by George Rowe
The brother emptied his glass and turned my way.
“Let’s go to Elsinore,” I said.
“What the fuck for?”
I lifted my glass and said, “The Sons of Hell.”
This didn’t register with Crash right away—that Vago was more fucked up than I was—but in a moment the lightbulb came on and a slow smile crept over his face.
“I hear you, brother.”
The Sons of Hell was a support club for the Hells Angels, much like The Green Machine ran support for the Vagos. Because of their association with the hated Angels, there had always been friction between the Sons of Hell and Green Nation, but the sparks had never been quite hot enough to achieve ignition and liftoff. I figured if I could get those outlaws in Elsinore pissed off enough, they might retaliate, and if they retaliated, there was a damn good chance the Hells Angels would get involved. If the Angels jumped into the fight we just might be looking at a good old-fashioned gang war. And with a gang war you got criminal conspiracy, and with conspiracy you got RICO. Man, if I could give the ATF grounds for a RICO charge, I could get out from under Operation 22 Green and die a happy man.
My plan to make all of the above happen was masterful in its cunning simplicity. Crash and I would drive over to the Sons’ favorite hangout in Lake Elsinore, a biker bar called The Hideaway, and we’d stir up a little chaos. This half-baked scheme, cooked up on Wild Turkey and executed by a couple of drunken assholes, was doomed to fail. But at the time, with a glass of Kentucky bourbon in my hand, I thought it was fuckin’ genius. This was Shock and Awe, baby, and the joint chiefs had nothing on me.
The Hideaway Bar in Lake Elsinore had everything an outlaw biker could possibly want. There was a pool table, a jukebox with good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll tunes, an accommodating bartender willing to pour more shots of whiskey, and walls papered with customers’ dollar bills, just like you’d find at the Screaming Chicken Saloon or The Crossroads in Yucaipa.
The only thing that biker bar didn’t have was goddamn bikers.
Not a single one of those Sons of Hell was anywhere to be found.
I had to settle for tying a green bandana to a chain over the pool table, just to let those boys know we’d been there, then Crash and I stumbled back out the door.
Nothing had come of our bold probe behind enemy lines. There would be no biker war to end all biker wars. The Sons of Hell had tucked themselves in for the night, and all I had to show for my unrecognized genius was a splitting migraine.
On the drive back to Hemet our cell phones started blowing up with calls from Big Roy. Seems word had leaked that a couple of shitfaced Vagos prospects were cruising Lake Elsinore looking for trouble. We didn’t answer those calls, but when we returned to our homes Big Todd was sitting outside my front door, and North was waiting on Crash.
We were both still half-cocked when our asses got dragged over to Big Roy’s place in San Jacinto for a reaming.
“Who the fuck told you two clowns you could fuck with the Sons of Hell?! I’m the P here. I say who goes where. You don’t make a fuckin’ move without my say-so, understand?!” He turned to Crash and shoved his chest. “Understand, motherfucker?!”
“Yeah, I understand,” Crash answered dutifully but with little sincerity.
Now I spoke up. “It’s my fault, Roy. Going to Elsinore was my idea.”
“Your idea?” sputtered Big Roy, beet-faced. “Are you trying to make me look bad, asshole?”
“Hope not,” I replied.
Now Roy shoved my chest too. “Well you are! This shit makes me look bad! Like I don’t have control over my own fuckin’ chapter!”
As Hemet’s P, Big Roy was responsible for the behavior of his mutts, and yours truly had just slipped his leash and bit the mailman. To make matters worse, Roy had recently bought himself a new Harley Sportster and was worried Terry the Tramp might confiscate it—not an uncommon punishment among one percenter clubs.
Roy was pacing now, trying to contain the anger and keep his head from exploding. He stopped and stabbed a finger at the two of us.
“You assholes fuck up one more time and you’re out. I’ll run you both down the road, you got that?”
I bit my tongue and said nothing. Oh, happy day when I paid that bastard a visit in lockup. Oh, happy fucking day.
