This week’s story was written earlier this year for an NYC Midnight Short Story contest. For that contest I needed to write a thriller using the word outlaw and the story had to include a diary. Earlier in the year I had read the short story “Runaway Rig” written by Carl Henry Rathjen that thrilled me and inspired part of this story,. The need to include an outlaw in the tale brought me back to my old “Sons of Anarchy” obsession. Toss all that together with a diary and some instense research about motorcycle clubs, and you get my story “God Forgives.” I hope you enjoy the ride!
It should take about ten minutes to read.
“I’m staring down at aces and eights, Lacey. There ain’t no right way outta this one, it’s a dead man’s hand. Bonesey overstepped and I can’t let it stand.” I took a long drag on my cigarette, then passed it to my old lady lying beside me. This was our last night together.
“You don’t hafta do nothing, JJ. You could just leave, we all could go nomad,” Lacey said, now sitting up cross-legged staring down at me while brushing her long nails through my chest hair. She knew it made me crazy and knew it was a trick to get me on her side.
Not this time.
I stared at her naked belly, knowing what the world couldn’t yet see, my seed growing inside. What if it was a boy? What if he didn’t want to ride?
“The Outlaws ain’t no social club, Lace. You know that as well as I do. The MCC don’t let their boys just ride away. Out of the club means out of this existence. I’m looking for the loophole, but you gotta go.”
Lacey crawled around me, putting out the cigarette on the ashtray on the nightstand before looping her arms around my neck. “Thing is, you ain’t even told me what Bonesey did that was so bad this time. Was it that thing with Whistler’s kid?”
Rage filled me and welled in my eyes. “His name is Will,” I said. “And isn’t that enough? Bonesey goes and cripples a kid — a ten year old kid — because he says he don’t ever want to ride? How ain’t that enough?”
“Shit. No. I ain’t even tryin’ to say that, JJ. All’s I’m sayin’ is I feel you’ve forgiven him before for all sorts a things, so I was wondering—”
“God forgives, Outlaws don’t, Lacey. I ain’t forgiving no man — not even Bonesey. I turned a blind eye in the name of business is all. In the name of the club. But kids say stupid shit they don’t even understand half the time,” I turned around to face Lacey again. “And we’re about to have a kid of our own. I ain’t leaving my own to be Bonesey’s plaything. I’m ending this. I’m taking you to your mama’s tomorrow morning and I’ll go on from there.”
“What are you gonna do, JJ?” Lacey asked.“
That ain’t for you to know,” I said. I loved the woman, but that didn’t mean that I trusted her. Bonesey’s grip was tight on us all. I could count on her loyalty when he was gone.
I dropped Lacey at her mom’s by sunrise. There was no long goodbye. I got back on my chopper, hit a century on the line from there to the I-95 thinking back to all the chops the bike had been through — and how many of them I had worked on with Bonesey.
Our motto, which I inked across my back, kept cycling through my brain, God forgives, Outlaws don’t.
No engine roar was loud enough to drown out that thought and the reality that it went both ways. I was about to make a move that would not be forgiven.
I pinned it right before I hit the I-95, knowing it was going to feel like I was entering no-man’s land. No turning back.
The diary I had kept for the last ten years clung to my back. It was pinched inside my one-piece, scratching at my skin with every bump and rumble on this poor excuse for a road. I was lane-splitting as many clueless cagers in their “luxury vehicles” headed for some mini-mall or vacation spot as I could. I wondered how they could breathe inside those things, how they could enjoy any part of driving. I was choking just riding next to them. But I swore it was the only way I could ride out unnoticed. Riding a cage carrier like the I-95, in direct route to FBI Headquarters, would be the last place anyone with a brain would go looking for a 1%-er like me.
Agent Shawn Schwartz — we all called him the SS — had the biggest boner of any man living for the Big Four. He wanted us all taken down — Outlaws, Pagans, Banditos, and the mother fucking 81, Hell’s Angels. Living his 99%-er life, in his social club and weekend rides, his judgemental, poser ass was always looking for a way to take us out. I hated that mother fucker. My stomach turned just thinking about how I was about to make this deal with the devil. My only hope was that it might help take down some Angels, too.
“Fuck,” I shouted, though no one but the devil himself heard. And I knew he was laughing. The fucker sent his boys out after me the moment my thoughts trickled near like I did a mother fucking summoning. Up ahead I spotted three riders with wings on their backs. What the fuck they were doing on the I-95 I’ll never know, but shit like that ain’t acceptable. ADIOS: Angels Die in Outlaw States — it’s our way. And, yeah, I knew I wasn’t in my state anymore, but if my bike was rolling on a piece a road, I ain’t allowing the 81 to share it.
I pinned it again, pushing my speed as far as it would go, knowing my lane-splitting was up to the challenge. The Angels heard me, turned and grinded ahead. I wondered why they opted for a riding challenge instead of the outright violence I was expecting. Did the shits actually care about the cagers around us? Fuck that.
The three of them split between the lanes, the one in the middle — right in front of me — was going to be the true challenge, his boys on the side were struggling with maneuvers. I thought about the piece I brought with me — not my biggest gun, but the one that would raise the least questions when entering a federal building — I’d need to be damn close to do any real damage. I couldn’t slow down. The only good thing about that was that they couldn’t either.
The payoff was quick and fatal.
In some kind of synchronized calamity, the wing on the left misjudged, caught a rearview and busted into a high side, flying over his motorcycle first before his motorcycle then flew over him, and at seemingly the same exact time, the wing on the right did some shit I missed that ended in a filthy flip, ending with him under the bike and the cages behind riding right on top of it, causing a multi-cage pile up in a cacophony of chaos that I couldn’t help but laugh all the way through. I slowed my speed to make sure I caught every angle I needed to twist through just to make sure I came out unscathed. I wished I could telepathically thank Lacey for insisting I wore my brain bucket on this ride when some shit banged off it and into the flames.
