JULES: WHEN I WAS A BIKER CHICK

Minneapolis was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me, Chicago wasn’t. But in Minneapolis, finally, I made friends, I had a best friend, Kerry. We were inseparable. I found jobs, I made money, I took care of myself and other people.

I even stopped drinking as much, which was probably a good thing. Peer pressure. Most of the people I hung with were potheads, and as it turns out, I'm not the nicest person in the world when I'm blacked out. So, they tended to discourage my drinking and discourage my being so fucked up.

It was a good year. Of course, it didn't last, nothing does. After a while, the Kanadian Kolony began to drift. Some of us moved to Chicago. I went there, tried it, moved back to Minneapolis, then back out to Chicago again.

Anyway, towards Christmas, Kerry fell in love with this guy. Big mistake. I could see that right from the start. But she didn't appreciate that opinion. So, we didn't see much of her and I was pretty much staying in Chicago by then. Kerry and I had talked about getting our own place, but that never seemed to happen. So, I was living in this house with Floramel, who was a nice Caribbean lady with a four year old, and this guy from Africa and his sister, and a couple of other people.

I wound up dating the African guy, who turned out to be the biggest fucking asshole in the world. Incredibly sexist and controlling, absolutely lazy and entitled, his sister bullied me, and the relationship between brother and sister gave me weird vibes. Floramel stuck with him though. So, after him, I had to move out and find another place to live.

That fall kind of sucked. I remember the winter just seemed to be pure shit, and it was always cold in this house I'd moved into. I'd wake up in the morning, and I could see my breath. It was a wet cold that came off the Lake, and I always felt miserable and chilled to the bone.

The old gang had scattered, everyone seemed busy, and getting together or hanging out seemed like a chore. Things got stolen from me, so I wasn't thrilled with the people I was sharing the house with. So, I started hitting the bars again, this was probably by March. I mean, a warm place, friendly company, that whole thing.

I guess part of it was that I felt connected or disconnected enough from people, and comfortable enough to resume the lifestyle I had fallen into in Hamilton. Bars lead to drinking and fun and friends, they lead to parties, and strange men between my legs. I even had a few blackouts.

But, there were differences. If I had a blackout, they didn't seem as frequent as they had been in Hamilton, or as deep. I think I was holding back now. Some nights, I didn't drink all that much. And I didn't do trains, or at least not so I got a reputation for it. I mean, okay, I did a couple, they were fun. But I wasn’t crazy with it, you know. Sex was mostly one on one, and reasonably discriminating.

There were more drugs, especially cocaine at these parties, and that seemed to bring with it a harder nastier edge. I remember when I was in High School, coke was the holy grail of getting high. Here there was lots of it around. I did it a few times, but it didn't seem to mix well with alcohol for me. Besides, I started noticing that the people around coke had this harder nastier edge that I found unpleasant. Serious cokeheads were just toxic, and self absorbed to the point of disappearing up their own assholes. Even their sex was selfish.

Personally, if I have to hang out with a druggy, give me potheads over cokeheads or alcoholics. They're more mellow, less likely to turn and go all mental on you for no reason. The parties? Hey, I was welcome at any party. I even hit a few upper class parties, where I found my ability to listen hard and occasionally say something intelligent made me a hit. I even met some minor league celebrities.

On the other hand, I found I wasn't welcome at all bars. A lot of the strict bars tended to spot me as a minor and shoo me out when I couldn’t produce ID they liked or they didn’t like the fake ID that I did produce, or they'd take me for a hooker on the prowl. That had never happened in Hamilton, but in America there just seemed to be a default that a young pretty woman hanging out in a bar was a prostitute.

So the places where I could go safely tended to be punk places, or rough places. Which sort of redefined my social life, the people I saw, the parties I went to, that kind of shit. It was okay, I knew how to handle myself. But the thing with fucked up places, having to handle myself got tiresome.

The bottom line was that Hamilton wasn't really a dangerous place. Chicago was. And being young and pretty could protect me from some stuff, and being smart and cagy could protect me from some stuff. But, basically luck runs out sooner or later. That's just the way it is.

Oh that sounds so ominous, doesn't it?

But it wasn't really, I guess. Not for the most part.

It was rougher in Chicago, definitely. The drugs were harder, people were nastier. My impression of Chicago was people there were a lot more willing to cut your throat or fuck you over for a lot less reason. Sex was often rougher, although, looking back, I'm not sure, maybe I was gravitating towards rougher sex, or maybe it was just a consequence of where I was hanging out. Sex was also nastier, there was a lot less humanity to it, a guy was a lot likelier to just come inside me, zip up, and walk away without even saying thanks.

There were lots more guns around. That was one of the big differences, when you start to notice it. People had guns, all kinds of guns. Guys would come to parties, usually the nastier parties, with guns.

Once, this guy I went home with put a pistol in my mouth and made me suck it on my knees while he jerked off. Oh man, I was out of there so fast afterwards, some things are too fucked up even for me. He said he took the bullets out, they were in a bar in the handle, but I talked to a guy about this once, years later, and described it, and he told me that there would still have been a live bullet in the chamber, wherever that is. The guy had lied to me and made me suck a loaded gun.

That still gives me the shivers, and not in a good way.

I remember, a few years later, I'd moved back home and I was watching this late night movie, a Russ Meyer thing, Faster Pussycat or Valley of the Dolls or something, and there was a scene in it where the bad guy slides a gun into this sleeping girls mouth, and she starts sucking on it. Fuck! Since then, I've seen that kind of scene in a couple of other American films, mostly from the seventies I think.

I'm still not sure what to make of that. I mean, I'd like to think that the guy I met was just a weird fucking maniac.

