I previously posted about my escapade with a lady named Jean while I was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia. Jean was a roommate of Susan, who was ultimately engaged to and subsequently married to my former roommate Tony Di Anzo. The escapade in question was a little matter as to whether or not I was the father of her child. I vehemently denied that I was the father of her child. When the child was born, his skin tone and my skin tone did not exactly match. And when I say our skin tones didn’t exactly match, hell they weren’t even close. That’s like saying the color of night and day don’t exactly match. No shit. That’s a big DUH. Jean didn’t want to do a paternity test, even though I was all for doing one. I said, “Let’s skip the paternity test, then. But I sure as hell ain’t doing a shotgun wedding. You can kiss my ass. No paternity test, no wedding, shotgun or otherwise. Well, Jean had a falling out with Susan over the whole issue of the kid and had to move out. As a result, she was getting desperate. She was looking for someone to set her up with a place to stay. I don’t know who that someone was going to be. But it wasn’t going to be me. Just to make sure it wasn’t going to be me. I started to hide. I made myself scarce. If you know what I mean. How does a person make themselves scarce, you might ask? Excellent question. It’s an even better question if you consider that my powers of invisibility had not yet been perfected while I was stationed at Fort Benning. That’s right. The Klingons of Star Trek fame weren’t the only ones with a cloaking ability. But, and it’s a big but, I had not perfected my ability yet. So, how did I hide? Number one, I didn’t stay at the barracks. If you don’t stay where you normally stay, they can’t find you there. Number two, I didn’t hang out at Nichols Alley. Now that one, you’re probably questioning because Nichols Alley had the cheapest beer in Columbus. Hell, I think they had the cheapest beer in all of Georgia. But I avoided Nichols Alley all the same. I avoided Nichols alley like the plague. I started to hang out pretty regularly at Someplace Else. Chains loved all the attention she was getting. I ‘happened’ to tell her what was going on with the Jean fiasco. She was livid. She wanted to go and rob a specific cradle. She wanted to tear Jean’s ass apart. I envisioned a catfight between Chains and Jean. It would’ve been a really lopsided catfight, but I still would have loved to have seen it. Di Anzo asked me a few times at work where I had been hanging out at night. I figured that had to be coming from Jean through his wife. Under no other scenario could I see him giving me the third degree about where I spent my evenings. When he kept badgering me about it, I told him, “Give it a rest already. I’m warning you, Tony. You’re going to get yourself hurt if you keep badgering me.” Di Anzo did what he always does. He triple-jabbed the air because of course, the air never hits back. And he said, “You can’t touch this.” “You’re right, Tony. I can’t touch that. I won’t touch that. But cha-ching can.” “What in the hell is cha-ching?” “Keep pushing me, and you will find out.” “I thought we was friends.” “This ain’t about friendship, Tony. This is about Jean not doing what’s right. What’s right is getting a paternity test to prove whether the kid is mine or not. This ain’t about Jean trying to bully me into doing what she wants. What she wants is a happy ending in fairyland. Well, fairytale endings don’t exist. The kid ain’t mine, Tony. You know it. I know it. Jean knows it. It’s time for everyone to admit it. You know, Chains right?” “Yeah. I know her.” “She’s gunning for Jean. That means her whole biker gang is gunning for Jean. That ain’t good.” “Look Masters, you gotta keep her and that bike gang away from us.” “What gives, Tony? I thought Susan ran Jean off. That’s not true? That’s just some bullshit you were spreading?” “No. No. She did make Jean move out. But then she let her move back in because she was having too much trouble trying to make it on her own.” “Well, what do you want me to do about it? I’m not going to marry Jean. I don’t even like her. You know the girl, Sara, from Montgomery, Alabama. That I was telling you about?” “I think I remember her. I never met her. But yeah, I think I remember her.” “Yeah, well, she’s the kind of girl you write home to your folks about. At least, I wrote home to my folks about Sara. Sara is a girl with possibilities. Jean, absolutely not. No possibilities. Sara, endless possibilities. Do you see