SHOCKWAVE

A Biker’s Short Story By:

Kit Cain

© Christopher Cain 2008

We was havin’ a buzz, you know, a little party on the outskirts of Vegas on a Saturday night. About 200 of us
drifted up the road toward this big old Quonset Hut on our Harleys. We called it the Clubhouse, but it wasn’t no
clubhouse like the VFW Dance Hall in town.

You had to go out a few miles on route 160 into the desert past Spring Mountain Ranch, and if you didn’t watch
real careful like, you’d miss the turnoff from the pavement onto a couple a’ ruts in the sand and mesquite … ruts
that wound their way back up into a blind canyon in the brown rock until you came to a narrow openin’ sealed off
by a 10-foot high Cyclone fence and locked gate between two vertical rock walls. You didn’t have to have much
of a brain to know you wasn’t welcome beyond that fence. There was this huge red and white sign that said
NO TRESPASSING… OR ELSE! And if that wasn’t enough, there was four of the meanest lookin’, loudest growlin’
Rottweilers in Creation tryin’ their best to get at you through the fence. By the time I got there, there was half
the gang hauled off the side of the track on their bikes waitin’ for me to arrive.

Bein’ the Club Founder and Leader-n’-all, I ride in the middle of the pack. I tell ‘em it’s for “pertection”, but really
it ain’t. I choose which riders lead on the trail for special reasons—reasons not to be mentioned here—and there
ain’t a man in the club wouldn’t give two month’s pay to ride in front of a hundred or two hundred bikes. Last
summer they was five hundred of us from three clubs went up the Mendocino coast, and, let me tell you, we
shook up more than the roadside sheep.

Anyways … I pulled up to the gate on my old Knuckle-Buster, and by the time I had dug up my key to the big
brass padlock, the dogs’ growls had turned into a bunch of whinin’ and yappin’ and excited barks. It wasn’t like
the first time I’d ever been through that gate, and when I swung the twelve-foot wide gate open, they liked to
smother me.

Ever’body cranked up then, and the sound’a hundreds o’ unmuffled Harley engines bounced off the walls o’
that canyon like so much rollin’ thunder. You could barely hear the dogs howl as they chased alongside. By the
time we’d covered another quarter mile, the mountain ridges widened out into a nice little valley completely
surrounded by a high rim of impassable rock so’s the rest of the world had no idea what went on in that Quonset
Hut and the other old buildin’s that was once a farmhouse, cattle barn, pig barn, and hay shed. Good thing! …
but I’ll tell you ‘bout that later.

The buildin’s, a’course, wasn’t empty, but you’d of never knowed it. If the boys that work there hadn’t known we
was comin’, you could be sure every window in the place would’ve had a shotgun stickin’ out. It was just startin’
to get dark real quick like it does in the desert—and ‘specially when the sun gets down below the mountain
ridges—when Dean come outa’ the farmhouse with a smile on his face and grabs me in a big bear hug. Dean
ain’t no midget— six foot four and a good 280 pounds … and I ain’t but a little smaller than him. He runs the …
well … the “farm” as we calls it, and also the “lab”.
“You ready for 200 thirsty Bearcats?” I asked him.
“Go look in the shed,” he replied.

I went over to the Quonset Hut, hauled back the doors, and there on the dirt floor stood half-a-dozen old-time
soft-drink coolers loaded to the rim with ice cubes and twenty cases of beer. There was also four pool tables, a
dozen stacks o’ chairs, four poker tables, and couches all around the outside of the Hut … a space about as big
as a basketball court. Dean was lookin’ at me to see if I approved. I looked right at him and give him a nod and
a smile.
“Start the music?” he asked. I nodded again and within two minutes the whole place begun to shake like there’s
a major earthquake, and the club members wandered in and helped theirselves to the beer.

