Karl couldn’t seem to wake up.

He just had that slow, lazy, drowsy feeling that wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t because he’d been working too hard, since he was currently unemployed, which didn’t necessarily mean that he wasn’t working, it just meant that he was working on his own.

He was always working. When he was on his own schedule, he could work, eat, sleep, and play whenever he felt like it, so he rarely let himself get overworked. That was no way to live. And it wasn’t that he hadn’t gotten enough sleep, because in fact, he had slept longer than normal. He had fallen asleep on the couch the evening before during an episode of Seinfeld. He had a faint recollection of Kramer attempting to host a talk show from inside his apartment, and George, Jerry, and Elaine all sat in chairs on an old-style talk show set, with confused looks on their faces, while Kramer made the usual fool of himself.

He awoke, sometime after midnight, to the sounds of Frank Burns making a hell of a mess in Margaret’s tent. Margaret burst in and demanded an explanation. Frank had claimed that he was looking for a pencil. That Frank Burns…what a character. Karl stirred just long enough to click off the TV and wander off to bed. And yet he couldn’t clear his head this morning. Nothing like waking up in the morning, and feeling like it would be a good idea to lay right back down and take a nap.

He sat at the cheap, second-hand-store kitchen table with his fourth cup of coffee, staring blankly at the TV in the next room. The morning news droned on about the latest robbery, in a string of robberies, in the latest string of robberies, and so on. He stared in the general direction of the TV, but didn’t really see the picture, nor was he really listening to what the newscaster was saying. It was all bwah-bwah-bwah, like a teacher in a Peanuts cartoon.

Karl rubbed his eyes, and leaned back in the chair. He looked up at the ceiling and fixed his gaze upon an old water stain in one corner of the room. Guess I just don’t wanna face the day… He thought to himself. But that’s all right. Maybe the slower I spin up, the more together I’ll be later. Maybe, maybe not. Could be a crock of shit. But it sounded good at the time, because Karl knew that he needed a level head, and maybe even a little bit of luck, today. He decided that he’d better keep a slow, even burn on a day like this.

Karl rose from the chair and placed the coffee cup on the counter next to the sink. There was no room actually in the sink, since it had been a few days (or weeks?) since Karl found the ambition to wash up the few dishes that he owned. They usually ended up piled in the sink until he had no clean dishes left, and then he would find the time to wash them. He opened the side door in the kitchen, and walked into the familiar dusty darkness of the garage. He didn’t need to turn on the overhead light, since he knew every inch of the garage like the back of his hand. The slivers of light that came in around the roll-up door were enough to guide him through the room.

Karl bent down to pull open the garage door. His lower back did a little dance, and he made a mental note (for the thousandth time) to look into buying one of those electric door openers. Gotta get with the times, son. He mused. But he knew that he probably wouldn’t actually get the door opener. He believed in living a simple life, but simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy. He didn’t believe in buying every new electronic gadget that came along in order to make ones life easier. Most people had life so damned easy that they lost all perspective, and forgot how to appreciate the little things. Hell, he didn’t even own a cell phone. His ex-wife called him a dinosaur. His ex-wife called him a lot of things.

Jesus, I feel old, was his first clear thought of the morning. Fuck around and jack up my back again, and that’ll turn this day into a pile of shit in a hurry. He stood back up slowly and stretched his shoulders back while putting his hands into the small of his back.

For all his grumbling, Karl was not exactly out of shape. He stood 6’2” tall, and packed a solid 215 pounds on his frame. He worked out regularly in his make-shift “gym”, which consisted of a rusty set of iron weights, bars, and a weight lifting bench that appeared to be held together with duct tape, sprawled in one corner of the garage. He jogged 5 miles or so, several times a week. He dealt a regular beating to the heavy punching bag that hung from an overhead rafter by a chain. Most 40-something year old men wished that they were in the physical condition that Karl was. But he enjoyed the exercise, even if it made him stiff and sore half the time. Years ago, he would have barely noticed the after effects of a hard workout on the next day. Now, at 47, he would ache from a hard workout for days afterwards, but he did it anyways. Pain and age go together.

Karl bent again to open the door. This time, he carefully reached down for the garage door handle, locked his back, bent his legs, and pulled up. The door shot up and the springs groaned when the roll-up garage door linkage and wheels reached the travel limit. Harsh desert sunshine flooded the garage, and Karl felt like someone had pulled the shroud of sleepiness right off the top of his head. Sort of a sleepy-head scalping. He opened his eyes wide, then blinked and rubbed the backs of his hands.

Fuckin sleep-scalping little injuns running around this mother-fucker, he mumbled to himself. Lookit the little fuckers running and hiding in the corners… He jerked around quickly, as if trying to catch the “injuns” in the act. He chuckled at his non-sensical joke, and suddenly felt pretty good, almost giddy. Couple more cups of coffee and they’ll be putting my ass in the nuthouse. He thought to himself.

Karl took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. He spoke aloud, to no one in particular: “Good man. Keep that sense of humor alive and well, cause you might need it before this bullshit is over.”

And he was right.

The trusty Harley-Davidson FXR motorcycle sat waiting patiently, parked in its usual place in the center of the garage. It looked menacing in the sharp shadows, almost like a wolf, watching and studying it’s potential prey from a distance. The black paint and chrome glinted under a thin layer of dust.

As always, he felt a quick thrill of excitement rush through him just looking at the bike. Karl was a biker. Karl had always been a biker. He loved motorcycles. Karl had known from the very first time he rode a bike, at age 17, that a motorcycle would be his chosen form of transportation, for his whole life. He wasn’t your typical “R&B biker” (short for “Runs and Bars” biker) who had a motorcycle that usually sat in the garage, only for days when the weather was perfect for riding, or for riding down to the local bars or the occasional poker runs. And he certainly wasn’t the sort of biker who owned a bike just to stick it on a trailer to take to the Sturgis motorcycle rally or Daytona Bike week to show off. The motorcycle was his primary mode of transportation. It was ridden in all kinds of weather, year round, and the odometer showed that the bike had over 262,000 miles on it. Most people who saw the odometer reading could scarcely believe it, since the bike appeared to be in excellent condition. Karl knew that there were only a very few parts on the bike that actually had anywhere near that mileage. The bike was heavily customized and many of the components had been replaced with performance parts. Most of the stock parts had also been modified. It was an endless work in progress.

The only other vehicle he owned was a 1968 Chevy pick-up. The old truck was sun-rusted and looked pathetic, but it ran like a top, and he kept it as mechanically sound as the day it had rolled off the assembly line. The truck had far less mileage than the Harley, even though it was decades older. Karl rarely had occasion to drive it, only the rare times when he needed something that was too large to carry on the bike. But when he needed it, it was there, always willing to fire up immediately and settle into that smooth, and somewhat “clickity” idle that characterized the old inline six cylinder GM engines.

But today the old red pick-up would remain parked in its designated spot of dirt next to the driveway. Karl never parked the truck in the driveway, or in the garage, unless it needed some work or maintenance. Those areas were reserved for motorcycle traffic.

Karl did a quick once-over of the bike. He knew the bike so well that if anything were out of the ordinary, it would jump out at him immediately. He glanced at the concrete floor underneath for any oil spots. He knew that there would be none, but in the old days, when he had ridden older bikes, it had been a common occurrence. In fact, on some of his older bikes, if there wasn’t a small puddle of oil under the bike, it probably meant that there was no oil in the bike, which is never a good thing. He scanned the cases under the cylinders for oil film, which could indicate weeping cylinder base gaskets. He toed the tires, just to reassure himself of the pressure. He could tell just by looking at them that they were fine.

Occasionally he would put a gauge to them and make sure they were pumped up to maximum pressure. He knew that quality motorcycle tires would usually hold pressure very well, but it always made sense to make sure, because bike tires were not cheap. And he also knew from experience that motorcycles don’t handle for shit with flat tires. Noting that the rear tire was getting low on tread, Karl grunted a little under his breath, and made a note to start thinking about picking one up and having it in reserve on the tire shelf next to his toolbox. Karl changed all his own tires, since he didn’t trust any of the motorcycle shops in the area. In fact, he had always done all the work on his bikes, as he did on all of his vehicles. He figured that if he did it himself, he could rest assured that it was done right, even if it took him a bit longer than a professional mechanic would do it. Plus it saved a few bucks, which was a big plus, since Karl had never been a wealthy guy.

Karl was rarely broke, but he had never felt the need to amass wealth at the expense of living. And working at some shit job, with a bunch of shit heads, for an asshole boss, had never been his idea of living. Karl could usually make enough to get by without having to punch a time clock. He liked to think of himself as a small time entrepreneur. If he saw something for sale at a cheap price, he would buy it and re-sell it for more. He would buy beat-up or damaged motorcycles, fix them up and sell them. He did a little custom work on motorcycles in his garage. He took an occasional short-term construction job if it suited his fancy. His mind was always searching for ways to make money while maintaining his own standard of personal freedom. He made do however he could, and did pretty well, considering. He didn’t owe anyone a dime, and usually paid the bills on time, so that was good enough for him.

The biker deftly twisted the gas valve under the fuel tank to the “ON” position, and pulled the choke knob. He inserted and turned the ignition key, and then pressed the starter button. The bike came to life with a deep explosive roar, and settled into a “potato-potato” kind of loping idle. A trained ear could immediately pick up on the fact that this was definitely not a factory stock engine. The sharp, rapping exhaust note that emitted from the high performance pipes hinted that a high compression, bored and stroked engine with a radical camshaft, and many other high performance internal parts, resided in the frame. All the components inside the engine had been carefully matched to work perfectly together, and Karl had meticulously finely tuned the engine himself. The big Harley was a beast, no mistake about it.

Sometimes Karl missed the old days when he had ridden bikes that had to be mechanically kick-started. Karl used to love to start his bike with the foot-operated lever in the morning. There was something very satisfying about the feel of the bike coming to life under your boot heel. But kick-starters were for old bikes, with old electrical systems, and Karl needed a bike that he could depend on every day, all year round. He needed a bike that could run all day long at modern highway speeds, and not have to spend all his free time wrenching on it. Besides, despite what some of his buddies who owned older bikes claimed, Karl knew that it was no big feat of strength to kick-start a motorcycle. He had yet to come across a bike that he had any problem whatsoever starting with a kicker. If it would start for anyone, Karl could start it.

Karl donned a wicked looking pair of black, wrap-around sunglasses, and backed the bike out of the garage. He scanned the sleepy, deserted street as he dismounted the bike to close and lock the garage door. “Wake up fuckers, and get to work” he mumbled under his breath, as he looked at the shabby neighborhood homes. “We’re trying to have a society here, fer chrissakes”. He knew most of the neighborhood population was probably not going anywhere for the most part. The majority of them were on unemployment or welfare. Some were crack heads, others were crack dealers, some were both. An industrious few were already off to their hateful nine-to-five occupations on construction job sites, or in warehouses, mills, retail stores, and everywhere else that normal lower class sheep go to struggle to make ends meet, and live their version of the American dream.

Back on the bike, Karl gave a quick rap on the throttle just to piss off the neighbors, and shut down the choke. He rolled out of the driveway and headed for the city, where he was due to appear in family court in approximately 35 minutes, and he damn sure didn’t want to be late. The ex and her cock-sucking attorney would certainly love that one, for sure.

Today was the day when Karl would find out whether he could pick up the pieces of his life, and start over as a free man, or if he was going to spend the next god-only-knows how many years, working at some little slice of hell job, in order to support his bitch ex-wife. They called it “alimony”, or “spousal support”. Karl called it bad damn joke. His ex-wife was angry and bitter, and she was just trying to fuck up his life any way she could. In order to obtain spousal support, she would have to prove to the court that she had been totally financially dependant upon Karl during their marriage. That was bullshit, since she had held down several jobs while they were together, and often made more money than he did. They had no children, and she hadn’t accumulated any debt while they were married. But he knew that all it took was a lawyer and a blowjob, and he would be sunk. And she was damn good at blowjobs.

The big Harley belted out an even, powerful tune as it effortlessly glided onto the interstate. The spoked wheels glinted in the morning sunlight. Businessmen and women peered at him though the windows of their conservative cars and trucks and paused in their conversations on cell phones. Some had looks of disgust on their faces, and frowned at the spectacle of the rider clad in blue jeans and leather, on the noisy beast. Most felt an uncomfortable twinge of envy as they viewed the picture of freedom that the bike and rider illustrated. Redneck good-ol boys felt instant and uncontrollable irritation when the powerful bike passed. They would rev the engines on their pickup trucks, as if they thought that would somehow intimidate the biker and he would disappear from view and they could return to humming along with the country song on the radio, undistracted.

As he rode, Karl reflected on the events that had occurred over the past few months that led up to this day. Karl and Carla had not been a good match from the beginning. He had a blurry recollection of how they had met. It had been just another drunken night at a local bar. They had danced and talked and ended up at her apartment where they had fucked like bunnies, as if that was the natural end of the evening’s festivities.

Karl was immediately attracted to her because she loved to ride, and didn’t appear (at first) to have too much baggage in her life. She had a nineteen-year-old daughter who had gotten knocked up by, and subsequently married to, a local construction boy. She had a crappy job at a grocery store that she could take or leave any time. She seemed to have an adventurous spirit, and was right at home in the sometimes chaotic lifestyle that is often part of being a biker. They had a few great months of riding and partying, and Karl had proposed (after a couple of beers) in the same local bar where they had met. It’s safe to say that their relationship went down hill from there.