the difference?” “Yeah. I think I do.” “Well, you tell Jean, or you tell Susan to talk some sense into Jean about doing this paternity test thing. Let’s stop playing games.” I went to Someplace Else that night to have some beer and to see Chains. I could tell by looking that Chains had been cooking at a slow simmer ever since last night. She came up to me and started putting on the hard sell almost immediately. She grabbed me in a bear hug and gushed, “Hey Snooky-Wookums. How are you doing?” I replied with a smile, “I’m doing just fine now that I’m with you, my lovely Iron Princess. I think we need to ride out toward Edgewood toward the Woodlawn Estates area.” “Why is that? Do you know somebody that lives up by the University? Oh. I get it. The cat and the cradle. Am I right?” “Well, my lady, I am not a betting man. But I would say you hit a grand slam on that one. I would also say we need two for the road. Let’s buy a round for the house. What do you say, sweet cakes?” “Demon and I are buying a round for the house, so drink up boys. Drink up. Then fire up those hogs cuz we’re going for a ride.” The boss then said, “like the lady said, drink up boys. Here’s to Chains and Demon. Here. Here.” Everyone in the gang yelled, “Chains and Demon. Here. Here.” Then we all drank up and raced up the stairs toward the hogs. We fired up the hogs and we raced out toward the Woodlawn Estates area of Columbus. We had a certain residence that we had to terrorize. After all, Jean, Susan, and Di Anzo needed to get the message. You can’t touch this. We blasted through their neighborhood three or four times making sure to gun the engines really loud in front of their house. At one point, Di Anzo himself came out to look. When he saw who it was, he ran back inside. I had warned him not to mess with the biker gang. I told him that Chains, and by extension, the whole biker gang, was gunning for them. We were just making good on the threat. We would do that same stunt twice more within the next week. About a week later, Di Anzo came up to me at work and said, “Hey Masters. You gotta call off the dogs.” I looked at him with a dumb look and said, “Dogs? What dogs? I don’t know nothing about no dogs.” “You know what I mean.” “No, Tony. I don’t know what you mean. Exactly what do you mean?” “Your motorcycle gang has been terrorizing us for the last week.” “My motorcycle gang?!? I don’t even have a motorcycle gang. What in the hell are you talking about?” “Okay. It’s not your motorcycle gang. But you know which motorcycle gang I’m talking about. It’s the one you ride with. Tell them to quit.” “Assuming that I knew what you were talking about, which of course I don’t. What makes you think they’ll listen to me?” “Cuz you warned me this would happen.” “I warned you what would happen?” “That the motorcycle gang would come after us.” “I did?” “Don’t play dumb, Masters. You know you did.” “Give me one good reason why I should. Help you, I mean.” “Jean said that she thinks the father of her child is a Hawaiian dude.” “Tell her to put that in writing. Or she can agree to a paternity test. Those are my terms. Assuming I can even get this motorcycle gang to back down. I’m not saying I can. Once they start some shit. God help you, cuz no one else will. Let me know what she says.” That night, I told Chains and the rest of the gang that we had to rattle their cage one more time because it was definitely working. Everyone was asking me, “So, give us the skinny, Demon.” I replied, “Well, you see, I would guys, but my throat’s kinda parched and dry.” The gang leader yelled, “why doesn’t someone by Demon a beer?” As I sipped my beer, I started to speak, “They were begging me to get you to stop terrorizing them. They were begging me in a helluva way. They were begging me until my hair turned gray. But I insisted that I didn’t even know you. They’re losing sleep over you. They’re about to shit in their drawers over you. They were crying like little babies. I think if we rattle their cages one more time, those cages will break wide open. Can I have an amen?” Someone in the crowd shouted, “Amen! Hallelujah! Amen!” Then the leader yelled, “To the bikes.” In a few moments, a loud roar of hog engines ascended from the parking lot of Someplace Else. Then, we rode off into the night to terrorize a small block of the Woodlawn Estates area of Columbus. A couple of days later, my troubles with Jean finally came to an end. This whole paternity nightmare had proved to be just another test in futility.
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