by Thom Whalen
* * *
Wasp came to a decision. He gestured to Monk and said, “I got a problem with my carb. Come on. I want you to take a look at it.”
Monk frowned. “It’s too dark out there to work on your engine.”
“I think it’s just the air filter. Come on and take a look. If it’s something more then I’ll bring it over to the shop tomorrow.”
“You got a flashlight?”
“Yeah. Come on.” When Wasp left the garage, he didn’t have a flashlight in his hand.
My heart was pounding. Maybe they were going out to get their guns. Maybe they were setting up an ambush after all. Maybe Randal and I were already as good as dead and didn’t know it yet.
The big garage door was open. I could see the two Snakes conferring as they bent over Wasp’s bike. It was dark and they didn’t have a light. Obviously they weren’t looking at any air filter.
I chugged the last of my beer. As soon as I set the can on the floor, the big woman who’d come with Friendly pushed another in my hand. The women were drinking as hard as the men, but they didn’t forget their duties as hostesses.
I’d had only one can of beer but my head was spinning. I weighed only one fifty, my stomach was empty, and I was unaccustomed to alcohol. I was the cheapest drunk ever to party in the Snakes’ clubhouse.
Friendly was sitting no more than a few feet away, but he was looking away from us so I asked his woman, “Why do they call him Friendly?” I was hoping that she was going to say that they called him that because he’d never hurt fly.
“He’s Canadian,” she said. “They got some show they call the Friendly Giant on TV up there.”
I had no idea what the show was about, but I understood that his nickname was a reference to his size, not his disposition. It was probably ironic. I suspected that the Road Snakes liked their irony simple and blunt.
Monk and Wasp came back into the clubhouse. They looked over Randal like tailors fitting him for a suit. Or undertakers fitting him for a coffin.
“Hey, Friendly, Jimbo, come on out here for a minute. We need to do some heavy lifting,” Monk said.
The other two didn’t need any convincing. They followed Monk back out into the night. I sipped my beer and watched them. They didn’t lift anything. Monk spoke to them for a minute. I could see Jimbo scratching at his crotch while he listened to what Monk was saying. After Monk was finished, they all wandered back toward the clubhouse.
Randal didn’t look worried. But that meant nothing. Randal never looked worried. Especially when he should be.
Wasp was smiling but it looked forced.
I tried to prepare myself to die. To face my fate with icy fatalism like Randal would. I failed. Dying mattered to me. Especially now. I didn’t want to die a virgin when I was so close to curing that unfortunate condition. My hands were shaking.
Monk, Friendly, and Jimbo were smiling when they came back inside. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or bad. At least they weren’t carrying shotguns.
When they sat back down, Randal reached into his jacket and pulled out a plastic bag filled with dry green leaves. “I brought a token of my appreciation for you guys.” He handed the weed to Wasp. “I’m sure that you could use some tea.”
Wasp took the bag, said, “We love a tea party,” and then shouted, “Let’s get this party started!”
I was under the impression that the party had begun some time ago, but I was mistaken. I knew nothing about outlaw motorcycle gang parties.
One of the women, the little doll-like one, turned on an eight-track stereo and Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” began booming from a pair of huge black speakers that were hanging from the ceiling in the far corners of the room.
I was hearing the bass through my rear teeth. My ears weren’t involved.
There was wisdom in having their clubhouse miles from the nearest neighbors. In Wemsley, the police wouldn’t bother waiting for a complaint if anyone played music this loudly. Their response would be an automatic reflex.
The big woman in the leather jacket and too small miniskirt began dancing across the room. She kicked off her boots and danced in her bare feet. Then she shed her jacket.
She was wearing nothing underneath it.
I was agog.
Her breasts looked huge and they rolled and bounced like nothing that I’d ever seen.
She caught my eye and laughed at me. She sounded like she was having a great time.
The other two women began dancing with her. They kept their clothing on. The beautiful one pulled Wasp into their midst; he began shuffling his feet in time to the beat.
Monk joined them. To my surprise, he was the best dancer of the bunch. His long arms waved and twisted while his short legs kicked and shuffled intricate patterns across the floor.
The doll-like woman was the best female dancer so she paired off with him and they put on an impressive show. I was eighteen and half drunk; I was easily impressed.
I smelled an acrid odor. Someone had sparked a joint. I don’t know if it was the weed that Randal had given them or if they had their own. I’d never smoked up and had no interest in trying it that night. I was too interested in the mostly-naked woman dancing in front of me.
The Snakes understood and didn’t press the joint on me when they passed it around among themselves. I didn’t notice if Randal joined them or not.
The eight-track was playing the Snakes’ own mix tape. “Whole Lotta Love” was followed by the Stones’ “Can’t Get No Satisfaction”.
I wasn’t getting any action, but I was getting a whole lot of satisfaction.
My beer was gone and I didn’t remember finishing it. The girls were otherwise occupied so the guys were grabbing their own beers out of the fridge.
My inebriation made me bold. I staggered over to the fridge and helped myself to another Iron City. Friendly clapped me on the back as I walked past. He intended that his gesture be friendly – living up to his moniker – but he practically knocked me off my feet.
The stereo played “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” next. Mercifully, most of the long, tedious, self-indulgent drum solo had been edited out.