Carla had wanted more than a simple life. She had assumed that Karl would get regular employment once they were married, and that he would be able to provide her with a relative life of leisure. She wanted a home away from the gangs and drugs and noise, yet she didn’t want to contribute anything to that dream. She was demanding, and she would often throw completely unreasonable fits, for no apparent reason, at the drop of a hat. Once she got the wedding ring, she expected Karl to do exactly as she wanted. Karl became miserable and found that he could no longer be himself around her.

Disagreements turned into arguments, and arguments turned into full-blown screaming matches. Their love affair turned into a loath affair, and Badda-boom, the fun was over. Now a messy divorce, in which Karl knew his freedom, probably for a long time to come, hinged on the mood of some prick divorce court judge.

Ah well, no sense dwelling on it now. He thought. It was time to get it all sorted out. At least it was a nice day out for riding. Karl just wished he were going somewhere, anywhere, instead of the damn courthouse.

Karl could have, and probably should have, taken his damn sweet time. Turns out that the judge was going to be absent anyways.

Investigators later determined that a bag containing approximately 30 pounds of C4 high explosive had been strategically planted in the basement of 11073 Court St., the government building that housed the county courthouse, city hall, the DMV, the county hall of records, and numerous other state, county and local government agencies and offices. At precisely 0830, the bomb was remotely detonated, and over half the building was completely demolished in the blast. The other half of the building was consumed in flames, and it required every bit of fire equipment and personnel from 3 counties to bring the blaze under control.

All Family court proceedings were cancelled.

FRANK DEANGELO

But today was one day he wished he had a clear head. A whole pot of shit had been dumped right into his lap, and suddenly the world was spinning out of control. He had to make some decisions pretty damn quick. And if they weren’t the right decisions, it was going to cost him.

When the lieutenant had asked him, 2 months ago, if he would be interested in taking on the assignment, Frank thought that it sounded right up his alley. The mayor’s office was demanding an aggressive investigation into the activities of the Two Skulls Motorcycle Club. The club had been quickly gaining notoriety throughout the region as one of the most feared and violent criminal organizations in recent years. Members of the club had been arrested and charged with everything from rape and assault, to extortion, drug possession with intent to distribute, grand theft, and possession of illegal explosives. There was no question that it was just the tip of the iceberg. The club had made it known that they intended to be the controlling criminal force in this territory, and had disbanded several smaller motorcycle clubs in the area.

Frank himself had had several run-ins with members of the club, but he had other reasons for wanting to bring the club to justice. Franks youngest daughter, 22-year-old Alyssa, had been riding with one of the most notorious members of the club for the last several months. Nobody hated the TSMC, and bikers in general, more than Frank Deangelo. So when the lieutenant had approached him about heading up the investigation, Frank accepted the assignment on the spot.

It was a slow moving investigation from the start. Arrests and plea bargains had to be made. Informants had to be found. A case that would bring down the TSMC has to be built up like a tree. There needs to be a strong base that branches into every part of the organization, with the individual members being the leaves that will fall off once the tree is cut down. You can’t just knock off a leaf here and there, and expect the organization to come tumbling down. You’ve got to chop it right down at the trunk, cut off the branches, and chop it into pieces, preferably all at the same time. It takes time, it takes manpower, and most of all, it takes money. And the club was run by a tight-knit group of experienced criminals, it was not a street gang made up of punk kids. The TSMC was a highly organized unit, and it functioned with militant precision.

But progress had been made. Two of the “patch holders” who had been facing long sentences, had talked, and had revealed some useful inside information. Frank had the names and criminal histories of most of the club members, along with enough evidence to raid any number of their private homes and hang outs. Thousands of hours of surveillance had been logged. More than a dozen arrests had been made. The club knew that the heat was on, and for the time being at least, the Two Skulls MC weren’t making the front page of the local newspaper every day, as they had been before the investigation began. The lieutenant was pleased enough with the progress, and soon Frank would organize a sting operation, and bring the club to its knees. Then, the Two Skulls MC would have to operate from prison, if at all, and Frank would be detective of the millennium.

But then this morning the government building exploded, and now the shit was hitting the fan in a BIG way. The TSMC had a reputation for being fond of explosives, so there was no question as to who the prime suspect/suspects were, and Frank knew that his little world was going to get pretty crazy, pretty quick. He was supposed to be on top of this shit, and a lot of fingers were going to be pointed at him, very soon.

LITTLE STEVE

Steve Poulson, alias “Little Steve”, was tripping out. Not on drugs, although he had been doing a blast every half hour or so out from the little baggie he had in his left front jeans pocket for the last 24 hours. But that was just “maintenance”. He needed a little pick-me-up on a regular basis, through out the day in order to keep his demeanor the way he liked it. Crank was his pick-me-up of choice. It just helped keep him in a good frame of mind.

Steve was the Sergeant at Arms of the Two Skulls MC. It was his responsibility to keep order within the club, and he was also the head skull crusher at functions that the club attended. He was the warlord. If the shit was coming down to a fight, Little Steve had the final word on who, what, and how it went down. And he was damn proud of it, prouder than he had been of his rank of Sergeant in the Marine Corps, before he was dishonorably discharged for drug use, among other things. Even prouder than he had been of his reputation in juvy, after he had beaten his father almost to death over a dispute at the dinner table when he was 16. He was somebody.

Citizens feared him, the police feared him, and his own club brothers chose their words carefully while in his presence. More than once he had been known to thump a few heads over relatively trivial disagreements with members. He was known to be somewhat unstable, but he could, would, and did, take care of business when it was needed. When you called him Little Steve, you said it with respect, and you’d better NOT have a smile on your face, because Little Steve was anything but small in stature. Standing 6’6”, and weighing well over 300 pounds, you had to wonder who’d had the balls to brand him with the nickname. But rumor had it that whoever it was, was probably no longer with us. And the name had stuck. Steve liked the name, because it had been a good excuse to thump someone up pretty good, many times over the years. And he loved that shit, he would rather fuck someone up, than eat.

He had gotten the call from the prez (president of the TSMC) that the slipping clutch on his bike was being fixed, and should be ready to go in a couple of days. That was code for; the mission had gone as planned, and that he would be cleared to return to the area very soon. He had ridden as far away as he could ride throughout the night, and had checked into a fleabag motel off the interstate to await further instructions. After he’d planted the bag containing the explosives in the basement of the government building, the club didn’t want him anywhere in the area, in case some had seen him, so he hauled ass out of town.

When Little Steve turned on the TV in his room, he was astonished to see the leading news story was that there had been a huge explosion at a government building some 250 miles away. It was national news. Watching the coverage, Steve’s heart swelled with pride to see the devastation that the explosion had caused. It was beyond his wildest expectations! He stood and clapped his huge hands together, then slapped his thighs and bent slightly forward with his arms supporting his weight.

“I am the fuckin MAN!” he said aloud. He stood up straight, and thumped his chest with his thumbs. “The fuckin MAN!” He repeated. He hadn’t been this excited since he was 5 years old on Christmas morning. He smiled so big that his face hurt. He suddenly realized that he was sporting a raging hard on, and reached down to unbuckle his jeans to let it free. He studied his throbbing penis, and wished that Alyssa were there to take care of the old boy for him. But women had no place in club business, and she certainly had no place in this latest piece of business. He would see her soon enough. She was smart enough to put the pieces together, and she would figure out that he was the fuckin MAN in this operation, and would be damn glad to have the baddest motherfucker on the planet as her old man.

Besides, his right hand had always been there for him at times like this, so he sprawled on the lumpy bed to take care of business, yet again.

ALYSSA DEANGELO

“Alyssa, please pick up line one. Alyssa, line one please”.

Alyssa Deangelo stood and walked to her desk. She picked up the receiver of the phone with the curly cord hanging from the end.

“This place can’t afford cordless phones like the rest of the modern world?” She complained, as she punched the lit button labeled ONE. She was in the middle doing her nails, and she couldn’t do them at her desk. Her desk was in plain view from the little window that was inset in the door to the room. So she did them over at the fax machine table, which was hidden from view unless someone actually entered the room, in which case she would have time to look like she wasn’t just doing her nails at the fax machine table. Not that she really gave a shit if she was caught. She wasn’t very fond of her job as a shipping clerk at Carson Chevrolet. She told herself that she was only here temporarily until she could save enough to get her modeling package together, and find the right agency, and then she’d be discovered. Besides, she knew that her employers were aware of her connection to the Two Skulls MC. And they’d probably hesitate to fire her as long as she showed up and made at least some attempt to do her job.

“Hello, this is Alyssa” she spoke into the phone.

“Alyssa, this is your father”. The voice sounded particularly dry, and Alyssa felt a familiar coldness flush her body. “I needed to know you were there.”

“Well, I’m here Daddy.” She said wryly. “And please feel free to call the truant officer and ask him as well.”

She wished she lived in another country. One where her drunken cop father wouldn’t be able to find her, or know where she worked, or know who she slept with. A place where she could party and live her life however and with whomever she pleased, and not have to worry about being alienated by her friends because they were afraid of being harassed by police, since she was a detectives daughter. But at least she didn’t have to worry about that much anymore. The TSMC didn’t care about her father, in fact, they seemed to find it pretty funny. They seemed to like the idea that they had the power of intimidation over at least a small part of the police force. They thought it might come in handy some day. Of course, Alyssa didn’t know about that last part. All she knew was that for the first time, she felt safe when she was with her friends, and shielded from her overbearing and abusive father.

“And now that you know I’m here, do you want me to tell you what I’m wearing, so you can decide if it meets your approval?” She smiled to herself as she spoke. She cradled the phone in between her head and shoulder, and dabbed at her right, middle fingernail with the brush. It felt so good to smart off to him and not have to worry about getting a slap from it.

“Yes, you are sooo grown up little lady” came the dry voice again from the other end. “We’re all very impressed with what a fine figure of a woman you have turned out to be.” Frank repressed the urge to go into a full blown rant. He wanted to reach through the phone and slap her goddamn smart-mouthed little face. But he gathered his wits and said what he needed to say.

“Listen little girl, I’m not checking up on you, and I don’t give two shits what you are wearing. I want you to listen to what I’m going to say, and I want you to try and understand that there is a reason for why I’m saying it. And you will know the reason soon enough.” He hoped he had her attention. “Do everyone a favor and stay the hell away from your boyfriend and all his punk buddies. I’ve asked you nicely, I’ve pleaded with you, and I’ve begged you. Now I’m telling you, not only as your father, but as a cop, don’t go near any of them, understand?”

Alyssa let her hand, still holding the nail polish brush, drop to her side. She replaced her hand on the receiver and spoke “And why this time? Did you get a hot tip that they are planning to ride naked through the streets to protest the slaughter of baby chickens? Or did one of them get caught smoking one of those crazy mary-gee-wanna cigarettes?”

“I don’t have time for this, smart-girl.” Frank knew that his patience was at its end. “Just remember what I’ve told you. And know this, that despite whatever you may want to believe, I’m telling you this because I love you, and I don’t want to see you get hurt any worse than you already are.” Frank flushed a little as he finished speaking.

“Well, yes, sir! And thank you for calling Carson Chevrolet. Have a nice day.” Alyssa clicked off the connection with her finger, and stood holding the receiver in her hand. She stared at the wall for a moment, then replaced the receiver in the cradle.

“Fuckin asshole.” She mumbled, and returned to the fax machine table to finish her nails.

Karl was getting irritated. He had given himself plenty of time to get to the courthouse, but had not wanted to get there so early that there would be a chance of bumping into his ex somewhere outside the courtroom. He was afraid of what he might say, and didn’t want to aggravate the situation. He just wanted to get through this shit and plan his next move. But as he sat unmoving at the traffic light while it turned to green for the third time, he started to wonder if he was going to make it on time. A uniformed police officer stood with his right hand up, blocking the traffic, and waved a steady stream of emergency vehicles through the intersection. It was pretty obvious that some serious shit had gone down, somewhere in the city.

Karl could see a plume of black smoke rising up into the air above the city. Something downtown was burning like a bastard. Hopefully, it’s the goddamn courthouse, he thought to himself. No way I could be so lucky though.

Careful what you wish
Careful what you say
Careful what you wish
You may regret it
Careful what you wish
You just might get it

Metallica. King Nothing.

Finally the cop stepped back and to the side. He waved for traffic to come through, almost impatiently, as if to say, “What the fuck are you people just sitting there for?” Karl glanced at him as he went by and noticed the cop studying him intently.

Jesus, this guy is a real piece of work… Karl thought.

If there was one job that Karl would never consider, it was a cop. It wasn’t because he didn’t know that there had to be cops in the world. Someone had to do it. Just as someone had to do the job of a judge, a lawyer, a prison guard, and all the other jobs in law enforcement. But every time Karl had any contact with anyone connected with law enforcement, he immediately knew that this was NOT someone he would want to be. He felt that you have to be a certain sort of person to want to hold those jobs, and the first qualification was that you had to be sort of an asshole, right off the bat.

