.”
I didn’t know if the kid was serious, stupid or just angling for another shot at getting those charges dropped. Didn’t matter, though. Whatever the reason, I was done with that asshole and hung up the phone. Over the course of the next few days Billy tried calling back, but I refused to talk to him. Eventually he took the hint, and that was the last I heard from that sonofabitch . . . at least for a couple of years anyway.
Now that I was through with her old boyfriend, I had Jenna all to myself. In the following weeks I was drawn to that girl like the slots at Soboba. I just couldn’t get enough. And before I realized enough was too much, it was too late. I’d invited her to share my home.
Old Joe thought I’d made another mistake of Godzilla-like proportions. He still hadn’t gotten over the fact I was working with the feds; now I was bringing a heroin addict into the apartment. Not only did he think my timing was incredibly bad, but according to him, Jenna was an out-of-control bitch.
“I don’t get it,” he said to me one day. “What’s the attraction?”
“Well, the pussy’s pretty good,” I answered with a stupid grin.
But Joe wasn’t laughing. My friend thought I was a goddamn fool, being led by my dick instead of my brain—not the first time he’d seen that behavior. “You’ve gotta learn to separate your wants from your needs, brother,” he lectured me. “You might want that girl, but you don’t need her. Especially not now.”
Once again the man had a valid point, but Old Joe didn’t know the whole truth. With Jenna it wasn’t just about getting into her pants. No question the girl was an all-pro in the sack, but like my decision to go under for ATF, taking that damaged soul under my wing had less to do with her pussy than my past.
Truth was I understood the fire chief’s daughter. We were birds of a feather. I’d fallen into drug abuse about the same age and remember wishing someone would intervene and save me from my own self-destruction. Not only that, but Jenna had been evicted from the tweaker pad where she’d been crashing and had nowhere else to turn. She’d torched every bridge.
When you’re using and abusing you really don’t care how your addiction impacts others—even those you love most. Every person that touched that girl’s life had been put through hell. Her mom didn’t want her, her dad didn’t want her. Nobody on God’s earth wanted that addict around—except maybe her misery-loves-company junkie friends. If I didn’t help that drowning soul, who would?
So I tossed her a lifeline and dragged a crazy woman into my home.
Right out of the gate it was nothing but drama. I quickly learned that trying to contain Jenna was like trying to wrangle a wild horse. You couldn’t get a rope on her. And just when you thought you had that bitch corralled, she’d jump the fence and off she’d gallop, looking for her next high. Of course, there wasn’t far to go at first. I kept that untapped supply of cancer pain meds stockpiled in the medicine cabinet, and from day one that girl was into them like a kid run amok. All that candy was at her fingertips now, and Jenna couldn’t swallow it fast enough. Within a few months the whole stash was wiped out.
I guess in that way she was a lot like her mother, whose pill addiction began when Jenna was thirteen. One day her mom was drunk and tried to move a pot of hot chicken soup from the stovetop to the fridge. The lid came off, and the broth splashed over her legs and feet, scalding them so badly she was checked into a burn unit for two weeks of skin grafts. The woman came out the other side with scars on her legs and a taste for painkillers, spending her days at home popping Fentanyl and pounding whiskey.
Once Jenna had swallowed my stock of cancer meds, the girl went looking for her next high. She didn’t have far to travel. The hooker who lived in the apartment next door was also a speed and heroin freak. One heroin addict could tell another from a mile away, and Jenna identified that kindred spirit immediately. Not only were the pupils pinpoint day and night, but there was a smell that oozed from the body’s pores, the smell of coffee grounds and chili powder, which was what the dope was cut with.
Christ Almighty, it was beyond ridiculous living with that woman. I could almost understand why Billy beat her.
Okay, maybe that’s a stretch . . .
. . . or maybe not.
9
Point of No Return
You’ve got to be willing to die for your brothers, George. Could you do that? Could you die for the club?”
After two months as a hang-around with the Vagos, I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever take the next step toward becoming a full-patched member. You can hang around forever, but you have to be invited to prospect. Well, the day Big Todd knocked on my door to deliver the rah-rah speech about the importance of commitment and loyalty, I knew I was on my way.
“Absolutely,” I said with as much false sincerity as I could muster.
“Loyalty to the club. That’s what it’s all about.”
“I’m with you, Big Todd.”
Six years earlier Terry the Tramp had the same talk with ATF undercover agent Darrin Kozlowski. Koz was on the threshold of becoming a Vagos prospect when Tramp summoned him for a test of loyalty. He wanted to know if Koz had the right stuff to be a Vagos.
“Would you die for the Vagos?” asked Tramp.
“Yes, I would,” answered Koz.
“And do you have what it takes to kill for the Vagos?” Tramp asked. “Could you kill someone even if you were doing it for a brother you didn’t like?”
“Yes, I could,” answered Koz.
And just like that, the ATF agent became a prospect.
Now Big Todd was regurgitating the same bullshit.
