Biker Wars

The milkman arrived every morning just as Robby, Dougy, and I set out to play. He set our bottles on the front porch, smiled, and left. I never knew his name, but I liked him. He always smiled, then waved, and that made me feel important. Plus, I loved milk even though I was allergic to it and suffered persistent stuffy sinuses as a result. With my plugged nose, I sounded like Elmer Fudd. Add that to my speech impediment, and I was a regular comedian without meaning to be. However, nothing would deter me from my precious milk!

One warm spring morning, dressed in our usual attire for the season–shorts and bare feet–my friends and I went looking for action.  The ditch behind my house was empty, so we took advantage of that luxury and used it as concealment while we plotted and planned. The ditch itself was around 4 feet deep, so if we crouched down, nobody outside its depths could see us. The weeds along the banks offered even more concealment. Able to act incognito in all my mischievous, criminal acts gave me great delight.

As we walked down the ditch approaching the top end of our neighborhood, we heard voices. Barely peering above the weeds, we spied a group of older boys fixing their bikes. Tires, chains, wheels, seats, screwdrivers, wrenches, and sprockets were laying all over their front yard. It was a major biker gang rendezvous, with boys everywhere, getting ready for some serious riding.

Robby, Dougy, and I slunk back to the bottom of the ditch for a pow-wow. “These kids have been bullying me for a long time,” Robby said.

“Yeah, me too! I don’t like any of em,” I replied. “They pick on me and call me names.”

Dougy was mute, but there was no backing down in Dougy. He just nodded his head in agreement and smiled. He was feisty and a good follower.

“Let’s fix em for good! “ Robby said with an excited pitch in his voice. “If we circle around from down the street, we can raid them before they even know what happened.”

We had all seen plenty of cowboy and Indian shows on TV. Indians fascinated me. They always appeared out of nowhere and raided the cowboys before they knew what hit them. I preferred being an Indian when my friends and me had cowboy and Indian wars–that is until I found out the Indians were defeated by the cowboys in real life. Then I had a chip on my shoulder because, deep down inside, I thought the Indians should’ve won that war. Smearing paint on your face and wearing feathers in your hair was more cool, in my eyes, than wearing a stupid cowboy hat.

Anyway, I was ready to "Indian-raid" these boys’ biker party. I was so excited, anticipating the action, that I could barely contain myself. We drew plans in the dirt on how we would administer the raid. We would hit them from the other side of the street, wreck their party, then quickly run into the ditch and race as fast as we could to my house where we would hide in my backyard. Our plot seemed fool-proof.

Five minutes later, we were crouched opposite our original location, ready for some serious action. Robby whispered, “On the count of three, we hit em…one…two…three!”

Suddenly, we burst from our hiding place, screaming and running as fast as we could. Within a few seconds, we were sacking the bike party! Older boys were scurrying everywhere bewildered, wondering what was going on. Our raid took them by surprise! I grabbed what I could–sprockets, chains, tools, bike tubes and tires and threw them as far as I could, into the weeds next to their house. Robby and Dougy did the same.

Our plan went like clock-work. We scattered their stuff–then we scattered. Robby was in the lead, then me, then Dougy as we entered the ditch to make our getaway, running like a pack of rabbits. I could hear the older boys behind us screaming words that began with ‘S’ and ‘F’ and a few others. They were really mad! I was barely into the ditch when I realized the older boys were in hot pursuit.

“Run faster, Robby!” I yelled. “They’re gaining on us!” I was sprinting as fast as my feet could move.

I looked back just in time to see Dougy fall into the clutches of the angry mob. He was chubby with a round potbelly and could not run very fast. Those older boys pounded on Dougy for awhile as Robby and I made a clean getaway. The two of us bivouacked in my backyard to plan our next move. We could hear Dougy screaming for mercy at the hands of the biker gang not far away.

We hadn't intended for any beatings, and we both felt bad for Dougy, but we were powerless to save him. In the life of crime we had chosen, it was everybody for himself and we understood the risks. The thrill of the raid far outweighed the agony of defeat.

Soon, the beating stopped and Dougy rejoined us, whimpering and bloodied. The boys yelled threats from down the street, but they knew better than to come near my house because they knew my mom would thrash them. I threw a few well-aimed rocks their direction, not intending any serious harm. I just wanted them to know the battle was not over.

They gathered up their wheels, chains, sprockets, tubes, wrenches, and seats and went back to work. Occasionally, they would look up from their labors to check for any other raiding war parties. None came.

Robby, Dougy, and I were quickly on to something else. Dougy wiped the blood off his puffy, bruised face. We grabbed my red wagon and headed off for another adventure. The battle with the boys up the street was on hold until another day.