“Daddy says bikers are bad men who hurt people,” the five-year-old boy whispered to me at the gas station, clutching his juice box so tight it was leaking. His mother yanked him away before I could respond, shooting me a disgusted look at my leather vest and gray beard. Three days later, that same little…
An old bikers club showed up at the burned ruins of my house with a birthday cake for my boy who didn’t exist anymore, and I had to tell them that boy died in the fire they were standing in. These weren’t just any bikers, the most feared men in three counties, each one looking…
My wife handed me divorce papers at my mother’s funeral because she couldn’t wait one more day to be rid of the “embarrassing biker trash” she’d married. Twenty-eight years of marriage, and she chose the moment I was carrying my mother’s casket to tell me she’d been fucking my brother – the successful one, the…
I watched an old trashy biker thief pick up a dropped wallet at the gas station and my heart sank, expecting him to pocket it like the thief I assumed he was. My hand was already reaching for my phone to call 911, my mind racing with judgments about his tattoos, his rough appearance, the…
Your dad was just a trash biker who died on his stupid motorcycle; the biggest boy sneered at a seven-year-old girl who stood alone at her school bus stop while six kids threw her dead father’s memorial card in the mud, laughing as she cried. Emma’s crime? Emma clutched her pink backpack tighter as the…
I took off my Vietnam Veteran patch and threw it in the trash after a young mother grabbed her child and crossed the street to avoid me at the gas station. Forty-seven years of wearing those colors with pride, gone in one moment of pure shame. I sat in that gas station parking lot for…
I found a suicide note in my motorcycle’s saddlebag that wasn’t mine. Twenty-three years old, female handwriting, dated for tomorrow – December 15th at 3 PM, Riverside Bridge. The paper was worn at the edges like she’d been carrying it for a while, working up the courage. I’d stopped at Murphy’s Diner for coffee like…
37 bikers formed a human shield around the church while L.G.B.T.Q supremacists screamed threats, and I was the one who started it all with a single Facebook post. My name’s Jim Crawford, 71 years old, and I’ve been riding since before most of these young hatemongers were born. When I saw the news about the…
This became our new normal. Every treatment day, a different Iron Hearts member would be there. Reading newspapers, doing crossword puzzles, just being present. They called it “security detail,” making sure we got to and from safely. They learned things about Emma. How she loved butterflies and collected books about them. How purple was her…
A seven-year-old foster kid asked me if my motorcycle could take him to heaven to see his mom. I was just stopping for gas on a Sunday morning ride when this skinny kid with bruises on his arms walked up to my Harley and ran his small hand along the tank like it was made…
63 bikers showed up at my dying daughter’s hospital window at exactly 7 PM, engines thundering in perfect unison for thirty seconds before falling silent. Emma was too weak to stand, but she pressed her tiny palm against the glass as tears rolled down her face – the first time she’d smiled in weeks. The…
The old biker handed me the keys to his $30,000 Harley and said five words that haunt me every day: “You need this more than me.” I was standing on the bridge at 3 AM, looking down at the black water, calculating if the fall would be enough, when I heard his motorcycle rumble to…
They told me I couldn’t serve communion anymore because my Harley was “sending the wrong message” to the congregation. Forty-three years I’d been a deacon at First Baptist, never missed a Sunday, tithed faithfully even when money was tight. But the moment our new young pastor saw me roll up on my bike for the…
Twenty armed bikers surrounded my daughter’s elementary school, engines roaring, blocking every exit while police sirens wailed in the distance. I pressed my face against the classroom window, watching these leather-clad monsters rev their motorcycles as my eight-year-old Emma cowered behind me, and I knew with terrifying certainty that we were trapped. The principal’s voice…
We were thirty miles into the Nevada desert when the dog first appeared in my mirrors, tongue hanging out, legs pumping furiously to keep up with our pack of twenty riders. “Got a tail,” I radioed to the others, expecting him to give up after a few hundred yards like every other desert dog. But…
“Don’t touch him, you dis.gusting old ped.ophile biker!” The mother yanked her son away from the bearded biker, her face twisted in disgust at his leather vest and tattoos. Ten-year-old Tyler Chen had been cornered against Peterson’s Drugstore, his Pokemon cards scattered across the sidewalk while the older boys demanded his birthday money. His tears…
“Security will remove him if he shows up on that disgusting motorcycle,” I announced to the funeral director, pointing at my oldest brother Jake’s name on the guest list. At 45, I’d built a successful law practice, and I wasn’t about to let my degenerate biker brother ruin Dad’s respectable funeral. My sister Karen nodded…
The old biker started CPR on the dying teenager while everyone was just filming and too afraid to help. I watched from my car, frozen, as this seventy-something man in torn leathers pounded on the kid’s ribs while everyone else just filmed with their phones. The boy’s mother was screaming, begging God, begging anyone –…
My Daughter Helped an Old Biker Pay for His Groceries and gave his entire piggy bank savings to an elderly biker who couldn’t afford groceries, and I thought that was the end of it. Three weeks later, I woke to the thunderous roar of fifty motorcycles surrounding our small rental house, leather-clad riders filling our…
My son’s Harley was going to kill me too until those blue lights flashed. I was doing 95 in a 55 when the police lights filled my mirrors, but I didn’t care about the ticket or jail or losing my license because the bottle of pills in my jacket pocket was going to solve all…
“Your biker lifestyle makes you unfit to raise a child,” Judge Peterson declared, peering over his glasses at the old man in leather standing before him. “Living in a motorcycle clubhouse, associating with known felons, no stable income beyond Social Security – I’ve seen enough.” Thunder McKenzie, seventy-three years old with hands that shook from…
The little girl couldn’t have been more than seven, standing beside my Harley in the Walmart parking lot with tears streaming down her face, clutching a crumpled piece of notebook paper. She was alone, trembling in the Texas heat, her Frozen backpack hanging off one tiny shoulder. “Mister,” she whispered, looking up at me with…
“Women who ride motorcycles are just asking to become statistics,” my boss announced during our Monday safety meeting, looking directly at me. Twenty-three male colleagues nodded along as he pulled up accident data on his PowerPoint. “Especially young women riding alone. It’s not about skill – it’s about biology. Weaker reflexes, less upper body strength,…
“That’s a trash bike, old man. Shame you’ll be dead before you pay it off.” The kid said and hawked the biggest wad of spit I’d ever seen directly onto my gas tank, then laughed as it dripped down the custom paint job I’d spent three months perfecting. His friends cackled like hyenas while I…
I was watching them lower my empty coffin when a deaf boy on a rusty bicycle frantically waved his arms at the funeral director. My wife sobbed in the front row, my motorcycle club brothers stood in formation, and everyone believed I was dead – because that’s what I’d planned for the last six months….