This is the story of my first Harley. It is one filled with dreams, good times, friends, and enemies, drugs, business dealings, parties, women, & treachery. It is a story that needs to be told, for the young ones to learn from, if they will. The time is approximate, and all names have been changed to protect all.
I saw them a lot while riding around town in my old man’s pick up. Big, scary men, tattooed arms, long flowing hair, dirty blue jeans, and blue jean jackets with the sleeves cut off. Something on the back, but we never got close enough for me to see what it was. Not that I was looking to hard at their backs. I was to busy looking at the bikes. One in particular, always got my attention. Red, bright, deep, beautiful, apple red. With a long chrome springer, and sparkling chrome valve covers. The most beautiful piece of machinery I had ever gazed upon with my young eyes. I asked my old man a lot of questions. He always answered questions about the bike, but never about the men.
My old man took me riding every now and then. He had a friend with a big blue Electra-glide. You know the kind, white saddlebags, chrome covers everywhere, big seat sticking up on a post.
It was fun, but I always closed my eyes and daydreamed about that big, red Panhead.
A few years later, at the ripe old age of 12, my new friend Jerry and I were walking home from the local swimming pool. After spending the afternoon chasing young girls around the pool, getting our young hormones all worked up, we needed a break. Jerry was telling me about the new guy that moved to his block a few weeks before. He had a big red bike. I wanted to go by there, so we went that way. My mind was racing, was it the same bike? Jerry couldn’t tell me. He didn’t know anything about bikes. We rounded the corner and there it sat. Sparkling in the sun, a diamond on wheels, flying a hundred miles an hour, just sitting there.
Jerry wanted to cross the street. He said the man who rode it was mean. But I couldn’t, I had to get a closer look. Jerry stood across the street while I looked it over, circling like a vulture, getting closer and closer. “Touch it and you’re dead!” he said in a low, but matter of fact tone. I damn near pissed myself! Jumping back, I turned to him, ready to plead my case, and he smiled. I quit shaking and told him I thought it was the greatest bike I had ever seen. His smile got real big, and he asked me if I knew anything about tools. “Sure” I said.
I spent the rest of the afternoon handing him wrenches and chasing beer. He let me hang around a lot that summer, chasing beer and tools for him and his friends. Got fucked with a lot by the other guys. Cuffed upside the head when they caught me drinking their beer. I really caught hell when I saw some of the girls topless, and sprung a tent in my pants. But he gave me credit, he said, because I kept coming back.
I went buy one day in the fall, and there were his buddies moving furniture out of the house. “Where is he” I asked. “He’s dead” was all they said. I went home and cried.
My biker buddy was dead. The first lesson learned, your friends will die.
After that summer, hanging around with guys my age was boring, so I started running with an older crowd and man was that trouble. By 14 I was doing drugs, chasing girls, and getting in more trouble than anyone should. But I kept talking with my buddies. We were all gonna be big, bad bikers. We went to their parties, got our asses beat, and always went back for more. Too much fun to be had and damn it, the women!
At 17, I needed to get out of town in a bad way so I joined the army. I didn’t want to be a soldier, just needed out. At my first duty station I met some bikers in a grunt unit. Took a lot of shit for being so green, but they took me in and showed me the way. How to sell drugs to make extra money. How to do real hard drugs. How to find the right women to pimp out. How to keep your ass alive in a bar fight. How to sleep with your buddy’s girl and not feel bad about it. Yeh, man. I learned a lot!
One year later, I had my first Harley. A shovelhead, deep chocolate brown with buckhorns and fatbobs. It needed nothing, but I couldn’t leave it alone. Chrome, sissy bar, highway pegs, all the good stuff. I couldn’t leave the drugs alone either. One party after the next. Selling drugs in the barracks. Getting people strung out. Making my buck so I could keep going.
There was this one clubber I liked that I did a lot off riding with. He wasn’t quite like the rest of them. He tried a few times to talk serious to me about straightening up my act. I should’ve listened. But not me! I know what I’m doing! The rides, the women, the parties, I could live that way forever! But, it wasn’t to be.
Six months after I met my baby, we were on our way to a party but I started early. Had me a nice highball (smack and coke mix, in a fix} and a half pint of jack before I left. Got to get the head right for the run. So there I am, just flying along the streets, enjoying my buzz. Truth was, I was fucked up out of my gourd and not paying attention. I didn’t see her coming. And she didn’t see me! And then, in slow motion, I watched the car crush my leg. Damn, that didn’t hurt. While flying through the air it seems I had a lot of time to think. Was this it? Am I gonna die? Great fuckin rush! Are the guys gonna be pissed cause I’m late? My bike!