But the thing is, if it's in those movies, it's like it's part of their culture, the way they think and look at the world. It's just sick. It's one of those little insights when you realize just how scary and fucked up some Americans are. No offense.

Anyway, that was what life was like back then. Just drifting along, not being particularly happy with anything, vaguely miserable and restless, getting fucked up and getting fucked, and starting to think maybe this whole scene wasn't a good idea. The writing was on the wall. But I didn't really have anyplace else to be. So bars, parties, drinking and fucking.

What happened was that I was at this bar with Mandy. I think that was her name. She wasn’t really a friend or anything, we'd just been at some of the same parties and we'd probably sucked some of the same cocks. So, once in a while, we'd hang out. I say she wasn't a friend because I think if I'd left my purse alone with her, she'd have gone through it for money or walked off with it. It was that kind of thing.

Things were pretty fucking dead, and we were basically looking for a party. The advantage of parties over bars was simple. 1) You didn't pay for drinks. 2) There were drugs.

Fair is fair, if you were a hot chick in a bar, and you were paying for your own drinks, there was something wrong with you.

But you know, like sometimes you were just out with your girls - Kerry and I killed a lot of pitchers out of our own pockets. And you know, in bars someone was expected to pay. But okay.

Advantage of parties over bars: Drugs. Happy now?

These two bikers came in, they were looking for girls to go to a party with. Good party, lots of cool guys, lots of action, important people. There was some sort of Biker thing going on, they had people from California, Duluth, the Rock Machine (Arkansas I think), even the coast. I don't remember much about what they said, it wasn't like one of those huge biker rallies. It was more along the lines of, "We've got VIP's, lets throw a party."

Well, we'd both been at parties with bikers, though not at biker’s parties. But a party is a party, so what the hell. We did know these guys, or at least, we'd seen them around. We went. It was at this clubhouse, I don't remember where. Big house, kind of run down. The place was full of bikers and their chicks. I remember being there, and saying to Mandy, I'd never felt so much like a cow walking into a slaughterhouse, it was that kind of vibe. We were very out of place and 'fresh meat' looking. Then someone gave me a drink, and I relaxed and got into it.

In a way, it was a lot like other parties, but it was harsher, stronger, it had a nastier edge. I remember people seemed to drink hard. I'm a hard drinker myself, but there was something unnerving about the way they drank. I saw a big fat bearded guy on the couch, just doing one hit after another of something, talking nonstop. I went to the bathroom, and there was blood on the sink. The music was too loud, everything felt too intense.

Then the guys who brought us came and got us, and took us downstairs to the basement. I'd noticed guys going in and out of the basement all night, but when I'd tried to go down, I'd been stopped, so fuck it.

Down there, moaning with pain on a filthy mattress, this young girl was getting gang raped.

All right, now I've done trains, before and after that, and I've had good trains and bad trains, and I've probably done hundreds of guys. So, it should just be like that, right?

It wasn't. This was fucking meat. This didn't look fun, this looked dirty and sludgy and exhausting. It looked painful and miserable and completely degrading. She wasn't having fun. They fucked her, but they didn't give a shit about her, whether it hurt or not, whether she was ready. She was just meat.

Mandy got it first, and tried to turn around and walk out. Not allowed. The guys were strikers, I think that’s the word, prospective bikers. Part of their thing was they had to each bring in a slut for a gang bang. I swear, that's so fucked up.

Mandy started crying. I think I was pale and shaking, trying to think of a way out. Now, like in the movies, I'd just come up with something clever to say, or pull the fire alarm, or grab a gun and bluff my way out. Sorry, I was dry, absolutely dry. And dry down there. I was watching this horrible sludgy thing happening, and knew it was going to be happening to me soon, because they were almost finished with her, and I was trying to get my head around getting through it, coping with it, and not feeling good at all.

It was just so nasty. Have you ever seen that movie, Fight Club? Like, where they're all hitting each other in the basement, it was sort of like that, all grim and crowded and claustrophobic. And you could smell it in the air, this heavy male odor, and under that, this scent of blood all hot and pungent filling your nostrils, and the whiffs of shit from loose bowels. This was the kind of place that fucked you up permanently, left your womb a hollow bloody mess, left your mind shattered and your soul bruised.

Then this biker started talking to me. The guy was huge. I'm 5'3" and he was like 6'7". His name was Jules and he was one of the VIPs.

He liked that I was from Canada, and asked more questions. It was surreal, like being in the waiting room of hell. There you are having a normal conversation, and a few feet away, someone is just screaming as she's fucked bloody. I said something that made him laugh. I can't recall what. He told me I was tough. Then he sort of took me by the elbow, told them he was taking this one, and suddenly, I was out. Oh man, you can't imagine the relief I felt walking up those steps. He'd rescued me, I was just about in love.

I don't know what happened to Mandy. I suppose they did her. I suppose this makes me not a good person, but I don't really care. I mean, if things had been the other way around, and she could have gotten out and left me behind, hell, she wouldn't have blinked.

I wasn't a good person then, I guess. But then, I never stole anyone's purse, or fucked anyone over. Something bad happened to her probably, and all I worried about was getting out of there myself.

I didn't think about it this way until a long time after, but let me put it to you now: What kind of a man can walk into a fucking biker gang bang, pick up the fresh meat, and just walk out with her, and no one said boo? Everyone was all friendly to him, as he walked off with their unused fuckholes. What kind of man can do something like that? Let me put it this way: How scary do you have to fucking be, to get away with something like that?

Yeah, right.

Of course, I wasn't thinking like that then. All I knew was I'd been rescued from the most fucked up situation I'd ever seen and the adrenalin and relief was kicking in, I was high as a kite from it, practically dancing.

