Heavy Duty Attitude (5 page)

Our destination was a rugby club just on the outskirts, where once through the gates we rode along a tarmaced track through a small orchard and then out at the edge of an open playing field with the sets of posts at either end, and a reasonable sized red brick built club house behind which the first bikes were pulling in.

We were here.
As we parked up at the back of the pack, Wibble was already striding straight across towards us, pulling off his lid as he did so.

‘Alright?’ he asked with a friendly grin as he reached us where I was settling the bike down onto its side stand and swinging myself off it. ‘Enjoy the ride?’

‘Yeah, it was great thanks,’ I replied honestly, grinning right back. It was true. There was nothing like riding in a pack like that and feeling the world’s eyes on you. It just did things to you. It was like an old biker saying,
If I had to explain, you wouldn’t understand
.

‘OK then,’ he said, as I hurriedly stuffed my gloves into my lid and clipped it to the lock on the bike while he pulled his gloves off and quietly surveyed his dismounting horde before turning back to see how I was getting on.

‘Well at least it’s a V-twin I suppose,’ he observed looking at my bike, ‘even if it’s an Eyetie one.’

‘And at least he doesn’t ride it like a twat,’ the big Brethren chipped in from behind me to my surprise. ‘Can’t stand these fucking “born again bikers” wobbling round the corners like they’re a thruppenny bit.’

It was an old Guzzi California, one of the original ones, with the black barrel shaped tank and huge creamy white trimmed buddy seat. I don’t know why but its semi CHiPs styling had always appealed, I had just always wanted to ride a bike with footboards for some reason. I’m quite tall and lanky and I’d worried before I’d got it if it would be comfortable or whether I’d find myself banging my knees on its pots but it had been fine. Long legged and easy to live with had been the strapline on the gloriously sexist bike mag ads back in the eighties that I had ripped out and bluetacked to my bedroom wall, as long haired models in drapey slit-sided skirts lolled languidly and suggestively in front of the gleaming bike. And it wasn’t a half bad choice of description either, the torquey 850 shaft drive was easy to live with and with plenty of grunt made for a comfortable, if a bit squishy long distance cruiser, ideal for those summer trips over to France with my mates in my early twenties, boys abroad with tents bungeed onto the rack with one gallon plastic cans for red wine en-vrac at what seemed like pennies a time.

‘Looks in good nick though for its age,’ Wibble added approvingly.

Nowadays, it wasn’t as sexy or as urgent as it had been when I was younger, it was an older affair, comfortable and relaxed, it felt like an increasingly middle aged reminder of a freshness and youth I’d never recover. His ride, when he showed me later, was a very different proposition indeed. I guess someone who didn’t know bikes, and I guess quite a few who did, would have taken a glance at it and just assumed it was a mildly customised Harley. But they would have been wrong. From its 2000cc S&S motor with RevTech coils, single-fire ignition, carburettor and pipes, its hand built frame, twin cap mustang style tank and classic chopper chrome Bates headlight, right down to its hand laced chrome spoked wheels and billet forward controls it was an entirely custom built, purpose filled machine. He told me the only original Harley components on it were the gear box and the traditional tombstone taillight, and afterwards I wasn’t even too sure about that. Not that I could really tell all those details either. I was too long out of the serious bike scene to be able to pick it apart like that, but I only had to ask Wibble a single question about the bike to get the full ground up build and spec run through.

Mine was a comfortable old classic and well worn, but off the peg number. His was a sharp edged, tailored high spec machine.
It was country tweeds suit versus hardnosed city slicker.
It was casual versus very, very serious.
‘Ready?’ he asked. I nodded.

‘Come with me then,’ he said, ‘there’s some people we need to meet first,’ and turned away to walk off.

Well I thought, since I was here today, it was obviously time to go to work. The kid who was standing next to me looked awestruck.

‘See you round,’ I nodded to him as I left and headed to catch up with Wibble.

‘Yeah see you,’ I heard from behind me.
*
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘We’re here, so we need to meet the locals,’ was his cryptic reply as we strode out, with some of the other Freemen falling in behind us.

