by George Rowe
Well, shit, that was like walking a horny chicken into the fox’s den. I should have sent her home right then and there, but Jenna had her little heart set on coming, so I made the trip solo while she rode with Todd behind the pack. On our way south we picked up some Vagos members from the Corona and Norco chapters, then rolled en masse toward San Diego.
When we reached the Angels’ clubhouse, the Vagos revved their throttles, posed and postured and flexed their steroid-pumped muscles for the red and white, but that provoked a few bored yawns and little else. That was usually how these little club soirees ended—with a bunch of empty bluster. Yes, outlaws clashed, and yes, people got beat up—some even got killed. But more often than not, when it came to crunch time, those macho men turned into limp-dick pansies.
So after cruising impotently back and forth in front of the Angels, the Vagos left the city and roared north again. On the outskirts of San Diego the pack came across a biker-friendly bar, and everyone piled inside to slake their thirst. Jenna joined the VOLs at their own table while I took a seat with Iron Mike. In a few minutes Big Todd joined us, and we got to drinking.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” said Todd, leaning toward me.
I figured he wanted to borrow money again, but for once that wasn’t the case.
“All that shit that went down between us? That was totally my bad, dude.”
Well, no shit, asshole.
Instead of answering him, though, I took a pull on my bottle and said, “How you doing with Jenna? She giving you any trouble?”
“Jenna? Naw, everything’s cool,” said Todd, giving me that big horsey grin of his.
He paused to look around, then leaned back in again. “Listen, Big George, I’ve been thinkin’. You know about the guys in Van Nuys, right? They’re making a killing off the dope dealers over there.”
This was true. The drug-dealing entrepreneurs in that San Fernando Valley community were being shaken down by the local Vagos chapter.
“Well, why not us?” Todd continued. “Hemet’s our home turf, right? So why shouldn’t we take a cut of what the dealers are making in our backyard? We should own a piece of that action, don’t you think?”
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Iron Mike, shaking his head.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Mike? Think how much bank the club would make. We’ve got the numbers. Let’s fuckin’ use ’em, dude.”
I have to say this about Big Todd. The man had great ideas for indictments. Shaking down drug dealers was called racketeering, and that was RICO, baby. As you can probably guess, I was a big supporter of Todd’s stupid idea, but Iron Mike didn’t share my enthusiasm. He left the table, leaving the two of us to work out the details.
“It’s a good idea, don’t you think?” muttered Todd, discouraged about losing Iron Mike’s vote.
“Fuckin’ A right,” I said. “It’s a great idea.”
Todd took a drink. “Those pricks are making a fortune off us. I say fuck ’em all.”
“I’m with you, brother.”
“That’s why we did Spun,” Todd said. “Fuck that cocksucker.”
My antennae immediately shot up.
“Spun” was James Butler, a forty-two-year-old heroin addict famous in the valley for leading cops on wild stolen-car chases. Typically, crazy Jim would either bring the one-hundred-mile-per-hour pursuit back to where it started or run out of gas trying. And then, just like my old high school buddy David, the man suddenly vanished.
The night Jim disappeared, his old man received an anonymous call claiming his son had been burned and buried in the desert. There were those who believed La Eme, the Mexican Mafia, was involved—Jimmy’s girlfriend was a Hispanic dope addict with ties to that notorious prison gang—but the junkies in Hemet who knew the man best were telling a different tale.
They said two Vagos from the Hemet chapter had snatched Jim from Lake Elsinore. They’d driven him into the desert near the Southern California town of Anza, robbed him, put a bullet in his head, then torched the remains. James Butler was a drug addict and a fuckup, but he didn’t deserve to go out like that. No one does.
Kevin Duffy, my detective friend from Riverside, had contacted me about Jimmy’s disappearance. He’d wanted to know if I’d heard anything from the Vagos. But at the time I’d had nothing to offer him. I figured Jim was dead and buried in the Mojave, just like David, and no one would ever know what had become of him . . . until Big Todd got a little spun, poured a few drinks down his gullet and let slip the bombshell.