It was late when I got back to the chicken coop and slipped into the bedroom. As I pushed through the beads I almost tripped over Jenna. Sadly enough, buck naked and passed out on the floor was not an uncommon position for my girlfriend.
Neither was the excuse she usually gave for it: boredom.
Chief Thompson always said boredom was his daughter’s worst enemy. And I think Daddy was spot-on. Jenna didn’t want for anything. All she had to do was go to school, come home and take care of her kid.
But apparently that wasn’t enough.
So after she’d gobbled all the pain meds in my medicine cabinet and lost contact with the prostitute who’d supplied speed and heroin, Jenna had hooked up with one of her old tweaker pals and started driving down to Tijuana, Mexico, for bottles of Soma, which are powerful muscle relaxants. She could be across the border and home again in two and a half hours and fucked up in three. And I couldn’t stay ahead of her, man. Fast as I flushed those pills, the girl would be on her way to Tijuana to buy more.
Might not have been so bad if Jenna had known how to swallow one or two Somas. Unfortunately that was never my girlfriend’s style. In true fashion, she’d pop a handful and end up flat on her back, drooling and vacant-eyed. Man, I hated that look—when you’re trying to talk to someone and they’re not even there. Old Joe and I would pick her nasty ass off the floor and pour it into bed, where she’d either puke between the sheets or shit in them.
That was the condition I found Jenna in when I came home from Big Roy’s that night—fucked up on Somas and spread-eagle on the bedroom floor. I lifted her naked body into bed, then crawled in beside her. A few hours later I awoke to the mattress shaking—not uncommon with an addict like her. Usually when I got tired of the trembling I’d grab my pillow and sleep on the floor or boot her ass out of bed. But something different was happening this time. Jenna’s body was twitching as though being poked by a cattle prod and her breathing was ragged. When I tried shaking her awake, there was no response. Her head just flopped around like a rag doll’s.
Fuck. The bitch is dying on me.
I cradled her in my arms and rushed her into the shower, running the cold water full blast as I held her body against mine. When someone is that loaded, it takes hours to bring them back, but eventually Jenna came around and I had myself a shivering, wide-awake, fucked-up person.
That wouldn’t be the last cold water slapping I gave my girlfriend. It happened often enough that I started leaving her in the shower with the cold water running and went back to bed. I never knew if I’d wake up in the morning and find Jenna drowned. As heartless as it sounds, there were times when I had my fingers crossed . . . I hoped and prayed that girl would die. I just couldn’t take living like that anymore.
But it never happened.
The crazy bitch always survived.
15
Hell with the Angels
Any brother worth his colors takes a certain pride in being a Harley-riding, hard-drinking, gangbanging sonofabitch. Take away that patch and it’d be damn hard to tell one from the other—they’re all cut from the same denim. But like many families, some brothers just don’t get along.
That’s how it is, and how it’s always been, between the Vagos and the Hells Angels.
Since the day the Vagos (then called the Psychos) rumbled into San Bernardino during the 1960s and planted a flag on the Angels’ home turf, the two clubs have been spilling bad blood. In fact, not long before I’d gone undercover, they had clashed during a motorcycle parts swap meet at the Orange County Fairgrounds, waylaying each other with mufflers, gas tanks, handlebars and whatever else they’d been able to get their hands on.
&n
bsp; This mutual contempt between the Angels and Vagos spanned four decades and crossed three generations, leaving scores of bikers bruised, bloodied and sometimes buried. But then a strange thing happened. Several months before I started wearing the green, the warring brothers struck an informal truce, and no one but me seemed anxious to break it.
Which is why it was unnaturally calm the day those two old enemies happened to cross paths at The Crossroads Bar and Grill in Yucaipa, a city that hugs Interstate 10 between Hemet and San Bernardino. The Crossroads was a biker-friendly establishment, more or less color-blind when it came to the patch on your back, but it was widely understood that the red and white from San Bernardino had adopted the place as their favorite haunt. In fact, some have claimed the Berdoo Hells Angels liked those digs so much that the place was later renamed Angel’s Roadhouse Bar and Grill (which is a myth—Angel is actually the stage name of the stripper who bought the place).
