Chapter 12
Bikers, Babes, And Bloodshed
I joined the KingsMen motorcycle gang because of its outlaw mentality which legitimized outrageous and counterculture behavior. There were guys from the Indian Reservation area that wanted to join the gang so we were allowed to start an Akron Chapter referred to as the Indian Chapter. Butch was elected President, with Little Joe as Vice President, and I became Sergeant Arms. Eventually I became Vice president when Butch decided to leave the gang.
Life with in a motorcycle gang was filled with excitement, danger, and perversion. There were battles with rival gangs, constant police harassment, sexual perversion, assaults, and murder. Some of the members of the gang were treacherous and extremely violent, willing to cut your heart out just for fun. However, there were also a lot of wanna-bes who used the gang for protection and to act tough when in reality they were really punks. The danger usually involved fights with other gangs however, you never knew where or how danger lurked.
One of my best friends from the Buffalo Chapter, who everyone called “Jug,” was addicted to heroin causing him to do some very bazaar things. We were driving back from a night at the horse race track when I stopped at a red light only to have Jug jump out of the car, run over to a motel parking lot, start kicking out windows of cars, and opening the trunks to see if there was anything he could steal and sell for heroin. I drove into the parking lot and grabbed him by the neck throwing him into the back seat of the car and sped off hoping that no one got my license plate number. You could always tell when Jug was having a “Jones,” which meant he was in withdrawal, and in desperate need of more heroin to stop the physical and psychological symptoms of the body and mind craving the drug.
You would see him carrying chairs, tables, televisions, radios, and almost anything else he could get his hands on to sell at the a pawn shop and head downtown to buy drugs. I would skin pop a little heroin every now and then and also mainlined a few times, meaning injecting the drug directly into my veins with a hypodermic needle. However, I just refused to let myself be trapped into being a junkie like Jug and some of my other friends. One day Jug mainlined some very potent heroin dying with the needle in his arm. Dying from drug overdoses was just not limited to guys like Jug. Celebrities like Janice Joplin, Jim Baluchi, and Jimmie Hendrix were also tragic victims. This was the era of, “Tune in, turn on, and drop out,” I guess they should have included, “And also have an extremely good chance of dying!”
The Bible talks about the consequences of repeatedly turning your back on God’s Word, conviction, and refusing to repent, loving sin and perversion more than righteousness, the fruit of which is being given us over to a reprobate mind. I was consumed by a reprobate mind ignoring my Mother’s and Grandmother’s pleas to get out of the lifestyle I was living which they knew would eventually lead to disaster. They implored me to come back to Jesus.
What they didn’t understand was the counterculture of a motorcycle gang was a blatant symbol of my rejection of everything they and society held dear, including Jesus. I was downright furious at God for allowing my Christian Father to abandon me and my Mother to marry a non-Christian who she ends up divorcing. I also was rebelling from what I considered the hypocrisy of always talking about Jesus but never attending church while loving working and shopping more than the things of God, why would I want to return to that?
Let me recant, Grandma lived a life totally dedicated to Jesus Christ bearing the fruit of repentance and had been the only stable influence in my life. In fact when I would take my fellow gang members along with our club momma’s and prostitutes to Grandma’s house in the middle of the night amazing things happened. Here we were half-drunk and high on drugs, and what would Grandma do: welcome us in as if we were her long lost children. She would cook a middle of the night feast fit for a king. After we were done chowing down on eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, toast, and bagels she would ask if she could have five minutes of our undivided attention. Of course everyone agreed to listen as they thanked her for the meal. Well, thanked her in the gang member and whores vernacular, “Granny your F_ _ _ing cool, yah, H_ _ _ yes Granny rap on, you’re far out, your better to me than my own F_ _ _ing Mother.”
Taking all these compliments in stride she proceeded to get her torn and tattered Bible, reciting Roman’s road to salvation. She would tell them that she didn’t care for their lifestyle, dress code, or personal hygiene but because Jesus loved them enough to die for them just as they are, she “loved them in Him!” No one ever received Christ at Gram’s evangelical outreach in her dining room at 3:00 in the morning. However, God knows the seeds only she could plant in what society would describe as dregs, scum, and people who anyone else would have called the Police on if they came to their door. Rest in peace Gram, you were a good and faithful servant.
For the little over year-and-a-half I was a gang member, I witnessed every kind of perversion and sexual depravity imaginable: kidnapping, rape, assault, attempted murder, and a host of other crimes, it is still hard to believe I survived. I know that only the hand of God prevented me from being arrested, killed, or ending up in prison for life. I will give a few examples that only touch the surface of such darkness. I must share that it is extremely painful to recount and realize that I had spiraled down to be such a low form of humanity that I enjoyed such filth, depravity, and sin. Thank you for your mercy and forgiveness Jesus.
The gang was continually looking for girls to sexually exploit and use as “Club Momma’s,” to meet our appetite for sexual perversion. There were two primary targets for this purpose, first, the runaway, a girl usually between the ages of 15 and 18 whose home life often included a recent divorce. In the aftermath of the destruction of their families they would run away as a protest of their pain and fate.
Because the gang provided security and an identity of rebellion and rejection of the social structure and family that recently shattered their life, they became easy prey. They also, in a twisted psychological paradigm, received identity reinforcement by the attachment resulting from the bond created during sex even if it was all with members of the gang.