by George Rowe
I spent most of the night bar crawling with my back to the wall, guarding against any effort to tear that center patch off my back, which would bust me back to prospect. Crash, on the other hand, was drunk and careless—and he wasn’t much of a seamstress either. Big Todd got his fingers under Loki and ripped it right off Crash’s cut. Amid the yelling and screaming and finger pointing that followed, I slipped from the bar and punched the number for Uncle Johnny Law into my Nextel. I got John’s away message and left one of my own.
“Hey, this is Big George calling. Don’t you be giving me shit anymore, buddy. I’m a patch holder now.”
I hung up and lit a cigarette. I’d smoked maybe half that Marlboro when a call came back from 818, the Los Angeles exchange.
“You think you’re the balls now, don’tcha?” were the first words out of John’s mouth. “Well, let me tell you something, Big George. You’re just another piece of shit Vagos to me.”
“This piece of shit Vagos is gonna make you famous, motherfucker.”
“Bullshit,” laughed John. “You want famous, ride with the Angels. Least you could have got the red and white.”
I cursed my handler good-naturedly; he gave it right back, then the bouncer came charging out Johnny’s back door.
“George! I need help in here!”
The Vagos had a stomp circle going, and some unfortunate civilian was on the ground in the middle of it. With the help of the bouncer I managed to get the man off the floor and away from that crazed bunch, then I dragged him out the back door and into the parking lot.
When I returned to the bar, the Vagos were laughing drunkenly and Big Roy was wiping blood off his boot with a napkin.
“What happened?” I asked Todd.
“I told him to move, but the fucker wouldn’t move.”
Roy tossed the bloody napkin onto the bar and grinned.
“He moved.”
A “Code 69” is a war call. If a patched Vagos gets a Code 69 message at home or on his cell, it means there’s an emergency and club business comes first. You drop what you’re doing and get your ass to the location of that emergency. And if you don’t make it, you’d better have a damn good reason why, because when it comes to ignoring a Code 69, the Vagos will definitely hunt you down.
As Big Roy so aptly described it, Code 69 is “serious club shit.”
The day after my hard night celebrating the patch, I was draining my second cup of java and trying to ignore a splitting migraine when the phone rang.
“Code sixty-nine,” said Todd the moment I answered. “Code sixty-nine.”
“What’s going on?”
“This dude just jumped my ass and fucked me up. I think my leg’s broke. Code sixty-nine, bro.”
I got an address and a general direction, then grabbed my truck keys. But before I could make the door, Jenna came out of the bedroom, half asleep and fully pissed off. The call had awoken Her Highness, and she was looking to tear someone a new asshole. I can tell you from personal experience that getting that woman out of bed in the morning was akin to poking a hibernating grizzly. You almost had to cover your nut-sack, because the bitch just might grab hold and tear it right the fuck off.
“Todd’s in trouble,” I told her as I rushed out the door. Whatever danger I was headed for couldn’t be half as bad as facing my girlfriend in the morning.
I hopped in my truck and sped away, armed with nothing but an address. And for the life of me I couldn’t find the fucking place. I finally rode across Highway 74 and went to Jack Fite’s house for directions. Jack wasn’t riding with the Hemet Vagos at the time. He’d grown tired of Big Roy’s bullshit and left to join Nels Bloom, who we called Swede, as treasurer of a new Vagos chapter in Winchester.
There were no worries as I knocked on Satan’s door. No concern about getting another broken leg. For one thing, I was a patch holder now. I could fight back. Besides, the evil one had apologized. Jack explained he’d just had a really bad day when he’d stomped me . . . and he was really truly sorry for that.
The motherfucker would be even sorrier once the takedown happened and Operation 22 Green was in the books. Because sometime later I grabbed my audio and video gear, went over to his house and bought fifteen grams of methamphetamine that he kept buried near his backyard shed. I knew this because I peeked through a hole in the garage when I wasn’t supposed to be looking and saw where Jack dug up his stash.