The Vagos had a major bike run to Yucaipa that afternoon, and many of the chapter presidents and national and international officers were along for the ride. Some of the Hemet boys had been drinking before we hit the highway that day, but John Carr had warned me not to get pulled over, so I laid off the Wild Turkey and rode stone-cold sober into Yucaipa.
When we entered The Crossroads, the Angels were already inside getting hammered and shooting pool. I headed for the bar with my fellow prospect, Crash, and that tightly wound chapter president from Corona, Mumbles. There was tension in the bar that night—not unexpected given the amount of booze and testosterone—but the two sides were behaving themselves and minding their own business. Mumbles and I ordered drinks and shot the shit with the bartender, careful to steer clear of the Hells Angels in the vicinity.
Unfortunately, the Hells Angels wouldn’t steer clear of me.
The green bandana around my head and the rocker on my back pegged me as a Vagos prospect, drawing unwanted attention from a scraggly bearded Angel wearing the infamous “death’s head” patch on his back. As I tried to pass him in those tight quarters, he couldn’t resist opening his mouth.
“Hey, boy,” he said scornfully. “Why don’t you get some real colors ’stead of that green shit.”
That’s all the man said. But it was enough. I might have only been a lowly prospect, but that sonofabitch was disrespecting me in front of a brother. And that just couldn’t stand—not if I was to have an ounce of credibility with the Vagos. Like I’ve said, a top requirement among one percenters is giving and getting respect. And that afternoon at The Crossroads Bar and Grill, I wasn’t feeling it.
I turned to find that Angel smirking back at me. But not for long. Faster than a cat can lick its ass, I coldcocked that fucker. The man hit the floor like a stunned mullet.
And that’s when all hell broke loose.
Angels and Vagos came flying in from all directions, ready to throw down right then and there. The truce that had held for months was about to come unglued, and all because of little old me.
As I stood over that fallen Angel, daring him to stand up, powerful arms suddenly wrapped me from behind. I was in the iron grip of a man-mountain. He shoved me toward a group of rubbernecking greenies.
Angel’s Roadhouse (formerly the Crossroads) where I decked the Hells Angel.
“Get him out of here!” the booming voice commanded. And when Rhino, the Vagos international sergeant at arms gave an order, people followed it.
Crash and some of the others did as commanded, hustling me to the far side of the bar while pumping my hand and slapping my back every step of the way. Few men have the balls to hit a Hells Angel, never mind in an Angels bar, and putting one on his back was cause for celebration.
“Fuck, yeah! That was beautiful!” shouted Mumbles, muscling his way through my crowd of admirers. Then he planted a kiss smack on my lips. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about! That’s the way you do it!”
The little Tasmanian Devil was giddy with excitement, hopping around the floor with his hands on his knives, revved up and ready to slice and dice.
“Did you see that?!” he was shouting at anyone within earshot. “Did you fuckin’ see that?!” He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. “This fucker’s got more heart than all you motherfuckers put together.”
But not everyone was as gung ho as Mumbles. Big Roy appeared next, looking constipated with worry.
“You’ve got to leave,” Roy said to me urgently. “Tramp wants you out of here right now.”
“Fuck that!” barked Mumbles. “Did you fuckin’ see what he did?!”
“All I know is the Angels want this prospect’s ass and Tramp wants him out of here.”
“Bull-fuckin’-shit!” Mumbles protested to deaf ears. “We should fight these cocksuckers!”
Big Roy ignored this, calling over Crash and a full-patch named Mickey, who had recently joined the chapter. “You two take George back to Hemet,” he instructed. “And make sure he fucking stays there.” Then Roy turned to me with a grave look. “You really fucked up, George,” he said. “This time you fucked up good.”
Oh, shit.
Cruising home down Interstate 10, sandwiched between Crash and Mickey, I had plenty of time to consider just how badly I’d fucked up. All kinds of nightmare scenarios played out in my head. And it wasn’t torpedoing the truce with the Hells Angels that concerned me. There could be worse things. But what if Tramp confiscated my Harley and ran my ass down the road? Losing that rat bike wouldn’t be a catastrophe, but it would certainly signal the end of Operation 22 Green. Had I fucked that up too? And what if the Vagos decided on a more permanent solution . . . one involving shovels and sand?