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Now you have to understand that a party for the boys ain’t no party for me. I have to be on my toes every
minute. I can out-drink, out-fight, out-fuck, out-think, and out-run most every man in this club, but not with a
belly fulla’ beer … and somebody’s got to keep order in the playpen when alcohol turns the animals loose from
their chains. Ain’t no law allowed in here but the law of the toughest, the meanest, and the most fearless, and I
got more scar tissue than a war between a surgeon and butcher.

I figured I had about two hours to kill ‘fore the first fist-fight, so I motioned to Dean.
“Let’s go out back,” I said, and we walked out the back door of the Quonset Hut into the bike shop. The noise
died down to a dull roar as the door closed.
“Took in five new bikes this past week,” Dean said. “Complete re-builds, new paint jobs, and new serial numbers.
Jimmy’s a genius with a TIG-welder.”
“Somebody’s gotta give the insurance companies a reason for bein’ there,” I remarked; “can’t let ‘em keep all
those premiums to theirselves,” and we both had a good laugh.

When you looked around the bike shop there was parts from all makes of motorcycles stacked on shelves from
dirt floor to ceilin’ … rows of shelves wall-to-wall with walkways in between. The only concrete floor had been
poured in the weldin’ shop … on one wall of which was a slidin’ door into what used to be the old pig shed. The
pig shed had no windows and no other doors … no floor either; just a long, gradual dirt ramp big enough for a
garden tractor to make its way down into an underground series of tunnels that connected ten 40-foot-long steel
shippin’ containers to the main tunnel. An eerie light from full-spectrum neon lights sort of vibrated in the heavy
moist air. No desert down here … just thousands of carefully nurtured cannabis plants growin’ merrily to their
well-watered hearts’ content out of sight … but definitely not out of mind.

That rickety old windmill next to the farmhouse may have looked like it was on its last legs, but a thousand-
gallon underground water cistern full of water in an otherwise bone-dry desert testified to its slow but steady
output. Several huge old willow trees with deep roots also testified to the fact that what little water there was
to flow off the perimeter of the surroundin’ mountains settled into a plentiful water table deep down under that
windmill.

Suddenly my cell phone started to vibrate. I flipped it open and could see it was Bubba, my number two man
who was still back in Vegas.
“What’s up?” I asked, knowin’ it had to be important for him to call at all.
“It’s Jughead again,” Bubba replied. “He and his ass-hole buddy broke in on a couple-a’ broads in their apartment
and started cuttin’ ‘em up. Fuzzball was with ‘em, but when things started to get violent he got scared and cut
out; that’s how I know about it. You want me to do somethin’?”
“Just wait outa’ sight for me,” I said. “Tail ‘em if they leave and call me. Where are you?”
“In an alley across from the big red-brick apartment buildin’, one block west of the McDonald’s where we usually
eat breakfast.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I said and then turned to Dean. “Take care of things, Dean. I’ll be back in an
hour or two.”

Well, I normally move pretty slow and careful, but it wasn’t 30 seconds before I was on that old Knuckle Buster
like a stunt man on a horse and there wasn’t nothin’ but a cloud o’ dust all the way to the paved highway. From
there I was flat out flyin’ low like a scared pig from a slaughterhouse pen. I have no idea how fast I was goin’… no
lights … speedo needle pegged at 120 … passed three cars before they even knew I was there.
When I finally got to Bubba, he was real nervous. He’d heard one of the girls screamin’ from the apartment
across the street and figured the police would arrive any minute.
“Get Bessie out of her hidin’ place,” I said as I shut down.
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Bubba pulled Bessie, the double-barreled, sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun from her carefully concealed hidin’ place
under his saddlebags, and handed her to me along with four shells. I cracked open the breach and shoved two
shells into the chamber as I ran up the stairs to the apartment Bubba had pointed out. I started to put my ear
to the door, but then heard a muffled scream of terror followed by what sounded like a life or death struggle …
and man, that was all I needed.