The man came back bragging how he had a pretty good racket going. For a thousand bucks, someone was cooking meth for him, then Jack would turn around and resell it for ten, pocketing an easy nine grand. Well, enjoy it while you can, motherfucker, I remember thinking—’cause you’re going down, Jack.
By this time my response to Todd’s urgent Code 69 was pretty pathetic. If the brother was bleeding out somewhere, the tank had probably run dry. Fortunately Jack Fite knew which direction to point me. The homeowner who lived at that address, just around the corner, was a friend of his and one of Hemet’s bigger dope dealers. At first Jack suggested I forget about the call and go home, but when I told him I had an obligation to help Todd, Jack sent me on my way with a promise to follow.
At the end of a cul-de-sac I found Todd and my ex-girlfriend Christie jawing with a long-haired mountain of a drug dealer named Dave. The story I heard later was that Todd had paid the dealer for crystal meth that was never delivered. Come to find out that was a crock of shit. Todd was trying to rip Dave off—maybe get himself another freebie like that transmission part he took after the Vagos gave Bro a beat-down at the Toy Box. Come to think of it, that was Todd’s idea too. The fucker was getting real good at letting others clean up his messes. And being a Vagos was perfect for a guy like that. “You fuck with one, you fuck with all” was damn handy if you knew how to work it.
Of course, I didn’t know any of that when I jumped from the truck and ran to help my Vagos brother. As soon as I got there, Big Todd launched one of his patented sucker punches at Dave. His swing missed, but Dave’s didn’t. The dealer cracked Todd good.
It was the last punch he would throw.
My first strike smashed into the man’s third rib, breaking it off and puncturing his lung. The dealer toppled and hit the pavement like King Kong. But I wasn’t finished yet. No, sir. It was no gentleman’s game when you were in a street fight. My approach was always to beat my opponent until he couldn’t fight back—no different from brawling bareknuckle in a bowling alley. Dave was a big sonofabitch, and I wanted to make damn sure he wouldn’t get up again. In the heat of the moment Big George was living and breathing the green, baby, and there was no separating the government informant from the street brawling animal I was bred to be.
I was still pummeling the man on the ground when someone grabbed me from behind.
“That’s enough, George!” yelled Jack Fite. “You’re killing him!”
I didn’t end Dave’s life that morning, but the man was definitely out. Way out. A few days later Big Roy called me into the Lady Luck and ripped me a new one.
“The cops have been watching me lately, motherfucker. I’m trying to keep a low profile and you go and beat up one of the biggest dope dealers in town?”
“Todd called for backup. What was I supposed to do?”
“Todd said he never called you,” Roy fired back.
I was speechless.
“I’m pulling your patch,” he said. “In fact, I want your whole fuckin’ cut.”
I wasn’t ready to call out Todd as a lying bastard. Not yet, anyway. I fetched my cut from the truck, turned it over to Big Roy, then drove back to Valle Vista, fuming. This wasn’t the first time Todd had thrown me under the bus. When I was still a hang-around he’d done the same fucking thing at a bar we called The Bloody Bucket.
Sitting around getting hammered that night, Todd had given me a nudge and pointed out a group of twenty-somethings shooting pool. Don’t know what it was about outlaws and pool tables that generated so much friction, but trouble was coming again—with a
capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool.
“See that asshole wearing the Hard Rock shirt?” Todd said to me. “I hate that cocksucker. Go fuck him up.”
“What for?”
“Don’t ask questions. Just do it.”
“Yeah, but—”
“What the fuck? Are you down for this club or not?”
“You heard Big Todd,” North jumped in. “Do what the man says.”
It was one of those rock-and-a-hard-place moments John would later warn me about, where I was forced to choose between the long-term success of the operation and taking part in the exact same kind of abuse I’d gone under to prevent. I held my nose and chose the mission. On Todd’s orders, I beat that kid down. The poor bastard never knew what hit him . . . or why. Of course, the irony of what I’d done hadn’t been lost on me. I’d gone back to being a bully again, just like the bad ol’ days at Hemet High.
