He had never before gone unrecognized among people he knew. His ego took a little hit as they glanced at him in his pimp-hat and baggy old-man clothes, glared at nervous Eddie, and then returned to their whiskey and beer. They must have had business out here, because they normally stuck to Nevada and Texas and didn’t dally in between for long. This was the leadership—all Mother Chapter people—with some quality muscle.

It’s kind of nice to see them all together.

There was Chink the ugly President with the pock-marked face; his old lady Mona, the sexiest 250 pound forty-year-old woman Jay had ever been with; Hyck the immensely fat treasurer; Bush, the hulking Master-at-Arms; Pudge the gofer and prospect groomer; a prospect who appeared to be an MMA athlete, which would be in keeping with Chink’s interest in prize-fighting; and six pretty heavy hitters armed with ball-peen hammers, sheath knives and tire-thumpers. Pudge and Bush would probably be the only ones packing heat, most likely .50 Cal. Desert Eagles.

Wow, Mona’s breasts got even bigger! Nice.

They took a table and Eddie gave their order and they waited for Pudge to piss. This happened every twenty minutes unless he was passing a kidney stone. When Pudge was breaking in a prospect they did everything together, even going to the bathroom together like two chicks. This was really due to Chink’s paranoia about Feds and made Pudge feel like a bitch. He had griped about it to no end. Pudge was about five-four and two-hundred; a button-nosed little dude with thinning hair who was loyal, good with all gadgets from bikes to computers to guns, and had actually been Jay’s friend for a while. Jay had a soft spot for this little slime-ball.

Don’t kill anyone. You are back in the 21st Century.

After only fifteen minutes Pudge and the prospect headed to the men’s room and Jay followed, leaving Eddie to stew at the table. As soon as he rose, he noticed, out of the corner of his eye Bush—a virulent racist—lumber over to Eddie to start quietly intimidating him in his subdued pseudo-intellectual neo-Nazi fashion. The whole idea was to escalate a conversation with Eddie into a stomping of the clueless White-trash race-traitor he was drinking with. This just made Jay feel much better about laying more grief on old Chink’s doorstep.

Hang in their Eddie. This is falling together nicely. Having a diabolical creep for an older brother does teach some useful life-lessons.

When he walked into the restroom Pudge and the prospect were discussing his impending beating for sticking up for Eddie. The prospect was at the urinal and Pudge was pissing from the seated position in the stall he had always preferred. Jay nodded respectfully to the prospect as he walked behind him to the next urinal and Pudge stopped running his mouth after having heard the door squeak open.

Sensei Hansen had once told Jay that he had kicking power to rival the great Mirko Crocop, and sensei Hansen was never free with compliments. He did not know what this straddled and pissing MMA stud’s background was, but he was pretty certain it did not include defending against a soccer-style shin-kick to the balls from behind while pissing. The man’s testicles turned to ruptured sacks of pudding as they were smashed between his own fracturing pelvis and Jay’s hypertrophied shin-bone earned over a year’s toil in General Djonkam’s training camp outside of Bangkok. The man literally disintegrated as he suddenly ceased urinating.

Dude might never piss again.

The only sound was the bone-crunching crack of the kick and a type of inverted moan and the inevitable slapping of an unconscious face against the base of the porcelain urinal. He could hear Pudge trying to stand up off the toilet and pull up his pants at the same time in the stall behind him. He reached under the stall and yanked the little man’s booted feet out under the stall door. The telltale sound of a head smacking porcelain and then smacking tile brought a smile to his face. As he dragged the pudgy little dude out from under the stall door he felt like a kid again, playing brutal games with Randy: like hunting the Kreskin brothers with the Crossman .760; stoning Bobby York; and trying to kick Josh the meth dealer’s pitbull over the fence before it sunk its teeth into his behind while the degenerate did the meth-whores in his trailer!

Darn this is fun. I hope he doesn’t have any permanent damage.

Pudge and the stud were both out cold, drooling and twitching while he lifted the Desert Eagle .50 cal., chambered a round, took it off of safety, pocketed it in Mister Ted’s baggy jeans and tied both of their sacred unwashed leather jackets around his waist.

