Chapter 9 – Wheels of Rage by Kurt Saxon

They are also unique unto themselves and are not to be compared with any other group. Although many bikers look like hippies, their attitudes toward society and their place in it are not at all similar. Whereas hippies tend to be parasitic, bikers tend to be predatory. A non-working hippy will beg; a non-working biker takes.

The only idea that bikers and hippies share is that the establishment is going to collapse soon. When that time comes the hippies expect everything to be peace and love from then on. If the bikers have their way, they will then enslave the hippies.

The biggest difference between the two groups, however, is their relationship with their peers. A communal hippy can get away with a lot of cadging from his fellows. But a biker who doesn’t put in for his share of the beer or who hangs back too often from club endeavors will one day find himself severely mauled and out of the club.

An outlaw bike club is not created to support its members. Aside from partying and the general excitement, its purpose is to mount a strong front against the enemies of outlaw bikers. Another purpose is to provide enough bodies to carry out any wild enterprise its president thinks interesting.

A member is obliged to join in the enterprise only if the majority is willing. If only a few are willing then the member can reject the idea, unless he is a prospect. In that case he goes along with the president or gets out.

If a member has an idea for some project he is free to solicit the help of the other members. This way a biker can enlist aid in schemes he would not even consider mentioning to citizens.

One time Paranoid George even talked Ape and Pinocchio into planning a trip down to the border so they could sell terry cloth towels to wetbacks. They had swiped over a gross of towels before Big Mike told them that the idea was just a joke.

As long as a proposed project does not dishonor the colors or bring heat on non-participants, anything goes. In a sizable club, any idea, no matter how weird or impractical, will get a fair hearing, if not total cooperation.

But woe to the nitwit who gets into the club just to use it for his own selfish purposes. Big Mike seldom stops a project the first time but usually puts his foot down on a repeat. The club is in enough hot water with the law without being labeled a Dillinger type criminal gang.

One prospect began laying plans to knock over doctors’ offices the first week he was in the club. He was even talking about organizing the bikers into groups of four to break into medical buildings. He figured to become some kind of dope king.

Big Mike thought he was incredibly stupid trying to put the club up to being a professional burglary ring, especially for dope. At a private meeting, the club officers decided to punish the prospect for trying to lead their lads astray.

Had he been wanting the troops to burgle stores or warehouses, they would have just stomped him and kicked him out. But since Ape’s mother was a janitress at a clinic they voted to let her take care of him.

Big Mike talked to Ape about it and Ape said, “Well, hell, can’t we break his arm or something? Ma’s ulcer’s acting up and she’s meaner than usual. He ain’t all that bad a guy.”

Big Mike had decided and he would not be put off. He wanted the fool to be turned over to Ape’s mom and that’s the way it would be.

The bikers all called Ape’s mother “Granny Fury”, but not to her face. She was the only female honorary member of the Iron Cross. She rode a big English BSA and had gone on a run when Ape was a prospect, to make sure those mean hoodlums did not do anything to warp her little boy.

Her first outrage was to viciously chain whip a lone highway patrolman when he tried to give her a ticket just outside Barstow. When the club made a potty stop at Baker she tore up a bar and then went after Big Mike with a broken bottle when he turned a fire extinguisher on her. They did not tell her about runs after that.

She had been abandoned by Ape’s drunken sire and raised eight kids by slinging hash and scrubbing floors. She was demented and knew it but did not care. She had class.

Ape told the prospect about the clinic but not about his mother. He said he had worked there as a mail clerk and knew all the best offices. The prospect fell for the whole line and agreed to use the clinic for a test run.

The next night Ape, Paranoid George and Pinocchio went to the clinic with the prospect. Ape had had his mother’s key duplicated the day before and had told the prospect he knew a locksmith who made keys from impressions directly from locks.

Ape opened a side door to the clinic and they sneaked in. He directed Paranoid George and Pinocchio to case the first floor while he led the prospect upstairs in search of Granny Fury.

They got to the third floor and Ape heard his mother sloshing around at the end of the corridor. He told the prospect to go down there and start trying doors and if the old lady gave him trouble he should just bat her out of the way. He told him he would be on the second floor. Then he ran down the stairs and collected Paranoid George and Pinocchio. Before they left the building Ape went over to the fire alarm box on the wall and broke the glass. Then he pulled the lever and they went out and took off down the street.

Upstairs, the prospect ambled toward Granny Fury and was half way down the corridor before she noticed him. When she saw him she hollered, “What the hell are you doing here, you goddam bum?”

He answered, “Cool it, old lady. You don’t bother me, I won’t bother you.”