So, of course, he took me back to his motel room, and he fucked me half blind.

Christ, the way I was feeling, if you'd shaken my hand firmly, I'd have had an orgasm.

But still, he fucked me wild. We were two animals, well, I was an animal, just going at it, angling at it and going at it. I remember, at one point, my throat was so dry it hurt to breath, and grabbing a beer, chugging it on top of him as I rode him, and just kept on going.

He was the biggest guy I'd ever been with, something like nine inches (I don't know, I never measured it, but at least twice the size of a regular guy) and thick. When he fucked me doggy style, no matter how wet I was, it hurt, but he didn't care he'd just fuck harder. He made me bleed. I can't remember whether I passed out from drinking and drugs and exhaustion, or just fell asleep.

It was morning, he was gone. I was exhausted and tired and sore, I just figured I'd lay there until the cleaning staff kicked me out.

Later on, he came back. He just got into bed and started fucking me again. I was willing, but I was dry. It didn't matter to him. I got wet quickly enough, he hurt, but it was exciting, kind of a roller coaster thing. Finally, he came in me, I was a quick afternoon fuck. He went and got a shower. I just laid back, letting his come ooze from me. He didn't believe in safe sex. Afterwards, he took me to eat with his friends. He told me he was leaving town, and he wanted me to come with him.

So I did.

That's so fucked up, eh?

The thing is, sometimes you have to be in situations, to really understand them. I told a girlfriend about this, and she just couldn't get it. But, the thing was, I guess, there wasn't a lot keeping me in Chicago. I wasn't really at ease there, I didn't like where I was living, I didn’t really like the crap jobs I was taking and getting fired from, I didn't even really like the lifestyle. I was drifting through, but I didn't actually have anyplace to go. So, I guess I was sort of rootless and just got pushed along by the first strong breeze.

And the thing with Jules, or at least at that time, I still had this romantic thing going on for him. He was the knight in shining armour, the guy who'd rescued me, and I think I was still a little blown away by the intense sex, by the whole thing.

So I went.

We stopped off at my rooming house, and I packed a laundry bag with an armload of clothes and essentials, gave away or abandoned the rest, and then I was on the road and I was a biker chick.

I think, six hours later, or maybe six days, I realized what a mistake I'd made. Of course, it was too late.

What do I remember the most about it? The noise, there was always the fucking noise, of the bikes roaring away, or the music too fucking loud, or bitches screaming at each other or guys yelling, or people getting beaten to a pulp. Even when there shouldn't have been noise, there was always something, dogs barking, sirens screaming, some factory hammering away next door. The fucking noise, it just never stopped.

And freezing cold on the back of those motorcycles. And the harsh sun. I knew biker mamas, their skin was like leather. And the crank, crystal meth seemed to be the drug of choice along with coke and crack. It was kind of a world all of its own, if you were inside, all the rules seemed different, the straight world was this weird angled place. But inside, it was like a fucking skating rink.

Everything you've ever heard about bikers, good and bad, its all fucking true. They were tight and loyal and generous and all that. They'd sit there and talk seriously about truth and freedom and patriotism, when they talked about it at all, usually when they were stoned, but that didn't take away from their sincerity. They'd swear to be your best friend, and you knew, you absolutely knew, this biker mama would face off her old man, would spit on the devil himself to save your ass.

But the same time, I'd watch guys profess their fucking love for one another, 'you're a brother too me, man, a brother!' And five minutes later, one would beat the other to death.

They were as fucking changeable as the wind, and as you watched, you'd fucking realize anything could set them off, any fucking thing. They'd fucking beat you to death if they had a funny bowel movement, you just couldn't tell. Complete psychopaths.

They were rootless, or they were during the time I was with them. They really didn't care about where they were. Hotel rooms, houses, where they stayed was just that, where they'd stay. They had no sense of place. The way you or I would think 'my house' or 'my apartment' just wouldn't click for them, they didn't live there.

Their world, their place, was each other. That's where they lived. Any time a couple of bikers ran across each other, it was like gossip. They'd start catching up on who knew who, and who was doing what, and what was happening here and there. They'd talk about shit they'd done, but mostly, it was shit other people had done.

When they were traveling together, it was all stories and talk about people they knew, other bikers, and the shit they pulled, sometimes violent, sometimes horrific, sometimes funny. A bank robbery or a knifing would be followed by some domestic spat. It was all the same. The thing was, that if you were part of this, you were part of their world. Sometimes I think that half the fucked up things I saw or heard stories of, were just so that their buddies could talk about them. Being talked about, I think, made you real in the biker world. The bigger the stories, the more they talked, that was what counted. Living large.

Just for the record, I’m going to say this: I never witnessed no fucking murders. Not one. No getting rid of bodies, no armed robberies, arsons, none of that fucked up stuff. I never saw any crimes at all. Maybe that went on when I was with Jules, but the men left the women out of it. They went off and did whatever they did.

So maybe I’m bullshitting and they were actually all good honest citizens who just lived an alternative lifestyle of freedom and camaraderie, and on Sundays they took up knitting. Believe whatever the fuck you want, but leave me out of it and don’t ask certain questions.

I didn’t see any big drug deals. If you were around for that stuff, you were a party favour. You shut your mouth, you didn’t see anything you weren’t supposed to see and didn’t hear anything you weren’t supposed to hear, just all guys doing men stuff, and afterwards you smiled and drank or toked or snorted and made nice and partied. Even paying attention was dangerous. Even them thinking you were paying attention was dangerous.