Halfway through the song, the big woman turned her back to me and raised the right side of her miniskirt to her waist with her hand.
She was wearing no underwear. And her ample right cheek was tattooed with the notice, “Property of the Road Snakes”, in bold black letters.
I was astounded by both revelations. I never knew that such women existed. Women who wore no underwear and considered themselves property. If someone had told me, I would have thought that they were pulling my leg.
Did she really mean it? Did she consider herself to be club property?
“You like her?” Jimbo sat beside me and screamed into my ear to make himself heard. “You like our Betty? You want her?”
I wanted her so desperately that I could taste it.
“Hey, Betty!” Jimbo screamed at her.
She smiled at him.
“The kid wants you!”
She danced toward me, shaking her breasts and rolling her barely-covered hips.
I felt faint.
Wasp looked over at me. “He can have her,” he said.
“There you go, kid. You can have her,” Jimbo said. “The Road Snakes’ gift to you. She’ll do anything you want, right, Betty?”
“Anything,” Betty said and took my hand and pulled me to my feet.
She rubbed her almost nude body against me as she danced.
I felt her long, dark hair brush across my face and her breasts caress my chest through my shirt.
I could scarcely breathe.
I’m no dancer. I shuffled after her as she guided me to the back corner of the clubhouse.
There was an old mattress on the floor.
Cream started playing “Sunshine of Your Love” on the stereo.
She pulled me down on the mattress and leaned to my ear, “How do you want me?” Her breath was warm and I felt her
lips brush against my skin as she spoke.
I put my hand on her breast. It was much bigger than Katie’s. It overflowed my fingers.
I kissed her.
She had bad breath.
I saw small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
Her hair had grey at the roots. She dyed it.
She was thirty-five, at least. Maybe even forty. Maybe as old as my mom.
She began unbuttoning my shirt.
I looked down and saw that the soles of her feet were black with dirt.
I grabbed her hand to stop her.
She kissed me.
I wanted to gag.
Bucks, the guy who looked like an accountant, was sitting on a wooden chair, staring openly at us across the room. He was practically drooling.
Suddenly, I didn’t feel nearly as drunk as I was. “Wait,” I said. “Just wait.”
“Oh, kid, there’s no reason to wait. I want you right now.”
“Wait. I got a girlfriend.”
“That’s okay. I don’t want to be your girlfriend. I just want you for tonight. You’ll still have your girlfriend tomorrow.” She was panting. She sounded like she really did want me. Right now.
Friendly, the giant, was looking at us out of the corner of his eye. I knew from his posture and the way his hand twitched near his crotch, that he was going to have Betty next. And Bucks would have her after him. Unless Wasp wanted her first.
Every man in the Road Snakes had had Betty. In every way. That was what her tattoo meant.
She dropped a hand to my crotch. “Don’t you want me?” she asked. Her tone was a mixture of plaintive and petulant.
Not having Betty would be dangerous. When the Road Snakes offered to share, you had to show your gratitude. Offending them by refusing their gift would be terribly unwise.
Suddenly, she rocked back. “What’s this?” she cried as she felt between my legs. “You aren’t ready for me? I don’t excite you?” She squinted at me. “Oh! I get it. You’d rather have Randal than me? That’s why you ride with him. You’re his ride.”
I was shocked. I flushed bright red.
She leaned close and I was assailed by a fresh gust of her noisome breath. “There’s nothing that you can do with Randal that you can’t do with me. I told you. You can have me any way you want me. Even like that.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “It’s not Randal. I told you, I’ve got a girlfriend. She and me… We’re going to get married. That’s all. I’m engaged. I want you bad, but it wouldn’t be right. It just wouldn’t be right. I can’t.”
“He can’t, but I can,” Randal said.
I looked up to see him standing there, leering down at Betty.
“Why don’t you go polish my bike,” he said to me.
I fled the clubhouse.
The Road Snakes hooted at me as I rushed through them.
I didn’t care. I was happy that they didn’t take offence when I rejected their gift of the use of the club mascot.
After an hour or so, I went back inside and drank another beer. But it wasn’t the same. I wasn’t one of the guys any more.
I didn’t dare ride all the way back to Wemsley by myself. I was Randal’s door gunner so I was stuck there until he was ready to leave. That didn’t happen until three in the morning.
The capper on the night was that I was so tired that when I got on my bike and raised the kickstand, I dropped it in the dirt. By the time I felt it tilt out of balance, it was too late for me to get it back straight. When it was on the ground, I pulled at it but it was too heavy to budge.
Wasp laughed at me. “Hey, Friendly,” he said. “Kid dropped his bike. You want to give him a hand.”
“Step back, kid,” Friendly said.
He squatted, grabbed the frame front and rear of the gas tank, and tipped the bike back onto its wheels. “There you go.” He had lifted nearly three hundred pounds.
I thanked him and remounted the bike.
We all roared down the highway together, us and the Snakes. At various junctions, one Snake after another peeled off until only Randal and I were left, riding towards Wemsley, alone at last.
I’d partied with outlaw bikers, romped on a mattress with a naked biker chick, and I was still a virgin. Alive and a virgin.
I counted myself lucky.