Karl rode past the traffic cop, and didn’t notice as the officer bent slightly to speak into the microphone of the cop radio that was clipped above his right, breast pocket. Karl took a side street, hoping to skirt some of the chaos that seemed to be unfolding on the main arteries of the city. He was starting to realize that whatever was going on, was in fact, going to be pretty damn close to where he was headed. He could hear sirens everywhere, and he could smell smoke. He was interested, but not interested enough to let it keep him from getting to court on time. People stood in front of their houses, looking in the direction of the thick plume that was rising into the sky above the city, while others stood just inside screen doors yelling to the people outside what was being said on the TV. Mothers stood holding small children. Old men stood on the sidewalks, gazing up at the plume of smoke in the sky through thick glasses with huge, black frames. The fire escapes on the sides of apartment buildings were crowded with people.

What the fuck is going on around here? Karl wondered, as he pulled up to a stop sign.

He considered asking the group of three people standing at the corner if they knew what the deal was, but he glanced at his watch, shook his head and released the clutch on the bike. He was officially in a hurry now. He almost ran smack into the side of the cop car that appeared, seemingly from nowhere, from his right and screeched to a stop directly in his path. The driver side door was open before the cruiser came to a full stop, and a big damn shotgun with a little damn police officer attached to it, leapt from the vehicle.

“STOP THE VEHICLE NOW” the shotgun ordered, while the cop’s mouth moved.

“STOP THE VEHICLE NOW AND REMAIN IN THE VEHICLE WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR. DO IT NOW!”

Evidently, he wanted it done NOW.

Karl stopped. His brain went into that odd blank state where there is no real thought. If you asked him what was on his mind at that moment, he would honestly have told you that there was nothing at all. His mind went blank because he needed all his instincts. He might need to act instinctively and immediately, and there could be no thought to slow his reaction. It was a state of survival, a primal state that one enters when events are unfolding far too quickly to allow for analysis, like when you’re looking down the barrel of a 12 gauge shotgun.

Cops are trained to capitalize on that state. That’s the reason for all the yelling, the bright flashing lights, the imposing uniforms, and the big guns. Cops are trained to keep the suspect in that scared-to-near-panic, blank state of confusion so that their natural reaction is to comply immediately. Karl, however, was not confused. Karl was not scared. Karl had simply gone cold. He clicked the transmission into neutral and raised his hands while the FXR continued to thump away contentedly beneath him.

A second cop appeared from the left side of the cruiser and approached Karl cautiously.

He might have been 22 or so, and had a few lingering pimples on his forehead. He also had an over-eager look in his eyes. He was trying to look taller than his 5’7” height, and he tucked a 9mm pistol into the holster at his belt as he approached. The shotgun, and the other cop that was attached to it, didn’t move. It stayed pointed at Karl. The approaching pimple face pulled a set of handcuffs from the other side of his police-issue Sam Brown belt.

“Put your hands behind your back” He said as he stepped behind Karl. He reached up and grasped Karls right forearm. Karl was getting the feeling that this was no ordinary traffic stop.

“Whoa down, son”. Karl spoke quietly to the pimple face. He tried to say it quietly enough so that the shotgun wouldn’t hear. “I need to set down the kickstand here, and shut this bike off. Otherwise it’ll fall over and we’ll both look silly.”

The pimple face tugged a little at Karls arm and repeated, a little louder, “HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK, NOW”

Immediately the shotgun cop shouted, “DO WHAT THE OFFICER SAYS! DO IT NOW!”

These guys were big fans of the word NOW.

Fuck! Karl tried to remain calm.

Karl brain had started back up. He began to speak in a slow, calm, clear voice that was just loud enough to be heard by both cops over the sound of the idling Harley, but hopefully not so loud as to be misconstrued as argumentative.

“Listen boys, Set-tle. Down. I have to put the KICK… STAND…down, or the bike will FALL… OVER…. In order to do that, I have to put my hands on the handlebars for one moment, and use my left foot to kick the stand down. Once I’m cuffed, I won’t be able to do that. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” He put heavy enunciation on the words KICK, STAND, FALL and OVER. He really couldn’t believe that he was going to have to explain the concept of a motorcycle kickstand to these cops .

The cops heard him fine, but they hadn’t been trained to analyze a situation such as this. They had been trained to control the situation, and in order to control the situation the suspect was supposed to comply with their demands immediately. If the suspect didn’t comply immediately, then the suspect was resisting, and they were to take definite and immediate steps to restrain. The concept of kickstands hadn’t been part of their training.

According to the officer’s official report, the suspect began to resist. They immediately called for backup, and attempted to restrain the individual.

According to the statement from the three witnesses on the sidewalk, the guy on the bike was saying something about his motorcycle, and the cops started fighting with him.

In actuality, Karl just said fuck it and tried to reach down to grasp the handlebars so that he could kick down the stand. He decided that he would have to try and explain to the cops in a moment why he had to take this little detour from their instructions. He figured that, if the shotgun fired, it was likely not only going to take out himself, but also the pimple face behind him. So he figured he had a good chance that the shotgun cop wouldn’t actually fire, and hopefully he would get away with it. There was no fucking way he was going to sit here and be cuffed by this goddamn Barney Fife wannabe and let his scooter fall to the ground. Not after all he’d been through with this motorcycle. He didn’t have a clue what this whole thing was about, but he was pretty sure that he was not the guy they were after, so it was NOT going to be cool when they figured that out and offered an apology for the damage done to the FXR when it fell over. Dented and cracked parts don’t give a damn about apologies.

The pimple face still had hold of Karl’s right arm, and he began to twist it. Karl instinctively tried to jerk it free.

This whole day is just going to shit. Karl thought. That whole “slow burn” theory was not working for him at all.

The shotgun cop approached in a half crouch, still holding the shotgun on them, yelling into his radio for backup. It had finally dawned on him that if he fired the shotgun at this point, it would take out his partner as well, and he was beginning to panic.

Karl gave another hard forward jerk with his right arm and when he did, the pimple face came with it. Off balance and stumbling, pimple slammed headlong into the approaching shotgun and the cop attached to it. The shotgun discharged and Karl felt the percussion of the blast as if someone had slapped his face, hard. He would find out later that several pellets of double aught buckshot had actually creased his left cheek.

Now, anyone who knew Karl, would tell you that Karl was not an easy guy to rile. Karl was not an impulsive kid. Karl had been around the block a few times, and Karl was generally rock solid. He thought before he acted, and he thought before he spoke. He didn’t speak very quickly, but not because he was a slow thinker. It was because he liked to say what he really meant, and not just the first thing that popped into his head. He didn’t get excited easily, and he didn’t act out in a rash manner.

But by God, when that shotgun went off…so did Karl.

HO-LEE-SSSHHI-Tah! These fuckers are shootin at me! Karl’s mind was racing now.

Time to exit stage left. Fuck ALL this shit… He thought as he instinctively began to act.

An experienced motorcycle rider can really exit stage left in a flash when the need arises. Karl’s hands dropped to the bars. His right hand rolled back on the throttle, left boot toe punched down on the shift lever, no clutch required. The motor immediately exploded into deafening roar, the rear wheel cut loose with a squeal. He deftly leaned the bike slightly to the left, and using the insides of his thighs, he pushed the rear of the bike and the spinning rear wheel off to the right. When the bike was no longer pointing at the cop car, he sat down heavily on the saddle and the rear wheel began to grab for purchase at the asphalt. Within 3 seconds of the shotgun blast, Karl was headed away from the scene, crouched over the bike like a jockey, the rear tire encased in white smoke, the front tire a foot off the ground. The floundering cops scrambled for their car.

Frank Deangelo turned on the police band radio in his office. Normally he hated the fucking thing. The last 20 minutes had been chaos. First came the calls that there had been an explosion at the courthouse. The resulting fire was still raging. There were dozens of wounded, and many feared dead. All off duty personnel were being called in. All units currently on duty were placed on high alert.

Frank had put out the word to all available units to apprehend any bikers sighted within 10 blocks of the courthouse. He got a tip from an informant two days before that the TSMC were planning something big. But the informant had proved unreliable in the past, and always seemed to think that something big was going to go down, so Frank had not taken it seriously. But now he knew, he just knew, that this was the work of those bastards. And the first one he got hold of, was going to tell him what he wanted to hear, or else.

He heard the call come over the radio that a traffic cop had seen a biker heading west towards the courthouse. He heard the call that Car 108 had stopped a biker about 6 blocks from the courthouse. He heard the same unit call for back up. And then he heard the calls that the suspect had resisted and had somehow fled the scene. Fled the scene?

Jesus, these kids nowadays… Frank slammed his hand down on the SEND button of the radio, “This is Frank Deangelo. The guy on the motorcycle is a suspect in the explosion at the courthouse. Apprehend him using any force necessary.”

Frank grabbed his coat and headed for the parking garage. He resisted the temptation to take a quick swig out of the small flask of bourbon in the top drawer of his desk. He wanted to talk to this biker guy before the dirt bag had a chance to dream up a story.

Karl hauled ass for all of 2 minutes or so. He had no idea where he was going, but he damn sure was going there fast. He made a right, then a left, shifting his weight off to the side of the bike like a superbike series racer. He fleetingly considered heading for the courthouse. If nothing else, he figured that if he got shot outside the court, then at least the judge couldn’t say that he hadn’t made every attempt to get there on time. In the pit of his stomach, he knew that he would never make it out of the city. He looked for an open garage door, or an alley, or any place he might be able to duck into. He knew that he wasn’t thinking clearly, and he knew that he was fucking up. But he couldn’t see letting a couple of pimple faced cops cut him in half with a 12 gauge either.

Then, what seemed like every cop car in the state appeared in front of him, behind him, and pretty much everywhere. He heard a helicopter hovering overhead. He actually felt something like relief. Well, here we go. He thought, as he stopped the bike, kicked down the stand, and turned off the key, all seemingly in one fluid motion. He dismounted with his hands in the air, and three cops tackled him all at once.

Some 15 minutes later, Karl sat in the back seat of a police cruiser, with his hands cuffed behind his back. He tried to bend his arms and shifted his hands as high up on his back as possible, so that he could lean back against the seat. It wasn’t the most comfortable he had ever been in his life.

He looked blankly at the frumpy looking cop with the red face. He had watched the suit-and- tie cop approach and ask a few questions to the uniformed officers who were standing just outside. The cop had opened the front door and sat on the passenger side, then half turned around in order to talk. Karl noted that the cop didn’t turn very well, almost like he was stiff, or just too fat. The faint smell of alcohol, mixed with the cover-up smell of Wrigleys Spearmint gum, filled the interior of the car. The detective gave Karl a quick glance, and then he pulled a small memorandum notebook and a pen that said U.S. Government on the side, out of his inner coat pocket.

“All righty. Why were you running?” Frank was trying to sound detached, as if he was not the lead detective in a major investigation, and happened to be under a lot of pressure at the moment. He didn’t want to come across as the big guy, he wanted to sound like he was just asking a few compulsory questions that he would pass on to someone else.

“What’s that? Could you speak up a little, I can’t hear too well at the moment.” Karl said. “Some dipshit rookie cop fired a shotgun in my face a few minutes ago. It was pretty loud, I can’t hear for shit.”

“OK. Why were you resisting?” Frank looked at the notebook with his pen at the ready, like he was just trying to get this over with so he could go get some coffee and a donut.

Karl gave a little sigh. “Look, I don’t actually think that I was resisting. The two….officers… were trying to cuff me while I was still on my bike and the kickstand…you know what a kickstand is, right?”

Frank glanced up at the biker and gave a small noncommittal nod of his head.

“I was trying to explain to your boys that I needed to put down the kickstand before they cuffed me, because the bike would fall over on top of us. Evidently they were having trouble understanding, and sorta overreacted, if you ask me. But it’s starting to seem like overreaction is just the order of the day, today.” Karl glowered at the cop.

Frank wrote kickstand? in the notebook, just so it would look like he was taking notes. He stared at the word for a moment, trying to figure this guy out. Immediately, he knew that this was all wrong. This guy sounded like he had no clue what the fuck was going on. But Frank could not believe that this was all just a coincidence. Here’s a hard-ass looking biker, a few blocks from the courthouse. He’s resisting, fleeing, and evading police, less than a half hour after the courthouse explodes. No, this guy had to know something. But after hundreds of interviews with suspects over the course of his career, he could usually tell right away if someone was handing him a bunch of bullshit. And this guy was either clueless, or very, very smart.

Then Frank considered the fact that even if this guy was just an unlucky dumb-ass who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, at least Frank had a temporary scapegoat on his hands. People were going to be screaming for answers pretty soon. He needed to have something, or someone, to give them in order to take the heat off him. Then he could get busy and try and take care of business HIS way.

“Uh-huh. Where were you headed to this morning?” Frank kept his eyes on the notebook.

“I was on my way to the courthouse. I’m due in court….ah, about 15 minutes ago.”

Bingo, Frank thought to himself. He finally looked up and gazed intently into the bikers eyes. He wanted to see the biker’s reaction to his next question.

“Well, that’s pretty convenient for you, isn’t it then?” Franks eyes squinted slightly as he spoke. “Since the courthouse is no longer there. You boys really took care of that, didn’t you?”

Karl did not comprehend at first. Too much had been happening too fast, and he was still not thinking very clearly.

What the fuck is this guy talking about? The courthouse is no longer there………us boys?

Then it dawned on him that it must indeed have been the courthouse that was burning. That was all the excitement. He almost chuckled at the fact that he had wistfully thought about that very possibility just a short time ago. But he didn’t think that a chuckle would go over too good right now.

Us boys…us boys…, what the fuck?

Karl frowned. He was still in the dark here and couldn’t come up with a scenario for what this guy was getting at. Why the hell would they think that he had anything to do with it? Was his ex-wife behind this somehow?