Even with all the right answers, though, my path to prospecting would not be as smooth as it had been for Special Agent Kozlowski. That’s because three hundred pounds of lard still stood in my way.
North, the Hemet chapter’s sergeant at arms, continued to question my trustworthiness, and his accusations were putting Big Roy in a tight spot. Roy wanted me in the club because I was a good brawler and he wanted more bodies in the chapter, but he was smart enough to realize the danger of taking a man with a big question mark slapped on his forehead. Green Nation was still reeling after Hammer flipped for the feds, and if Big Roy allowed another rat into Tramp’s green house, the Hemet P would almost certainly have his charter yanked and his motorcycle confiscated.
And me? I would almost certainly end up dead.
That’s exactly what happened to another Vagos hang-around over in San Bernardino just a few weeks later. Nobody outside the Berdoo chapter knew the whole story, but a Vagos wannabe named Dennis Daoussis, whom the club called Shorty, was ambushed during a church meeting and beaten near death by the members. Leading that assault was Rhino, the mullet-headed beast who served as Green Nation’s international sergeant at arms and Tramp’s chief enforcer.
As Shorty lay semiconscious, the patches zip-tied his wrists and ankles, wrapped his head and mouth with
electrical tape, rolled him in a carpet and tossed his body into the bed of a Dodge pickup owned by Kilo, the chapter’s sergeant at arms.
Rhino and Kilo drove east through the San Gorgonio Pass, then north on Highway 62 toward Landers. On a dusty back road in that High Desert town, Shorty was executed. Rhino pressed a gun to the hang-around’s left temple and blew his brains out.
When the body was discovered two days later, evidence led police back to the house where the assault had taken place. All the bloody carpeting had been pulled up, and a couch and love seat were in the backyard waiting to be power-washed. The Vago who lived there was arrested as an accessory to murder, but, ever loyal to his brothers, Hulk kept his mouth shut and refused to implicate Rhino and Kilo. Guess he figured the law wouldn’t kill him but the Vagos certainly could.
Which is why I was a little nervous as I filled out forms for a background check that would be run by an actual cop friendly with the crew, a process required of all prospective Vagos. I didn’t figure there was anything in my past that could get me rolled in carpet and hauled off for execution like poor Shorty, but when you were operating undercover and the stakes were life and death, there was always that sliver of doubt pricking at your brain.
The completed forms would be handed to a police sergeant we called “Crusher,” who worked out of Cathedral City, a community just south of Palm Springs. Through law enforcement channels, Crusher would screen prospect applicants for red flags. With the law’s help, Terry the Tramp hoped to sniff out informants before they could burrow too deep, and Sergeant Crusher was his most valuable bloodhound.
Thanks to Todd’s big mouth, I learned the Vagos had several lawmen in their back pocket: a U.S. Border Patrol agent living somewhere near Temecula, a San Bernardino deputy who was selling the Vagos guns he should have been destroying, and their background checker in Cathedral City, Sergeant Crusher.
According to Todd, Crusher made himself a pretty good living playing both sides of the fence. He knew the locations of Mexican drug houses and when their shipments came in, so it was just a matter of kicking down doors, taking their drugs and money and splitting the proceeds with the Vagos. The setup was almost foolproof. After all, what Mexican drug dealer—probably an illegal to begin with—would call 9-1-1 to report getting ripped off by a cop?
Crusher had lobbied hard to ride outlaw with Green Nation, but national had no intention of allowing law enforcement into their ranks—especially Rhino, who detested anyone with a badge. As a compromise, Terry the Tramp put Crusher at the helm of a newly formed support group called The Green Machine. Green Machine members, like my buddy who owned Shooter’s Food and Brew, were servants for the parent club much like the Sons of Hell were dick-suckers for the Hells Angels. Whenever the Vagos required strength in numbers, The Green Machine would roll with them. These outlaw wannabes paid dues, sported patches and rode Harleys just like the big boys, but even a lowly Vagos prospect had more clout than Crusher, the newly ordained president of The Green Machine.
Regardless of whether everything panned out satisfactorily with the sergeant’s background check, Big Roy made it clear I’d never be welcomed as a Vagos prospect until North had his day in court. The chapter’s sergeant at arms was handed a deadline to make his case that I was a snitch, and when the time came for him to shit or get off the pot, I finally got to meet North’s mysterious man behind the curtain.
The source for the snitch rumors was a Hemet businessman I’d known since I was a kid. We used to attend Alateen meetings together—basically group therapy for the children of alcoholic parents. My accuser’s name was Howard, once a chubby, smart-as-hell student who eventually opened a rubbish removal service in town—not exactly the line of work you’d expect from a man with an Ivy League future.
I met the dude face-to-face at Johnny’s Restaurant on a night when most of the Hemet chapter was in attendance. Big Todd suggested we conduct business away from the prying eyes and ears of customers, so I followed him, North and Howard out the back door and into the parking lot behind Johnny’s.
Todd wasted no time getting to the point.
“So what’s the deal?” he said to Howard. “You accuse Big George here of being a rat. Where’s the proof?”
