HOGDOGGIN’ VIRTUAL MOTORCYCLE RALLY: THE FINAL DAY
Sunday, May 31, 2009
In the Last Episode, The First Offenders fought amongst themselves and left Shelby for dead.
Lafitte and LeRoy met up with Monkey and the other Bleak House Riders after that burst of speed sent them hurtling down the Interstate towards the Rally. Lafitte was looking rough, LeRoy thought–sooty, almost. But then he saw why. On the horizon, black smoke thick and mean like thunderheads.
They all pulled off the road into a freshly plowed corn field to discuss the next move.
The Bleak House Riders were a hard crew, very independent-minded. Grizzled, tested, and dangerous. You had Brooklyn toughs, some Chicago connections, badasses out of rural Ohio, mysterious Wisconsin fishermen, imported muscle from Hong Kong, modern day cowboys from Oklahoma, old-timey Navy men, and Jen. Men and women who think bleak, speak bleak, and act bleak. All of them, waiting on their choppers, each very different, custom-designed, no one to tell them they had to ride any one particular hog in a particular way…but they were all powered by the same fuel. A special blend that gave you the most bang for your buck. A mixture courtesy of LeRoy and Monkey.
And now these two long-suffering club leaders climbed off and stood with Lafitte at the edge of the group, the burning odor heavy over everything, the wind hot.
Monkey said, “Wow, you’ve sure changed in a year. What happened to the psychobilly look?”
“The wind in my hair kept fucking up the pompadour.”
“So.“ She pointed at the column of smoke. “I’m guessing we missed all the fun.”
“Needed to head you off before you rode right into it. I didn’t know you’d brought coyotes along with you.” Thumbed back down the highway they’d come from. The Buick.
“Aw. No more Rally?”
Lafitte shook his head. “Steel God’s still there. I don’t know what he’s waiting for. But we’ve got to get everyone else out together, or they’ll all scatter and we won’t have a club left to ride with.”
LeRoy spoke low. “Maybe that’s just what he wants. Maybe it’s suicide by rally.”
Lafitte chewed it over. Then he said, “No. It’s too soon. He’s got plans. He just ain’t got around to telling me what they are yet.”
Monkey crossed her arms. “How the fuck would you know that?”
A shrug. “I do. Call it a cop’s hunch. He’s not easy to read, but he lets himself be skimmed if called for. I think it’s one reason he wanted me onboard. He can be more subtle with me than he could with Fry or Red Gator.”
“He know you’re here?”
“Yeah. Told me to come get you guys, reel you on in.”
LeRoy laughed quietly. “Into the inferno? Really? That’s not so…reassuring.”
Lafitte spit on the ground. “The Virtual Dive Bar is like a bunker. It would be the last thing to burn, and Smith says it’s survived a few fires already. We’re camped there. Hurry up and we can get back, no problem. Just get your bandanas up on your noses. Breathing that brimstone can give you a bad case of the dead.”
LeRoy nodded slowly, gazed into the billowing smoke as if trying to read its mind. Then he turned to Monkey, winked.
She turned to the crew and shouted, “Mount up! We’re goin’ in.”
The simultaneous roar of all those engines burning that special fuel gave Lafitte serious goosebumps. Goddamn, it felt like…home.
