Excerpts from the new book, by James LaFond

Neck

I was running the register at a Baltimore County supermarket in the early autumn of 2010, wearing my orange vest and name tag, slaving away in the most passive and highest pressure capacity in the lowest form of work in postmodern America, clerking at a supermarket.  It was a beautiful day for riding, the kind of day Ronbone would have scorned as easy riding back in our youth, when the XT500 Yamaha was our ad hoc family transportation.

My next customer was a tall, strongly built, slightly barrel-chested man with short brown hair, a brown sweeping mustache and a brown goatee over a high neck tattoo that read Hell’s Angels.  Next to him was a tall, sexy cougar of mouth-watering proportions, holding on to his left arm—a good girl.  He was obviously working man headed out for a ride with his babe on this Friday afternoon.

Their purchase I do not recall.  The man was my age and looked down into my eyes in that intimidating way with which men in the trades—one could see by his oil-stained and callused hands and overdeveloped forearms that he was some kind of mechanic—regard us unskilled laborers.  I returned his look, looked at his neck tattoo, looked him in the eyes again and said, “Hope the good weather holds up for you, man.”

His eyes opened with a start at my lack of fear and well-wish and then went to my vest and name tag, which he regarded with abject horror etched on his face, like a wolf out of a Jack London novel casting pitying eyes on a chained dog; he swallowed hard, as if staring into the some narrowly avoided pit of hell, and said curtly to its sufferer, “Thanks,” took his woman’s hand gently but firmly and lead her past me as I admired her Playboy centerfold proportions, as he winked at me, as Donald Trump must wink to his waiter as he cuts into a well-done Kobe beef steak.

I will never forget the look on that stalwart Hell’s Angel, his tribe tattooed on his upper throat, when he recognized that I was a man capable of standing up to him without a blink, yet still enslaved like some whipped dog.  For the next six years of retail food toil, as I had occasion to remember his “but for the blessings of a thousand devils, that could have been me behind that register,” look, I remained haunted by his half swallowed pity. 

Going Full Outlaw

Luther recounts to the author:

I prospected with the Hell’s Angels in [state redacted].  Was riding with my sponsor when some fucking immigrant driving a bread truck ran him over and killed him.  That meant I had to die.  You can’t let you sponsor get greased.  I moved, obviously and began doing work for [redacted motorcycle club, he said this as he tapped his club ring], as a contractor—suited me.  I routinely drove across the entire country on lone jobs.

When I got out of the [military service redacted] I got into some trouble for punching out my cunt [redacted] Jew [redacted].  The fucker trashed the suspension and transmission on my truck.  U.S. Marshalls picked me up as a favor.  They threw me in the back of that paddy wagon and that fucking pig—who was a dick-sucking Jew faggot—rode up on curbs, over medians, rocked that fucking thing all he could while I threatened his pig life.  But I’m not Freddie Fucking Grey!  My neck held up fine.  I’m in the shower one day and the nredacted gang sends in some big fucker with a screw driver, says he has to look up my ass, that I’ve got a bag of diamonds or something up my ass.  And I’m like, “No, you are not looking up my ass!”  I say this over and over again as this fucker tries to pump himself up for my shanking—the fucking guards let him come at me with that screw driver.  Well, he eventually went away.

I lose my fucking house when I’m in and I come out and need to make ends meet—so fuck this rotten world.  I make ends meet with my skills.  I was boosting catalytic converters down town around University of [redacted] Medical Center.  The fucking pigs were on to me but they never caught me.  I stripped the guts out of one truck while this fucking pig was driving by—laying under that job with my boots in the gutter while this fucking pig scans with his flash light.  I used to do it right on the parking lot of the hospital.  One cop thought he had me and I fuckin’ laid in my car for two hours until he needed a fucking doughnut, brother.

I fought for this system and then it shits on me—every pig and kiredacted and nredacted in the courts, and prison, and jail.  Fucking [municipality redacted] lockup, I’m in ankle and wrist chains, hobbled like a hog, this fucking gay nredacted guard feeling my dick and balls and asshole up—let me tell you, it wasn’t pleasant!  And those two nredacteds that got busted for the hotel double murder, they fucking walk on their own recog, not even hobbled, and I’m treated like fucking King Kong because I’m a white man that handles his business.  It was a simple parole violation.

I have severe PTSD for which there is no cure.  The pot keeps it under wraps just enough so I don’t go full outlaw and pay this bitch [system] back.  I skidded on an oil slick at [name of crossroads deleted] and the fucking cunt in the car calls the cops on me because I dinged her bumper with my bike laying it down and since I’m on parole—in the fucking system, brother—I have to get taken in and piss-tested, and I’m fucking treated like an animal while those redanigted murders walk—they’ll be in Brazil before the trial, bank on fucking that!

So what do I do?

I have a nredacted PO [parole officer] giving me shit every three days, a guard stroking my ass like he wants to blow me and every fucking pig on the road can’t wait to pinch me for blowing a single spark.  I see no choice but to go full outlaw.  I’ve been to prison twice and I’m not going again.  This fucking system had to come looking for me after I served it to make me an enemy—well guess what, they made a fucking enemy.

As for my opinion of outlaw bikers, I’ve been one, I may be contracting for [MC redacted] again, but my general observation is they can’t fight and most of them are posers and pussies that need to outsource or bring in men like me to handle their hard business.  As combatants, they’re better than nredacteds, but poor at best.   In my military estimation [eight years in uniform in the Middle East, and a few contracting tours thereabouts] they’re soft targets with a long reach, which leaves work for a man like me.

A truly hope you’re not a fucking snitch.  I won’t be having a beer with you at a bar again and I’m done with his fucking communist State of Jersey with its pigs, kiredacteds and nredacteds running me around.  Take care of your self-brother—remember to drink two liters of water every morning.  You sound parched.

I’ll be in touch, but not in this place.