“Mister, I haven’t got a clue what the hell you’re rambling on about.” Karl shook his head slowly from side to side, frowning. “What…us boys….are you talking about?”

Frank silently studied the bikers face and didn’t say anything for a few moments. His gaze focused on one eye, then the other. Back and forth. The biker just stared at him with a questioning look. Frank slowly started to nod his head up and down.

“Ok. All right. We don’t need to do this here. We’ve got you on fleeing and evading, so we’ll have plenty of time to talk at the station. But believe me, the sooner you decide to start talking to me, the better, for you. But you go ahead and think about it for a while, first. That’s fine. Because what is most important is how much you tell me the FIRST time, understand? Don’t start giving me bits and pieces. Give it to me straight right off, and you and I can be friendly… and you’re gonna want me to be friendly, bro.”

Frank put the cap on the pen and stuck it, along with the notebook, back in his inner coat pocket. He got out of the car without another word, leaving the still frowning biker staring at the back of the front seat.

“This is Alyssa”

“Hey there, little girly. Hows tricks?” Little Steve lit up a smoke and spoke in his deepest macho-hoarse voice. It wasn’t hard to do considering he smoked 2 or 3 packs of Marlboro Reds, a day.

Little Steve was getting bored. He had checked in at the Breezy Acres Motel only 4 hours before, but he had already been to the local liquor store for a bottle of Cuervo Gold, had watched the news on TV, and had settled on an episode of Bonanza. He was on a terrific high, but had no one to party with.

“Hi Babe! Where ya been? I haven’t heard from you for a few days. You’re not mad at me, are ya?” Alyssa stood and nudged the door closed with the toe of her shoe.

“Of course I’m not mad at you darlin’. You’d know it if I was. Just been takin’ care of some business oughta town. What’s been going on?”

Steve pulled the stained curtains a little to one side and squinted through the smudged window at the blazing sun beating down on his Softail. He noted a small puddle of oil underneath it. He’d have to get the club wrench to have a look at it. Little Steve never worked on his own bike. He had better things to do. He didn’t really like the bike very much, in fact he didn’t really like motorcycles much in general. He only rode a bike so that he could be in the club. If he had his druthers, he’d be driving his Ford F350. Now, that was a ride befitting a man of his character.

“You’re not in town? Did you hear what happened this morning?”

Little Steve led her on. “No, did aliens land or somethin?”

“Holy shit babe. Someone set off a fuckin bomb in the government building! It’s like, fuckin gone! It’s been nothing but sirens and helicopters all day. Every channel on TV is having live coverage!” Alyssa spoke in an urgent whisper as if someone might be listening in on the line, and she only wanted to talk loud enough for Steve to hear.

“No shit huh? Now who would do something like that I wonder?” Little Steve could barely keep from laughing. This conversation was turning out better than he had hoped.

Alyssa sat back down in her chair. “I don’t know, but they think they have the guy. They caught some dude on a bike right down the road from where it happened, right afterwards. He must be an independent, or at least he dint have no colors on. He tried to run away from the cops, but they got him. TV says he is the prime suspect.”

Motorcycle clubs typically wear a 3 piece patch on the back of their vests. Usually it consists of a top patch, on which is lettered the club name. The center patch is the symbol of the club. The Two Skulls MC had a picture of a V-type, 2 cylinder motorcycle engine with a human skull perched on top of each cylinder. The lower patch, or rocker, is the territory that the club inhabits. Usually a city or state. The patches are known as “colors”. And they are fiercely protected by members of the club. Often, bikers that have no club affiliation are referred to as “Independents”.

Little Steve let the curtains hang back down. The room became dark again. He turned around with a frown. “This dude they got, you say he had no colors? How do you know? Did they show a picture of him on TV?”

Alyssa could sense the change in Steve’s mood. She hoped it wasn’t something that she had said. “Just a quick shot of him in cuffs being led into the police station. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.”

Little Steve didn’t like this new information at all. He wanted Alyssa to suspect that he, Little Steve, had been the man behind the bombing. He would not admit to it, of course, but she was supposed to figure it out, and fear him. But now here’s some jerk-off trying to steal his thunder? Trying to take the credit for the Two Skulls MC’s biggest operation ever? What the hell is this shit?

Steve lit another smoke off the one he was just finishing. He put the butt out by smacking it into the palm of his hand so that sparks flew all over the floor.

“Well, the fucker is gonna get what’s coming to him, you can bet your ass on that, sweetheart.”

There was a time when interrogation rooms were probably much more intimidating. The pictureless walls, the dim lighting, the small table, the hard chairs, one door, and of course, the two way mirror on the wall. Everything designed to make the detainee feel like this is his/her last chance. But nowadays, what with all of the cop shows on TV like NCIS and Law and Order, they aren’t as spooky. You almost feel like you should wave at your favorite actors, that you just know, are standing right on the other side of the mirror.

Or maybe not.

Karl sat in the wooden chair and looked around the room. He’d been sitting there for nearly 20 minutes, slowly working his gaze around the room, looking for anything even remotely interesting to fixate on. Finally, the door opened and a blond woman with a sharp nose entered the room. She looked at Karl with obvious distaste.

“Mr. Skanlan, do you know why you are here?” The female officer hitched up her slacks a little before she sat down. She was young, not more than 30, but already had a hard, detached look to her face. Her hair was pulled back so tightly into a weave that it made Karl wonder if she got a lot of headaches. She looked at Karl like he was an animal in a zoo.

Karl certainly felt like a zoo animal. He felt like an ape. He felt like an ape, and he wanted to start throwing his shit at the gawkers outside his cage.

“Well, not really. It would be nice if someone could explain the whole thing to me here.” He said.

“You have been made aware of your rights? Have you waived your right to have an attorney present?” She was evidently the person that was supposed to feel Karl out, so that the interrogators could see what kind of mood he was in before they came in.

Karl rolled his head in a little circle. He could feel the tension in his neck. “Tell you what. You tell me a story, and let me know why I’m here, and I’ll tell you if I want a lawyer present or not.”

“You have been arrested for resisting police officers, fleeing and evading. You are also being held for questioning concerning the bombing of the county government building.” Her face never changed, her tone didn’t waver. She looked at Karl with something almost resembling pity.

Karl sighed, sat back, and looked up at the ceiling. This was not the first time Karl had been in a police station, not by a long shot. When he was younger, Karl had run afoul of the law more times than he liked to remember. There was a long time when his life was an endless party. He collected handfuls of traffic tickets. He racked up a couple of DUIs on his record, he added a drug possession conviction, and there was an old assault charge. He had never been an angel, but that was then, and this is now. He was older now, and hopefully wiser.

Karl would be 48 years old in a couple of months. His license was clean. He learned to control his life. He drank often enough, but very rarely to excess. Usually it was just a few beers with the boys. And if he ever did tie one on, it was usually all by himself, just Karl and the FXR in the garage with a bottle of Jim Beam. Just so he could think outside the box a little, and then slip into that relaxed, dreamy state that only a really good whiskey buzz could give him.

He almost never used drugs anymore, either. If he scored a joint from a buddy, he’d smoke it while watching a movie on TV or something, but that was about it. In the old days he had loved his cocaine, and took an occasional hit of acid. But nowadays it just wasn’t as interesting. Been there, done that, don’t need to go there again. Karl found out, over time, that it’s not so much the doing drugs that gets old, but that it’s the having to hang around with other people who do drugs that gets really old.

Karl sensed that this visit to the police station was not going well. Everyone was damn excited over something, and he was still in the dark on what, exactly, was going on. He knew cops loved to play games. He also knew how corrupt the police department, and the whole justice system, could be. But he loathed lawyers most of all.

Who the hell was he gonna call? He didn’t retained an attorney to represent him for his divorce, since he was hoping that he wouldn’t need one. He just wanted to split the property down the middle, and get the hell out of the whole thing. In fact, as a last resort, he had planned on telling the court that she could have everything they both had owned, except the clothes on his back and his bike. She could have everything else, since they didn’t have much. She had no real grounds to ask for alimony, but if it came to that, then Karl would just ask for a postponement and retain an attorney. That was the plan. And now here he was, having to think about getting a lawyer for this bullshit. He just wished he knew what the hell was going on. The world had gone crazy.

“Listen, everything in me is telling me to be smart and not say another word until I speak to a lawyer. But I’m so completely clueless as to what is going on that I’m going to go ahead and answer your questions until I can figure out whether I need one. I do NOT waive my right to an attorney. I’m simply agreeing to speak to someone until I can figure out what’s going on here.” Karl interlocked his fingers and put his hands on the table with finality.

The officer stood, and gave Karl one last contemptuous look. “Someone will be right with you.” She left.

Karl watched her leave and instinctively checked out her ass as she whisked out the door.

I wonder if she is into bondage? He wondered. Cause I’d like to tie her up and smack the shit out of her for an hour or so.

Frank Deangelo entered the room a few minutes later.

“Hello Karl.” the detective said as if they’d known each other for years.

“Hey” Karl said flatly. He didn’t know the cops name. He decided to call him Officer Rudolph, for the red nose.

The detective sat, cocked his head slightly to the side, and jumped right in with both feet.

“Karl, are you a member of the Two Skulls motorcycle club?” He asked.

Karl was slightly taken aback. He knew of the club, everybody did. He knew several of the members, and several more by name, and had seen them around for years. He gave them a wide berth, but not because he was intimidated by them. He just didn’t like them. They seemed to be a real bunch of shit-starters, and Karl didn’t think much of shit-starters.

Karl didn’t like motorcycle clubs much in general, which was ironic since he had been a member of a club, years back. There had been some great times riding with the club, some of the best times of his life. There’s nothing like flying down the highway on custom bikes, with 50 other guys all wearing the same colors. It’s quite a spectacle. You feel like a rock star. Parties and brotherhood, it doesn’t get any better. The camaraderie is the best part. You’re part of something, it’s a family. A big crazy family that you get to pick, not like the family that was handed to you at birth. These are people that are just like you. Bikers. At least it seemed that way for awhile.

After a year or so in the club Karl had started to realize that most of the guys in the club weren’t much like him at all. He realized that most biker clubs were full of guys who he didn’t even consider to be bikers. Most of his club brothers only rode motorcycles when they were riding with the club, otherwise they drove their cars and trucks.

There was always political bullshit going on, constant squabbles within the club, petty garbage that had nothing to do with anything. A lot of the guys were into selling drugs, and some were into stealing bikes. Stealing bikes did not go over well with Karl at all. It irritated him when someone quoted the popular saying; “Ride it like you stole it!” In Karl’s opinion, a bike thief was the same as a horse thief, and they used to hang horse thieves in the old days.

Karl knew that he would have no problem at all hanging some motherfucker who stole HIS bike. Many of the guys liked to start fights a lot more than they liked to ride and party. Karl got tired of his club brothers starting fights everywhere they went. When the shit came down everyone was expected to jump in, whether the brother was right or wrong. That wasn’t Karl’s way, he believed that a man should fight his own battles.

Karl realized that he was an individual, and that club life was not the way he wanted to live. So he got out. There was a lot of grumbling and some threats when he announced that he was leaving, some motorcycle clubs would beat a member to death for trying to get out. But Karl was no one to fuck with, and they all knew it. In the end, they respected him enough to let him go unchallenged. He remained friends with a couple of the guys from the club who knew him best.

A couple of years ago his old club was disbanded by the Skulls. The way Karl heard it, the Skulls had showed up at one of the smaller clubs meetings, un-invited and armed to the teeth. They laid down an ultimatum. It was: either become prospective members of the Two Skulls MC, go your own way without your colors, or get killed right then and there. One way or the other, they made it known that the smaller club was to be no more after that day.

“Ah…no. Shit no. Hell no. I am not a member of the Two Skulls Motorcycle Club.” Karl grimaced a little. He should have figured that this had something to do with those pricks.

“But you know the club?” Frank continued.

“Do I know the club? I know OF the club. I don’t hang out with them, if that’s what you mean.” Karl didn’t like the way this was going. There were too many people who knew that he did, in fact, know several members of the TSMC. Several members of his old club were currently flying TSMC patches. But that didn’t mean that he had any actual connection with the club.

“Why did you detonate a bomb in the government building this morning?” Frank wanted something NOW, and this guy was giving him nothing. He wanted to rattle the biker. He wanted the guy to break down and tell him something in order to try and save his ass.

Karl blinked, but didn’t flinch. He looked at the detective blankly, and said nothing for a few moments. Then he spoke, “I think I’ll go ahead and exercise my right to have an attorney present now.”

Frank sighed and leaned back in his chair. He wished he had waited a little longer before asking that last question. He really didn’t have much on this guy, and an attorney would have him out of here in a second. The big problem was that he believed that this guy might actually be telling the truth. The sonuvabitch might just be an unlucky schmuck who had been on his way to divorce court this morning and happened to step into a world of shit. Still, even though his story sounded good, that still didn’t mean that he wasn’t involved in some way. Frank had done a brief search into Karls past. The man was no angel.

The detective played his last card. “Listen Karl, would you agree to call me if you have any contact with the Two Skulls MC?”

Karl still didn’t flinch, but his mind was racing. “You mean like an informant?”

Frank sat forward and leaned his forearms on the table. He thought that he had seen something flit behind the biker’s eyes. He hoped that the man was desperate.