The hardware on that metal door didn’t stand a chance against 220 pounds of pissed-off animal. It took whole
chunks of the door frame with it when I hit it full-on, slammin’ it open with a small explosion. The site that met
my eyes would make any normal person vomit on the spot. One of the girls was naked and unconscious from loss
of blood—both her breasts cut up—and Jughead was still humpin’ her. Jughead’s buddy had a knife to his girl’s
throat and was tryin’ to get her legs apart. She was fightin’ for her life.

At the sound of the door explodin’ open, Jughead and his buddy turned to look at me with total surprise on their
faces. It was the last thing those eyes ever saw. My first blast took Jughead’s head clean off his shoulders; the
second blast splattered his buddy’s brains all over the girl and the room. The girl looked at me with terror in her
face. I shook my head and said softly:
“I’ll have an ambulance here in a minute.”
Only then did I hear Bubba callin’ me … and the sound of sirens not two blocks away comin’ on fast.

Bubba and I managed to beat a very quiet but hasty retreat, stayin’ outa sight, lights off, and engines barely idlin’
along. Once we was a few blocks away, we split up and I headed back for the party. By the time I arrived, maybe
an hour had passed and nobody had missed me. That was good. I made a point of goin’ up to several of the
sharper club members and askin’ ‘em what time it was … just in case, you know, I ever needed an alibi. I’m sure
that terrified girl reco’nized me. Dean walked over:
“You been to town and back already?” he asked, surprised-like.
I nodded my head.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“Not too good,” I said and nodded with my head for him to follow me out of anyone’s earshot.
“Jughead and his buddy are both dead,” I said quietly. “They broke in on two girls, one sliced up and dead from
a loss of blood; the other fightin’ for her life. I don’t know what kinda’ stuff those guys was on, but they’ll never
be on it again.”
“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Dean. Then there was a long pause. “Did you …. ahhh …” and he stopped like he didn’t
really want to know. I nodded my head and turned away. We was both real quiet, not knowin’ what to say. I broke
out a cigarette and lit it … my fingers shakin’ more’n just a little. Finally, Dean broke the silence:
“You want a beer?” he asked; and that sounded like the best idea I’d heard all night.
“Yeah … I think I’ll have a couple,” I said, lookin’ around for the nearest cooler, but Dean had beat me to it. He
expertly de-capped two beers with his pocket knife and handed me one.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked me.
I shook my head and took a long drink of ice-cold beer.
“I understand,” he said, and then added nervously: “Well … I’ll look after the party if you want to leave. Call me
if you need anythin’ … anythin’ at all.”

I nodded again and then made my way through the dim light, thick smoke, guys yellin’, singin’, dancin’, slappin’
me on the shoulder as I walked by, until I stepped through the slightly-ajar Quonset Hut doors into the clear, cold,
desert air and a perfect starlit night. Suddenly, it was quiet enough to think clearly.

A shockwave had hit me … sort of numbed my brain. Dean recognized it. I knew he’d been there before me. It
was like a place of no return … an’ … an’ you had to go there.
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Fights between the guys I could deal with … and had done so ever since the club started. We had rules that was
very strictly enforced; you wanted to be a member of the Hog Dragons, you lived by the rules. The number one
rule was: no hard drugs. Alcohol and pot was okay … use anythin’ more and you was out.

But the “Lab”— the farmhouse beside the Quonset Hut— must’ve been too much for Jughead. That’s where we
made the Krak; and bein’ that close to a source must’ve been more than he could handle. Jughead wasn’t really
a bad guy, but I knew somethin’ was affectin’ him. Several of the guys had told me he’d been caught stealin’ stuff,
was drinkin’ too much, and actin’ mean with other members. I had tried to talk to him, but he didn’t want to talk
or even admit that he had a problem. And so it came to this.

I couldn’t afford to feel guilty for what I’d done … or even whether it was right or wrong. It was done, and that
was that. It was history and history is always dead. What’s a leader for? Who knows where events come from
anyway? So I climbed on my old knuckle-Buster Harley and headed back for Vegas … slowly this time … and deep
in thought.

