Gretchen, The Hell's Angels....And Me. Part IV

As we left our saga, Gretchen's grandpa had informed me, in no uncertain terms that I should be wary of Gino, Gretchen's brother with these chilling words....

"Pool is about the only thing Gino DOESN'T shoot!".

Shortly thereafter, I headed home and fell into bed. I slept the sleep of the dead. Hell, it had been a LONG night!

Back To The Story.........

I awoke to the sound of the telephone chirping in my head, not the alarm clock. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was just before noon.

"Damn! Who the hell is this?" I wondered.

I grabbed the phone.

"Hello."

"Who's this?" a male voice asked.

"You called me, who are lookin' for?" I asked.

"Ron, the music guy." the voice said.

"Well, I'm sure I'm not the ONLY "Ron... the music guy" but yeah...I guess I'm him. Who's this?" I asked testily.

"This is Weed bro...where the fuck are you?" he asked angrily.

Damn, I hate people who ask dumb assed questions.

"Weed.....you called me.....I answered....where the hell do you reckon I am?"

He hesitated a second then answered.

"Well, you ain't here, I know THAT much!"

"Now that we've settled that.....what do you want Weed?" I was wanting to go back to sleep.

"I'm at the clubhouse waiting for you motherfucker, when are you gonna be here?"

"Around 3:00 like I told Gino." I said.

Silence on the line.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Well.....I'm here now." he said.

I was getting a little perturbed.

"I'm going to be here until about two o'clock......SLEEPING Weed but, I'll be there at three."

More silence on the line until I heard another voice come on the phone.

"Get your ass over here bro....we gotta make sure this shit is right for Gretchen's party."

It was GINO!!

Now.....you can call me a coward but, my entire demeanor changed faster than a speeding bullet.

"Gino....I thought we agreed on three o'clock."

"I changed my mind bro....I couldn't sleep anyway. How soon can you be here?" he asked.

Talk about an "all about me" mentality!

Screw this bastard. Waking me up just because HE couldn't sleep. Screw him!

I thought about it a second or two and made up my mind.

"I guess I can be there in about an hour." I stated forcefully.

(Oh yeah....like YA'LL would have taken a principled stand against a freakin' mass murderer!)

"Get here as soon as you can." he demanded.

"Where the hell is your place?" I asked.

He gave me directions to a location approximately ten miles away off of Hwy. 17.

"Ok......I'll be there in an hour."

"Make it a half hour." he growled.

"Look dude, if you wanna call this thing off, that's fine with me but it's gonna take me at least an hour to get there."

Silence on the line again until he spoke up.

"Just get here." he snapped and the line went dead.

Shit.

I got ready, left the house and pulled into the gravel parking lot of "The Office Lounge" at a little after one o'clock.

It was empty. Not a soul in sight.

I parked and went to the front door of the one story, cinder block walled building.

I knocked on the door. No answer. I pounded on the door........no answer.

Walking back to my car, I realized that I was hungry and since no one was around, I decided to go down the road to a Church's Fried Chicken place.

When I finished eating, I drove back to the clubhouse and, as I was pulling into the parking lot, I noticed two motorcycles parked by the front door.

As I pulled up close to the bikes, the front door opened and Gino walked out looking none too pleased. He was wearing the same clothes as he wore the night before or so it seemed. In my experience, bikers pretty much wear the same type of shit all the time so......how do you know?

He was DEFINATELY still wearing that big ole pistol on his hip! No mistaking THAT!!

My survival instinct surfaced and I reached under my seat. Thankfully, my hand immediatly found the snub nosed .38 I had kept there for just such a situation but hadn't even thought about for months.

As I got out of the car I slipped the pistol in the back of my jeans.

"Where the fuck have you been?" he roared.

"Gino, I was here thirty minutes ago, beat on the door and nobody answered so, I went and got a bite to eat." I replied.

"You should've stayed here." he barked.

"You should've been here." I said.

He looked and acted angry but all he said was.....

"Well, let's go."

He turned and walked to the door. I followed.

Once inside, I couldn't believe my eyes. I had been expecting something very different than what I saw....

This place was NICE!

It had paneling all around, wood flooring and an incredible bar almost forty feet long with a mirror which ran the entire length of it which, looked to be very old.

There were six pool tables, a cool old jukebox and .....to my surprise, a carnival type pop corn machine against one wall.

"Nice place." I commented.

"Yeah, I like it." he said. "Not what you were expecting?" he asked.

"Not exactly." I answered.

I followed him to the rear of the building and saw that the stage had already been set up with all our equiptment.

I was surprised, to say the least.

I walked around, checked cables, lights, monitors, speakers, microphones........damn, everything was ready to go.

"Who did this?" I asked.