When he got nearer she smashed her mop into his face and knocked him down. Then she commenced to stomp him as thoroughly as half a dozen bikers could.

About a block away Ape went into a phone booth and called the police. When he got the desk sergeant he told him a wild old charwoman was killing a burglar in that clinic. Then he called an ambulance company and told them a man was all torn to pieces and maimed on the third floor of the clinic. Then he told them where it was and hung up.

After the calls the bikers hung around the area to see what would happen. In a couple of minutes three fire trucks pulled up to the clinic and the firemen crashed in the front door and went in. Two squad cars got there about that time followed by an ambulance. The police raced upstairs just as the ambulance people got out their stretcher.

Ape, Paranoid George and Pinocchio went back to the clinic and watched the action. While the firemen were rushing around connecting hoses the police came down and told them to forget it. Then the ambulance attendants came down carrying the prospect screaming and belted onto the stretcher.

Granny Fury had pushed him down an elevator shaft and broken his leg. His face was all bloody and he was out of his mind with terror. Granny Fury appeared at the entrance waving her mop at the onlookers. She cursed the police and everybody concerned before returning to her work.
Concerning the club structure, next to Big Mike in authority is the vice-president, Noah. He handles matters when Big Mike is not around. If Big Mike should hang up his colors there would be a new election as the vice-president does not necessarily succeed the outgoing president. Especially Noah.

Noah is also the club chaplain. In this post he has conducted a wedding, which may or may not be legal. He is also on hand to give spiritual counseling although no biker has ever wanted any.

Next in line of importance is the club secretary. He is usually the best educated and handles correspondence and legal matters. Nut letters and those from creditors or enraged authorities are answered by Paranoid George.

The last of the club officers are the sergeants-at-arms. They keep order at meetings and parties and generally stay sober while the others are drinking. The biggest and meanest members take turns at being sergeants-at-arms.

The rank and file member has no real authority over anyone nor is he subject to authority unless he gets out of line. His place is about the same as that of a son in a large family. His right to the best deal in anything happening depends first on his seniority. The officers will back him up in a claim to privilege if he has been a righteous member longer than the other members wanting whatever prize is offered.

Next to seniority, toughness and intelligence decide who is on top in a dispute. Members brawl quite a bit but seldom for serious reasons or with much damage inflicted.

The lowest member of the club is the prospect. There is no stigma to being a prospect. He keeps the clubhouse clean and runs errands but no one kicks him around. He just has not proved himself by showing class or being around long enough to be fully accepted and completely trusted.

As a prospect he can only wear the club’s rocker saying “SO. CALIFORNIA” on his cutaway. He gets the club name and the Iron Cross symbol when he has passed his probation.

The most important quality in a prospect is that he must really like the club. There are so many outside pressures against the club that anything less than dedication on the part of the prospect makes him a liability.

The prospect they turned over to Granny Fury was just such a liability. That person was dangerously dumb, as shown by his willingness to burglarize the clinic while the scrub woman looked on. His plans to turn the club into a burglary ring proved he had no real interest in being a biker. Before Big Mike had thought of turning the prospect over to Granny Fury, he had intended to kill him.
About as important as dedication, is trust. The idea of legality has a pretty broad and convenient interpretation among bikers. A loose mouthed or disloyal member could get the club busted up. A prospect has to show he can keep club business to himself before the members talk freely around him.

If the bikers are tight lipped around their own prospects, they are doubly so around outsiders. This is wise since they are always getting pleas from outsiders to help with everything from bank robberies to political assassinations.

Shortly after their run to Las Vegas, Big Mike was awakened at two in the morning by a banging on his door. He got up and went to the door with a pistol. Looking through the peephole, he saw Corky, one of The Three Little Pigs.

He opened the door and said, “What the hell do you want, Corky? It’s two o’clock, man. You woke me up.”

Corky pushed inside and shut and bolted the door. Then he got up to Big Mike’s ear and whispered, “Imagine a Minuteman weapons cache with a dozen thirty caliber machine guns, over a hundred Thompson sub-machine guns, ten cases of grenades. . . .”

Big Mike interrupted, “You don’t have to whisper man. This place isn’t bugged. Now go easy and calm down.”

Corky sat down on the couch and took a few breaths. He was trembling spastically with excitement. Finally he said, “I been working with this other guy in the department infiltrating extremist groups, you know. Anyway, we got in this Minuteman band last year and were just gathering info and all.”

“Like with us?” asked Big Mike suspiciously.

“Don’t worry about us with you, Brown. Your people don’t let us in on nothing they wouldn’t tell any citizen. Besides, I figure you can be useful, like now, so I wouldn’t turn you off by spying on you.”