*
On the road back in, they passed BBQ Revelators rolling out with their smokers and van full of meat. Some women in an Escalade, windows down, singing along to Kelly Clarkson. Some mean badass Unholy Bastards, beards like armor. A trailer full of Whorehounds, all of them hanging out the windows, beer cans and whisky bottles in their fists, shouting full-lunged at the passing bikers. Behind them, several biker chicks, led by Mar, with Twister pulling up the rear in full-on pout mode. Next was Indy, all alone and loving it that way. Then the traveling circus of the Skull Patrol, their crazy costumes, weird bikes and trikes and clown cars, and a chopper-hearse at the rear, hauling the body of Hot Guac, on display through the glass, but he looked as if he was ready to rise again, Dracula-style. The Irish weaved all over his lane, singing and drinking and nearly taking out one of the Ohio BH Riders. The Nerd of Noir was riding shotgun in Ed’s Bibliothecary 1930‘s Packard, cursing at Ed about how great Poe was. In the backseat, Rawson and the Mamasan made out like teenagers. Even the sheriff was part of the pack, in an ambulance instead of his squad, though. A dazed and confused Banks stumbled along the roadside with his thumb out. His thumb had been pricked and ran red. The back of his jacket had been singed and was still smoking. Jed had scrambled together a traveling Hardboiled Wonderland, hijacking a taco truck and stopping to serve unsuspecting bikers and escaping townsfolk his gut bombs. You could see a trail of customers behind him, upchucking in the fields. The ghost of Emerson LaSalle rested atop the hood of Stone Q. Mann’s BMW, wildly passing all the traffic in the wrong lane, splitting the Bleak House Riders at one point as they hightailed in from a line of Priuses, with an angry looking @VictorGischler standing through the sun roof of one, rallying them on with a Civil War sabre in his hand. A ghostly, shimmering car carrying a freaky-looking holographic passenger honked his horn and kept yelling at the traffic in his wake to stop following him! Lafitte heard a sonic boom and looked above him just in time to seethe CrimeSpree International Action Jet streak across the sky to destinations exotic and mysterious. And at the rear, three very haggard, very afraid bikers, bloodied, broken and sharing a mutilated moped–the two guys from Texas along with a bandaged, splinted Jeff Shelby. They were trying to outrun Crazy Larry in his station wagon, but he was just fucking with them, keeping pace about thirty feet behind before revving the engine and shooting forward, only to fade back and start all over again.
Lafitte watched them all pass, then shook his head. Maybe Patti had been right after all.
Onward…
*
Back in town, the smoke was so thick that it hung in the air like a curtain you couldn’t see through. If he squinted and waved some of it away, he was able to see that the flames had finally reached the buildings on the far Southwest end of town. They all pulled around back of the Dive Bar, parked, and coughed and blinked their way inside.
Inside, the lights were out, and candles had been lit all over. The smoke wasn’t as thick in here, but there was still a haze to remind you that the only thing separating you from the fires of Hell were the walls and the roof.
The last remaining Bar inhabitants: Smith–behind the stick with his arms crossed, cool as winter snow. Steel God–alone at a center table eating a burrito and drinking a frozen margarita. The rest of the Steel Army. Most of them looked freaked, on a hair-trigger, their beers trembling in their hands. Kristal ran over to Lafitte and clung to him, whispered, “He’s fucking crazy, Billy. You’ve gotta do something.”
When Steel God saw LeRoy and Monkey, his eyes lit up and he bellowed, “Yes! Finally!” He shoved back from the table, stood, and went over to embrace them both, bits of burrito flecking his beard.
Hug over, he held them each by a shoulder. “I wondered when you’d show up. Starting to think I’d burn up.”
Lafitte stood there gawking, finally finding his words. “Wait, what’s all this about? You’d set this up?”
“That’s why you’re my Sergeant. Don’t miss a thing, do you?” Winked. “It’s just that I couldn’t leave until we made a deal.”
“What deal?” Closed his fingers into a fist. “You selling us out?”
A shrug. “More like ‘renting’. Look, we’re not going to be able to run forever. But I’d like to think that one day, years from now, we’re not just myths, barely remembered, all the details wrong. And if there’s one thing these fucking Bleak House types are good at, it’s preserving a good story.”
He turned to Monkey. “You, I want to make sure this next ride of ours gets properly documented. Something tells me it’s going to be a doozy.”
Then to LeRoy. “And this character Lafitte here? He doesn’t realize it yet, but his path will lead to gargantuan things. Shit I can’t even see in my dreams, it’s so big. So…I want you to make him look good. Talk him up. The difference between myth and legend? I’m counting on you to help him make the leap. And make him an honorary rider in your club. At least for a little while.”
LeRoy rubbed his chin thoughtfully, he and Monkey exchanging glances as if telepathically linked.
Lafitte took a moment to let it all sink in. Him? Gargantuan? Probably not. But not a bad goal. More like he’d end up just like Steel God…leader of a little cult out in the wilderness. He looked around at the others. The ones named Moe and Georgia sat at the bar, having a pissing contest between “Who saw Worse on the Streets of Brooklyn/Chicago?” The Deputy in his tin star and Weezer t-shirt was filling his young son’s bottle with beer. Guy named Dog was chatting up the newest Steel Army rider, the redhead who’d tried to cut God’s junk off. She was still bruised from her “initiation beating” from Anastasia, but she was laughing and enjoying her new family. Dog was going on about his “fishing trips”, if you could call them that. Couple more guys from down around the Mississippi Delta grabbed guitars from the stage and started in on some blues.