It was like riding through hell. I embraced it fully, I was taking Angels with me on this last ride and I couldn’t be happier. Just one left, right ahead of me.
His red do-rag waved at me like a matador’s cape. I became the bull with laser-focus. The last vestiges of Outlaw in me screamed with rage and zeroed in on my target. We rode for miles like this. I wondered if he’d exit, turn around, or flinch in any way. As we crossed state lines and I began to close in on my destination, I found myself at a crossroads: fulfill my duty as an Outlaw, hunting and killing this final Angel, or follow this new spark of humanity brought to life by the promise of fatherhood.
A crosswind blew and on it I heard the roar and rumble of more bikes coming from behind me. A quick glance confirmed my worst fears, more Angels. I don’t know if the organ donor ahead of me made the call, or if the crash made enough news to round them up, but it didn’t matter. Angels had fallen and an Outlaw was near the scene. That AFFA shit was up my ass. Angels Forever, Forever Angels with no Outlaw brothers in defense. I was on my own, a lone wolf, begging to be picked off and right before I could protect my future family from the reach of the 1%.
There were five bikers behind me, one in front, and chances were the call was in for even more backup. No one would want to miss this easy picking fun. What a message to send the Outlaws. I was the pig up for slaughter. If Bonesey ever put together why I was out on this road, he might endorse the pick-off.
I knew I was never going to catch my matador, he was too good of a biker for me to catch up to and he had distance on his side. I pulled a risky move. Slipping my hand down to my piece, making sure the safety was off, I slammed on the brakes, smelling the burn of the rubber beneath me. The cages had already been giving me space, so there wasn’t any risk of collision except for the Angels behind me. It’d be on their own skills to save their lives. I had to give it to them, when I spun out to go face-to-face, they had already reacted to my move. However, the maneuvering distracted them long enough so that I got the first shots off, taking out two, who both opted to lay it down, rather than ride on. This really pissed off the three left upright, so I spun around quickly again trying to get back on my line. In doing so I saw that red do-rag coming right at me. A little game of chicken never scared me, so I dove in, pulling my gun out once again, wishing I could see his eyes behind his dark sunglasses just before I swerved wide and pulled the trigger. The expanse of the red blowing out of the back of his head looked like his do-rag had come to life.
I almost lost it on that turn, but spotted my exit as I pitched, so I leaned against it hard, pulling me back over and across the highway just as the bullets started flying behind me. I pinned it on the off-ramp, catching a bit of air when it declined -- not at all good for my old chopper, but I was guessing, one way or another, this would be her last ride. On the horizon I saw the box of bureaucracy that was my destination. I figured if I could get there the Angels might fall back, unwilling to be so overt in the presence of our greatest mutual enemy. Enemy of my enemy and all that…
That’s when I heard more bikes up ahead. My bones chilled. I didn’t have much ammo left, or room to ride through if the oncoming crew was dense enough. My line was clear, the FBI was about a mile ahead, three Angels behind, but how many were coming? There was a cross street ahead that had to be where the sound was coming from.
The bikers poured out from both ends. I saw all my days flash before me: being Dad’s back warmer as a kid, working so hard as a potential, getting patched by Bonesey himself, hooking up with Lacey, getting inked with Whistler with little Will watching outside the window, Lacey’s pregnancy test, watching Bonesey swing the bat over and over again against Will’s arms, legs, and head, sitting with Whistler outside the hospital room while he wept —
I expected to be riddled with bullets by the time they surrounded me, but instead I heard muffled cheers, hard to make out until they were circling me.
“OFFO! OFFO! OFFO!”
“Outlaws Forever, Forever Outlaws!”
“We got you brother!”
“Let’s ADIOS these motherfuckers!”
Then they peeled off behind me, shooting as they went and I knew I was safe to ride on, safe to drive straight into the FBI Headquarters, to find Special Agent Shawn Schwartz, hand him my diary with all of the info he would need to take out Bonesey, my club, the Angels, possibly even the Outlaw brothers who just came to my rescue.
I thought of Will, broken and beaten in the hospital.
I thought of my unborn son, my family, my duty.
I thought of Bonesy, and the club, my brothers.
In the parking lot of the FBI Headquarters I saw the bright yellow crotch rocket the SS was infamous for riding so delicately. I sat at the red light across the street, staring.
The rumble and roar of my Outlaw brothers surrounded me. “Fucking poser!” the one on my right screamed toward the building. “Fucking 99%er prick!”
On my left an old man with so many helmet stickers I swore he might have had one for each day he lived said, “You rode hard, brother.” Then he slapped me on the back. “Why don’t you lay her down at our bar and tell us your tale before heading back home?”
I looked back across the street at the bright, sterile space behind the iron fence. It all looked so quiet. Then I turned back to the crew surrounding me, hearing and feeling their noise, like the heartbeat within my own chest.
I thought of Will’s broken body once more, the possible future for my own child, but then I thought of the words Dad told me when I asked him why he wouldn’t defend Uncle Jesse on the night he was stabbed in the club. He said, “JJ, I know you’re gonna ride soon enough, so I’ll tell you what my pops told me when I was your age. It’s like your own motto on the nights the Outlaw one’s not making sense. It went like this, ‘What’s done is done. What’s to come is to come. I turn a blind eye, an Outlaw until I die. Club rules while I live, after that, God forgives.’ ”
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