“Here it is Karl, I happen to know that you’re not exactly a model citizen. But I checked out your divorce court story, and I think you’re telling me the truth…for the most part. I don’t think that you know much of anything about what happened this morning, and even if you do, I don’t think that you had shit to do with it. I also know that the two cops that almost killed you this morning are a couple of the most retarded fucking rookie punks that ever came out of the academy, so I think I have a good idea of what happened out there. I’m willing to let you walk out of here, if you agree to give me something in return. I know goddamned well, that the Skulls are behind the bombing. I want to know why, and I want the names of the motherfuckers who did it, along with any other information that you think I might want to know. If I let you walk out of here, and then find out that you’ve had any contact with the Skulls and didn’t call me, I’ll make it a personal life mission to make sure you go away for a long time. Call it what you want.”

Karl pondered a moment. “What if I never happen to bump into any of them?”

“Then we never had this conversation. Have a nice life. But know this Karl, I have eyes everywhere. Don’t try and fuck me, because I WILL know, and you will regret the day you were born.” The detective was not just being dramatic for effect on that point. He intended to increase surveillance on the club 20 fold. He planned to have every house, bar, and greasy spoon restaurant they frequented under a microscope until he could bring the club down. If the TSMC thought the heat was on before, they were going to think that the devil himself was holding a blowtorch on their asses now.

Karl weighed his options. The last thing he was going to do was agree to be a snitch. He would go to jail first. He’d kick his own ass first. And he didn’t want this prick detective to have anything over on him. He didn’t like making deals with scum like this guy.

But was he actually making a deal? He couldn’t see how. If he never saw another TSMC patch again, that would be fine with him. If he steered clear of the Skulls, which he normally did anyways, then he could blow off this asshole detective. Shit, he’d like to get the hell out of Dodge altogether. He was sick of this town. Maybe he could just haul ass out of here, head for greener pastures somewhere up north, away from the desert. Fuck the Skulls, and fuck this asshole sitting across from him too. And fuck his ex-wife………oh shit, his ex-wife! Where the hell was she during all this mess? She might have been at the courthouse when the bomb went off, for all he knew.

“So, I take it that it was a very bad scene at the courthouse huh? Did anyone get hurt?”
Karl tried to word the question so that the cop wouldn’t know what he was thinking.

Frank blinked. “They’ve recovered 11 bodies so far, and we expect to find more in the rubble. Twenty were wounded, some very severely. Some won’t make it. The building is demolished. What didn’t get destroyed in the blast was burned in the fire. They just got it under control a little while ago. Yeah, it’s bad.”

Karl felt a sudden, unexpected pang in his heart. For as much as he had thought that he wanted to kill Carla himself, he didn’t really want to believe that she could actually be dead. After all, there had been some good times, lots of them in fact. And he had been in love with her, once. He didn’t actually want her hurt, he just wanted to start a new life without her.

Karl made his decision. “You got a card?”

Six men lounged in the kitchen/dining area of a modest, “cookie cutter” house on the west side of town. It was known as a cookie cutter house because if you drove around the neighborhood, you would likely see several other houses exactly like it, built by the same contractor, with the same floor plan, same appliances, same color, everything, almost as if they were being produced with a big cookie cutter. There had been an urgent demand for housing a few years back when several aerospace facilities had sprung up in the desert near the city. That’s why there were so many cookie cutter houses around. They were easy to build, and could be knocked together fairly quickly.

The south western desert is an ideal testing ground for military aircraft, weapons, and associated systems, and wherever the big military aerospace contractors such as Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and GE go, the people will follow. Government money is like a gold rush. Cities pop up seemingly overnight. Everything gets bigger. Grocery store chains move in, gas station/mini marts spring up on every corner, car dealerships expand, Mom and Pop restaurants turn into Taco Bells and Burger Kings, and of course the inevitable Super Walmart sprouts up and drives most small retail stores in the area out of business.

Nine months earlier a Russian owned aerospace company called FORTEC began negotiations with the city to obtain building permits for the construction of a research and development facility within city limits. The corporation, which develops and manufactures high technology parts for smart bomb and missile guidance systems, was currently competing with other aerospace companies for several multi-million dollar military contracts.

FORTEC had a dilemma. They needed the facility immediately, and obtaining the building permits had turned out to be more difficult than they had anticipated. They needed to have their proposed facility in close proximity to the other military contractors in the area, for logistical reasons. They would need to rent the use of some of the other test facilities and ranges in the surrounding desert in order to develop their systems and products. They needed to be close to the parts and supply lines that were already established in the area.

The city planners and county legislature didn’t like the idea. FORTEC representatives would not disclose enough information as to what type of testing was required for their systems. There were a lot of “black holes” in the site plan, such as several buildings and structures that FORTEC claimed they needed, but could not, or would not, explain the function of. Too many questions were being left unanswered. There were environmental and humanitarian concerns, to which the Russian corporation had no answers or solutions. The Russians were not used to dealing with so much red tape, and they failed to make any friends at city hall, as it were. At first, the proceedings were slow at best, and finally they came to a grinding halt. FORTEC had offered to pay the city an exorbitant amount of money in order to speed up the process, but there was a lot going on in the area, and only so many people at the local government level to do it.

For FORTEC, the clock was ticking. They needed the facility, and they needed it now. But it seemed that the only way that the Russian corporation would ever be able to begin construction, would be if there were a complete change of personnel at city hall. The daily meetings and negotiations between FORTEC executives and city planners were beginning to get heated. The city and county politicians viewed the Russian corporation as just another aerospace company, and the Russians viewed the local government as a bunch of small town rubes, standing in the way of progress.

FORTEC was getting desperate. They stood to lose many millions of dollars in military contracts if they couldn’t find a way to get their facility in place. Secretly, they began to examine alternative methods of convincing the city of the seriousness of the situation. In one particularly hush-hush, late afternoon meeting among the top executives of FORTEC, it was jokingly suggested that they hire someone in the underworld to blow up the government building. Then perhaps they could start fresh with more open-minded local government officials. No one laughed at the suggestion.

In front of the cookie cutter house was parked a beautiful custom corvette, along with a late model black Chevy pick-up, a mid-1990s Cadillac Seville, and two motorcycles. One of the bikes was a radical custom chopper, with 20 inch tall “apehanger” handlebars, dazzling chrome, and lots of sharp edges from custom parts with little pointy widgets machined into them. It had an incredible flamed paint scheme with a matching V-style motorcycle engine with skull heads emblem on both the left and right side of the fuel tank. The bike was not designed to be ridden any real distance. It was an uncomfortable ride, even for short hops around town. But it got a lot of attention wherever it went, and so did whoever was riding it. It was a “look at me” bike.

The other bike was a modest Harley-Davidson Dyna FXDL. It was mostly black, and had a sticker on the rear fender that read, “Property of Two Skulls MC”. The bike looked neglected. It had ugly scrapes on the exhaust pipes, and dents on both sides of the fuel tank where the bike had obviously tipped over several times. The bike had rolled off the assembly line 7 years before, and had only 8,000 miles on the odometer, but it looked much older. It was a club bike, to be ridden by any member who didn’t currently have his own machine. And there were a lot of TSMC members who didn’t own motorcycles. It was in the club by-laws that every member of the club had to own an American motorcycle, but that particular rule was often overlooked.

The six men in the room were the only club members who had been privy to the bombing operation, besides Little Steve. They were older, and had been in the club since the beginning. They knew that something of this scale had to be kept among themselves, as there were far too many members in the club that couldn’t be trusted. None of the men didn’t much care for each other in a friendly way, they were more like business associates than brothers. Each man had a bottle of beer in hand, and a marijuana joint was being passed around. A small TV sat on the edge of the kitchen counter. The news was dominated by the events that had taken place earlier that day. The mood in the room was tense.

Prez, the president of the TSMC, was speaking. “It ain’t like the russkies give a fuck about it, they’ll still pay. Them FORTEC fuckers, they ain’t the problem. They know who did it. Does anyone know the guy?”

The member who had arrived in the corvette spoke up. ”I’m sure I’ve seen the dude around. I think he used to ride with that fuckin’ little shit club from the south end way back. He’s nobody.”

“Well, “nobody” needs to go the fuck away.” Prez stood up and put his foot on the chair he had been sitting in. He crossed his heavily tattooed forearms on his knee and leaned forward. “We pulled this shit for the money, but we also pulled it to make a statement goddammit. I’m sick of being fucked with by the man in this goddamn town. These fuckers need to know that we mean business. You fuck with us, and we’ll fuck you up. And the news is coming off like this “nobody” here, is the boy who pulled this shit off.”

A compact, stocky man with a huge red beard sat at the kitchen table staring at his bottle of beer as if trying to read the meaning of life in the amber liquid. He looked as if he could have been a Norse barbarian in another life. When he spoke, his eyes didn’t waver from the bottle. “Everyone is going to think he’s one of us, that’s the way I see it. Or at least connected with us. Fuck him…….if he HAD done it, we’d be the ones getting blamed for it.”

Prez looked grimly at the TV as the scene with a biker being led into the police station was being played over and over as reporters picked apart every possible detail that was available. “Yeah, that’s true. I don’t know though. I just didn’t figure on this shit. I want to hear the words Two Skulls MC on this motherfucker. I’d like to know if he’s copping to it.”

There was a tall man who looked evil enough to be the devil himself, leaning against the refrigerator. He wore a long black leather coat that hung below his knees. Over it he wore a black leather vest with the club colors. A black leather top hat was perched firmly on his head, and a narrow pair of dark, black sunglasses covered his eyes. A 6-inch long waxed goatee hung from his chin. His features were sharp, almost birdlike. When he spoke, a heavy Hispanic accent accompanied his hoarse tone. “It’s bullshit, holmes. The pigs just grabbed the first vato that turned up. Fucking Deangelo is trying to keep the Skulls out of it. He’s a puta, but he’s a smart fucker. He doesn’t want us to get the credit if he can help it… But everyone will know, prez. Everyone will know that the Skulls are the only vatos that are loco enough for some shit like this.”

A few of the men murmured at that. “Fuckin’ A. Hell yeah.” Heads nodded up and down, and some of the tension in the room seemed to dissipate.

Prez still frowned, staring at the small TV. “Well, here’s the problem. This shit is national news, right now. Everyone in the whole fucking country is watching this same shit that we’re watching, right now. Everyone SHOULD be talking about the Two Skulls MC, right now. But I haven’t heard anyone mention the Skulls on this motherfucker, and this fucking “nobody” is on every five seconds. In a few days everyone will be back to crying over gas prices and shit and forget all about this whole thing, and we won’t get the credit we deserve. This fucker needs to be gone…right now. I don’t give a fuck how, but he needs to go, and we need to leave our calling card on his ass. We can’t be pulling this kind of shit every day, so we need to make this one count.”

Prez stood and pulled a tiny cellular phone from his vest pocket and flipped it open. He punched in a number as the other men gazed transfixed at the small TV. Everyone knew better than to talk while the prez was on the phone.

Little Steve grabbed for the ringing telephone on the stand next to the bed with one massive arm. He knocked the phone into a cheap reading light and almost sent both through the wall. Steve had been trying to get some rest, since he had been up for almost 40 hours, but sleep would not come to him. The tequila bottle was ¾ empty, and both ashtrays in the room were brimming with cigarette butts. He felt very tired and very spun at the same time. He wanted to rest, and yet he felt like he needed some action. He really wanted to pound someone, that always made him feel better. He needed some conflict to relax him, but he couldn’t even find an episode of Springer on the TV. The tremendous ups and downs of the last couple of days, coupled with the speed and the alcohol, had put him in an extremely unpredictable and dangerous mood. But he had been told to hole up and stay put, and he hadn’t gotten to where he was by disobeying orders.

Little Steve growled into the phone. “Hello.”

“Hey Bro, how’s it hangin’?” Prez glanced at the devil leaning against the fridge.

“Be hangin a lot better if I had your mother here with me.” Steve sat up and slung his legs off the side of the bed.

The Prez smiled. There weren’t many people in the world who could say something like that to him and live to tell about it. But Little Steve and the Prez went way back, way back before the club, all the way back to high school when they had first met while smoking pot in the boys room. Little Steve would never make a joke like that in front of the other club members, but in private they had a friendship that went beyond the club brotherhood.

“Yeah, yeah, you fat fuck. Listen, your scoot is fixed. You can pick it up any time. And work called and said they might need you to pull some overtime.”

Little Steve stood up and arched his back. He put his free hand in the small of his back and closed his eyes. “Fuckin A, fuckin A, fuckin A. I am on the fuckin way.”

Both men clicked off the connection without further conversation, there was none required. Little Steve reached into his pocket and pulled out his baggie. He carefully sprinkled a generous amount of the off-white crystalline powder on the nightstand and used his 7- inch buck knife to organize it into a neat line. Normally, for a “maintenance” blast, he would just dip the tip of the knife blade into the baggie and take a small hit right off the end. But he wanted to get back to where he once belonged for the trip home. He held a short length of drinking straw to the line and put the other end to his left nostril. He used his right index finger to close the nostril over the end of the straw, while using his thumb on the same hand to partly close his right nostril. He used the remaining fingers to hold the straw and deftly snorted the line of crank with one practiced motion. He dabbed at the small amount of crystal that remained on the stand with a finger and inhaled it into the other nostril. Steve’s eyes widened and he blinked as he wiped at the end of his nose to make sure he got it all. He grabbed his coat and headed for the door. He stopped briefly, looked around, picked up an ashtray and with a wave of his hand he sprayed the butts and ashes in a wide arc throughout the room. He smiled and felt re-energized.