"Weed" he said. "He's been a 'roadie' for a long time. Worked for some big timers."

I was impressed and told him so.

"Well, hell............I guess I'm done." I said. "We'll do a sound check tonight about what? Eight?"

"I wanted you to check it out and make sure it was good to go." he said.

"Looks good to me.....I guess I'll head back to the house."

He followed me back towards the front door without speaking.

Until I started to open the door.

"Hey bro." he growled.

I turned to face him. Waiting for him to continue.

"Did you and Gretchen have a good time last night?" he sneered.

"Yeah, we had a great time." I answered.

He looked as if he was going to say something but, I beat him to it.

"Yep, me, Gretchen and your grandfather had a ball. Actually, Gretchen went to bed but your Gramps and I got hammered on Absolute and he beat my ass shootin' pool." I added.

He laughed.

"That old fucker can handle a stick can't he?"

"Yeah..I'm glad I didn't have any real money on me. That old man would have cleaned me out!" I laughed.

"He pulled that old Vodka swillin' bullshit on you didn't he?" he asked. "He dumps it in the sink when you ain't lookin' bro."

The old bastard!

I walked steadily to my car and he called out to me again.

"You need to leave Gretchen alone bro."

As I reached my car, I turned around to face him. DAMN that man was LARGE!

Now, I have NEVER been a bad ass but, I've always had an aversion to assholes and bully's.

I leaned against my car while letting my right hand rest behind my back very close to my pistol.

"Gino, I'm about sick of this "you're a bad assed biker and I'm supposed to be scared of you" horsehit."

He was speechless so...I continued.

"Look dude...we're both big boys here....OK.....I'm a big boy. You, on the other hand, are a fucking GIANT but...I'm not scared of you!"

He just stood there looking at me as though I were a cute little petulent child throwing a temper tantrum.

"If your sister wants to see me, that's MY fuckin' business! NOT yours!" I shouted.

(I'm not certain but, I may have stomped my foot like a cute little petulant child! I don't know.)

Oddly enough, Gino didn't seem to be very fearful. Go figure.

"Gino, I've been in a bunch of fights! Don't think I'm scared of you!" I shouted. "Of course........I've never actually fought a fuckin' Coke machine with a gotdamned head but, I'm gettin' tired of this shit!"

He began laughing.

After a couple of very uncomfortable seconds, I asked.

"What the hell are you laughing about?"

"Bro.....Gretchen is my sister and I love her but,.... she's a freakin' maniac." he said matter of factly.

I was pondering this statement when he added.....

"You need to leave her alone my man...she's bad news." he said...sadly.

I stood there trying to make sense of this shocking turn of events.

While I was contemplating the situation, Gino spoke up again.

"All I'm saying is that you need to leave her alone bro. If I was you.......and IF.... I didn't know all about her crazy shit AND, IF.........I wasn't her fuckin' brother....... hell yeah......I'd fuck her six ways from Sunday BUT......she's a wierd little girl ....BRO."

"What do you mean by....."wierd?" I asked.

He thought about that for a second.

"Let's just say that she loves to stir shit up." he said.

"Like........what kind of shit?" I asked.

"Like the time she called me in the middle of the night, crying." he said.

"She told me that a guy had beaten her up..... Turns out, she had beaten him half to death with a baseball bat while he was drunk in bed because he wouldn't wake up!" he said. "Of course, I didn't know that when I came to her "rescue"....I just showed up, went into the house and shot him." he said.

He continued....

"Hell, I believed her story.... until the cops played the tape of her confession.

"She pretty much caused it all but..... I can't really blame her." he almost whispered. "Hell, I reckon I had it in me all along.... that urge to waste some bastard. Well, it must be true because, that night .....I just walked right into that damned house and killed that poor drunk fucker! "

"All because of her BULLSHIT." he said.

I thought he was going to start slobbering!

For a minute or so, I thought about what he had said.

"Gino....Who am I supposed to believe? Your own damned grandfather even warned me about you." I said.

He grinned an evil looking smile.

"Oh yeah....don't get me wrong.....I WILL kill your ass but.....only if you NEED killin'."

I pondered that for one millisecond.

"So, are you gonna kill me?" I asked him.

He laughed.

"Not right now....I'm pretty sure you could pull that pistol you've got your hand on faster than I could get to mine." he chuckled.

Damn! Stone cold busted!

"Well damn it....I thought you were gonna kill me for screwing around with your sister!" I said.

"Bro, I don't care what you do with her but, I'm telling you...she's bad news. Do what you want to now that you know about her.....it's your ass, not mine." he said as he turned to leave.

To Be Continued..... Again.

**OK......I'm an asshole BUT I have got to go to bed NOW....it's been a long day of being with family......shoot me now!