The club had got big slowly … like it sort of crept up on me and I hadn’t noticed the problems multiplyin’. It
used to be just fun—a bunch of us roarin’ off together with our girls … or to the girls at the Moonlight Ranch.
All we really wanted to do was drink and screw. Then the club got bigger because we drank a lot and screwed
a lot and had lotsa’ fun. Soon we needed money, so we went into business. Motorcycles around Vegas started
disappearin’. We figured they was meant to be rode, not parked. We had all kinds of bike parts for sale: almost-
new … slightly used … and cheap, shiny, newly-painted bikes with new serial numbers. We asked ourselves what
the insurance companies would do without us!

Then we decided the pot we smoked was lousy stuff— and too expensive to boot— so we started growin’ our
own underground… sold it to club members cheap, and it was such good stuff we started sellin’ it to ever’body
else. We got into Krak cocaine sort of by mistake. A guy with a master’s degree in chemistry joined the club and
showed several other members how to make it. I should’ve stopped it, but I didn’t. Mistake number one! The
money was too easy; but keepin’ it quiet wasn’t.

Nowadays lots of the Guys is under police surveillance; helicopters is flyin’ over the farm and photographin’ it
from the air. And what’s the worst of all, Hell’s Angels arrived on the scene and told us to lay off “their” territory
or die keepin’ it. Suddenly the whole thing was not fun any more.
“But …” I asked myself. “how the Hell do I get myself out of this one?”
It’s amazin’ how trapped you feel when you’re locked into a situation that’s got worse gradually over time …
especially when there’s big money involved.

All this I was thinkin’ on my way back to Vegas, and right quick the towers and lights of Vegas was just a short
distance down the road. My first impulse was to go somewhere where it’s busy and I don’t have to live with my
mind. The Flamingo Hotel was a very old stompin’ ground for me and one where I thought I could find a show or
a game of poker just to take my mind off today’s history lesson. Not ten minutes later I found myself pullin’ into
the parkin’ lot and makin’ my way into the front lobby.

As I made my way around the rows of slot machines, blackjack tables, and crap tables, I suddenly looked up like
you do when you feel someone’s watching’ you. Sure as hell, there was someone lookin’ me right in the eye …
and smilin’ … from about fifty feet away in the slot machine area. It took me a second to figure out who she was
… and why a very classy lady would be looking at a bike bum like me in the first place. Suddenly I knew. She was
a chorus line dancer who had come to one of our smaller parties in Vegas a few years back with a bunch of her
chorus line girlfriends. There was only ten or fifteen of us club members at the party that night— by my own
careful design— because we knew these were pretty classy, very well-paid girls. We had got as cleaned up as a
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bunch of bikers could get, and fixed up one of our rented, in-town storage garages for the party.

When the girls showed up, they was more than a little cautious except this one I’m looking at right now. She
waltzed right in to our fixed-up space, confident and full of fun like she was goin’ to a fraternity party. A’course
the rest followed and we invited ‘em to have a drink at our little makeshift bar and tried to entertain ‘em as best
we could without actin’ like a buncha’ animals. Some sat at the poker table and played poker; some went over to
the pool tables—and I want to tell you some of them girls was real hotshot pool players. We turned the music up
and the rest either danced or hung out and talked with us or among their-selves. Around midnight, we took ‘em
all for a midnight motorcycle ride out on the desert where the air was clear as a pane of glass and you felt like
you could just reach up and touch the stars. Didn’t they love that! Afterwards, some stayed and partied, several
disappeared with guys, but this partic’lar one I’m lookin’ at and her friends thanked us for the great evening and
went home together. That was the last I saw of her, and that must’ve been a good three years ago.

