Chapter Three - What's in a Name?

Our club has never had the same name for more than a year or two.

          Motorcycle owners with common interests form clubs.  These clubs have names and most are clever names that define the members’ common characteristics. 

          The biker members can be very creative in the choice of their club names.  Some clubs are comprised of business people.  Others are made up of well-educated professionals; doctors, dentists, accountants, lawyers and even, actuaries. 

          Some clubs have members who are born again Christians.  They are called unimaginatively “Holy Rollers” and when dressed as bikers they can look as ominous as the outlaw bikers.

          Many bikers affect similar grooming and attire.  Outlaw bikers usually have full beards and long hair.  Frequently the hair is pulled back in a mid-back length pony tail.  Others have one long braid.  Many bikers wear long hair under a bandana doo rag.  A born again biker might affect the same look.  You would have to look carefully at the biker’s patches to determine his affection for sin or salvation.

          Our club has never really had a name; at least not a name that stuck.  Oh, we had names but none were very original.  Our members have very few common interests.  Oh, we all enjoy booze.  We smoke some weed.  We snort some meth.  But you can’t name your club “Meth Heads”. 

          Some of the guys steal some stuff from time to time.  But most of our crime is unsuccessful.  We get arrested frequently for petty crimes like shoplifting.  We are the kings of senseless misdemeanors.  We fail miserably whenever a member tries moving up to the level of felony. 

          Our most common characteristic is losing.  Yes we are losers.  Our false pride prevents us from calling our club “Arrested Losers”.  That’s a great name and it damnsure fits.

          “One-per center” clubs are supposed to have fearsome names like Hells Angels, Outcasts, Warlocks and Pagans.  In fact, we don’t even qualify to be a “one per-center” club but we wear the “one per-center” patch anyway.  Aside from an incident at a biker rally, no real outlaw club has ever seriously challenged us, so we keep wearing the patch.

          We’ve never been able to agree on a name and have it stick.  This has cost our members great expense because we have to change the club name on the patch that is sewn on the back of our sleeveless denim jackets that we call our “colors”. 

          These are just some of the names we have used over the years; Jesters, Jokers, Hells Heathen, Hell’s Riders, Mothers’ Mavericks, Raging Chaos, Ass Whipping Renegades, Raging Roadkill, Brutal Boneheads, Apache Warriors, Comanche Riders, Bastard Banditos and Filthy Mavericks.

          We finally hired “Wild Bill” Lomax’s mother, Verna Leigh Lomax, to embroider our club name on new patches as needed and then sew the revised patches on our jackets whenever we make a name change.  Verna Leigh lives on a small Social Security check

and the extra money helps her get by. 

          We also gave her the money to buy a new sewing machine at Sears.  It has all the attachments so she can take in sewing from her neighbors and our club members.  She is able to sew in new zippers, hem pants and dresses, embroider and make full garments.  She’s even made several wedding dresses.  Out where we live, folks don’t have a lot of money for weddings or funerals, so Verna Leigh has developed a nice following.

          The club was founded in 1985 when “Roach” Thrilkill and Harry Ass DuPree quit a club called “Downingtown Death”.  Actually, they didn’t quit.  They were several months past due with their dues and, at first, they just temporarily lost their colors pending payment of the dues.  But, weeks went by and the boys paid no dues, so they were kicked out of the “Death”.

          They were literally “kicked out”.  The Death formed two lines called the Gauntlet of Death and Roach and Harry were forced to run the Gauntlet as they were being kicked by Death members wearing heavy motorcycle boots.  The kicks were supposed to be aimed at their asses but most missed and instead kicked thighs and shins.  Roach and Harry were bruised and in pain for weeks.

          Yep.  They were terminated. 

          Fired from the club forever. 

          That’s all folks!

          The fat lady sang. 

          They were permanently out.

          Absolutely-ass banned from membership in any Death chapters anywhere. 

          They were done, cooked, toast, dead meat.

           No mas. 