The closest I saw to anything was once this big meet at a campground, a few different clubs were there. Jules was heading up, right in the middle of it. There were guns everywhere and even the Mamas were scared, and they were never scared. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife. But it all worked out, because later, we partied. I remember, I was dancing with some other chicks naked on a picnic table, and there were these metal barrels that they were having fires in. I ended up drinking too much of something that made me throw up. And I remember seeing Jules and a few other guys, just sitting on lawn chairs lined up by an RV, quietly drinking beers. All of them, dead eyes.

What was that about? What happened? Fucked if I know. Some shit, you didn’t even ask. Jules didn’t keep me around for confidant shit.

As I was saying though, if you were part of this, if you were part of this world that they had, then you were real. You might be dead in ten years, shot to pieces by the cops, but in a weird way, you'd be real.

On the other hand, if you weren't part of this world, then you weren't real. Most people, most places, weren't real to them. Not in any way that mattered. That's fucking scary. These guys could cut your tits off, they'd burn your house down, and the next day, they'd hardly give it a thought, cause you just didn't fucking matter. Of course, most times they didn't bother. If you stayed out of the way, they'd give you no grief, not worth crossing a street for. And anyway, there were cops, and there was all the hassles. But most people, I think, never had a fucking clue how thin their ice was.

I was sort of in their world, sort of not.

There's biker mamas. I heard of a couple of guys who called themselves "Mother" or "Mom," but that’s not the same thing. The mamas were basically the steady wives or girlfriends, they were pretty much into that life, into the values, they were part of the culture. It seemed to me that they did most of the work while the guys laid around, but they did their share of partying and they gloried in the nastiness of it. They'd all gone through shit, becoming what they were, pulling sludgy gangbangs, or getting eaten out while menstruating, or getting beaten by their men, but it was like a badge of honour, a sign that they were fucking tough. They'd still get beaten, or have to pull some shit, but they acted like they didn't care, it was just another merit badge. And they were vicious all by themselves, I heard stories of a couple of them just beating on a third, or saw one talking her guy into pounding this little wimp.

Then there's Chicks, or Chics. I don't know about spelling. Chicks were like a can of warm beer. They'd pick them up, pass them around, spill them, crumple em up and throw them away. They'd think all of eight seconds about a chick, they were like kleenex. And I don't know why, but there was hardly any shortage of chicks. Or at least it didn't seem like that when I was with them.

There was always some girl who was being picked up and fucked around. Maybe it was the drugs, or the mystique of being a biker, or maybe they just wanted to party. Chicks weren't respected, they were just used when they came along. If a chick managed to hang around, she'd get passed around, maybe she'd hook up with one guy till he got bored with her, or maybe she'd be community property, guaranteed fucked up with drugs, and usually put out to turn tricks.

If she stuck around long enough, and the other mamas didn't get sick of her, and the boys didn't get tired of her, and she had the right attitude, she'd make it to being a mama. Or if not, she'd eventually go home, a bit more fucked up, or she'd wind up deposited a few hundred miles away, like a whored out Dorothy in a fucked up Wizard of Oz, and maybe put her life together again, or she'd be working for some pimp in some fucked up city turning out fucked up tricks and no one would give a shit.

Me, I wasn't a mama, not by a long shot. I was sort of a chick, but I was Jules chick, which kind of made me an honorary mama,be cause everyone was scared of Jules. Jules was a, I keep thinking the word is striker, but then, I think that’s the word for biker candidates, so that can't be. Hitter? Executioner? I don’t remember. The way he put it was that he ‘solved problems.’

It's been a few years, and I think I'm kind of fucked up on terms. Okay. One night, after we'd fucked, I remember laying in bed and asking Jules about his tattoos. He had a few. But he had these black marks on his knuckles. He told me those were for people he killed.

I don't remember being freaked or scared then. I'm not sure I believed him, after all, it's such a bizarre thing to associate with the man who is naked beside you, all relaxed. So, I wasn't scared, or concerned. I think I just went, 'oh' like I'd asked that one question you shouldn't. Kind of a faux pas thing.

Looking back, I fucking believe him, and he scares me. I'm probably more scared of him now than I was then, until practically the very end.

Anyway, Jules didn't just kill people, he killed people for bikers. He enforced the rules, whatever that meant. He worked people over. He sorted out disputes. He rode along for events or deals. He was a VIP like I said, he did VIP stuff. Part of that was just…The thing.

And killing people. I suppose that's like rival bikers, or business associates, or maybe just gang members who'd pissed enough people off. I don’t think he killed anyone who wasn’t in the life, or who didn’t cross them.

He was a huge fucking guy. Six foot seven, like I said, and massive. He was big enough and strong enough to literally pick me up with one hand, and hold me with his arm out. I remember sitting in his palm once. He was huge, he was strong, he was just a nasty brutal fighter, I saw him fight once, just a brawl and he wrecked a bar full of guys while I watched, shitting myself.

And absolutely insane. Not insane in a crazy way, but just in doing whatever he wanted kind of way. Like he had no limits and no restrictions, and he could and would do the most fucked up things if it occurred to him and if he wanted to, and no matter what he did, he just wouldn't care too much.

I remember, we were in this town, and we were at this party in this house. I don't know a lot of the details, I was pretty drunk. What I do remember is this white cat that lived in the house. I seem to remember she had pink eyes, and I'm not sure about that because it doesn't sound right.

But anyway, she was a really nice cat, her ears were all chewed up, but she had soft-soft fur, and she'd come right up and want to be petted.

She rubbed against Jules. He reached down and snapped her neck. Just like that. I don't think he even paused in whatever he was doing, drinking or talking or just relaxing. There's the cat with a broken neck at his foot.

I think the conversation stopped for a second, or maybe it was just me. I was shocked. Someone picked up the cat and dropped it in the trash. That was it, everything was back to normal. Until later in the night, when the woman who lived there found out what happened to the cat. Fuck, she freaked out totally. She started crying, then she started screaming at Jules. She even threw a beer bottle at him, although she was together enough not to lob it anywhere near him, it smashed on the wall.