It was badass and the envy of the block.  In fact we shut down the street with full on wheelie competitions.  

Been through a lot of bikes since then and wheelies are out of the question on my Road King. Truth is I have never pulled a serious wheelie on any of my Harleys. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to, and when I ran across Unknown Industries 13^th Level DVD, I was hangin off the edge of my seat. Oh man, these dudes are crazy!

 

Buddy started riding BMX at 4 was expert class at 6 years old.  Nick Leonetti was raised riding dirt bikes and bought his first Harley at 18. Nick met Buddy and it was game on.  Harley Wheelies started as a YouTube phenomenon, filmed with Go Pros, lots of shaky cam and guerilla street video tactics.

Unknown Industries 13th Level DVD is a first look into the world of these young bucks.

They just finished participating in the Road to Sturgis Tour, 26 cities, 26 riding demos in 32 days.  John Oaks, tour manager saw the fans reactions nightly  “ The crowds went crazy when these guys started burning rubber and doing wheelies on their Harleys”  With a total run time of 27 minutes 13th Level is full of two wheeled fury, pushing the edge and provoking the outlaw in all of us.  

Knowing the limits of your bike and your own fears keeps real world riding in perspective. The dynamics of human-machine reaction, time, control and out-of-control dynamics has to be experienced to be understood. But if  you’re like me  and  there is no way in hell I’m trying  this on my Harley,  Unknown Industries 13^th Level DVD is as close as it gets.  

 

Continued from chapter one: http://www.bikernet.com/pages/COURTHOUSE_RUNPart_One.aspx

Karl was out. He could scarcely believe it. It seemed that one minute he was certain that he was going to jail, possibly for a long time, and the next minute he was checking his scoot out of the impound yard and rolling out of the station. The bike, amazingly enough, seemed no worse for wear. It appeared to be in the same condition as when he had last seen it. The bike had a multitude of small scratches, dings and scuffs on it. Not from neglect, but from the road, and there was a story behind every mark. Karl knew every inch of the bike, and would’ve known immediately if the bike had been mishandled during transport to the police impound yard. There were no unfamiliar marks. Amazements never cease.

Karl plotted his next move. He wanted to just keep rolling. He wanted to head for the highway and just haul ass. There was no better way to cleanse the soul, and nowhere in the world that he could think clearer than when he was riding. He had been considering leaving the area anyways, as soon as the divorce was final. He lived here for too long, and had been thinking it was time for a change of scenery. Now, with this latest bullshit coming down, he was sure of it. He didn’t have much money, but he didn’t have any real debt either. Of the meager possessions he had, his bike, truck, and tools were the only things that were worth much of anything, and everything he had was paid for. The house was a rental, and he wasn’t currently employed, so there wasn’t much of anything to hold him here. Now, he had some alky-looking cop threatening to put him away, his picture was probably going to be on the dashboard of every cop car in the county, plus he had to avoid a horde of dip-shit patch holders, and his ex-wife might be dead for all he knew. Yes, it was time to get the flock out of town. He twisted the throttle of the big Harley and the bike roared as if agreeing with him, Let’s go!!!

He rode aggressively for a few miles. He roared away from the stoplights. He took some corners so fast that his knees were practically dragging the road, and even pulled a good wheelie coming away from a stop sign. But then, as always, he felt a calmness creep over him. The soothing vibration of the bike, coupled with the warm desert air flowing over his face and hands, brought him back down to earth. He began to think more clearly.

He realized he was lucky to be alive, after all that had happened today, and it felt good to be free. He would play it smart, and maybe he could stay out of trouble for a little while yet. He would go to the house, drink a beer, get some sleep, then get up and go for a ride, so that he could think. That was the plan, and it sounded simple enough. Hopefully, he could figure out how to clean up the loose ends, and peel out of here. He’d just go somewhere, start fresh, and never see Officer Rudolph, the Two Skulls MC, or his ex-wife again. In a few days, maybe he’d have a clean slate. What could go wrong?

Little Steve and the Prez sat on round padded stools at the counter, inside of a local Denny’s restaurant. The place was bustling at this time of morning, as usual, with a breakfast crowd of folks every size and shape. The restaurant was less than a mile from the interstate, and was also in close proximity to several main arteries of traffic leading to the large aerospace facilities not far from the city. On a morning like this, there would always be at least a half dozen people waiting to be seated. The waiting area had to be somewhat shielded from the folks who had been seated and were eating, because you didn’t want to have to sit and try to eat while someone’s drooling kids stared at your plate.

The place was a circus.

There was the trucker crowd that came in from the interstate. Some of the truckers were huge, outrageously overweight men (and a few women) who made a living piloting 40-ton metal monsters all across the country delivering goods to warehouses, retail chain stores, and businesses just about anywhere and everywhere.

There was the mom and pop crowd. They were wide-eyed travelers who probably had never been more than 100 miles away from their home town once or twice in their lives. They were the “We know that it’s just a restaurant, but hey, this is a hell of an adventure for us!” crowd.

There was the table of 18th st. gang bangers who had been up all night selling crack on the street corners. They would hang out at the restaurant for an hour or so, looking for a few more prospective buyers before going home to sleep all day.

In the large corner booth were a dozen giggling college cheerleaders who were being bused to a game in the next state, all of them just bustling with cheer and hustle. They would’ve been less apt to bat their heavily mascared eyelashes around so much if they knew that there were currently seven unregistered firearms in the same room with them.

The majority of the customers were regulars. They came in to eat incredibly high fat and cholesterol loaded breakfasts, before heading off to no-labor jobs on computers, in cubicles separated by 5 foot high partitions. They liked the morning energy in the restaurant. People need food, people need to people-watch, people need bottomless cups of coffee, and people need Slams and Moons-over-my-hammy breakfast plates. The place was like an airport. There were nine servers on any given weekday for breakfast, and 15 on a Sunday. It was a good place for out-of-placers to fit right in. It was Little Steve’s favorite restaurant in the world.

“How was the ride brother?” The prez spoke without looking sideways at Little Steve. He had already noticed that Steve was obviously pretty much hanging by a thread. Steve had that haggard, wide-eyed look that screamed “I’ve fallen , but I can’t get up!” He was spun. He had been using too much speed, and he needed to come down. But the prez didn’t want to give him a chance yet. The prez wanted to keep Steve in an unstable mood until this operation was a complete success. There was still business to take care of.

Steve leaned forward over the two “Long Haul Trucker Specials” he had ordered. Several plates of scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, ham strips, hash browns, toast and coffee sat on the counter before him. He rolled back into town sometime in the early morning hours. After leaving a message on the prez’s machine that he was back, he fell into his bed. He was dead to the world when the phone started ringing at 0600. He didn’t hear the answering machine the first time, or the fifth time. He was practically in a comatose sleep when the Devil and the bearded barbarian shook him awake to tell him that the prez wanted to have a meeting with him. He could’ve, and probably would’ve slept for two straight days otherwise. He felt better, but still wasn’t really in control of his senses. He was ravenous though, and he shoveled the food into his mouth like a starving man.

“Hauled ass.” Steve spoke with mouth half full of scrambled eggs. He washed it down with a half cup of coffee in one swallow. “Got in at two. Fuckin beat.” He was eating so fast that he could only speak in short sentences.

“Did’ja catch the news at all yesterday?” Prez raised his coffee cup to his lips and sipped. He knew that he had to handle Little Steve carefully.

“Fuckin A, huh? So who’s this fruitball they’re trying to pin the shit on?” Steve’s stomach wasn’t doing very well. He belched loudly.

“Well, that’s what we wished we knew. A couple of the guys have seen him around, but he’s an independent.” Prez paused for a second, and turned his head slightly towards Little Steve. “Listen Bro, you talked to Alyssa lately?”

Little Steve stopped chewing for an instant, glanced at the prez, and began chewing again, albeit a slower. “Not since I been back.”

The prez knew that as violent and unpredictable as Steve was, he also had a soft spot, and that soft spot currently was Alyssa.

“Here’s what we know. Her daddy put out the word yesterday to jack up any bikers seen in the area. They nailed this fucker, and then released him last night.” The prez rehearsed his next question. ”Any chance you might coerce her to give daddy a call and see if she can find something out?”

Little Steve thought for a moment. “Yeah. She’ll do it. She’ll do whatever I say.”

Detective Frank Deangelo was not having a good day. He hadn’t left the station until almost midnight the night before, and was back at his desk by 0500. The loss of the government building was a catastrophe. The whole world seemed to be screaming for answers, and the police department, so far, had nothing. There was a lot of pressure on Frank. He groaned when the phone rang, seemingly for the thousandth time that morning. He croaked into the phone. “Frank Deangelo”

“Hello Daddy. This is Alyssa.”

Frank felt a surge of relief. He was glad to hear from his daughter. At least it wasn’t another VIP, some Very Important Prick who wanted to know what he was doing about the current situation.

“Hello Lissy.” He hadn’t called her that in years. It was the pet name he called her when she was growing up.

“How’re you holding up Frank?” Alyssa couldn’t resist calling him by his first name, and not “Daddy.” She knew how he hated that, but it made her feel like she had some control.

Frank grimaced and shook his head. There was no way he was going to sit here and deal with this little bitch today. “Well, it’s been a little crazy around here Alyssa, as you might expect. What’s on your mind girl?”

“Daddy, why did you tell me to stay away from Steve, and the rest of my friends? That guy on TV, the one who bombed the government building, he’s not even one of them. Anyways, you have the guy in jail, don’t you? He can’t bother me.” Alyssa tried to sound whiney. It wasn’t difficult for her, it was a skill that came to her naturally.

“Alyssa, listen. That guy you saw on TV didn’t blow up the government building. He has nothing to do with why I want you to stay away from your…friends. Your friends are not who you think.” Frank really didn’t have time for this. He rubbed his forehead.

“I know who my friends are Frank, and they are nice to me. They are nothing like the guy you have in jail there.” Alyssa was not having much luck controlling herself. She hated talking to her father. It always ruined her mood. She had faked an illness and had left work for the day when Little Steve called her. They met at her apartment and gone straight to the bedroom for an intense, but quick, bout of sex. Now she just wanted to relax and be with Steve, not sitting here listening to her father’s lecture.

“Alyssa, goddammit, listen to me. That guy is not in jail here, or anywhere. He’s a non-issue, and anyways he’s working for m…. just forget about him. You need to just do what I say for Christ sakes. There are things that you don’t know, and God willing you will never find out, about your friends. They are going down, Alyssa. Don’t let them take you with them.” Frank had a sudden nagging feeling that he had let something slip…

“All right, all right, father. I guess I just thought that there was something more to it. I’ll let you go back to whatever it was you were doing.” Alyssa was dancing inside. She knew what she had heard. Little Steve was going to love this one.

“OK Honey. I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’ll talk to you later.” Frank clicked off.

“Bye” Alyssa said, and hung up the phone, smiling. Much later…..Daddy. She thought.

Frank sat wondering for a moment if he had said too much. He couldn’t believe that his own daughter could actually be fishing for information. She was only 22, and she was a girl, so there was no way the Skulls would let her in on any club business. Frank knew that women were not allowed in the Club, and women were never trusted with any knowledge of club business. That was one of the first rules of the TSMC. Keep your mouth shut about club business to the outside world, including wives and girlfriends, or suffer the consequences. Still, his cops intuition made him wonder why she had seemed a little too interested in that schmuck from yesterday……. Frank pulled open his top, right desk drawer and withdrew his bottle, because it just helped keep him in a good frame of mind

Alyssa turned to Little Steve who gazed at her questioningly.

“He’s a snitch.” She said, smiling. She expected Steve to smile and reach for her. Her smile turned to a pout when Little Steve reached for his pants, a look that could kill on his face.

Karl sat back in his chair, his senses had gone completely numb. He called his ex-wife’s cell phone and received no answer, so he decided to call her attorney’s office. A sobbing receptionist informed him that yes, the pair had indeed been at the government building when the bomb exploded. Both their vehicles were in the parking lot, and they were expected to be among the dead, pending identification of DNA and dental records. Some of the victims had been literally blown to pieces, and couldn’t, as of yet, be identified.

He sat for a minute with his head in his hands. He felt a sudden wave of remorse for his ex-wife. He hadn’t seen her or had any contact with her for almost two months. The last time they had seen each other it had been bad. The last thing he remembered was the slam of her car door and the squeal of tires as she screamed out the car window, “FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! I HOPE YOU GET AIDS!” It had been 10:30 PM on a Tuesday night. In some neighborhoods, the commotion might’ve brought the police, but around here it was nothing out of the ordinary.

Now, faced with the realization that she was gone forever, he was stunned. He was suddenly aware of his own mortality. Karl certainly understood the concept that people died. One of the reasons that he had learned to control his partying was because too many of his friends had been dying at relatively young ages. After attending almost a dozen funerals by the time he was 40 years old, Karl realized that the human body is far from indestructible. It was a machine, a vehicle that needed to be maintained and tuned in order to function, not wholly unlike a motorcycle. He lost friends and acquaintances to heart disease, cancers, diabetes, and a few to drug overdose. He knew several people who died in vehicle accidents, usually attributable to intoxicated riding/driving. Most of the funerals he attended could have been prevented, but Carla’s death was just a fluke, wrong place, at the wrong time. Karl could do nothing but stare at the wall for a long time.