Big Mike said, “Okay, go on about the machine guns.”

Corky said, “Sure, like I said, me and this other officer have been in this Minuteman outfit for the past year. Mainly what we’ve been doing is collecting arms to store. But we were never let in on where it was stored. We donated stuff from the department to stay acceptable but they didn’t really trust us until tonight.

“Anyhow, they’re mostly screwballs and the band gets decimated because they get jailed for one thing or another. Finally me and this other officer had seniority over most of the band so the leader took me and him out to this cache with thirty cases of depth charges. They’re these small pattern charges shot from destroyers, not the bulky oil drum type. A sailor in San Diego swiped them from the base down there.

“So we went out to this desert land tonight with a truck load of these depth charges. Then the leader dug around and opened a trap door. Under that was a room with an arsenal you wouldn’t believe.

“Now what I want is for you to get about a dozen of your guys together, right now, and let’s go out there and clean that place out. Then we can split fifty-fifty. It has to be tonight because my partner will report it, probably this morning.”

“It sounds great,” said Big Mike. But why didn’t you get Jack and Charlie to get the stuff?”

“Those shitheads?” said Corky. “I wouldn’t trust either of them with anything. Besides, Jack’s too straight and Charlie’s too crooked.”

“Another thing, then,” said Big Mike. “If we should rip off this arsenal and split with you, what would you do with your half? Like, what’s the use of us getting this if you’re going to start peddling all this super illegal weaponry and get busted. Then when they break you, you implicate us and the Treasury people are all over us. I don’t know if it’s worth the risk.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Corky. “I’m not going to peddle the stuff. I’m going to store it away for my group. I’m organizing some guys in the department for when they start disarming the police. It’s sort of like the Minutemen but we’re all police officers. They’re alright but I don’t trust them yet.

“You know, the only weapon we’re allowed to take home is our pistol. That’s the truth. We have shotguns in the cars and in special instances they issue all kinds of weapons but then they take them all back.”

Big Mike said, “You got me all choked up, Corky. But look, if we do this and it’s some kind of trap, you won’t be around to get any commendations. You know that, don’t you?”

“Agreed, no sweat,” said Corky. “Now let’s get to it. You’ll need about a dozen guys and the camper and any other trucks you can get. I’ve got my jeep and that will carry a lot.”

Big Mike called up Noah and told him to pick up Pinocchio and Pigpen. Then he called Black Bart and had him pick up Ape and Ginch. Next, Gorilla Snot, Samson, Gargantua and Indian were called. Big Mike told them to leave their colors at home as they did not want anyone recognized.

The troops were to assemble at the corner of San Fernando and Fletcher Drive in Glendale. Big Mike got into the camper and tore over to the fleabag hotel where Paranoid George was crashing. He was followed by Corky in the jeep.

When they got there they went past the desk and the little old hotel manager and went upstairs to Paranoid George’s room. After pounding on the door for about a minute and hollering, Big Mike just hauled off and kicked the door down. The place was untastefully decorated with pornographic pictures and Playboy foldouts and pictures of puppies and kittens. The floor was littered with beer cans and wine bottles.

Paranoid George was unconscious on a mattress on the floor in the corner. Big Mike shook him but he was completely out and would not wake up. He was wearing his colors so Big Mike took them off before picking him up and slinging him over his shoulder.

The little old hotel manger came to the door and said, “What are you people doing with that guy?”

Corky took out his badge and flashed it to the manager. “Police officers,” he said. “Don’t interfere and you’ll be alright.”

The manager said, “I don’t want any trouble, officers. I would like it if you would take that character off someplace where he can’t find his way back.”

He followed them down the hall chattering on, “You know what he done tonight? He brought three teenage girls up here and they had a party. Then his neighbor wanted to share and you know what he done, he beat that fella up and kicked him downstairs. Then he went in that fella’s room and took all his belongings and threw them out the window. Jesus, I don’t want him back and what about my door?”

Corky said as they went down the stairs, “It’s okay. He’ll fix the door. And you treat him right. He’s a special government agent.”

The old man was dismayed. “The government I pay my taxes to uses that person for an agent. Oh shit! I sure wish you would fix it so he didn’t get back here.”

Big Mike and Corky ignored the old man and went out. Big Mike unloaded Paranoid George into the back of the camper and they each got into their own vehicles and drove off.

When they got to the assembly point, all the bikers Big Mike had picked were there. Ginch had his panel truck and Black Bart and Indian both had pickups. Noah had a Landrover and Gargantua was there with his old hearse.

