Leather was always a fine choice for a jacket. The first thing you could do with it, was the smell. It always smelled like leather. It always smelled good. No matter how many rides you have been on. No matter how long they were. It always smelled nice again the next day. It always made sense to put it on and feel like you were safer in the second skin it made for you.
The club charter said that their jackets, when earned, were exceptional. That they were made from a dragonhide—a real dragon. Not one of these little things that camped in swamps or hung from trees eating fruit, or the little shits that stole your laundry or jumped into the trash bins. No, this was from one of… The big ones. The ones that used to take on armies. The ones that they say didn’t exist anymore. I’m not so sure; I think they just worked out how to keep themselves hidden. It was the one way.
Jill did not really believe it, but she had never had to wash her jacket. Not once. Not even on the 42-hour long ride, they had to do to get to and from Mexico that time. You know the one, where they got the last bit of money to buy the clubhouse outright. It was just as fresh, just as clean, just as good as the first time she earned it.
Everyone talked about that heist. On club meet nights. Even Jill had. She never boasted, though. She and I always told it straight. They had gone to get the best stuff to resell and or steal. It was from a supplier who knew where they could get the best. Some Japanese-Mexican living in Merida, all the way down the arse end of Mexico. Her story did, however always include the incalculable heat and the flies, and that time they got the squirts from some dodgy street vendor outside of Torreon. She did not include the car chase, fighting with the other gangs, the times they got lost, or when they all got flu on the way back past Pheonix and had to spend a downright month in a broken down motel-6 full of nick knacks and strange puppets which she swore moved when you were not looking. The nightmares from that hotel continue to this day.
Maybe only one of those stories was true. Because she knew as the boss knew. He was called Bath. No one really knew why, but his jacket was dark red and had more “scales” (club badges) than any other. Just like you would expect from one of the club’s founders. He was always a man of few words and one of the best right fists and shooters in the entire Federation. He had long grey hair which he kept in a ponytail that had just a whisper of red still hanging on. He wasn’t a complicated man by any measure, but he was someone you could trust like a rock. I could not think of how many times he had saved my life. Jill, though was not so lucky. That’s this story. The one when I found out.
The Federation was dying. Everyone knew it. Like the States before it and whatever was left of the Queendom of Quebec. Just lawless anarchy. City-states, corporate enclaves, cultish gated communities and towns with strange laws that sometimes welcomed you, sometimes shot at you. The world was falling Ill of the worst of war without end, drought or flood, or just disease that came and wiped everything in its path. The only way to survive was crime and nomadic travelling. Finding/stealing things, trading them, getting another meal when you can, or when you shot or ran over it, and just keeping away from the darkness of the depression that had struck all else in its path. The apocalypse had been and gone, we were the dregs whose caretaker lives were to keep going till things got good again or… Well, that’s what had kept them alive. It wasn’t a good life, but it was a life. Struggle because otherwise the void might get you. We knew it, and we lived it.
Jill and I had already made love twice that evening. Once with her on top, then later on we both had a go. It was good lovemaking with all the colours of the rainbow. Every lesbian knows it’s good when you see the rainbows in each other’s eyes, the smell of her and how she gasps in the right way. How plump it all is, and how much you want to do it again, but it’s late, and you have a long drive tomorrow, so you hope you are able to tackle the velvet (not tip, that’s for singles) again then.
So naturally, when it began, I was naked. Boobs out, the whole package waiting for a new song to start. Then of course the explosion.
Petrol station nearby had been hit. Three men on motorcycles, big nasty hogs that steal fuel by the gallon. Taken what was left and blew it up on fumes. Still took like a candle in a oil slick, because that was pretty much what it was. They stay their on their hogs revving. A challenge. Just the three of us, me Jill and Bath who was in the other room is the broken down abandoned flatbed house we were in. We must be in their turf, not purposely. We knew it was a challenge. One designed to be a trap. Bath knew. I knew. Jill knew.
So we got on our bikes (dressing first we ain’t idiots) and drove in the opposite direction for ten miles then we flip a coin to decide left or right. We do this again till we are as far away as we can on half a tank then go to the nearest known buyout. We don’t have many, but we always drop a few on any trip, keep them in a log and almost none have been raided. We keep fuel, kits, weapons and food in each one. We also make sure we keep a different bug box with the ammo a good quarter mile away. Almost always north.
Jill found the box first. Empty. Been raided. We sigh and get back onto the road to the next box. Hope we can get to it before the fuel runs out. But we don’t get their.
The other gang? They have caught us. Surrounded.
Bath just slowly reached for his shooter. A rifle with wood grain and enough stopping power to kill an elephant. I don’t know how he got it but it was out and I realized Jill had hers out too, a simple six shooter. I reached for my shotgun. She’s pretty but they’ll have to be closer for me to get anything wound out of them.
We formed a defense V with Bath in front, Jill left, me right. I would be slightly in front of Jill but only just. Then as always the first shot is a warning. Or it used to be. Bath took aim straight at the field of the first Hogs driver. He’s through playing games.
The other two keep coming. No stopping, it’s not like anyone had much too loose anymore. One of them shoots but wild over the top of Jill, and Jill takes out their bike with one shot, the rider with three others. I count to the point I can see the last bit and let the gun fire but it’s too late, the bike has too much momentum and I notice too late. It’s a kamikaze. Straight into Bath. Jill panicking and emptying her shots into it uselessly. Both bikes exploded. Then darkness.
It’s a little while later and me and Jill have got the last of the stuff off the bodies. I finally find Bath on a slight rise.
“You didn’t die!”
He’s not at all well.
“No. But I’m not going to live. M”He coughs up thick red blood. There is no way there is even a hospital close let alone a doctor who could fix him in time. “I’m sorry M. I’m giving you my jacket.”
I clasp his hand. Crying.
It’s not fair. Nothing fair. But I know it’s what he wants. I grab his jacket. I grab a bit of his hair to make the next scale. “You will always be a part of the club. I sware.” And with that he died.
And that’s how I became the leader of the last proper surviving motorcycle club in the world. Dragons Motorcycle Club. Our motto: “Scales and Gold never tarnish.” Things kept going for some time and the club got stronger and eventually we took over one of the big enclaves for our own, but that’s another story.
The Enigma Garden 