The show cum rally cum party ran over the weekend. It wasn’t in the same league as the Big Two’s events, the Hells Angels’ Bulldog Bash or the Outlaws’ Rock and Blues Customs Show and Ink and Iron festival, the premier events in the UK biking calendar, but even so, The Brethren were determined to put on a good show.
Round the front of the clubhouse was the show. To the right of the pitch was a street of tents. Looking down the lines along which a small crowd of bikers and apparent tourists were drifting, I could see from the signs that the closest were hosted by a friendly support club, the local Harley dealer, a Tshirt seller, a Triumph owners club and traders in leather jackets and helmets. Beyond that the line curved round in an arc that lead back to the top end of the rugby pitch where there was a small cluster of other stands which from this distance looked like some kind of autojumble.

Ahead of me a giant beer tent and a row of burger vans from which I could just about smell the frying onions, marked the far side of the pitch; while behind them ran a hedge beyond which were the camping fields where a mass of tents of every colour, size and design had sprouted like a forest of demented toadstools, interspersed with parked up bikes and fluttering club flags.

The pitch itself had been cordoned off with a waist high screen of portable metal railings since it would be being kept clear for the day’s events. At the moment the half to my right was being used as a showground for a guy doing unbelievable tricks on a trials bike, his commentary booming across the field from speakers on poles at each corner as he rode up and over seemingly impossible obstacles without bothering to ever actually use the front wheel of the bike.

Early in the afternoon there would be the formal ride in by The Brethren, followed by the other clubs and independents in order of precedence, up onto and across a stage that had been organised at the far end of the pitch on my left, to present their toy donations to the charity. Those bikes that were being entered for the ‘show what you rode’ would be parked up on the pitch for display and judging while the stage would be set up for the evening’s bands.

Show awards would be at six, the music would kick off at eight and go on into the early hours. It was one of the reasons for holding it well out of town.

Should be quite a night.

And then further off to the left, behind the stage and beyond the pitch itself, was a single large marquee. There were two flagpoles outside the entrance each flying The Brethren’s colours and even from here I could see a cluster of what were obviously strikers on guard at the entrance, one of them striking in the other sense of the word from the bright white sling his arm was in. He’d obviously had some kind of a shunt but as a patch, striker or tagalong, you’d have to be pretty fucked up and totally bedridden to miss today I knew. Still, I wondered how much slack, if any at all the sling would get him as a striker? Not much, was my bet.

This would be the members only tent.
Wibble headed straight towards it.
‘Locals?’ I asked, although I’d guessed what he’d meant.
‘The Cambridge crew.’

I had been wondering whether he was going to take me into the marquee but as it happened we didn’t need to get that far as a small posse of Brethren emerged from within as we approached and came forward to meet us.

The two groups stopped, facing each other a few feet apart as Wibble and Thommo, the local charter president, stepped forward to embrace in the usual formal backslapping bearhug and expressions of solidarity, while their respective crews eyefucked each other across the gap.

‘So who’s this?’ Thommo said looking at me with an openly hostile stare as they broke apart again.

 

‘He’s a journalist,’ Wibble replied calmly.

 

‘You brought a fucking journo here? This weekend? What the hell for?’ Thommo demanded.

 

‘PR,’ Wibble answered simply, ‘He’s here to see how nice we are right? So treat him nice yeah, you hear?’

It didn’t look as if this news was endearing me to Thommo any more than before. Then Wibble really twisted the knife, ‘You might have heard about him. He’s the bloke who wrote the book about Damage.’

‘Oh it just gets better doesn’t it?’ Thommo said, giving a surly snarl towards me.

 

Well thanks a bunch Wibble, I thought, that’s just fucking great. Are there any more psychopaths you want to wind up and set on me?

‘Yeah sure,’ Thommo said, the edge of sarcasm obvious in his voice for all to hear. ‘Why don’t you just feel free to snoop around, just see what you find to write about?’

*

 

‘What the fuck was all that about?’ I whispered, as we walked away again towards the food stops, Wibble looking pleased with himself. ‘Ah, just winding Thommo up.’

The subtext was clear. Thommo hated journos so Wibble imposing one on the party on his turf was really just Wibble rubbing Thommo’s nose in his authority.

‘Tell me, he’s not a fan of yours anyway is he?’