When Big Roy learned what had happened at The Bucket he wasn’t happy. It was okay to beat the shit out of people, but beatings had to be authorized. It was either Roy’s way or the highway. Todd and North saved their own skins, denying they’d told me to beat the kid down, so all the shit got flung my way. Those fuckers hung me out to dry, but what the hell could I do? They were patch holders, and I was just a lowly hang-around. So I played the good soldier and took one for the United States of America.
Now here I was getting screwed by Todd once again. In less than twenty-four hours I’d earned my patch and lost it, which had to be some sort of record for ineptitude in the forty-plus-year history of the Vagos MC.
“This shit’s going to national,” Roy promised as I left the Lady Luck. “And if Tramp and I find out you’re lying, it’s gonna be your ass that’s run down the road.”
Fucking great.
So now I was faced with starting over as a prospect. Even worse, Big Roy was threatening to confiscate the ATF’s bike and boot me out of the club, putting a stake through the heart of Operation 22 Green. When I called John Carr with the bad news, he couldn’t believe it.
“You what?”
“I lost my patch.”
“But you just got it.”
“That’s right. And now I’ve lost it.”
There was a moment’s silence while my handler processed this.
“How could you let that happen?”
I was in no mood for a pissing contest, so I gathered myself and told John not to sweat it. Yes, I was angry and discouraged, but I had a way out of that mess—an ace in the hole.
The hand was played a few days later when Big Roy called me back to the Lady Luck for a powwow with Todd and North. I didn’t waste time bluffing when I got there.
“No more bullshit,” I barked at Todd. “You called a Code 69 and you fuckin’ know it.”
That caught the bastard off guard. No matter what the circumstances, you didn’t rat out a brother . . . which, believe it or not, didn’t strike me as ironic at the time.
“That’s what you say,” Todd managed. “I don’t remember that.”
Now Big Roy broke in.
“If George is lying, what was he doing at that house with you?”
“How the fuck should I know?” Todd answered. “He just showed up. You know how he’s always ridin’ around and shit.”
Man, I would have demolished that sonofabitch if he hadn’t been doing such a good job of it himself. You could have driven a Freight-liner through the holes in Todd’s case. He looked to the jury for support, but North and Roy weren’t buying his story either.
Big Todd wasn’t what you’d call a sympathetic defendant anyway. He’d been hitting the meth pretty heavy and using club money to support his habit. All the lies, stealing and cheating had already got him busted from vice president down to sergeant at arms, and now he was one small step from joining the rest of us rank-and-file peons—or even worse for him, losing his patch and getting run down the road.
“You’re going to take his word over mine?” Todd protested.
“Cut the shit, asshole!” I shouted.
“Fuck you!” Todd bellowed, giving me a shove. That Vago was used to barking like a tough dog and having people back down. But I wasn’t a prospect anymore. I didn’t have to take anyone’s shit. I went nose-to-nose with that sonofabitch, daring him to throw a punch and put me in the mood to dance.
If Todd took the bait, I was ready to drill him. But the chicken-shit wouldn’t bite. When he realized he was about to get a beat-down in front of Roy and North, he clucked once and stepped back.
And that’s when I flipped my hole card.
Without realizing it at the time, I’d saved my own ass by getting lost on the way to Dave the dealer’s house and stopping at Jack Fite’s place for directions. I’d asked Jack to attend the meeting, and when he backed my version of the story, Todd was pretty much toast.
Next day Terry the Tramp handed down his ruling from on high in the desert. Big Roy was ordered to return my cut and pull Todd’s patch. It was back to prospecting for the sergeant at arms. There was even talk of running Big Todd down the road because of all the chaos he’d been causing.
Few days later I drove back to the cul-de-sac and apologized to Dave the dealer for putting him in the hospital.
“I ain’t mad at you,” said Dave, talking with stitches in his face and his arm in a sling. “I understand it was just one brother looking out for the other. But I sure want a piece of that other dude. I’m gonna get that motherfucker.”
I imagine there were quite a few people who felt that way about Big Todd Brown. And odds were that someday one of them was going to follow through and “get that motherfucker.”