“Wasn’t supposed to go down that way, but it did,” Todd muttered, sounding a bit annoyed. “My bro really hated that dude. Things got a little fucked up.”
“What happened to him?”
“Let’s just say that motherfucker won’t be coming back,” said Todd before draining his glass.
Unfortunately I wasn’t prepared to receive Todd’s mea culpa. I never got the damn thing recorded—a huge opportunity lost. In the following weeks I tried getting him to confess again while I was wired, but that Vago never would talk. And then one day Todd said to me, “Why do you keep asking about Jim Butler?” and I realized it was time to fold the tent.
Eventually the Vagos piled back out of the bar, mounted bikes and roared north on the I-15 for Hemet. Somewhere along the way the pack lost contact with Big Todd’s truck.
Which was exactly what that motherfucker had in mind.
Jenna had been a captive audience for Todd’s relentless teasing and sexual innuendo. He’d worked her over pretty good on the way to San Diego, and now she was starting to warm up to him on the return trip.
So Big Todd went for the kill.
He explained to Jenna that she had an obligation to share herself with the brothers and prove she was down for the club. Other VOLs had spread their legs for him, Todd assured her, and now it was her turn. So my girlfriend went down for the club. She buried her face in Todd’s lap and sucked his cock. At least she tried. That sleazebag was so spun out she couldn’t get his dick hard. Eventually Todd pulled over and fucked her by the side of the road.
James Butler, who vanished from Lake Elsinore.
Somewhere up north, unaware of what was happening behind me, I followed the pack through Winchester and headed east on Highway 74. No sooner had we crossed the city line into Hemet than the all-too-familiar siren and flashing lights of a Hemet police cruiser were warning us to pull over. We stopped our Harleys by the side of the road with the cop tucked in behind us.
It was a short wait before Officer Spates stepped out wearing his pressed dark blue uniform.
I’d known Spates long before I ever signed aboard with the Vagos, and we’d always gotten along. I had no issues with the man. Spates was a good cop—at the time the only black cop on the Hemet police force. As he came toward us I noticed the camera in his hand. Every Vago knew what that meant.
Gang cards.
The Hemet PD wanted the Vagos gone from town almost as badly as I did, and one way to accomplish that was by getting them on record as gang members. The first step in that process was the traffic stop, pulling a biker over for just about any public safety violation. An infraction might include wearing a nonregulation helmet, missing turn signals, pipes that were too loud . . . any damn thing at all. And if one biker was stopped, then everyone riding with him became fair game. Each man would have his license, registration and evidence of insurance checked for violations, then the cop would write up the gang cards.
He’d start by taking the outlaw’s photograph, then add his date of birth, Social Security number and driver’s license information. And once the biker signed that card, the law had him by the short hairs. In effect, he was admitting membership in a street gang, opening himself up to those hefty gang enhancement penalties under the S.T.E.P. Act the next time he was arrested.
And those who refused to sign, well, some cops could make life pretty difficult. I saw motorcycles confiscated simply because a one percenter couldn�
�t come up with evidence of insurance. For a lot of those boys the whole process was intimidating—especially for the guys on parole, who were afraid to disobey an order. Often the easiest solution was to just go ahead and sign the damn card.
“License and registration.”
I gave Spates everything he asked for and answered his questions. But when he lifted his camera and pointed it at me, I drew the line.
“Get that thing away from me,” I said, extending a hand in front of my face.
“I’m taking your picture now, Mr. Rowe,” he said.
“The fuck you are, Spates,” I told him.
Like I said, Officer Spates and I had known each other for a long time, and he’d never heard that kind of disrespect come out of my mouth. I hated to be a prick about it, but I was playing the role of the badass for the Vagos, and I didn’t want my face on one of those fucking gang cards.
“What’d you say to me?” growled Spates, lowering the camera.