So now that I knew who she was, I walked over to where she was pluggin’ a slot machine with quarters and spoke
to her:
“It’s good to see you again; it’s been a long time,” I said.
“Yes, it has,” she replied, “but I won’t forget that party. It was during my first job as a dancer. I also won’t ever
forget that midnight ride on your motorcycle.” she said.
“Well, I’ll be darned,” I said. “That’s right! You went with me that night, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and I remember your name, too: Monty— short for Montana, right?”
“Right-on,” I said more than a little self-consciously … and more than a little surprised.
“I betcha’ don’t remember mine,” she said mischievously.
“I bet I do, Crystal! I don’t forget when I meet a beautiful woman,” I said and noticed she had swallowed real
hard when I said that. I went on:
“I seem to remember you as the kinda’ woman who don’t mind taking chances … but you really shouldn’t be
bettin’ that one-armed bandit that you can’t lose all your money inside an hour.”
“What do you mean? Look at this!” she said, showing me a plastic bucket full of quarters. “I just won 50 bucks!
I’m not stupid. I walk around and wait ‘till these little old ladies have worked one machine ‘til their money’s gone.
Then I move in. I give myself a $10 limit to test the machine— maybe $15 at most— then move on … and this is
what happens,” she said holding out the bucket.
“Good thinking,” I said. “Myself, I work the crap tables and the poker tables, but why don’t you quit while you’re
ahead and we’ll go over to the Lounge for a drink?”
“That sounds good to me,” she said.

We went over to the Cashier to change her quarters for paper dollars, then found a quiet booth off by ourselves
where we could talk. I felt more than a little self-conscious dressed in my jeans, denim shirt, leather vest, ponytail
of brown and gray hair, and short beard of the same, walking beside a classy lady with blond hair, jewelry
everywhere, and a low-cut white dress. People turned to look at us and I knew they wasn’t lookin’ at me. You
couldn’t miss the men lookin’ at her chest. I might’ve been doing the same except by this time in my life I was
beginnin’ to notice that there was women who had somethin’ more than a body, and I kinda’ had this feelin’ that
Crystal was one of them. It didn’t take me long to find out how right my feelings was. We found a booth, ordered
a couple drinks and started to talk. The drinks never got touched, and I couldn’t stop talkin’—two things that’s
never happened to me before.
“You still workin’ the Chorus Line?” I asked her.
“Yes, but that’s getting real old,” she said, “and I’m getting older, too. Hell, I’m almost 50 and that’s hard work. I
can’t go on doing that forever.”
“Well, you sure don’t look fifty, Sister!” I said.
“Thank you, but I’m getting a little saggy in places that don’t meet chorus line standards.”
“What else can you do?” I asked.
6
“Real Estate,” she replied without a moment’s hesitation. “I’ve made good money for the past fifteen years
working the stage and invested every penny I could scrape together in residential real estate knowing that
time would come when I’d need it. I married young— too young. I didn’t know what men were like. I married
a successful businessman thinking I’d be taken care of for the rest of my life. Well, it took me exactly a year to
figure out that I was just another one of his possessions— and my job was to clean up after him, feed him, and
fuck him whenever he came home or woke up. That wasn’t exactly my idea of a marriage, and there didn’t seem
to be any room for negotiation.”
“No love there?” I asked.
“Oh, there was for about six months when I thought I was in love with him. But what the hell is love, anyway?
It’s no different than anything else in this crazy, mixed-up world. Love is where the reward you get justifies the
price you have to pay … isn’t it?”