Last night Karl turned the corner onto his street, half expecting to see Carla’s beat up Monte Carlo sitting out in front of the house. He wondered if she might think that he blew up the government building in order to get out of paying alimony. She could dream up some crazy shit. She would want to confront him, and get into a screaming match in the street.

But the street was empty, and the house was dark. It had seemed like a long time since he rode out of the driveway on his way to the courthouse just that morning. He’d parked the FXR in the usual spot, gone into the kitchen for a beer, and flicked on the TV. He sat unbelieving, watching the news as it replayed scenes of the devastation at the government building. When the picture of himself being led into the police station flashed on the screen, he stopped breathing for a second, then shook his head. Jesus, what a day. He thought. Finally, he went to bed, after checking to make sure that the 45 ACP pistol on the nightstand was loaded.

This morning he had awoke early. He slept fitfully, and when he first felt morning consciousness begin to creep in, he couldn’t organize his thoughts. Usually, he could think the best during that time of day. But it still seemed like he just couldn’t fully grasp what was going on. He realized he needed to find out what had happened to Carla. That would have to be his first mission. So he’d made the calls, and now he knew. He felt disoriented. He didn’t know what to do next.

Finally he stood and slowly walked to the kitchen door that went to the garage. He entered the garage and looked around at his shabby belongings. He didn’t have much. Certainly not much that was worth any money. A large metal workbench he inherited from a buddy who was currently serving a long stretch in a federal prison, sat against one wall. Next to the workbench was his roll-around toolbox, which was full of very well used tools. The opposite side of the garage was where he exercised. His workout area looked like a medieval torture chamber. He welded some odd racks of metal tubing together. All the bars, weights, and racks were old and beat-up. The weight bench, and the punching bag looked like hell, with duct tape holding the padding together. Nothing was painted or polished, but it all served its particular purpose very well. He liked the way the sprawling equipment looked. It had a very anti-health-club appearance.

There were a bunch of motorcycle parts hanging from the walls, and a few sitting on shelves. Some of them were in good shape, but most were just junk. But it was good junk, the kind of stuff Karl couldn’t bring himself to throw away. Someone might need that one good piston one day, or that used ignition module, or that old coil cover. He was damned if he would throw that shit away.

He sat down on the weight bench and looked at the big Harley. The bike was a part of him. It helped him think, and gave him strength. It calmed him, yet it was his main source of excitement. It had always been that way for Karl. He was the purest form of a biker. A biker is all that he had ever wanted to be, and he had always been a biker. He was a biker long before it had become a fad. If something broke on the bike, Karl would not rest until it was fixed, everything else took a second seat. He wasn’t comfortable unless the bike was ready to be ridden, anywhere, at any time. Anyone who knew Karl, knew that if you saw him somewhere, his bike was likely parked nearby. For a cowboy to be complete, he needs his horse. For a biker to be complete, he needs his bike. Karl looked to the bike for inspiration.

Karl knew that he needed to ride. He decided that he would get his shit together this morning, pack a few things on the bike and just go. He would ride until he could figure things out. Then he would return for his few meager belongings, load up the truck and move to Beverly… Hills, that is swimming pools, and movie stars. Or at least some-goddamn-where, away from the desert, away from the Two Skulls MC, away from this shitty little neighborhood, in this shitty town, with its shitty cops, and all of its shitty memories.

He stood up and went back into the kitchen, where he made up a hearty breakfast of eggs, some left over hamburger, and toast. He turned on the TV while he ate. The news was all about the explosion at the government building, but there seemed to be no more mention of Karl himself. Evidently the press must have found out that he had been released, so he wasn’t news worthy anymore. That didn’t hurt his feeling at all.

No one had claimed responsibility for the explosion yet.

Karl finished up his breakfast and checked to make sure that the bills (at least the ones that counted) were paid up. He took a shower and put on some fresh blue jeans. They were fresh but not necessarily clean. All the jeans he ever owned were usually dirt and oil stained beyond the washer’s ability to make them ever look clean again. He put a toothbrush, some toothpaste, deodorant, a razor, and a bar of soap in a large freezer baggie. He pulled his musty old sleeping bag, and a lightweight camping tent from the closet. He picked up his pistol from the nightstand and pulled on his worn leather coat. He was ready to go anywhere, he was ready for anything.

Back in the garage Karl strapped the tent and sleeping bag onto the rear fender with bungee cords. He put the other items in a set of custom leather saddlebags that hung on either side of the rear wheel. Checking his trip-meter, he realized that the first stop would be for gas. He locked up the house, fired up the bike, and headed out. He still felt somewhat disoriented, but he knew that some wind and some miles would put everything back into perspective.

If his head had been clearer, he might have noticed the late model black Chevy pick up that followed at a safe distance as he headed for the nearest gas station.

The Skulls were going to kill Karl. No one really put all the pieces together, but it didn’t matter at this point. They only knew this guy was getting credit for their operation, and then he turns out to be an informant for the cops. They were going to kill him in a public place, as soon as possible, and they wanted to leave no doubt that it was the Two Skulls MC who were responsible. Little Steve wanted desperately to take care of it personally.

Three men sat in the black pick-up truck. One of the men flipped open a cell phone. “Hey. He’s on the move. Looks like he’s packed for traveling……….. Well, he’s got some fuckin shit strapped on the back of the scoot. What’s the deal with Little Steve?”

The man paused, listening with his ear to the phone, and watched as Karl turned into a gas station and pulled up to the pumps. “Yeah, actually we don’t even need to do that. He just pulled in for gas. The Mobil on Thompson St. He ain’t goin no-where. We got it.”

Karl pulled up to the pumps and dismounted the bike. He was anxious to fill the tank with premium, and hit the highway. When a black pick-up pulled up to the other side of the pumps, he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Three men got out of the truck. He thought he recognized one of them, but he couldn’t recall ever having seen other two. All three wore Two Skulls MC colors. The men strolled around the pumps to Karl’s side and casually surrounded him and the bike. For a moment no one spoke.

Karl’s face was expressionless. He had examined his options. He could attempt to ignore the men and go on about getting gas, but that would mean either paying with a credit card at the pumps, or going inside to pre-pay. He didn’t want to have his wallet hanging by the chain in case he had a chance to haul ass out of there, and there was no way he would leave his bike out here with these fuckers while he went inside. There was nothing to do but wait for them to make a play, so he just stood there.

The man that Karl recognized as one of the old school members of the Skulls and he spoke first. “You going somewhere Amigo?”

“Not right at the moment.” Karl knew that his best bet was to just speak very casually, as if they were all old friends. But deep down, he knew that there was no way that this was going to end well. The men all had hard looks on their faces. Karl could tell that they were operating under orders.

“We know someone who wants to talk to you, puta. I think you should stick around for a few minutes until he gets here.” The man took a step closer to Karl.

Karl knew that he had precious few seconds to think of something. As soon as the Skulls realized that Karl understood their intentions, they would expect him to act, and then Karl would lose any chance of having the element of surprise.

“Well….sure. I guess I could do that. Let me put some gas in the old girl here while we’re waiting.” Karl spoke as if he hadn’t heard the other man call him a puta. He hoped that they would think he didn’t know what the word meant. It was the Spanish word for whore, but it meant a lot more than that, in this day and age. It was a scathing word of disrespect. Sort of a combination of “bitch”, “punk”, “pussy”, and “asshole”, all rolled into one.

He reached for the gas nozzle as if to begin fueling his bike. As soon as the nozzle was free of the hanger, he grabbed it with both hands and swung it as hard as he could at the man on his right, catching him squarely in the temple. He didn’t wait to see whether it knocked the man down, but instead he spun around and caught the man who had been on his left in mid-leap. He jammed the nozzle into the man’s midsection and pushed with everything he had. The man crumpled, holding his gut.

His last assailant hesitated because the FXR was between the two of them. Now he swung at Karl with a large, double-edged knife in his hand. Karl felt the knife blade catch at the collar of his coat, and he threw his arm up to ward off the blow. He got lucky as the man got tangled up on the motorcycle and fell forward. Karl grabbed the man by the head and twisted it violently to the side. There was a sickeningly audible crack and he went limp. Karl glanced at the man he hit first with the fuel nozzle. He was lying behind the bike, and seemed to be unconscious, or dead. He wasn’t moving, and a pool of blood was growing next to his head. The last man, the one he had jabbed with the nozzle, was the one who had spoken to Karl. He was attempting to get to his feet, and he had a gun in his hand. Karl kicked him in the face, as if he were going for the championship game winning field goal. His steel-toed boot caught the man directly in the face and the man came fully two feet off the ground, and then crumpled onto his back and lay unmoving. The entire conflict took about eight seconds or so, about the same as a rodeo bull ride.

Karl bent forward and looked at his shoulder in the rear view mirror of the bike. The knife had cut through his coat and shirt, and sliced the skin over his collarbone. He knew that he would feel that one later on, but it didn’t look all that serious. He stood up and looked around.

“That’ll wake you up in the mournin, bouy.” He muttered in his best Braveheart-Scottish accent. He pulled the Skull with the twisted head off the FXR and unceremoniously tossed his limp body to the side.

By this time, several people who had been getting fuel at the other pumps were hurriedly getting back into their vehicles. Several others had exited the gas station mini-mart and were standing with mouths agape. One of them flipped open a cell phone, and Karl knew that it was time to exit, stage left. He hopped on the bike and it came to life with a sound not unlike that of an angry buffalo. Karl glanced up at the surveillance cameras and cursed silently. No chance at anonymity here. He looked straight into the camera and raised his fist, with middle finger extended, in front of his face. He then turned and roared out of the station.

Looks like I’m leaving town for good after all. He thought grimly.

Moments later Little Steve arrived at the station in his huge Ford F350 dually king cab pickup truck. He expected to arrive and find that his club brothers had the pain-in-his-ass loner cornered and unable to leave. The plan was, Steve would provoke the man, and then beat him to death. He planned to plant a gun on the man afterwards and claim that he had merely defended himself. The press would pick up on the incident, since Karl had been the prime suspect in the government building bombing just yesterday. Then the Two Skulls MC would finally be connected with the bombing and anyone who mattered would be able to connect the dots and realize what had gone down. That was the plan. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was a start.

He stopped and stared unbelieving when he saw the three club members lying on the concrete, with a small crowd of onlookers gathered around. He jumped from the truck and ran to his club brother who had been kicked in the face. The man was attempting to get to his feet, but both of his eyes were beginning to swell shut and his equilibrium was way off. He could do no more than get to his knees and then he would crumple back to the ground. Steve ran to his side. “What the fuck happened?” he whispered urgently into the brother’s ear.

“Lil Schteve?” The man slurred. He was barely conscious.

“Yes. Little Steve. What the fuck went down here?” Steve glared at the small group of gaping onlookers, they all suddenly found somewhere else to direct their gaze.

“Fushin shill a ma fusha, Schteve…..fush……..” The man tried to roll over on his side.

Steve could hear sirens. The place was about to be over run by cops any second. “Which way did he go?”

The injured man looked at Little Steve with eyes that were barely slits, they would be completely swollen shut in a minute or two. With a huge effort, he partially sat up and pointed in the direction that Karl had ridden from the station.

Little Steve stood and surveyed the scene. He hesitated for one moment, scarcely able to believe that three of his club brothers were lying on the ground. He could also barely contain his rage. Little Steve knew that he was going to kill the man that did this, and he was going to kill him with his bare hands. He jumped into the truck and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The growing crowd of onlookers watched as the pickup sideswiped a parked car on the way out of the gas station, and then raced off in the direction that the club member had pointed.

Detective Frank Deangelo didn’t know what to think. When he heard the call come over the radio that some bikers, including some members of the Two Skulls MC, were fighting at a Mobil station on Thompson St., he jumped into a car and raced to the location. Several other police cruisers were already at the scene. Upon arrival, he found three injured members of the Two Skulls MC. Two of them were barely alive. One had a very serious blunt force head injury. He was unconscious and almost comatose. One had a severely broken neck and had no feeling at all in his extremities. The last individual had multiple contusions and was going to need some reconstructive facial surgery, or he was going to end up looking like the elephant man. Someone had beaten the proverbial shit out of these guys.

Frank interviewed several witnesses and they all told the same story: Some guy on a motorcycle had pulled in for gas. The three patch holders had exited the truck and had an exchange with the biker. All at once they were fighting and then the biker roared away. Then a monster of a man pulled up and had an exchange with one of the Skulls, and then he too raced away from the gas station.

Frank listened as he questioned a fourth witness who recounted the same story. She was a Hispanic woman in her mid 20s, dressed in a dark blue shirt made of some sort of stretch fabric, blue jean shorts, and flip flops. She held a small boy on her hip, who appeared to be unfazed and perfectly content to sit quietly and suck his thumb while taking in all the commotion.

Frank squinted through his slightly bloodshot eyes at her and asked, “And the guy on the motorcycle was NOT wearing patches on his back? You are sure that is correct?”

“Si, I am sure. No patches. He was a grande hombre. But not as grande as the vato who came in the big truck, That one, HE had patches on his back, like the others.” She spoke as if the incident had not rattled her at all. A lifetime of watching TV violence had warped her sense of reality. As if any second she could just click off the screen and go get a soda.

“Thank you Ma’am. We’ll contact you if we need anything more. Have a nice day.” Frank attempted to muster a smile for the baby boy on the woman’s hip, it came off more like a twisted grimace. The child frowned slightly and looked away, still sucking his thumb.