          If Roach and Harry Ass were to successfully build membership in their new club, they would need a great name.  It should be a fierce name.  A scare-shit-outa-‘em name. 

          They convened a brainstorming naming meeting at a back table at the Crossroads Tavern on Route 352.  Roach made Rugburn come.  Rugburn was creative and Roach could recognize talent.  Roach threw five twenties on the table, ordered up pitchers of draft Budweiser and he told the waitress to keep the shots of Yukon Jack whiskey coming.  After a few rounds they realized they needed some paper and a pencil. 

          It occurred to Roach that they should write down the names that might be suggested.

          Rugburn proposed, “How ‘bout Ragin’ Roadkill.”

          Roach responded, “Tha’z good.  Write that down.”  Harry was one of the smartest Saints and had some college.  Roach trusted him to record all these great ideas.

          ‘What about Vicious Varmits?  Write that down.  Or Vermin Varmits. Or, Pukin’ Pigs.”

          Harry Ass hated “Vicious Varmits” but he started to write it down anyway and asked, “How you spell Vicious?”  Roach answered, “I don’t fuckin’ know.  Just spell it ‘V-I-S-H-U-S’.”

          Harry thought to himself, “Roach always wants to use some ridiculous alliteration in his name choices.  And, he is one of the least creative bastards that I’ve ever known.”

          Five hours of hard drinking passed and there was still no name decided for the new club.  As the time passed though, the group at the table had gotten bigger so there were even more suggestions and Harry was pleased that the alcohol had frozen the Roach’s brain and he was nodding off.  The new table guests actually made some interesting suggestions. 

          Twin brothers, Heckle and Jeckle Johnston showed up about 7:45 PM and chugged a large pitcher on Roach’s tab.  They were not identical twins.  They were fraternal twins.  Heckle was 6’1” and weighed over 400 pounds.  Jeckle was 5’4” and weighed about 130 pounds.

          There is much confusion over the disparity in the twins’ stature and appearance.  Heckle is bald and has been since age seventeen.  Jeckle has a full head of crinkly rusty red hair.  It bushes out uncontrollably so that it frames his tiny thin face.  Some people in the family swear that even though they were born at the same time, only eight minutes apart, the boys were sired by two different men.  Their mother, Helene Swearingen, was known to sleep with many men and frequently.

          One of the men, Darren Johnston, was one of her favorites and he was about six feet and weighed about 350 pounds.  He was bald.  Another of Helene’s boyfriends, Tommy Lee Dickens, was smallish but carried a mighty fine nine inch penis.  That measurement was flaccid.  Tommy Lee also had flame red hair.        Helene had shared herself with both men one night in the ladies room at the Rib Pit Restaurant and Bar in Coatesville.  I’m no doctor but lots of folks swear that the boys actually have two different fathers.

          The twins try to dress alike.  They wear the same black biker boots.  Both men wear loose fitting faded dirty jeans with black official Harley Davidson T shirts and denim cutoff jackets.  They were not colored-up or patched-in with any club.  No decent club would have them.  They were miserable loser wannabes. 

          Since they were not members of a club and since they still lived at home, they had their mother, Helene Lambert, make patches for the back of their jackets that read in matching script, “Heckle” and “Jeckle”.  By the time the boys were grown, Helene was born again although that never seemed to prevent an occasional romantic tryst when she could trap some old man. 

          Helene even made patches for the front of their jackets that were book names, chapter numbers and verse numbers of some of her favorite scriptures.  Both men had a patch that read, “John 3 - 16”.  Both of the boys were too dumb to understand what she had embroidered on the small patches and the biblical patches just added to boys’ unrealized humiliation.

          Bikers would point to the patches and ask, “Hey, Jeckle, what the fuck does that mean?”

          Jeckle would answer with a lisp, “Das fo’ dos guys we beat shit out of ovah in Hawisbug that time.  Me and Heckle kicked dey asses.  They was seven, no nine of them, and we kicked they asses good.” 