Then she started ordering him out, ordering everyone out and threatening to call the cops on us fucking cat killers. Jules didn't say anything, all he did was look at her. I remember thinking as all this was going on, that he was looking at her just like he'd looked at that cat, and being really scared that something bad was going to happen. Nothing did though. Her boyfriend or whoever managed to get her out of there and calm her down. She did a lot of crying though.

Eventually, towards the end, Jules wandered in and said he was sorry for killing the cat, but he didn’t really care, and she said she was sorry for freaking out. She'd been drunk, and she was really scared, and then everyone was friends again. Yeah, my ass.

That was a thing with Jules. Sometimes there’d be something going on, like bad fucking shit, and you’d think things were going to turn ugly and bloody. Jules would walk over and everyone would calm the fuck down. It’s funny, but Jules often made things peaceful, just by being around.

Looking back, I think the thing was, Jules looked at everyone like he looked at that cat.

You see why Jules could just walk into a pit of hungry bears, pick up the meat and walk back out, and all the bears would be polite to him? I think everyone was scared of Jules.

And he was fucking me, which meant, you didn't pull the same shit on me that you'd do with chicks, I got treated sort of like an honorary mama. I didn't belong, but no one was going to say anything, so they all put up with me and pretended. I think I sensed from the start how precarious my situation was, and the longer I was around and the more I understood, the more scared I got. Jules scared me, not at first, but as I went along. And I was scared to be with him, but more scared by the people we were with, scared of what would happen if he got tired of me.

Because even if he left me alone and just stopped being interested, I knew I would be in a lot of shit with the other bikers and mamas. I wouldn't get treated with the contemptuous indifference they used with other chicks. No, I was this foreign body, too far in. I couldn't see anything good. I went out of my way not to piss anyone off, I tried to be shy, to sort of stay close to Jules. I tried to be nice and friendly. But not too much, because they hated suck-ups.

But every now and then, I'd hear something, or catch a look. It wasn't a good place to be. I remember being scared all the time, scared of all these things, that eventually just sort of worked into this kind of twitching, aimless fear and nervousness, and doing my best to hide it.

I lost weight that summer, fuck did I lose it. I think I was down to the nineties, and my period stopped. I didn't even notice.

My diet was just crap food, like nachos and pizza, I couldn't sleep well. It was hard to get wet, not that Jules cared, he just fucked me, indifferently, and I had to perform back for him. Every other day, or every few days, it seemed we were on the road again, driving along, strange faces, strange places, but everything looked the same always. Everywhere we went.

One thing we did early on, we’d fuck on the motorcycle, I’d be laid over the gas tank hands on the handlebars, and he’d have his cock in me, we’d go screaming down the road, seventy miles an hour. I’d be usually high as fuck. Him too. It was insane.

One time though, we were going along, just coming along this hill and he wiped out. We weren’t fucking, I was behind, holding onto his belt. He was so big I couldn’t put my arms around him. So just riding.

I don't know why or what happened. One minute, everything's fine, I'm holding on to him. The next, he's gone, I'm flying, and then I hit the ground on my side, 'whoof' all the air goes out of me.

Then the weirdest thing happens, it's like I can't stop. I'm just tumbling and tumbling end over end and I can't stop. It felt like I tumbled for an hour, but it must have been just a minute or two.

I wound up laying on my back on hot asphalt staring up at the bluest sky and thinking, 'Holy shit! I'm dead!' Then, I started breathing again.

Jules walked over, asked me if I was all right. I think he was limping a bit. I said, I thought so. He told me to get up and see. So, I stood up, and he helped me. I felt wobbly, kind of like my body wasn't tied down, like I might float away. Then Jules got his bike back up and got on. I got on with him. And we went.

No more fucking while riding after that. He found a limit.

I had nightmares about that for years. Not constantly or anything, but just every once in a while, I'd have this nightmare about tumbling and tumbling, and sometimes I'd just tumble right over a guard rail and off a cliff, or right into this oncoming semi. Once in a while, I'll have a nightmare about the cat. But mostly, if I'm having a nightmare, that wipe out is in it somewhere.

Didn't phase Jules though. Nothing bothered him. He fucked me extra-hard that night though, in some campground, hard even for him.

Oh the sex, that's hard to describe. Jules was pretty much indifferent to how I felt. Vomiting, passed out, crying, horny, didn't matter. Sex revolved around his erection, and when it was ready, he shoved it in, that was all.

I was sore a lot, and I bled a lot. As I got more stressed out and tensed, as I lost weight, it got harder to get wet. It didn't matter to him. I'd try to lubricate myself, but you know, it's hard to get yourself that way sometimes, and it's hard to keep a tube around. I'd get so desperate I'd use anything, hand soap, engine grease, fucking anything, I used salad dressing once. It didn't matter.

I never said no though. I was up for anything. I had to be. I showed my tits, showed my crotch. Jules wanted me to blow or fuck some pal of his, or just some guy he took a liking to, I did it. I danced naked on tables in bars. Got fucked on a jukebox once. Bent over a pinball machine. In public in front of everyone? Sure thing. Up the ass? I’m ready.

Sex on my period before they stopped? Having a stranger go down on me during my period? Whatever Jules said. I remember being high on acid, naked except for boots, dancing around a fire, my body smeared all over with my own period blood. That was before my periods stopped.

I got fucked up a lot. Less as time went on, I got more careful, because I was scared, I needed to watch. Beer was okay, American beer... like fuck, right. Back in Minneapolis, my friends were amazed at how I could put it away. But like, it’s just American beer. I could drink that, no problem. I got less interested in being drunk - blacking out, yeah, that wasn’t a good idea.