“I said you’re not taking my picture. I’ve got rights.”
“You tell that nigger!” someone shouted ahead of me.
I hated to hear that. I truly did. I never bothered taking a poll, but you could bet the bank that a vast majority of our nation’s one percenters were dyed-in-the-wool racists. You certainly wouldn’t find any dark faces among the hard-core outlaw clubs like the Vagos, Hells Angels and Mongols. They’d take the Mexicans, sure, but not a black man. No fuckin’ way, jack. If you were black and wanted to ride outlaw, better look elsewhere—maybe the Soul Brothers or the Chosen Few over in Los Angeles, or the East Bay Dragons up in Oakland.
Most of the Hemet Vagos were proud to call themselves white supremacists. Big Todd had KKK tattooed on his right arm in bold two-and-a-half-inch letters. I myself had those double lightning bolts on my arm, the Nazi symbol for the Aryan Brotherhood and a reminder of a shameful chapter in my life that I’d sooner forget.
Sad truth is, there was a time when I would have been the first to call Officer Spates a nigger and probably raised my hand to it too. Took a lot of years and a ton of soul searching to purge all that mindless hate from inside of me. But once I started turning my life around, the old prejudices began dying away, and the painful reminders of that ugly time were pushed from my memory and left to the past.
Or so I thought.
Pumping gas on the outskirts of San Bernardino, just a few years before going under with the Vagos, I noticed a black man in a button-down shirt watching me from the next island. Before long he stopped filling his tank and approached me.
“Do you remember me?” the man asked.
I just looked at him. I didn’t have a clue who this guy was or what the hell he wanted.
“Well, I remember you,” he said. And I had no doubt he was right.
Then he started unbuttoning his shirt.
At first I didn’t know what to think. I figured maybe the man was getting ready to fight, so I focused myself and got ready to rumble.
And then the last button was undone and his shirt fell open.
And at that instant I knew.
I fucking knew.
A swastika, scarred and faded but nonetheless recognizable, was there in front of me—carved right in the middle of that black man’s chest.
“Now do you remember me?” he said defiantly, looking me square in the eyes.
I couldn’t answer. I was too ashamed. But what could I say? Would I’m sorry really cut it? Would it make those scars disappear? Would I be absolved?
The man had probably imagined that moment a thousand times, dreaming of the day he’d face his bogeyman once more. But now that the moment had finally come, the asshole who’d scarred him for life had nothing to say.
He hung around long enough to watch me squirm, then returned to his car and the rest of his life. I never saw him again, but that little reunion messed with my head for a long time.
Anyway, Officer Spates never did take my picture. I had no legal obligation to allow it. The man had to swallow his anger and move on to the next Vago in line. Within an hour the pack was moving again and I was headed for home.
I already had my suspicions why Jenna was late returning from San Diego, but when she snuck back into the apartment and headed straight for the shower, I had a pretty good idea what had happened.
After scrubbing Todd’s stink from her body, she climbed into bed with me. I asked where she’d been and was given some lame-ass excuse. Addicts are excellent liars, but I could see right through this one. A few days later Iron Mike, who was renting the apartment at the other end of the chicken coop, took me aside and said, “I’m not telling you nothing, Big George, but you might want to check out what happened with Todd and your old lady.”
Of course, Iron Mike had just told me everything I needed to know—everything I’d already suspected. Turns out Big Todd had bragged to some of the brothers that he’d screwed Jenna—one more VOL notched in his belt. By doing so, the man had broken one of the biggest of the Vagos taboos: You can do what you want to a prospect’s woman—after all, she’s just meat—but you don’t touch the snatch when Daddy’s got the patch.
That night I got in the truck and drove over to the Brown residence, where Todd and Doug lived with their mother. When Big Todd answered the door I called him outside for a man-to-man. When his brother tried to intervene, I told Doug the matter was private and warned him to walk away.
“Word’s out you fucked Jenna,” I said to Todd, getting right to the point.