Finally, LeRoy, after meditating and communing with the Big Earth they were all standing on, blinked and held out his hand to Steel God. “All right. We can do that.”
Steel God laughed, reached for LeRoy’s hand. But before they could shake, Monkey shouted, Wait!”
No idea how she’d done it, but she’d been able to maneuver around Lafitte, get an arm around his neck, and point a snubnose .38 at his temple.
She said, “I want to hear his story first. And then…and only then…can you two shake. I might have some suggestions to make it better.”
LeRoy and Steel God hung there, hands in mid-air, thinking, before mumbling at each other. Then, “Fine. All right, let’s hear it.”
Monkey loosened her grip, but kept her gun aimed in Lafitte’s general direction. He climbed up on the stage, took a mic.
As the world burned around them, flames close enough that they could hear crackling through the walls, windows now cracking from the heat, Lafitte started into his story, backed by blues guitar and the howl of the prairie winds.
And, holy motherfucking shit, what a story it was.
He just hoped he could wrap it up before there was no way for each and every Steel Army soldier and Bleak House Rider to escape. But deep down, just this gut feeling, he knew they’d all make it out just fine…
*
I hope the above post gets across my gratitude and appreciation for the Bleak House crew more than I can say here with mere smoochy-squishy words of love and affection.
But still, it needs to be said that Bleak House Books is doing it right. In an age where the big publishers seem to have lost their way, their individuality, and their minds, Bleak House has it all down–sure of who they are, what they stand for, and what kind of books make their engines rev. When you talk to them, you know they love a good story more than the bottom line. The characters in the books they publish are as alive to them as the bean-counters are to the conglomerates.
And what’s even better is that within the identity of Bleak House, you find an amazing variety of storytellers and styles while still able to see what attracted Ben and Alison to this as a Bleak House book. You’ve got hard-boiled, noir, borderline cozy, traditional PI’s, rural, urban, exotic locales, satire, slapstick, deadly serious, etc etc. Not only that, but there’s room to grow and adapt and expand while still keeping true to the central pillar that holds it all up.
They thought Lafitte’s tale has been worth telling to everyone twice now. And for that, I can only say for the thousandth time, THANK YOU.
See what the fuss is all about. Check out this book that got the Bleak House Riders so excited. And what d’you know? Right on the eve of HOGDOGGIN’ MONDAY, June 1st, a day we can all show our thanks for the fine work of Bleak House by buying Hogdoggin’ however you can. We want to show our love to the indie stores that have time and again shown us so much love and support. Right now, you can pick up signed copies from Once Upon a Crime (Minneapolis), Pudd’nhead Books (Webster Grove, MO), Subterranean Books (St. Louis, and I don’t think they’re signed, as I forgot to after Noir at the Bar, but make sure to support Kelly’s amazing store, please), Davis-Kidd Books (Memphis), and Square Books (Oxford). Next week, I’ll leave my mark at Murder by the Book (Houston) and I Love a Mystery! (Kansas City). But if you can’t make it to the indies, I understand. There’s always Indiebound, where you can find indie stories nearby and order through the mail. Or you can help the big box stores, Barnes & Noble and Borders, see that you want more choice on their shelves, by ordering Hogdoggin’ and other BH titles. Tell your friends to, as well. And if even those are elusive (like in small town Southwest Minnesota), there’s always the online options–Amazon.com (hey, I know there’s some balking, but those guys are really a godsend for some customers), Powell’s, ABE, and Alibris.
I’m just saying that I want HOGDOGGIN’ MONDAY to be like a Spinal Tap concert: louder than everyone else (“These go to eleven.”), so that the neighbors…and the publishing industry in general…and especially crime fiction readers…can all hear us loud and clear.
And also like a Tap show–it’s a really fucking good time, warts and all.
So with that, I’ll get the hell off the stage and stop hogging the spotlight. I just thought you should know that’s I’ve written this new book, see…
AND THAT”S THE END OF THE HOGDOGGIN’ VIRTUAL MOTORCYCLE RALLY. THANKS FOR HANGING AROUND. NOW…GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE SO YOU CAN GET TO THE BOOKSTORE (VIRTUAL OR REAL) AND MAKE SOME NOISE ALL OVER THE USA.