Shit . . . shit . . . shit.
Sometime around midnight Big Todd showed up at the shack in Valle Vista. He shook my hand and told me the Hells Angels were buzzing like hornets and wanted a piece of my ass. Big Roy’s orders were to stay put until Tramp figured out what to do.
I had that gnawing gut sense that something bad was coming—like a big ol’ locomotive bearing down on me. If Tramp decided to hand the Angels my ass on a platter, I’d have to offer it up. To refuse would get me booted from the Vagos, in which case Operation 22 Green would become an early-term abortion. Course I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being dead, either.
“What do you think’ll happen?” I asked Todd.
“Who the fuck knows?” was all he could offer. But as Todd left the apartment, I could tell that even he was worried.
Sometime in the early morning hours I grabbed my smokes and headed out to the parking lot to visit Old Joe. The Man upstairs is a damn good listener, but so was the man in the travel trailer. I needed a friend to talk to, get a few things off my chest, and Joe was the only person in the world I felt I could really confide in.
I sparked a cigarette, then knocked lightly on the trailer door. In a moment I heard his tense voice calling from inside.
“Who’s that?”
Joe probably figured it was his old roomie, crazy Doug, back looking for a place to bunk.
“It’s me, buddy.”
The door opened and Joe appeared shirtless and wearing jeans.
“Hey, man, sorry to wake you.”
“Not a problem,” said Joe sleepily. “What’s up, brother?”
“Could we talk?”
“Sure. Sure. Come on in.”
He opened the door wider and stepped back.
“Out here’s fine, if that’s okay with you,” I told him.
It was a warm evening in August, and I wanted to talk under the big night sky. Guess it felt like a more suitable stage for the large questions I’d been wrestling with. So I took a seat on the tattered couch Joe kept beside the trailer. He pulled on a T-shirt and joined me.
“Everything okay?” Joe wanted to know.
“Wish I could say it was,” I answered, “but I think I’m in deep shit, partner.”
“How deep?”
“I knocked out a Hells Angel at The Crossroads last night, and they’re no
t too happy.”
“Hang on,” said Joe.
He disappeared inside the trailer, then popped out again with a handle of vodka. After taking a stiff jolt, he passed me the jug, and I hit it twice—one less than my limit for going screwy.
I didn’t need screwy right now.
“I’ve got that bad vibe again, Joe. I just feel like this could be it, you know? Like maybe I might not survive this.”
Old Joe was tongue-tied. I think his mind had seized. He’d never heard that kind of talk from me before. I was always the strong one. The guy who feared nothing and no one. But this? This was goddamn pussy talk, and my buddy couldn’t process it. “I don’t want to disappear, Joe,” I said after a long silence. “I don’t want to end up like David.”
Old Joe took another pull on the jug.
“Know what I’m most afraid of?” I said.
He just blinked at me.
“That I’ll get killed and no one will know where I’m at. I don’t want to be buried in the desert without some kind of marker. That scares the hell out of me, you know?”
It took another jolt of vodka to free up Old Joe’s pistons and get him talking again.
“Well, then fuck the patch,” he said finally. “Fuck that patch, brother, and get out while you can.”
I shook my head. “The operation’s come too far. I couldn’t bail on John.”
Joe looked me square in the eye and said, “John ain’t the one worried about gettin’ buried in the desert.”
That ended the conversation. In a few minutes I went back to bed to snuggle with Jenna, leaving Old Joe alone on the couch with his thoughts and his booze.
A lot of prayers went outbound during that long and sleepless night. I’m not what you’d call a Christian—I haven’t been “born again”—but I do have strong faith in a higher power. I picture it kind of like this: I’m gripping the handlebars as my bike careens down life’s highway with God holding on for dear life behind me, letting me know when to change lanes and what exits to take. Maybe that’s the little voice that whispers in your head.