The Hell’s Angels Come To Town

Patrolman Bill Donelly radioed in that the Hells Angels were in town. He said they were standing around on Main St. They weren’t doing much of anything but looking around, pointing, laughing, and pissing in the gutters. The dispatcher took the message to Chief Smith. He radioed Bill.

“Chief, they’re all over the street here by Clymers Bar! There must be, I don’t know, a whole, a big bunch of them! Their bikes are parked every-whichaway. Cant get up or down the street because of them. They’re pissing in the gutters. Right there in front of everyone, including the women! Right in public; on a public street! He can’t do that!” Billy told the Chief.

“Yet, you say he did, the Chief said.

“You want me to arrest them?”

“Billy, I want you to quiet down. No, I don’t want you to arrest him. I don’t want you to do anything. You don’t have that much insurance and the Benevolent Fund doesn’t give squat. Your wife would have a hard time raising those kids on her widow’s pension. Don’t do anything, no matter what. I’m coming right over.”

“Oh, okay, Chief. I’ll keep a close eye on that guy. I can I.D. him, okay?”

“Yea, you do that.”

The Chief went over, got out of his cruiser, and took a look around. Bikes parked everywhere. Bikers drinking, pissing, hacking and vomiting everyplace he looked. This was one scummy-looking bunch. The smell was horrific. The sewer plant smelled better than this. Billy walked up to the Chief and said, “Sorry, Chief, I lost him in the crowd. Sorry.”

“Never mind that. You go on back where you were and let me handle this.”

The Chief wanted to talk to the leader of this pack of half-civilized animals. He couldn’t see anything that set one guy off from the rest except for the one drinking coke instead of snorting it. Oh, that has to be the leader. No one else in this crowd would have the balls to do that. The Chief carefully made his way over to that guy, being careful not to bump anyone. Never know what might jump off one of them. They probably are immune to most things but the Chief wasn’t.

He stood looking at the coke drinker. The Coke drinker looked back. “You the leader of this bunch?” the Chief asked.

“Man, ain’t no leader. We are all free spirits. We go where we want, when we want and if we want. Take Tuck Tucker. He didn’t wanna come to this crappy town. That’s okay. He accidentally cut his throat while he was shaving. That put us off a day or two,” was the reply.

“Accidentally cut his throat shaving? Doesn’t look like a shaving bunch to me.”

“Yea, well, his throat got cut anyways. Marko got his bike. Marko wrecked his and been riding with Wipeout for a while. Worked out okay except for Tuck. We taking him to LA for burial.”

“A real compassionate group, aren’t you?”

“I know that word. Well, Tuck didn’t care, being as he was stone-cold dead. We figure, Tuck don’t care, why should we? Dig?”

“Oh, I see. I think, though, you might be a, ah, person of influence”, the Chief responded.

That baffled coke boy. He knew what a person was, and that he was one. He knew what influence meant and he had it. Person of influence. Well, hell, he was that! Never thought of it that way! Wow!

“Yea, I guess I am. Whatta ya want?”

“No trouble, that’s want I want”, the Chief told him.

“Ain’t done nothin’”, the leader told him.

“Well, that ain’t exactly the truth. You’re parked all over this street, blocking traffic. You piss in the gutters. That’s for openers. You will cause trouble. That’s what you do; it’s what you always do. Thing is, this is my town. Born here and lived here all my life except for college and the Army. Not going to stand for trouble in my town.”

“Well, well, well. A regular Buford Pusser, aint ya? Mr. Bad-boy with a badge and a tinker toy gun.”

“Buford Pusser. That’s pretty good. Difference is, I won’t be coming after you with a baseball bat and I won’t be alone”, the Chief told him.

“If you’re thinking of tear gas, think again. These guys are so burned out on meth they ooze from everywhere anyways. They wouldn’t notice no tear gas. What with the way we smell, tear gas wouldn’t affect us. Rubber bullets, maybe. Man, you’d have to hit these guys with a boulder just to get their attention. Maybe tasers? Man, some a these guys could use shock treatments but tasers? It’d be no worse than a bad trip on some bad drugs. Besides, you ain’t going to whack this many guys with tasers. You probably aunt even got one,” the leader went on.

The leader got some more amusement when the Chief didn’t respond to this. The Chief didn’t have a taser. The county Sheriff did but asking for it would mean explaining why he needed it and Sheriff Collard would take over. If there wasn’t going to be any trouble, there would be if Collard got into it. Collard was a cheap publicity whore.