 

Wibble raised eyebrow at me. ‘What was it Damage used to say sometimes? You might very well think that, I couldn’t possibly comment?’ Despite everything I laughed. That was Damage alright, from one of his favourite shows.

But still I wondered, if Thommo wasn’t a fan, why make him mad? Surely Wibble already had enough to do watching his back, without provoking Thommo’s hatred. Wasn’t that just making unnecessary trouble for himself?

‘So was that just a pissing contest then? Showing him who’s top dog?’ ‘Could be. Does him good to be put in his place every now and then.’

Great, I thought, with me as the post to piss on. Thommo didn’t look like the kind of guy to let it lie and if he couldn’t get back at Wibble directly I reckoned he’d have no qualms about getting at me if he could. I’d need to be very careful about keeping away from him and his guys, I decided, both today and in the future.

But as it turned out, it seemed as though Wibble had thought of that too as the next thing he did was to organise me a minder.

 

‘OK, so what happens now, what do you want me to do?’ I asked.

‘I’ve got some stuff I need to do first, so how about Bung shows you round?’ he said, indicating over his shoulder with a jerk of his thumb to where The Brethren I had already recognised was standing. Even if Danny hadn’t already dropped his name, I couldn’t miss who Wibble was talking about, it would be hard not to. At six foot two or so, in most directions as far as I could see, he was the man-mountain who’d got me coffee at the services, and so presumably was one of Wibble’s personal bodyguard.

‘Bung, come over here for a minute willya?’ Wibble shouted over to him. ‘Bung?’ I asked Wibble quietly as he ambled towards us.
‘Short for Bungalow,’ he answered.
Wibble introduced me with a, ‘You’ve met.’

I could see why the nickname had stuck, although looking at the sheer size of him, Brick Shit House might have been closer to the mark. ‘Stick with Bung here for a while will you? He’ll show you round, let you meet some of the guys, keep an eye out for you, and then we’ll talk.’ That was OK by me again, and so I headed off with the lumbering giant.

Over the next hour or so Bung walked me round, introducing me to The Brethren as we went, although I couldn’t help but notice that the ones he took me to talk to were mainly the other Freemen and some of the ride ins from other charters. I didn’t really do any interviews as such, more just a bit of chit chat. There was a bit of a tense atmosphere and for a while I couldn’t put my finger on it.

At first I thought it was just me. After all, Thommo was hardly alone within The Brethren in what he thought about writers and so I thought the hostility was personal, not helped by who I was specifically and my history.

Then I realised how separate Thommo’s local charter and some of the other ride ins were keeping from the Freemen and those that were hanging with them and so I decided that the tension I could feel stemmed from some animosity between these two groups. But after a while that simple explanation didn’t feel right either as the tension seemed to be ratcheting up as the day wore on, without any noticeable interaction or overt incidents between the two clusters who simply seemed to be keeping themselves to themselves.

There was something else going on. But for the life of me I couldn’t work out what.

As a civilian I knew I wouldn’t be particularly welcome riding in after the patched clubs to make my donation, so after checking the form with Bung we made our way back to where I’d left the bear on my Guzzi.

As Bung and I wandered back past the clubhouse and the rows of parked bikes I spotted the two kids I’d ridden in with. They had obviously been told to stay with the strikers guarding the bikes as the start of their long apprenticeship ladder that might one day lead to a Brethren patch, and after a morning that felt a bit as though it had been spent bothering smiling tigers in their cage for interviews, I decided it was time for some light relief.

‘Hey,’ I said as I freed the stuffed toy from where it had been riding pillion and handed it to Bung who was gathering up a three foot high panda from one of the other non-club ride ins, ‘do you two fancy talking for a bit?’ Danny smiled at the approach, but gave a slightly uncertain glance at Bung as if for approval that this was OK. The other kid just shrugged as if it wasn’t worth making the effort to open his mouth.

As I began to talk to Danny, Bung roped in first a striker and then a grumbling Scroat to complete the collection and then, having made sure I was ensconced for a while, marched them off to deposit the toys on the stage, Scroat still moaning about ‘Fucking teddy bears,’ as he went, the three foot girth of mine edged under his left arm.