I smiled at how intelligent she was and how clear her picture of life was.
“What do you know about love?” she asked me, point blank.
“I don’t know a damn thing about love,” I said, “except about the things I love to do. I know a lot about bein’ a
friend, though. You have any friends?”
She thought about that for a moment.
“Actually, you know, I don’t. I’m a real loner. It’s not like I want to be either, it’s just that … I don’t know …
relationships of any kind are so … so … entangling … you know what I mean? You don’t have any real freedom
because you’re always thinking of the other person first.”
I smiled. Boy, had she said a mouthful.
“I have a lot of friends,” I replied, “but none of ‘ems close friends. I don’t let anyone get too close to me, and
I guess it’s because I get hurt too easy and too deep and the pain isn’t— like you say— worth the price. My
freedom is freedom from pain and rejection.”
“Mine too,” she said. “You ever been married?”
“Nope,” I said. “Only thing I ever wanted a woman around for is to get screwed, but that’s gettin’ pretty old,
too.”
“You mean it’s down to once a week instead of three times a day!” she said, laughing.
“Somethin’ like that,” I replied with a smile.
“What are you going to do with the rest of your life?” she asked—and I was kind of wonderin’ why she’d want to
know that when she went on: “What do Bikers do when they get old, park their Harley in the bedroom of their
Old Folks’ Home and sit on it to remember?”
I had a good chuckle at that vision.
“I don’t really know; I haven’t got there yet,” I said. “I guess they just sort of disappear into a wrinkled old face
and shriveled-up body like ever’body else from every walk of life. Old age is a real equalizer.”
“Well, Dammit,” she says, “I have a ways to go before I get to that point. Tell me some more about yourself; what
else can you do besides sit on a motorcycle?”
“Where do you want me to start?” I asked. “The list is long. My father was a contractor and a biker. I had my first
bike when I was ten; did stunts on motorcycles for Hollywood movies when I was eighteen. Worked for my father
driving a backhoe, a bulldozer, and an excavator; worked as a carpenter, plumber, and electrician; and started
and ran a motorcycle club with 800 members, a big bank account, and a million dollars worth of property … all
of which belongs to me … that enough for a starter?”
“Whew! Success is a funny thing. Appearances lie, don’t they?”
“Oh … they do and they don’t,” I said. “But you can get a pretty good handle on someone’s integrity and respect
if you spend enough time with them … especially when there’s a crisis of some kind.”

And then I said a funny thing to her that I hadn’t ever said to a woman before. I said it because I had a feeling that
this particular lady was very unusual: tough, but kind; wise, but adventurous; careful with money; would rather
be alone than with the wrong kind of person; independent enough and capable enough to make her own way;
7
and not afraid to confront any situation and tell it just exactly the way she saw it.
“Why don’t you and I spend some time together … see if we can’t work out some sort of partnership combined
with friendship that works for both of us?”
“Funny you should ask,” she said with a smile. “I was trying to figure out how to ask you the same question. I
haven’t ever forgotten that motorcycle ride and even though we hardly said a word to each other, there was a
little voice inside of me that said: “This is your kind of man” … and you know what? My little voice has never,
ever, led me astray.”
“I’ll tell you something else,” I said. “Today has been the Day From Hell for me … a day like no other day in my
life. It’s like a shockwave has suddenly turned my life upside down and inside out and made me look at it with a
whole new vision. I’ve got to make some changes … some very big changes in the way I live and the things I do. I’d
rather not talk about it in detail with you tonight, if you don’t mind. The events are too raw … and I haven’t had
time to come to terms with them. But you can be sure you’ll know every detail and my every thought in the next
few days. I’ll tell you this, however. There’s no way I can express to you how reassuring this little conversation
between the two of us has been. It opens up a door to a future that I hadn’t even considered as being possible.
It’s like the worst thing that could possibly happen to me has suddenly turned into the best thing that could
happen to me.”

She put her gentle hand on top of my big, rough paw and a tear ran down her cheek. There hadn’t been tears
on the cheeks of this tough old Biker for many years, but the shockwave and a tear on the cheek of a chorus girl
changed that. It got to some hidden part of my being that I thought had died long ago. Fortunately, it hadn’t.

That day happened ten years ago and we’re closer to each other today than most people get in a lifetime. We
moved to Boise, Idaho, to start a whole new life. I remember when we’d been there not even a month, I pulled
my pickup into a town parking space next to a brand new Honda Shadow bike. I looked at it longingly … looked
around to see if anyone was looking … wondered how fast I could get it into the pickup without anyone noticing.
Then I heard a very loud voice inside my head that said:
“Leave that bike alone, you dumb bastard! Your history is better off left in a book.”