“Just make certain sure you’re on your best behavior, you hear?” the Chief told him.

“Yea, I ain’t deaf. Not stupid, neither. You shouldn’t oughta expect trouble before you get it. Dreams sometimes come true. Know what I mean?”

“Best behavior, that what I mean.”

Now, really, come on. To the Hells Angels, being on their best behavior meant misdemeanors, not felonies. The Chief and the Hells Angels were using different dictionaries. They were parked illegally, a misdemeanor; of they piss in the gutters, a misdemeanor. What the Chief meant by best behavior couldn’t be defined, even by him. He thought it was like art. He didn’t know what it was but recognized it when he saw it. He wasn’t going to recognize any best behavior with this bunch. He just said it to save face because he didn’t have a clue about what he could do if they decided to tear his town up. He did know he was going to have to act first and fast.

He called a meeting with the Mayor, the Town Council President and the Town Manager. He explained what had happened so far at Clymers and that he wanted to take “pre-emptive action”.

The mayor spoke up. “Whats pre-emptive mean? They have the same right to free assembly as everyone else. The Constitution clearly-”

“Mayor”, the Chief interrupted, “shut your mouth. I only invited you here to be polite. Just sit there and be quiet.”

“Now see here. I’m the mayor-”

“Didn’t I tell you to be quiet? Are you being quiet? The Town Council hired me and only they can fire me. Say another word and you’re going out that window face first. I mean that, I really do.”

“Uh, mayor”, the Council President said, “maybe you ought to just shut up. You really don’t have any power so be quiet.”

“Now, as I’m saying, I want to stop trouble before it happens. I have 5 officers on my force. I wouldn’t put those idiots up against a bunch of Boy Scouts, much less this bunch. I want to get them to leave on their own accord and soon.”

The Town Manager spoke up. “You have a plan?”

“Yea, I do. I want you to get the Public Works Department to shut off the main to C’lymers. Once those toilets start backing the shit up, I think even this bunch will take off,, the Chief explained.

“That’s ... that’s not even legal. Yo-”, the mayor began to say. He didn’t get a chance to finish because the Chief threw him, face first, out the window. Fortunately, they were on the ground floor. The Chief had

mixed feelings about that. The Public Works manager got the main shutoff. The Chief and the Council President took up watch across the street from Clymers. They figured it’d be a while before the toilets really clogged up.

“Whew! That’s one disgusting, foul smell coming across to here. Look at that! There’s water coming out from underneath the door! They’ll be on their way soon”, the President exclaimed.

Later, a lot later, the Angels began coming out the door. One was heard to say, “Man, the crap’s ankle-high. I don’t mind the smell, I’ve smelled worse, and I don’t mind pissing in it but I aint squatting down in to take a dump. I’ll use the sidewalk.”

“Yea”, his mama replied, “then we go back to shooters, right, honey?”

“Huh? Is that what we were drinking? Yea, whatever.” He didn’t know what he was drinking. She could be pouring him gasoline and he wouldn’t know it until he lit a smoke and blew up.

“Well, that sure didn’t work out. Have to come up with a different plan. Man, this smells. I’m glad I don’t live near here”, the Chief said, knowing the Council president lived two blocks over and was married to the Wicked Witch. The Chief almost felt sorry for the poor smuck when she found out he was responsible for this smell.

The Chief, the Council President and the Town Manager did some brainstorming. They couldn’t come up with anything that was, one, mostly legal, and, two, do-able. Then the Fire Chief barged in with his idea. They listened to it and then got pissed off at him.

“Water? Hose em down with water? That’s your idea? Are you just plain stupid or suicidal? Huh? You hose those birds down and they’re going to hose your butt clean out. Get your big, stupid, fat butt out of here before you join the mayor, flying out the window”, the Chief screamed.

“No, no! There’s more”, the Fire Chief replied. He told them the rest of the plan. They laughed and decided to try it.

The Hells Angels never expected anything like this. They’d been gassed, pelted with rubber bullets and shocked by tasers. Those they could tolerate. As a matter of fact, they enjoyed them. This, though, was too much for them. The leader wanted to tear the town up before they left but the bunch wanted to leave immediately. The leader could sense his grip on them slipping, so he agreed.

“See”, the Fire Chief said, “I knew that would do the trick.”

“Yea, it sure did. Now, who’s going to clean all this bubble bath up?” the Chief wanted to know.