Heavy Duty Attitude by Iain Parke Read Free Book Online Page A

history.
    Then I realised how separate Thommo’s local charter and some of the other ride ins were keeping from the Freemen and those that were hanging with them and so I decided that the tension I could feel stemmed from some animosity between these two groups. But after a while that simple explanation didn’t feel right either as the tension seemed to be ratcheting up as the day wore on, without any noticeable interaction or overt incidents between the two clusters who simply seemed to be keeping themselves to themselves.
There was something else going on. But for the life of me I couldn’t work out what.
    As a civilian I knew I wouldn’t be particularly welcome riding in after the patched clubs to make my donation, so after checking the form with Bung we made our way back to where I’d left the bear on my Guzzi.
    As Bung and I wandered back past the clubhouse and the rows of parked bikes I spotted the two kids I’d ridden in with. They had obviously been told to stay with the strikers guarding the bikes as the start of their long apprenticeship ladder that might one day lead to a Brethren patch, and after a morning that felt a bit as though it had been spent bothering smiling tigers in their cage for interviews, I decided it was time for some light relief.
    ‘Hey,’ I said as I freed the stuffed toy from where it had been riding pillion and handed it to Bung who was gathering up a three foot high panda from one of the other non-club ride ins, ‘do you two fancy talking for a bit?’ Danny smiled at the approach, but gave a slightly uncertain glance at Bung as if for approval that this was OK. The other kid just shrugged as if it wasn’t worth making the effort to open his mouth.
    As I began to talk to Danny, Bung roped in first a striker and then a grumbling Scroat to complete the collection and then, having made sure I was ensconced for a while, marched them off to deposit the toys on the stage, Scroat still moaning about ‘Fucking teddy bears,’ as he went, the three foot girth of mine edged under his left arm.
    At first I tried to include the other kid in my questions as well, but all I got was a glowering look and occasional grunts so eventually I thought, well screw you chum, and concentrated on Danny.
    I felt uneasy at how proud as punch he seemed to feel to be there. A bit of guilt perhaps that I was a little bit to blame, that I’d helped to glamorise The Brethren, although God knows it wasn’t as if they were famous or infamous enough before I’d come along, after all they had a string of newspaper headlines stretching back since the early seventies in this country that had given them their public reputation.
    I asked him anything and everything I could think of. Why was he here? How had he first met The Brethren and got involved? What did he think about The Brethren now he’d met them? What did he think about their reputation? What did he think he was getting himself involved with? Did he think it was worth the risks? What did his family think?
    I suppose I was asking him the questions I would want him to ask himself before it was too late. Before he got too committed to something from which as far as I could see it was very difficult to back out of later.
    With a heavy heart I realised that whatever I was saying, I wasn’t getting through to him. And as I looked up from where we were sitting on the grass to see Bung bearing purposefully down on us, I realised I had run out of time.
‘Well, if you ever want to talk kid, about all this I mean, come and see me.’
    ‘Hey yeah, will do. Listen, but like with all the questions, you are working here aren’t you? Writing I mean? That’s what this is all about right? Isn’t it?’
    I could see how his mind was working. None of my question had done any good at all, had raised no doubts. The only thing he was thinking about was that he might end up being in a book about The Brethren and wasn’t that going to be just cool.
That was the only time that