Now that I had Loki, with all the rights and privileges that patch conveyed, I needed a Harley under my ass befitting my elevated status. I’d been complaining long and loud about that piece-of-shit Touring Classic that ATF had stuck me with, and finally Carr was able to wrangle me a new set of wheels. My second ride was a Harley-Davidson Heritage the government had confiscated from the Warlocks MC. Those outlaws must have said “Thank you, Jesus!” and laughed their asses off as that eyesore was rolled away. The bike came from Washington, D.C., looking like it had been left out in the weather for ten years.
But I didn’t care. Even rust-covered, that machine was a damn sight better than the rat bike I’d been saddled with for nine months. As I loaded the Heritage into the bed of the pickup, I informed John Carr I intended to make a few alterations.
“My boss won’t like that,” warned John.
“Oh, yeah? Well then tell your boss to ride this piece of shit.”
Soon as I got back to Valle Vista I went to work, stripping that Harley down to the frame. I threw on some ape hangers and got rid of the saddlebags. I retooled the motor and tranny, did a bunch of little tweaks, then rolled it back out again. Any one percenter would have been proud to ride that motorcycle. I’d built her outlaw through and through.
Now that I had myself a patch and a decent bike, I could finally take my girlfriend on some of the club runs. Jenna was actually happy with the idea of spending quality time with her suspiciously gay boyfriend. Our first opportunity to ride together came on a Vagos run down to San Diego. Hemet intended to make a show of force outside the Hells Angels’ clubhouse, and a few of the VOLs were coming along for the ride.
A one percenter motorcycle club was a “men only” organization, and most members treated their old ladies as little more than meat. Some even considered them communal property to be shared among brothers like a toolbox. But my experience with the Vagos was different. In Green Nation a man didn’t touch another patch’s property. Violating that sacred trust could get a member stripped of his patch and run down the road.
The patch on the back of a VOL’s jacket told the world exactly who she belonged to. Jenna’s jacket, for instance, would have said “Property of Big George” had she chosen to wear one. But in the early days that little rebel was fighting Green Nation all the way, so fiercely protecti
ve of her independence that she wore pink instead of green.
Jenna wasn’t a fan of the Vagos Old Ladies at first either. She was barhopping one night with some of the VOLs when North’s wife—a big woman Jenna called “Marmaduke”—started giving one of Jenna’s old school pals a ration of shit for “brushing against her hair.” My girlfriend didn’t care much for Marmaduke’s bluster, and she absolutely despised her lard-assed husband. North had once peppered an addict friend of Jenna’s with a shotgun. The kid had survived the blast only to die later in a Chevron gas station bathroom from a heroin overdose.
Jenna fought against becoming a VOL for several months, but gradually she came to the conclusion that if she couldn’t beat the green, she might as well wear it. In time she hung up the pink threads and threw on a denim jacket that announced “Property of Big George.”
Of course, that didn’t matter to a dirtbag like Big Todd. Property or not, that sonofabitch had a hard-on for Jenna from the moment I began dating her. Must have been some kind of ego trip trolling for another brother’s woman, because he’d cruised that way before. Todd claimed to have fucked Crash’s old lady and bragged that he knew Roy’s wife inside out—and Big Roy was supposed to have been his bosom buddy.
During the months I was prospecting, Big Todd would send me on wild-goose chases for hours at a time just so he could snag some alone time with Jenna. And once he had her to himself, he’d whisper that I was cheating on her. Not only did that slippery bastard want to nail my girlfriend, he wanted to drive a wedge between us too. I knew what that snake was up to, but since Jenna swore up and down she wasn’t interested in fucking Todd, I kept my mouth shut.
And that was my mistake.
As the Harleys were revving up for the run down to San Diego, I was informed by our road captain, Sparks, that Jenna couldn’t ride with me, since the Heritage didn’t have a sissy bar. The road captain was responsible for rider safety, and Sparks didn’t want Jenna falling out of the saddle and bouncing down the I-15. If my girlfriend was coming to San Diego, she’d have to ride in the chase truck with Big Todd.