“I don’t need to show you a thing,” Howard retorted. “I know what I know.”
“You know what you know?” Todd said incredulously. He turned to North. “What kind of bullshit is this? Where’s the paperwork you promised?”
“Turns out there is none,” said North sheepishly. “I’m going on what he told me.”
“That’s all you fuckin’ got? This asshole’s word over a brother?”
“You calling me a liar?” snapped Howard.
Todd gave him a brusque shove, and North quickly stepped between them.
“Alright, alright,” said North. “We’re here to talk, so everyone just relax.”
Todd stabbed his finger at Howard over North’s shoulder and barked, “Don’t you fuckin’ raise your voice to me, motherfucker!” Then he spun toward me. “You’d better beat the shit out of this fat fuck, George.”
Surrounded by two patched Vagos and the hang-around he’d accused of being a rat, my old Alateen buddy looked understandably nervous.
“Alright, Howard,” I said as calmly as I could. “Why are you spreadin’ shit about me?”
“I’m just saying what I heard,” he replied with false bravado.
“Who’d you hear it from?” I said. “Give me a name.”
Howard wouldn’t say. Either that or there never was a name.
Todd growled at North, “Your guy’s got nothing. This is all bullshit.”
North didn’t disagree. With his key witness crumbling under cross-examination, the sergeant at arms had lost his stomach for argument.
“Like I said, it’s what he told me,” North muttered defensively.
And then, straight out of left field, Howard looked at me and blurted, “Where’s the money you owe me?”
“What? What the fuck are you talking about?” I said.
“You never paid me for that eight ball.”
So that’s what this was about. An unpaid debt that I had no memory of.
An eight ball was three and a half grams of methamphetamine, which Howard claimed I’d taken years before without paying for it. North had been running with these snitch rumors for weeks, making my life miserable and endangering the mission, all because one fat bastard believed another. I realize how crazy that sounds, given the fact I really was trying to infiltrate the Vagos, but the truth had nothing to do with the fiction.
“You accuse me of being a goddamn snitch because this asshole thinks I owe him money?” I said to North, biting back my anger.
“You owe me for that eight ball,” insisted Howard.
“Whip his ass, Big George,” Todd goaded.
“So I owe you money, huh?” I said to Howard. “Well, guess it’s my bad then. Here, let me pay you back.”
I struck a sudden, snapping blow to Howard’s face that bloodied his lip.
“How’s that, motherfucker? We square now?”
Now I spun on North again. The sergeant at arms took a defensive step back, expecting another swing.
“This shit is over, man,” I barked at him instead. “It’s fuckin’ over.”
Vindicated at last, I made a triumphant march back into Johnny’s. When I told the Vagos what had happened, Iron Mike gave me a big hug. A few minutes later, North approached, looking contrite.
“Sorry, brother,” he said. “You know I was just doing my job looking out for the club.”
Once the snitch tag came off and my background checked out, the path was clear for me to become a Vagos prospect, phase two on the road to becoming a full-patched member of Green Nation.
In Hemet, Vagos church meetings were held every Wednesday night at 7:30. While patch holders huddled in living rooms and garages discussing club business, their hang-arounds and prospects remained in the street, standing guar
d over the motorcycles . . . sometimes even squatting over a bucket of suds, washing them down. On the Wednesday following that inquisition at Johnny’s, Crash and I were called into North’s garage and officially made prospects of Green Nation.
In a small ceremony before the patches, we were given the bottom CALIFORNIA rocker for our cuts and told to sew them on in five minutes or lose them. And the rule was you had to sew that patch on tight, too, because if a member could get his fingers under it he could rip it off your back and take it, sending you right back to hang-around.
Crash and I were now officially chapter slaves, bound to hang, drink and ride together until one or both of us became a patched member. That was just how it worked in an outlaw club, for better or worse. And with crazy Crash at my side, I had a hunch things would get worse before they got better.
“Alright, you two,” said Roy once the patches had been sewn. “Sing us the prospect song.”
Man, a shudder still goes through me whenever I think of that goddamn song. Every Vagos prospect was expected to memorize it and belt out the lyrics whenever a patch holder demanded it.
The song begins “I am a Vagos prospect, as you can clearly see . . .”
And that’s as far as I can go. During my time prospecting I must’ve sung that fucking song a thousand times, but almost every word of it has been mercifully bleached from my brain.
“I am a Vagos prospect, as you can clearly see . . .”
No. Forget it, man. It’s too painful to even try to remember.
So now I had my California rocker and a foot in the church door where the patches would congregate on Wednesday nights. But it was the 22 tattoo, etched into the side of my head by Ready at the Lady Luck, that really stamped me as Vagos property. For all you elementary school grads, the twenty-second letter of the alphabet is V . . . and V stands for Vagos. As the green ink was applied just behind the ear, I thought of the day in Bee Canyon when John Carr and I first met. That ATF special agent and some of his colleagues had doubted I’d ever make prospect. Yet here I was, being branded like a heifer—George Rowe, property of Green Nation.