I started being careful about drinking or smoking or taking too much, but you know, making it seem like I still was. If you weren’t partying along with everyone - that wasn’t a good thing, they noticed and then they’d start to get suspicious. But if I got really fucked up and high, well, I might say or do something or fuck up somehow and that wouldn’t be good. So, I tried to walk this fine line where I wasn’t taking or smoking or drinking much, but not letting on, and acting and partying, but always paying attention. Because the longer I went, the more scared I was, and there was no way out.

I couldn’t say to Jules, ‘this has been fun, now I’m going to fuck off and leave.’ That wasn’t how it worked in the life. And especially it wasn’t how it worked with someone like Jules.

I was shaking a lot of the time, but I understood the only thing I had going for me, the only thing protecting me from big bad things, was the fact that I was a good fuck, a hot piece of teenage ass ready for anything…So, it didn't matter whether it hurt, I'd just go all mink in heat on him. I'd do anything he told me, anything I even thought he'd like, and I'd go like I was into it. He even fisted me a few times.

The weird thing was, I would come. I'd experience these weird orgasms, all tight and tense and stomach cramping, like a hard rock up inside me. Tension orgasms, like a guitar strung way too tight just snapping a string. He was big, and he fucked really hard, and that whole environment, that lifestyle you’d do a lot of crazy fucked up sex, so yeah.

Thing was, being with Jules was like riding one of those bucking bronco machines you see in honkey tonks, except crazier. And if you fell off the bronco, you’d fall into this pit of knives and fire and snakes and scorpions, and you’d be all fucked up, but no way to tell how. So, you had to stay on the bronco as long as you could, but sooner or later, you knew you were going to get bucked off, but there was no choice but to ride.

Anyway, after a few months, we wound up in Tucson for a few weeks.

He’d picked up this little chippy, Jenny. She was just a 13 year old piece of white trash, a skinny frame built on wires, curly hair, bad teeth and a small narrow bitter little mind. I don't think Jules was her first guy, she already knew her way around the bad streets when she hooked up with him. I can't imagine what it took to make her into the little piece of garbage that she was, what had made her so bitter and predatory. She must have had it hard. I don't know. I didn't like her one bit.

The thing with Jenny, was that all the things that scared me shitless, she liked. She loved the capacity for violence in Jules. She loved his indifference. She loved that he scared everyone, and she loved the status that riding his cock gave her.

He hurt her.

I remember being in threesomes and he'd be pumping his cock in her and you could see the pain on her face. She'd be in agony. Skinny little thing like her, not built for what Jules did with his cock.

But she didn't care about that. Because while he was fucking her, while he was with her, she was someone. They had to respect her and look up to her. And she wasn't afraid to rub it in. I thought I was resented? Oh man, she cultivated resentment. And she knew it. She knew the Mamas despised her, and she enjoyed spitting on them for it.

I don't think payback ever occurred to her. Or maybe she'd been down on the bottom so long she just didn't care. She was just such a stupid stupid sad pathetic girl.

I don't even know if she's alive now.

Of course, she hated me. I was the turd in her bowl of ice cream. Jules was happy to have two skinny little sluts acting like they were in heat over his cock, he liked the idea of having a couple of women. That, by the way, seems to have been one of those things bikers didn't do.

Mamas didn't approve of polygamy, Jules didn't care. He made his own rules, which basically meant he didn’t have any, and no one ever said shit about it. Because no one said shit to Jules.

But for Jenny, I was her rival. She had no shortage of insecurities, and there I was.

I was first, I was around more, I was more accepted (or at least that’s what it looked like to her), I think she believed Jules liked me more. This was her chance big time, hooking up with Jules, and there I was spoiling it. She hated me for that.

Man, the shit she pulled to make my life miserable. Even now, I can remember that hatred and bitterness.

Of course, we were careful around Jules. We were both willing and wicked partners in his threesomes. Sometimes, he'd just sit back and have us put on a show for him while he jerked off.

That was probably the nastiest sex of my life, because every time we did it, she wanted to make it hurt, she was dedicated to it, and after a while, I was hurting her right back. The grossest time was when I was rimming her, and she deliberately shit right in my mouth. Fuck.

But she didn't have much time to enjoy it, because a little later Jules fucked her up the ass, taking that virginity. I remember, that was the only time I ever felt sympathy for her, because she cried afterwards. Just cried and cried her eyes out, bleeding into the toilet bowl, these huge sobs that would just contort her whole body.

I still tasted my mouthful of shit so I felt harshly towards her, I did the minimum though, to take care of her. Out in the bedroom, he snored away. Later on, the next day, I felt badly, cause she'd so obviously been torn open emotionally, she'd been so vulnerable. I thought maybe we could have reached, or connected or something, if not friends, at least get along.

But by then, it was too late, all her doors had closed again. Does that sound like wild shit? For my time with Jules, it was practically typical of shit that went on.

The end came out of the blue. It was a Tuesday morning. Jules was sleeping in, Jenny and I were arguing about something. It didn't matter, she was always picking a fight. I didn't think we were loud.

All of a sudden Jules came out, grabbed me by the hair, and fucking threw me across the room.

Literally, he threw me by my hair, my feet left the ground, I hit the wall, bounced and dropped. He was right there kicking me. I scrambled to get away as he kept advancing on me, kicking me like a dog. I hit the front door, scrabbling for the doorknob, and then all of a sudden I was falling down the steps. He was yelling at me to get the hell out of his sight, we were fucking finished. I was barefoot in cut offs and a T-shirt, and just trying to scramble it all together. I'd scraped my knee and it hurt.