Frank turned and strolled into the mini mart section of the station. He approached the counter and flipped open his leather badge wallet. “I need to see the surveillance tapes for those cameras.” He pointed out at the pumps where emergency personnel were just closing the rear doors of the second of two ambulances.

A heavyset woman sat on a stool, chewing gum unconcernedly. “Boss is on the way.”

Ten minutes later Frank sat in a small office in the rear of the station, peering at a small TV monitor as the owner of the Mobil station rewound a videotape cassette to the time when the altercation began. The detective’s eyes widened when Karl rode into the station, and he leaned forward to stare into the screen when he recognized the biker.

Son of a bitch! I should have known.. he thought to himself. He watched as the altercation unfolded and let go with a low whistle as the fight took place. Jesus, he thought, I wonder what this guy is like when he’s REALLY pissed.

Frank also recognized the same TSMC club member Karl had. He was an older member of the club who had a long criminal record, and had done several stretches in prison. When Little Steve appeared on the screen, Frank felt his heart skip a beat. He remembered his conversation with Alyssa only an hour ago, and felt sick to his stomach. Could she actually be involved in this thing? He refused to believe it.

As he watched the boyfriend of his little girl disappear from view, he sat and tried to remember exactly what had been said during the conversation. Frank suddenly felt very tired. This thing was turning out to be his worst nightmare. No one else at the station knew about his daughter’s connection to the Skulls, and he wanted to keep it that way. Once the Two Skulls MC were no more, then no one would ever have to know anything about it. But if she was involved in more than just the girlfriend capacity, then she would have to go down with them. What a mess. Frank shook his head and sighed. He had forgotten about the owner of the station who was standing just behind him, and when the man suddenly spoke.

“Damn, I wouldn’t want to mess with that guy.” The man reached to shut off the machine when the police began to appear on the screen. “Do you want to see it again?”

“No. But I’ll need that tape. And I appreciate your cooperation.” Frank arose and walked back out to the front of the mini mart. He was trying to piece the new developments together in his mind.

Now Frank felt sure that Karl had some sort of connection to the Two Skulls MC. Still, nothing seemed to fit together very well. After a year-long investigation into the activities of the TSMC, and numerous arrests and interrogations, Frank thought that he had a good feel for the kind of person that the Two Skulls MC attracted. It seemed to Frank that Karl was not that kind of guy. Sure, the man was no angel, and he had proved that he could be incredibly violent, but he seemed to be more of a loner, the kind of guy that didn’t fight back until he was cornered. That was not the MO of the Two Skulls MC.

Frank wished that the videotape had recorded sound, he would like to know what was said at the gas pumps before the fight. It had looked like Karl had a sleeping bag or something strapped to his bike. Was he trying to leave town? Why had the Skulls approached him in the first place? There were a lot of questions here, and Frank wanted answers.

Frank decided that he would not wait to see if Karl would actually call him, as per their agreement. Considering the gesture Karl made into the camera before he left the station, Frank assumed that the man hadn’t planned on the encounter with the Skulls, and probably wouldn’t go out of his way to look him up. No, the detective would put out an all points bulletin on the biker, and have him brought back to the station. And this time, he would not let the man walk until he had the whole story.

“And all three of them were laid the fuck out? Are you shittin me?” Prez was having a hard time understanding Little Steve. It sounded like Steve was pretty worked up, and was trying to drive and talk at the same time.

“Fuck no, I ain’t shittin you. It must’ve been more than one guy. I’ve been all over the place and I can’t find the fucker. We need to form up a posse.” Little Steve scanned the street as he drove, side to side, looking for the man he believed he had seen around once or twice before.

“Oh, hell yeah. The man is definitely going to go down now… Don’t worry brother, I’ll have every fucking soldier mobilized within the hour. This guy needs to go down as soon as possible. It’s time to take care of business.” The Prez clicked off the connection with Little Steve and immediately rang a stored number.

“We have a fucking priority one target. Everybody needs to mobilize and find a guy named Karl Skanlan. He’s on a black FXR. Six two or three, two twenty or so. The whole fucking club, everybody….find him and call me or Little Steve when you have him. And tell everyone that the dude might be armed and is probably tweaking to the hilt. Don’t be fuckin gentle with his ass, take him the fuck down. It needs to happen now, understand?….all right.” The Prez put the phone away and stood staring out the window for a moment. He was confused. It seemed that one minute he gets information telling him that this guy is a snitch, and then the next minute he hears that the guy fucked up three Skulls in a gas station? That shit doesn’t go together…..What the fuck is going on here? It didn’t matter at this point. No one fucks with the Skulls and lives to talk shit about it.

The American cruiser market has just gotten more competitive and interesting. 

 Mike Wolfe from History Channel’s American Pickers and the magic elves at Indian Motorcycle show off the three new models for 2014.

Indian Chief Classic (Starting at $18,999)

The Indian Chief Classic features many of the brand’s key heritage design elements, integrated into a cohesive motorcycle that’s much more modern than it looks and that benefited from advanced design, engineering and technology. It features iconic styling like valanced fenders, a leather saddle, classic tank-mounted instrumentation, and sculpted and lighted front fender war bonnet. The 2014 Indian Chief Classic comes standard with a host of premium features  including rivers of chrome, keyless ignition, ABS, cruise control, throttle-by-wire, true dual exhaust, high quality chrome laced spoke wheels, brake caliper covers, cast aluminum frame with integrated air intake, and much more.

 

 

Click on any of the smaller images to view them full size.

Indian Chief Vintage (Starting at $20,999) 

A step above the Classic, the Chief Vintage is a soft bagger featuring all-leather quick release soft-sided bags with fringe, chrome fender tips, vintage chrome badging on the front fender and a quick-release windshield. It includes the same premium standard features as the Indian Chief Classic, and sports the same iconic design elements like valanced fenders, laced wheels, whitewall tires, tank-mounted instrument cluster and extensive chrome finishes throughout.

Indian Chieftain (Starting at $22,999) 

We got to ride all three new Indian models through South Dakota, in a variety of conditions, from city traffic to open highway and curvy mountain roads. All three bikes have a relatively high ride height with generous amounts of useable suspension travel, resulting in the smooth riding qualities we’ve come to expect from bikes in this segment. Steering on the two cruisers is, well, cruiser-like. It’s very stable and the pull back bars give you good leverage for steering. Having long arms though, I would have really liked the bars to sit a good 4 inches closer to the steering head. But if you enjoy a laid-back riding position, you will embrace the Chief Classic and the Chief Vintage.

 

The Harley was truly at home on the highway. The combination of the torquey, low-revving, four-stroke engine, and the low slung riding position, made for an almost perfect traveling machine. Karl installed a set of “highway pegs” that enabled him to stretch his legs out in front when he had a long stretch of road ahead of him. He opted not to install forward shifting and brake controls for handling purposes around town. He knew that the stock controls would enable him to throw the bike around in tight situations. A set of drag racing style handlebars, mounted on 10-inch risers, sat atop the front forks. The handlebars were wider than actual drag bars, again, to help with handling. They were about the width of Karl’s shoulders.

The seat was also a custom job. The manufacturer of the seat had dubbed it the “Gunfighter.” The bike was carefully customized, piece-by-piece, inch-by-inch, to fit Karl’s frame and riding style. When he rode on the highway, he felt like a jet fighter pilot in an F-16. With his hands sitting on the handlebars almost directly in front of his shoulders, and his legs tucked in alongside the cylinders of the engine, he felt like he was flying. All of his senses were heightened when he rode. He could hear, see, smell, and feel everything intensely.

Karl made a NASCAR style gas stop at a station on the outskirts of town. He was in and out in less than 5 minutes. He immediately hit the interstate and rolled on the throttle hard. After 30 minutes he backed the throttle down to an almost legal speed, so as not to draw attention to himself. He realized that probably very soon every cop in the state would be looking out for him, so he got off the interstate altogether and began to traverse the smaller back roads.

He was familiar with the desert and knew many roads that only served to connect ranching country. Some went for hundreds of miles, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Hopefully, he would not be noticed. He was nervous, almost paranoid, and constantly swept his gaze from side to side, looking for any sign of a police car or a motorcycle. His shoulder ached where the knife had opened the skin and cut to the bone, and he used his left hand to lift the collar of his coat and glanced down at it. It was not serious, and the bleeding seemed stopped, but he would give it some attention sooner or later–probably later. He was more pissed off about the damage to his coat than to his skin. The old leather jacket had been through a lot, and it was getting old and faded, but it had been well cared for and still had a few miles left in it. The coat fit Karl like a second skin, and he knew that good leathers were hard to find, and expensive.

Shoulda shoved that fucking knife up that old boys ass……Karl thought to himself.

As he rode, he began to relax. He decided that…fuck it…..if they catch me, they catch me, I have to think. First of all, why had the Skulls come for him? He had no doubt that they had planned to do him serious harm. He could tell that much by their demeanor and their reputation, so he had no remorse for doing what he did. He was just defending himself, but why? Did that cop set him up somehow? What the hell would he do that for? Nothing seemed to fit together. The entire club would be after him now, and they had eyes and contacts far and wide.

That shithead Deangelo had told him to call him if he had any contact with the Skulls, and you could bet this morning would qualify. Karl rode on, through the desert, thinking. He stopped for another tank of gas around noon, and picked up a sandwich from the deli from one of those gas station, mini-mart, restaurant, gift store, etc. conglomerates that seem to be everywhere nowadays. He felt suspicious of everyone he encountered. He knew he needed more distance before he would be comfortable.

He rode all day. The wind blew his mind clean. Sometimes he would let his mind go blank, and just relax. Other times he would feel himself getting worked up over the events of the last couple of days. Sometimes he dreamed. The bike didn’t care, it just churned along as if it could go on forever.

Dusk began to set in. The bike wanted to keep going, but Karl was weary. He stopped in a small town and purchased a couple of beers and a gallon of water. Another 10 miles down the road he found a dirt road that led out to a ranch somewhere far out of sight. He located a small gully out of sight of the road and pulled the bike in and parked it behind some desert bushes. The sun was just beginning to disappear and he watched a spectacular sunset while he built a small fire, just for company. He drank his beers, and stared into the embers of the fire until late at night. His mind was in turmoil. He knew he had to wait until the answers began to come to him. He decided that until they did, he would just continue to ride.

Dawn came early, the sun peeking over the horizon as if to ask, “Are you up yet?” Karl arose from his sleeping bag, feeling a little weary from the long ride the day before, but somewhat refreshed. He needed a cup of coffee.

Half an hour later he sat on a small picnic table outside of a ranching fuel co-op with a cup of java, taking in the morning sun. He still didn’t know what he was going to do, so it was back on the bike. He rode all day once again. He tried to stay off the larger roadways as much as possible, constantly keeping to smallest back roads. He passed through small towns, and even passed a couple of local cops, but none seemed to be interested in him. He began to wonder if the events of the last few days had been a dream, but his sore shoulder was a constant reminder of the reality of the situation.

In fact, every police station in the country had been faxed his picture and description.

He was many hundreds of miles away from where he had started, and he found himself heading up into the mountains. So he continued to ride, and that evening he ended up finding another small campsite, this time in a grove of huge sequoia trees in a mountain area. He was burned out on thinking, and tired. He crawled into the old sleeping bag shortly after dusk and slept like a dead man, with the smell of pine trees in the air. The next morning when he awoke he had the answer sitting right in front of his mind.

He would go back. He would just go back, pack up his stuff, and move the hell away from there. There was no other way about it. Maybe it was suicide, but maybe it would go down like nothing. He might just ride in, pack up, and take off. Never hear from anyone about this bullshit again.

In the back of his mind, Karl had little doubt that there was no way he was going to be able to roll up to his house, load up the truck and head out. The Skulls would be looking for him, and he knew that he had probably just been getting lucky the last couple of days, not getting jacked by the cops. He knew damn well that, by now, Frank Deangelo probably had an APB out on him (and he was right on that score). By the time he got within city limits, either the cops or the Skulls would get to him. It was just a question of which one would get him first. But what else was there to do? If it were only the Skulls that he had to worry about, then he would just re-locate and fuck them.

Karl still didn’t know what their problem was to begin with. But the cops was another matter. He wasn’t delusional. Anywhere he went, there would be police, and eventually he would have to answer to them. So far, he couldn’t see as they had a lot on him. He had no connection to the Skulls, that was just some bullshit that Deangelo dreamed up, and Karl tended to believe that even Deangelo himself didn’t really believe it. Karl felt that the fight was self-defense. The Skulls were armed, and they had a reputation for starting shit. Karl had struck first, but only because he knew that if he didn’t, he probably had no chance of leaving the gas station alive.

Now, did he believe that the cops would see it that way? He didn’t know, but he DID know that he wasn’t about to spend the rest of his life worrying about getting pulled over for speeding or something, and end up in prison. That was not his way. There was nothing else to do but go back and play it by ear. He figured that before he got anywhere near his house, he would have to deal with the Skulls or the cops, and one would lead to the other. But hey, maybe not, maybe nobody gave a damn about his ass. He made a deal with himself: if he made it to his house, loaded up his stuff, and left town un-molested, then by God he would just keep going, fuck ‘em all. But he knew that there was little chance of that happening.

He strapped the sleeping bag and small tent back onto the bike. He had a long ride ahead of him. Karl fired up the bike and headed for the nearest coffee. Time to go face the music.