By this time it was three a. m. and they all sped off down the San Bernardino Freeway. They drove madly when they got out into the desert and reached the site of the cache just before five.

On the property was a derrick someone had erected probably to drill for water. There was also a house trailer with no one living in it.

Paranoid George was awake by now and got out of the camper and joined the others as Corky led them to the cache and they began digging. In moments they came to the trap door. Corky opened it and flashed a light down into the cache.

It was just as Corky had said. The cache was a regular bunker. It was a room over eight feet high and twenty feet long and about sixteen feet wide. There was an unused sleeping cot in one corner and a small but well equipped chemical laboratory at the rear of the bunker.

The bikers all climbed down the ladder and examined the rows of crates holding the goodies. There were indeed a dozen disassembled thirty caliber machine guns. Other cases held one hundred and forty Thompsons. They were all delighted to find five cases of tear gas grenades and even more thrilled to find ten cases of fragmentation grenades.

There were twenty thousand rounds of forty-five caliber ammunition which could be used both in the sub-machine guns or in the eighty unused forty-five automatics they found. There were also fifty thousand, thirty caliber rounds for the machine guns.

There were two hundred M-1 carbines with paratrooper stocks along with forty thousand rounds for them. As if that were not enough, there were eight hundred pounds of C-4 plastic explosive blocks with enough detonators for the hundreds of separate blocks. There were also the thirty cases of depth charges.

Under Big Mike’s direction they took out all the cases of a given type weapon at once. Outside, the cases were divided. Half went into the camper and half went into Corky’s jeep. When the camper and the jeep were full, they went on with the same system with the rest.

Paranoid George approached Big Mike and Corky and said, “Hey man, why not just shoot this goddam cop and us take it all? That way we get a jeep too.”

Big Mike said, “That wouldn’t be right, Paranoid. He might put us onto some other stuff.”

Corky said to Big Mike, “You sure know how to make a guy feel secure.”

The last to be loaded with the laboratory. Big Mike didn’t want it and neither did Corky. Gargantua took it for himself as he was a chemistry nut from way back.

Most of the cases had the number nine marked on them. Corky told Big Mike the nine meant that was the ninth storage place. He had heard there were about thirty in southern California.

He was saddened by the idea that he would probably never see another such bunker as he couldn’t risk facing his Minuteman leader again. The leader might be persuaded that it was the other cop but he would probably just put them both on the Minuteman death list.

By seven a.m. they were loaded up and back on the road. A couple of miles down the highway they met a column of super fuzz. There were three U. S. Government cars, a red fire chief’s car with its light flashing and three big Army trucks. They were going way over the speed limit so wherever the other cop was riding he didn’t notice Corky’s jeep or they would have been stopped.

The bikers had planned to stop soon for breakfast but after seeing the government column they split up at the next crossroad and each vehicle traced a separate route as soon as they hit any kind of intersection.

With their heavy loads and the circuitous routes they had to take, it was eleven-thirty a.m. before they all got to Corky’s place. They unloaded his share into a large U-Haul trailer he had just rented. He knew the other cop would suspect him, so he did not want the stuff around when the department came to search.

Then the bikers left Corky and went to Gargantua’s house in Forest Lawn. They unloaded all the cases from the vehicles and took them into his front room. When they were all spread out on the floor, the bikers opened up the cases and commenced to divide the weapons.

It was agreed that half the loot was club property and the other half was divided up among the troops who raided the arsenal. Only the six, thirty caliber machine guns were held as exclusive club property. Since there were only six of them, Big Mike reasoned that to give three to three of the troops would only cause a lot of jealousy which could lead to inter-club murder.

When all the weapons and ammo were strung out all over the room, the bikers began dividing it. Gargantua’s wife, Andra and his little girl, Ariel were thrilled that Gargantua was going to take care of the club’s half.

Ariel was allowed to play with everything but the grenades. She liked the Thompson sub-machine gun best. Gargantua gave her one for being good and she was overjoyed to be the only little kid in the graveyard to own a tommy gun.

When the arsenal was divided, Gargantua set aside the club’s share in the bedroom. The bikers had their individual shares in piles and they all partied or slept until dark. Then, on Gargantua’s direction, they went all over the cemetery burying the club’s share in freshly dug graves and under bushes and trees.

They all were agreed that the club’s share would make their group the most heavily armed bikers in the country. They felt confident of being able to establish control over any area when society collapsed.

When they had all the weaponry buried the bikers took their individual arsenals and went off to their favorite haunts. There they hid the weapons under floors, in attics and closets. As drunk as the bikers ever got, not one of them ever mentioned the weapons to anyone not in on the raid.