I woke up in the hospital thinking, man, this shit hurts. I replayed the day through my mind and thought, “I fucked this shit up!” They wouldn’t give me any pain medication for 2 days. They said I was kicking and they couldn’t do anything till they were sure what all was wrong with me besides the drugs I was already on. The pain from the broken bones and internal bleeding was nothing compared to kicking. Maybe it was going through both at the same time, but I wished I were dead. My throbbing head, with the needles poking holes in my brain. The muscle aches and spasms. My leg was the same size, from my hip to my toes, and every color in the rainbow. The tubes in my side pulled every time I moved sending lightning bolts through my torso.
I pulled out the IV hoping it would ease the pain in my arms. Didn’t work, just got me tied down.
A week later, my CO stopped by. Never being on his good side, I knew I was in trouble. He stood at the foot of the bed staring at me for a long time. All he said was “this is your chance to clean up before I catch you. I’ve known about you for a long time. If you don’t quit now, I’m gonna get you.” Ever the bad ass, I looked up at him. Stared him straight in the eye and said “Sir. With all do respect, fuck you!” He just laughed and said, “ I’ll get you.”
Eight weeks later, I’m back in the barracks, Casts, crutches, and still sore as hell. Clean from the drugs, but looking for a fix to ease the pain. I’m clean, so I can handle just one to ease the pain, right? Running into a couple of riding buddies a short time later, I wanted to know why no one came to see me but a couple of girls. They didn’t have time, I was told. Fuck it! Just set me up, ahh yes, no more pain! Another lesson; you have no friends in the drug business. I know where I stand now, so it’s on to business again. I needed another bike!
Three months later, I’m making money again. Had to start all over. Lost most of my customers to other dealers. I’m being real careful though. The CO is all over my ass, searching my room all the time, and just smiling. “ Fuck him” I kept thinking. I’m always one step ahead.
I’m getting short now. All I need is one more big deal to go home with and get my bike. Had some longtime partners in crime that were helping me get where I thought I needed to go. One in particular seemed very willing. If I hadn’t been so strung out and greedy, I would’ve seen it coming. Yup, you guessed it, set up. They came busting through the door like an M60 tank. Knocked it right off the hinges! Next thing I know, I’m staring down the barrel of a 45. Looked like a tank muzzle to me. Fuckin huge when it’s pressed to your nose! And over in the corner, my so-called buddy, smiling like he just got done fuckin my old lady. Lesson #2 revisited, you have no friends in the drug business!
Not much you can do when you’re caught red handed and they have a witness and tapes. I actually got a letter from one of my partners this time. Short and sweet, it was. One sentence. “ Narc and you’re dead”, it said. No shit? I’ve played this game for a long time, I know the fucking rules. But the guy that set me up didn’t. He ended up in the same prison with me, about three months later. Seems he got caught skimming on the cops. Paybacks are great! I got mine. But it didn’t make the time any easier to do.
Over the next year I got a real education! Not only in there, but from the outside, too. Not a single fuckin letter from my buddies! “Oh, that’s right, dumbass, you got no friends,” I kept telling myself. Got a few from one sister. The rest of my family had disowned me. The guys in my block did a lot of talking about shit like that. Guess I wasn’t the only one with that problem. We also talked a lot about what we planned on doing when we got out. For me, it was always my next bike. Yes, but I was clean and thinking straight for the first time in years. Now I had my own rules. It didn’t take me long to figure out I didn’t want to end up here again! Another lesson in life learned, the hard way.
I got out in the early eighties, ready to roll. Needed another sled in the worst way! But I couldn’t get a job anywhere. Seems ex-cons aren’t a good investment. So I started lying on my apps. Finally landed a job working on lawnmowers. Just making enough to pay the bills. Shit, I’ll never ride again at this rate! When springtime came, the bikes started coming back out. I’d hear the thunder from the street every day and dream again of flying down the rode on my own steel steed. But it’ll be a long time coming, because this time, I’m going to do it right. I’m going to earn it, and appreciate it!
I’m telling my story many years later, not looking for any words of comfort or sympathy. I was a stupid, cocky, asshole and needed to learn a few things the hard way. I’m telling it because I watched a young punk do the same thing this summer. Like the local cops can’t figure out how a 21 year old with no job can ride a 50K custom-made bike.
If just one kid reads this and changes before it’s to late, it will have been worth telling.
