The story of our club’s “founding” night at the Crossroads Tavern has grown over the years. It has become a holy historic event. It has powerful, almost religious implications, not unlike Moses returning from the mountaintop with the ten tablets. With each telling, the founding night takes on more grandeur. More importance. More beauty. More pure majesty.
Roach would have you believe that, “Harley Davidson hisself had come to him in a blinding light and said, ‘Roach, form a new club of top outlaw riders. No chickenshit riders. Get me the best.’”
Nobody had the balls to challenge Roach and tell him there was no Harley Davidson. The first engine was built in 1901 by William S. Harley who intended to mount it on a bicycle.
He joined up with Arthur Davidson and together they built the first motorcycle in 1903. They sold that first bike to a Henry Meyer, a school pal of the boys in Milwaukee. Henry became the first biker.
So maybe it was Henry Meyer who appeared to Roach in a blinding light. Roach was near-sighted and sometimes made identification mistakes.
Our club has had thirty-three names in our 25 years of existence. Several names were applauded as the ultimate choice. Roach would say, “This is it! We are now the ‘Ragin’ Heathen’ and, goddammit, ain’t gonna be no more changes.”
Many times we would hear about another club with the name we had chosen. That’s what happened with “Raging Heathen”. We heard from a club in Thousand Oaks, California with the name “Raging Heathen”. They had copyrighted the name and incorporated as Raging Heathen, Inc. They had a lawyer protect the name every way possible.
Roach got a phone call from the lawyer who also sent a certified letter demanding we abandon the name. Both the phone call and the letter threatened to sue our asses if we continued the use of the name Raging Heathen.
Then Roach got a phone call from the president of the California Raging Heathen, one Mr. John “Bull” Bartram. Mr. Bartram advised Roach that he and his eight club chapters and 314 members would send a war party immediately to, “Shut you the fuck down, way down, unless you rip off your colors and burn them a big-ass bonfire. I want you to FedEx a video tape no later than tomorrow morning showing each patch as it’s thrown in the fire. If I don’t get that tape, I’m sending fifty of my hardass cowboys to make your puny asses history.”
Roach made a few phone calls and learned that Bull himself was known to have killed five rival bikers. Three died from a bare-handed beating by Bull. He shot the other two.
We sent for our club seamstress, Verna Leigh Lomax, who carefully removed all the Raging Heathen patches she had just finished embroidering two weeks earlier.
Roach dispatched Ass Track and Boner to Walmart to shoplift a video camera. They were caught in the act and apprehended just outside the front entrance.
The Exton, Pennsylvania police pulled the rap sheets on both men and found three warrants for Ass Track and four distributing drugs and two DUI warrants for Boner. They called Roach from the Chester County jail and he promised to have Larry Lee Cohen, Esquire the club’s retained lawyer, come out to the jail in the morning.
Roach then sent Kinky Carl to buy a video camera at Kmart.
Heckle and Jeckle, who were now prospects, built a big bonfire and we burned all of Verna Leigh’s beautiful embroidery and video-taped the whole event.
We used the fire as an excuse to get shitface drunk. Verna Leigh was thrilled because it meant she’d make another pot full of money. She was excited and stayed to watch the fire.
Well, wouldn’t you know it?
Roach screwed up and made a blank disc which we FedExed to Bull in California.
The next day there were threats and screams on the phone. We finally had to put Verna Leigh on the phone to speak to Bull. She swore she had witnessed the bonfire and she convinced him we had burned the patches.
Thank God! She saved us from a bad, bad beating.
Bull had a soft spot for his mama. He believed Verna Leigh. He could hear the sincerity in her voice.
At this time we are presently Satan’s Saints.
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