Then my runner bounced off my head. Jenny was throwing my stuff out at me, screaming as well. Deja fucking vu. A big armload of clothes got scattered out on the lawn. I don't know where Jules was. I was scared he was looking for his gun or something.

I don't think I ever saw her happier.

I grabbed my stuff, as much as I could, a big unwieldy arm full, with stuff that kept falling out, then ran and staggered and limped down a back alley. Every few houses I'd have to stop and load back up again, cause it would be falling out of my arms. I was still terrified.

After a block, I got brave or desperate and I stopped to put my runners on. I emptied out a trash can for the plastic garbage bag, turned it inside out, and used it for my stuff. I walked, hit the street, thumbed, kept going, hit more streets, and finally got a ride to the Greyhound station. I don't think he was going there, but the guy who picked me up took one look at my face and just took me where I wanted to go.

By the time I got there, I felt like I wanted to vomit, but there was nothing to come up.

There I was at the fucking greyhound, and everything I had was in a trash bag. It was practically trash itself. I didn't have money for a bus ticket. I didn't even have change for a local bus fare. Fuck, I didn't even have socks.

So there I was, just sitting in this stupid Greyhound terminal, scared, nauseous, terrified that Jules would come walking through the door any minute, and just about all out of anything. I felt so fucking alone.

This guy checked me out. I watched him. He went into the bathroom, and I stared at the men’s room door for a minute. Thinking about something, thinking about it. Not seeing a lot of choices. Just desperately needing to be out of here.

Then I got up and took my bag and walked through the men’s room door. We were alone, thank god. He'd just pissed at the urinal and was leaving.

I stopped him and mumbled out my offer. A blow job for money. Ever since high school, I'd been called a whore, and that had made me madder than anything.

Back then, it had been the thing that hurt the most, it was the biggest most painful lie they told about me, that I'd just do it for money. No matter what I had done, that had always been my line in the sand, the point I wouldn't cross.

It was how I lived with myself. Even if, sometimes, it was a very thin line, it was still a line to me. It was my single, last, tiny shred of self respect in a sea of teenage angst and self loathing.

I'd never crossed it in Hamilton, I'd never crossed it in Minneapolis or Chicago, or even with Jules. That was the one point I'd stood up for myself around him, I think it amused him, and anyway, he liked keeping his meat to himself, so he never bothered to squash me.

But, I'd kept that line, never crossing it, right up until that moment.

It cost me to do what I did. You can't imagine how it cost me, or how desperate I was, or how I felt, my back up against the wall, desperate, terrified, out of options, with nothing left.

We went into a stall, and I sat on a filthy toilet and unzipped his fly. I sucked his cock for thirty six dollars and some dimes and nickles.

After he left, I just bent down and stuck my head between my knees, but I couldn't seem to cry.

Anyway, I got myself together and went back out and bought a ticket for the first bus going anywhere, which would be in about forty minutes.

I had some money left, so I bought a chocolate bar and went to hide in the women's bathroom with my feet up on the seat, just in case he had people out looking for me.

I only got a few bites before I really felt like vomiting, I held it back. That bar might be my last meal in a while. There wasn't enough change from the bus ticket to buy another one.

I couldn't see the time in the women's bathroom, there was no clock in there, and I was terrified that the bus would leave and I wouldn't hear the announcement. So eventually, I went back out to wait.

Jules and Jenny showed up.

I practically shit myself.

Jules came in and gave me a great big hug and told me how much he liked me and how special I was and how sorry he was that I was leaving, but it was all for the best, wasn't it.

Jenny came in lugging my suitcase, she'd packed the rest of my stuff in it. I was thanking them. But Jules had something special. He went back to his Harley and came in with this shoebox wrapped with string. He insisted that I open it. I wasn't sure what to make of it. I mean, knowing Jules, it could have been anything, a bomb, the severed breasts of his last girlfriend, cocaine, a live rattlesnake...

It turned out to be a pair of genuine snakeskin women’s cowboy boots. Fucking expensive ones. About a week ago, we'd been in this shop and I'd mentioned that they were nice, and he must have filed that away for future use. Of course, I was astonished. He was as pleased as a five year old who had a pony at his birthday party. They insisted I try them on, so off went the sneakers and on went the boots. I still have those boots by the way.

Then they walked me to my bus. Jenny gave me a sudden hug and told me how much she was going to miss me. You know, I think she was sincere, I could see it in her eyes. In that moment, she was just brimming with emotion and really believed that we'd been important to each other, that we'd been friends, and that she'd miss me. She really was a little psychotic.

And Jules hugged me again, he broke the hug, reached into his wallet and peeled off five hundred dollars.

I think I resisted for all of fifteen seconds. I took the money. I needed it.

He wished me well. Then, I got on the bus and that was that.

That was the way these guys were. They'd do these big overblown splashes of sentimentality, but in a twitch, they'd be rattlesnake murderous, and I could never ever tell just which way they'd go.

Like, Jules had come and given me a send off, like parents sending their daughter on to college. But you know, just as easily, he could have come and dragged me off kicking and screaming by my hair and taken me behind some building and smashed my face and pulled all my teeth out with pliers for daring to run away from him.

It could have gone either way.

The thing with Jules, is that it's amazing how little difference it would have made to him.

The first couple of hours of the bus ride was really tense. I kept flashing that he was following me, and getting these little panic attacks. But eventually, the tension exhausted itself and I was drowsing. When my bus ticket ran out, I think it was heading towards Des Moines, I got off, got a cab, and took a ride to this motel. I rented a room a couple of nights from this Mom and Pop thing, went in, and slept.