“Whoa. Where’s this coming from? Did she tell you that?”
“No. Everyone else did.”
“Well, everyone else is full of shit. I wouldn’t do that to you, brother.”
“That right? Maybe I should take this to national and let Tramp decide who’s full of shit and who’s not.”
Had I followed through on the threat, I have no doubt Terry the Tramp would have run Big Todd’s ass down the road. But I’d already made up my mind to keep that whole messy business in-house. Fact of the matter was, I couldn’t afford to lose him. Because no matter how much of a scumsucking bastard Todd Brown was, he was an even better source of inside information. Get that man spun or drunk and he’d turn into a regular Chatty Cathy. With me, the bottom line was always the mission. So I swallowed pride and added “fucking my girlfriend” to the growing list of reasons why I couldn’t wait for the day when I could get that man one on one. Someday soon we’d have ourselves a cage match.
In the meantime I’d keep Big Todd handy. Of course, I wouldn’t tell him that. No way, man. I was having too much fun watching the bastard squirm.
“Alright, George, maybe it did happen,” Todd finally admitted. “But it’s not my fault, dude. Jenna asked for it. She’s a fuckin’ ho, brother.”
I could have decked the sonofabitch, but he wasn’t worth it. Hell, Jenna wasn’t even worth it.
When word spread through the Hemet chapter that Todd had nailed Big George’s old lady, the VOLs were pissed. And most of their righteous indignation was reserved for Jenna. Three of those women approached me at a grocery store one night and asked permission to give their wayward sister a butt-whooping. It was a sweet gesture, but I explained Jenna was my problem, not theirs.
As for Big Todd, nobody trusted that bottom-feeding prick anymore. The married Vagos, and even those with girlfriends, now viewed the man as a predator—a fox loose in the Vagos henhouse. When Ready noticed Todd coming on to his wife a few months later, he shoved a pistol against Todd’s helmet and warned he’d kill the man if he ever came near his old lady again.
But despite the fact that the entire Hemet chapter and most of the free world knew what Big Todd had done, Jenna still refused to own up to it. The two of us danced around the question for weeks until I pinned the girl down one night and told her I could handle brutal truth but couldn’t build a future based on lies.
Right from the start of her confession Jenna turned on the waterworks.
“He said I should make a commitment to
the club just like you did,” she blubbered. “I was afraid if I didn’t do like he wanted they’d take your patch, George. And I know how hard you worked for that patch. I really did it for you.”
“So you did it for me, huh?”
“Yes. For you, George.”
It’s not my policy to hit women. But if there was ever a time to start, that would have been it.
“I’m no fuckin’ Einstein, but I’m not stupid either. So stop fucking insulting me,” I said, biting back anger. “You’re a big girl, Jenna. You knew what you were doing.”
“I swear, George, I thought—”
“You screwed Todd because you wanted to,” I snapped at her. “You did it for yourself—no one else. Not for me, not for the club and not for the good of the country. So stop wasting my time with all your goddamn lies.”
I grabbed my truck keys and was about to head for Shooters when Jenna called me back.
“You’re right, George. I’m sorry,” she said, wiping away tears. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Guess I’ve always craved affection from men.”
“Christ, Jenna, you’re a child. Letting Todd stick his dick in you. That’s your idea of affection?”
I swear I was channeling my old girlfriend. I heard Darlene’s voice in my head saying, “Two dogs can fuck . . . that’s not love.”
“I know it sounds messed up,” said Jenna, “but I like it when men want me.”
“I should be enough,” I grumbled.
I couldn’t believe I’d actually said it. Me, the guy who had screwed around his entire life, lecturing a chick who had screwed around even more.
What a fucking hypocrite I was.
What a pair we were.
For a brief moment I fantasized about dragging her cheating ass back to Todd, flinging her into his arms and telling him, “Take the bitch. She’s your headache now.” Only that would have been the end of Jenna.