Bush was leaning menacingly over the table talking slow and creepy to poor Eddie, deliberately ignoring Jay as the guys at the bar were already planning on waylaying him if he interfered with Bush’s racist sermon on selective breeding. Jay pretended not to notice Bush and the others as he walked up to Eddie and placed the frightened dude’s pimp-hat on his head. “Having fun with old Bush here Eddie?”

“Shit Jay-Bone, his fat ass is creepier den you brutha. Damn Yo! Yo big watamelon head done stretched out my pimp-hat Yo!”

As Jay turned to face Bush and the men at the bar started to rise from their stools a realization started to dawn in Bush’s dim pig-eyes. Jay just grabbed the back of the man’s head and slammed the barrel of the .50 cal. through his remaining front teeth. “Jus be cool ole boy. I’m liftin’ yer piece. Nice and easy—ged out Eddie.”

While Eddie darted for the door he covered Chink and the others. “Chink, I’m taken Pudge’s bike en colors—the prospect’s too. Parley’s a mile down da road in ten minutes. See you den bro. Lookin’ good Mona.”

He backed through the door and tossed Eddie the key’s to Pudge’s ride, a stretched out chopper, and pocketed both the guns while he started up the prospect’s sportster. “Squirlboy on me. Tell MoonBeaver ta mount up behine Eddie.”

As they rumbled off the Horde brothers were pouring out of the bar to pursue. The only two bikes that did not have flats belonged to Chink and Mona. He looked over his shoulder to see her and Chink arguing.

It feels just like old times hillbilly. The 21st Century can make some sense after all.

Ten minutes later they waited as Chink and Mona pulled up on their bikes.

Chink was incredibly pissed, so he decided to rub it in and blew a kiss to Mona. The big mouthy bleach blonde retorted, “Promises, promises Sweet Cheeks.”

Chink exploded. “Fuck me hard you mud-caked hillbilly and you too whore! What-the-fucking-hell did I ever do to deserve this shit? You know hayseed, it’s not bad enough that you banged my old lady for eight hours and turned her cooter into the Grand Canyon, and lost us twenty grand when you fouled that California stud in the cage—and then cost me a fight date with Takahashi. But you have to ruin my new meal ticket too! What did I ever do to you that you didn’t deserve you witless West Virginia fuck-nut!?! Finally, I get something lined up with Takahashi with some fresh meat and you drop out of the sky with the fucking-united-nations-of retards to fuck it up!”

Wow, Three-Rivers and Eddie are being uncharacteristically quiet. The dude is pissed.

“Look man, I’m takin’ dese bikes fer a few days. I’ll be commin’ out a Flagstaff in two. Where should I return ‘em?”

“Are you serious asshole?”

“Yessir.”

“Okay, how about you drive them into Las Vegas in three days. That would be perfect. You could stop by the Blockhouse and watch me suck Takahashi’s dick! The goddamn Jap is flying into Vegas on Friday to watch Jason—the poor bastard you just turned into a soprano—fight the fucking Siberian Tiger. The old Jap was willing to pay big money once to watch you fight that California kid. How about it hillbilly? Do you think you could do old Chink a favor and bail his pock-marked ass out of this finger-nail removing situation?”

“What ’ill the odds be?”

Chink snorted. “On you actually winning you dumb fuck? They’d have to be one-to-eight. He’s a fucking big light heavy. You’re a middleweight douche-bag. He’s not much on submissions though and you have a head like a rock. So I would be banking on the over-and-under for you going the distance.”

“I’ll do it on one condition.”

“And that retarded-fucking-consideration is?”

“I haven’t been laid in weeks. I want to borrow Mona up until fight time.”

Chink appeared as if he had just been slapped across the face. But quickly recovered, obviously taking mental inventory of those women who owed him favors. Before the biker chief could make a counter offer, Mona kick-started her pink chromed Triumph [she was a chick and could ride what she wanted] and concluded her own agreement. “It’s a deal Sweet Cheeks. See you in Vegas Baby.”

And they were rolling down the highway toward Arizona with Chink screaming garbled obscenities into the uncaring sky, Eddie laughing, Three-Rivers composing a song about Chink called Wife of IronHorse, and the kid’s crazy squirrel poked his head out of the right saddlebag looking like a World War Two fighter pilot diving on the enemy…

You know dummy, when you were a kid you did use to dream about running off with the circus.

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