Should I let bikers raise my kid?
Dear Dale:
I feel sorry for you. No father. Alcoholic mother. You must’ve had a tough childhood. Do you ever wish you’d had a normal life?
Signed,
Pity pal
Dear PP:
Hell no. I had a great childhood. True, growing up without a dad wasn’t so hot. But I never knew him so who cares?
At first, mom told me I was like Jesus. Born without a father. Immaculate contraception. But I soon learned better. All I had to do was compare those pictures of Holy Mother Mary with my mom passed out in her puke.
And I have a brother, Dave. But sadly, he went right. Got sucked up into the Christian cult. Never been the same since.
Luckily, I didn’t make that mistake. Had the good fortune to fall in with a bad crowd. Bikers. The ideal role-model for a boy from a broken home.
I was on my home from school when I saw a couple guys come bursting out of a building and stuff someone into the trunk of a car.
“Hey kid,” one of them said. “Wanna earn a buck? Close the lid, willya?”
So I did. They locked the trunk and drove away. Don’t know what happened to the guy. Probably nothing good. But I got a dollar.
Next day, I went back. They were standing there, smoking dope and talking shit but, unfortunately, didn’t have anyone they needed to rub out.
So they sent me out for smokes instead.
Now, not everyone will sell cigarettes to an eight-year-old but fortunately, I knew someone who would.
Impressed by my initiative, they invited me in and introduced me around. I met all the guys.
People like Lucky, who kept getting caught for crimes he didn’t commit.
And Tiny, who was over three hundred pounds.
And Fingers, who was missing most of his. Lost the first one in an accident but the rest were for insurance. Got so bad he couldn’t jerk off. Had me hold up a copy of Hustler while his old lady blew him.
I was hooked. At long last, I had found my family. Not the one you’re born in. Your real one. The people who get you.
Pretty soon I was going there every day. At first, I just helped out around the clubhouse, emptying ashtrays and finishing joints.
Sometimes, if they thought they had a bad batch of drugs, they’d let me test them since, being small, I was sensitive to impurities.
Others, if one of them wanted to off someone, he’d let me load his gun. To put another set of prints on it. In case the cops got it.
After a couple months, they started taking me out on jobs. Not that I saw it as work. No, to me, it was all fun and games.
Like Divert the Dogs, where I would run past pit bulls with a pork chop in my pocket.
Or Find the Valuables, where I would squeeze through the window of a house to open the door or crawl under a bed in search of cash.
Or Hide the Drugs in Your Stomach, where, during a bust, I would run to the can and swallow as many coke-filled condoms as I could: if none of the condoms broke in my stomach and I didn’t OD, I won.
We even had our own version of Monopoly where, instead of putting up hotels and collecting rent, we owned street corners and rubbed out rivals.
Played the real game at a friend’s once. Imagine my amazement when I saw the Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. So of course I swiped it.
A couple weeks later, a cop stopped me. I was driving a stolen car and the fact that I could barely see over the steering wheel caused him to suspect it wasn’t mine. That I was drunk only seemed to make it worse.
But I wasn’t worried. Showed him the card. Sadly, it didn’t work. He insisted on arresting me. Had a hard time getting out of that one.
I learned a lot from them: how to break into a car, cut coke and scam a credit card company. You won’t learn that in school.
And the parties! Keggers every weekend. Complete with coke and strippers.
Not everyone celebrates their thirteenth birthday at a biker clubhouse. Or gets a pole dance for a present. You should’ve seen my friend’s faces. They could barely up hold their beer steins.
And last but not least, the bikes. I’ll never forget the feeling of being blasted out of my head and flying down the highway on the back of a chopper.
But nothing lasts forever and everything ended with the Waldman job. The guys broke into a drugstore and stole a shitload of drugs, smokes and porn mags.
Unfortunately, the guys, so wasted they could barely stand, forgot to wear masks, and Fingers, lacking digits, dropped several copies of Swank.
It was the easiest bust the cops ever made. All they had to do was follow the trail of porn mags that led straight to the clubhouse, less than a block away.
The police found them passed out on the floor with a huge pile of pills, still in the green Waldman bag, sitting on the pool table.
Lucky for me, I wasn’t part of that job. I had caught the chicken pox and was stuck at home scratching the skin off my face.
With all its members in jail, the gang disbanded, the clubhouse closed and the building re-opened as an arcade.
I went there once and even conned a kid out of his lunch money. You’d think that’d cheer me up but it didn’t. Just felt depressed. Like when your favorite dive goes upscale, turning into a sports bar. Or worse, a lounge.
They’re all gone now. Lucky, Tiny, Fingers, everyone. Most of them are in prison, although a few were fortunate enough to go out in a blaze of glory. Shooting it out with the cops or OD’ing in an alley.
So break free, dump those losers you were born with and find your real family. You’ll be glad you did. Because although they may cheat you in a drug deal, steal one of your girls or rat you out to the cops, they’re still family. And there’s nothing more important than that. Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Dale
Hi. If you’ve made it this far, you probably liked the story. So why not check out some others at my Medium page? https://medium.com/dear-dale