I'm not sure how long I was out, probably a long time. When I woke up, there was a ham and cheese sandwich wrapped in saranwrap by my bed along with a warm carton of orange juice. I didn't even wonder where it came from, I just ate and drank and went back to sleep.

But I guess I should stop now.

&&&

Life is funny. I did wind up seeing Jules again, years later. I was living by myself, with my dog, Rich, in Calgary. By this time. Trevor had been a few months ago, but I was still kind of putting it all back together. I was working as a busser for tables at one of the big halls during the stampede. It wasn't exactly the job I wanted, no tips. But the money was still better than my waitress jobs, so I took time off one job and took nights on the other.

Anyway, I'm clearing tables and...fuck, there's Jules and some bikers. I think I was just shocked.

Jules recognized me and called me over, they pulled out a chair. Staff weren't supposed to sit with the guests of course. But I think management took one look at these guys and decided to be elsewhere.

Jules treated me like an old friend, he introduced me around and reminisced about old times. He relived that time we'd wiped out and he talked about watching me bounce for what seemed like a hundred yards, and then I'd just gotten back on the bike with him, without even a whimper.

They all laughed at that. For some reason, somehow that had impressed him. They all got a kick of it. I was the hardest little firecrotch they ever saw.

He had marks on all his knuckles now. They'd had a few drinks. More than a few, actually, so they were full of boozy goodwill. He said he was sorry he dumped me, I'd been a lot of fun. Everyone liked me.

I didn't ask what happened to Jenny.

They asked him why he'd let me go. He told them my cunt got loose after a while. They all laughed. It seems it was a recurring problem for him. Just listening around the table, I kind of got the impression that Jules was fond of teenage meat. Young meat.

He asked me how I was doing. I said fine.

He asked if I had a boyfriend. I lied and said yes.

He asked who, I said Rich.

I was just reaching. It wasn't a name from the world he recognized though, so looking back, I think it was probably about the same as telling him I was single and waiting for him. Whoever Rich was, he was part of the straight world, which meant he didn't matter as far as Jules was concerned.

He said he was going to be in town for a few weeks and told me where he was staying. If I wanted to come by, for old time’s sake. Maybe pick up where we left off.

He asked where I lived, and I told him, too nervous to come up with a good lie. I didn't think he registered the address though.

Then one of them did his 'back to business' thing, which I suppose meant that it was time to discuss murder plots or coke trafficking or maybe something completely legit.

I said I had to get back to work and they let me. There were a whole lot of 'nice to meet you, Eve’ and 'keep in touch.'

I stayed on the job for another half hour and then went home and started packing. The next morning I quit my waitress jobs and told them I'd let them know where to send the severance cheques. I didn't tell the Stampede anything.

I blew about half my savings buying a second-hand beater car from this guy I knew, loaded up, including Rich, sold or gave away what I couldn't load, told my landlord she could keep the security deposit and anything I'd left behind, and then I hit the road.

I drove straight through til the car broke down in the early morning outside some place called Brandon or Headingley.

But luckily, this guy I'd known in Winnipeg, Danny, came to my rescue. I didn’t know him well, he was hanging with people then that I was hanging with. It wasn’t a sex thing at all. But, he was the only number I could find.

I needed help and he helped. It wasn’t money. I mean I had my own money, it was running out, but I had it. I was just fucked up and exhausted. He just helped me get my head together. I suppose I could have managed on my own, but I was pretty exhausted and fucked up.

In this world, as often as there are people that will hurt you, there are people in our lives, even strangers, that come and make a difference. They are in all our lives, and we don’t appreciate them enough.

He took care of me and Rich for a couple of days, found me a motel and paid for the first night, got dog food for Rich, and arranged with a garage to fix my car.

It was the alternator, which…I don’t know, re-charges the battery or something while you drive. I don’t know about cars. I knew how to drive, but I didn’t even have a driver’s licence. We stayed until we got the car fixed.

Then I kept on driving until I wound up in Windsor, where I eventually wound up staying with Floramel. The car was dying and I was running out of money to keep it going.

She’d moved back to Canada from Chicago. The Kolony had mostly kept in touch.

Oh, and that African guy and his sister - turned out she was really his wife, it was some kind of Visa thing, I don’t know. I remember he was hot to marry me, but he was already marreied in Africa. Anyway, turns out he robbed Flora blind - not literally, he just stole all her money and shit and saddled her with all these debts and screwed her over, so she had to leave the US.

She had completely changed her mind about me, because I was right about him and tried to warn her, but she picked the wrong side back then.

So big happy reunion. She was happy to put me up and have me back in her house. She kicked my ass and made me get a driver’s license. But she looked after me, and Rich. He was a good dog, everyone liked him, scary looking big ass German Shepherd mutt, but friendly as hell... Unless it was important to me that he not be. Fuck you, Trevor.

I got a job, not a good one, but it was a job, and I settled down. Later I got a better job, but not much better. It was a living.

I can’t say I liked Windsor, it was a bit like Hamilton, it felt familiar. Detroit was across the river, but I only went twice. Detroit was awful. Windsor was really quiet.

I had no sex life to speak of, beyond one night stands, once in a while. Flora didn’t like me taking men home, and she disapproved of pulling trains. So I kept all that stuff on the down low. But her kids were great, I loved them. I settled down for a while.

Floramel is another one of those people that make a difference in your life. I don't know what I would have done, if not for her.

There's bikers in Ontario of course, even in Hamilton. They're all over Quebec. I stay well away from that scene. Don't go near it. The nice thing about the life, is mostly, if you don't mess with them, they don't mess with you.

Every now and then I think about Jules, and sort of hope he's in prison for life, or dead or something, or far far far away. I don't hate him or anything, it would just be better that way.

Anyway, that's the last time I saw him.