          The twins claimed to be second cousins to the infamous Johnston family gang down in Oxford, Pennsylvania.  Most members of the Johnston gang were either doing long term hard time or they were dead.  Their specialty had been stealing farm equipment and construction equipment. 

          The Johnston gang leaders were master thieves and stole equipment valued in the millions.  The family was colorful, newsworthy and entertaining but vicious.  Hollywood liked their story so much that they made a 1986 movie At Close Range that starred Christopher Walken and Sean Penn.

          Heckle and Jeckle were proud of their notorious cousins.  Both boys would lie and tell people they were in the movie and played big parts.  They would proudly tell people they were part of the Johnston gang.  They neglected to calculate that at the time the movie was filmed they were ten years old. 

          Both boys failed to finish the fourth grade and both left school at age fourteen.  Well, actually, they were permanently suspended for sexual advances they continued to make on fifth and sixth grade girls.

          Bulldog Petty and his one-legged girl friend, Cheryl Ann, also came in and joined the impromptu party at the tavern.  They spotted the boys, sat down at the table and started drinking schnapps.  They were looking for a party, especially a free party.  Bulldog was drinking cherry schnapps and Cheryl Ann was drinking banana schnapps.  Both ordered tall boy mugs with no ice and they were drinking fast.

          By midnight the crew had expanded to nine people with the additions of Spanky Carter, his old lady, Nookie, and Gringo Mann.  The table had consumed eight large pizzas and Roach and Harry Ass had kicked in another $160 for pizza, schnapps, pitchers of beer and shots.

          The party broke up when Jeckle asked Cheryl to, “Show us your tits.  C’mon baby, show us your tits.  Lemme see dem beauty boobs.” 

          Cheryl Ann had been asked for this favor dozens of times and she had proudly obliged all the requests but this time she was pissed.  She was proud of the shape of her breasts but slightly embarrassed about the size of her nipples.  The left areola and nipple were the circumference of a dime.  The right areola and its nipple were about the same size as can of Budweiser.  No doctor had ever been able to explain this disparity but two physicians had photographed the breasts and written formal articles for the New England Journal of Medicine.

          She thought, “The cheap son-of-a-bitch didn’t even offer me five dollars.”  A few times Cheryl had gotten as much as $20 when astounded bar patrons had seen the unequal nipples.  One time bar patrons collected up $113.00 if Cheryl would sit at the bar naked from the waist up for at least an hour.  Guys got the pay phone and the cell phones and soon the bar was enjoying its biggest night ever as more than fifty customers came for the Cheryl show.  The newcomers ponied up to a 24 ounce beer mug and tipped another $237.00.

          Cheryl thought about all the previous appreciation stirred on by her magic tits and angrily threw her schnapps into an “ungrateful and cheapass” Jeckle’s face.

          Of course a fight ensued. 

          The men and women were too drunk to actually hit one another and everyone wound up on the floor on their backs or on their knees.  Three of them vomited on the Crossroads floor. 

           Of course, the cops came.  They were in no mood to deal with these drunks, smelling of vomit and blasted in to incoherence.  They were in no mood to book this motley crew.  The paperwork, fingerprinting and mug shots would have been a nightlong nightmare.  Sergeant Morris told them all to go home and sleep it off.  They were way too drunk to drive but they would be riding their bikes and Sarge figured that at this late hour other motorists would have the upper hand in an accident. 

          Heckle and Jeckle couldn’t get their bikes started and crawled in the back of a pickup and passed out in the Crossroad’s parking lot.  They were black out drunk and didn’t know a thing until they woke the next morning parked next to the driver’s trailer in a small trailer park.  The pickup owner had been too drunk to notice the boys in the back of his truck.

          Heckle had his cell phone.  He sent Jeckle to get the name of the park and directions.  He called his mama to come get them

          No name for the new club was ever agreed on that night.  They missed a chance to make history.

          This name thing has been our dilemma throughout our club history.