Fringe Florida: Travels Among Mud Boggers, Furries, Ufologists, Nudists, and Other Lovers of Unconventional Lifestyles (13 page)

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FOR SALE.’ I never once saw that in print . . . The press does not print

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what I say. They just do not.”

Granted it was hard for voters to forget that he’s made a living off

nude women who give boob facials to strangers when he offered free

Mons admission to anyone wearing “I Voted” stickers.

He also can’t help but antagonize conservatives on the campaign

trail. Even though he’s an avowed atheist, Joe said a prayer at a 2011

candidates’ forum held in a Baptist church. It just wasn’t one that

would win him votes with that crowd. He thanked God for the Califor-

nia judge who overturned a law against gay marriage. “Doing things

like that, you can’t win an election,” he says with a sigh. “You’ve got to

kiss some people’s ass.”

Joe says he now focuses on helping get others elected. But his eyes

sparkle at the suggestion that voters might be willing to elect him

given the outcry for widespread governmental reform.

If for no other reason, Joe may run again because he hungers to be

heard. Public-access TV just isn’t a large enough stage. “When you’re

running for office you get to go to these forums and say what you’ve

got to say and people listen. They’re not hearing but they’re listening,

so if you say something outrageous . . .”

He lets his words trail into quiet introspection. What legacy will he

leave behind?

The Mons, the Mons. The stage he created may not be for his feet,

proof

but it is never far from his thoughts.

“Mons brings in so much money to Tampa that it’s unbelievable,” he

says, beaming about his brainchild. “It has a more positive economic

impact than the Bucs because Mons brings money in from outside the

area.”

I share with him Kristopher’s Hong Kong cab experience. He grins,

but is not surprised. Joe has a cabbie story of his own.

“I was in New York about fifteen years ago. I was staying at the Mar-

riott Marquis on Times Square. I went downstairs, got in a cab, and

said ‘take me to one of your local strip clubs.’”

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“We’re on the way and he said, ‘Where are you from?’”

Mar

“I said ‘Tampa.’”

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“He said, ‘You’re not going to like this place.’”

Fo

“I said, ‘Why not?’”

gni

“He said, “There’s nothing in New York City like Mons Venus.”

K e

“I said, ‘I own the Mons Venus!’”

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“He didn’t believe me!”

36

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tpahC

Sisters of Steel

proof

Coastal Highway A1A rumbles with the sound of twin engines. Bike

Week, the world’s largest motorcycle event, is at full throttle. Nearly a

half million motorcycle lovers have converged on the central east coast

of Florida to check out bikes and show off theirs. The majority are men

who spend a good deal of time downing beers and gawking at woman

in wet T-shirts and assless chaps.

A motorcycle posse of middle-age men in standard biker uniform—

black leather jackets and vests, boots, and reflective shades—pulls out

two by two from a pasture campground. A farmer, no doubt, has found

bikers more lucrative tenants than cows for the week.

I glimpse patches on the backs of the men’s vests. Before I can make

out the club names, they zoom past on rumbling Harleys toward the

epicenter of mayhem—Daytona Beach’s Main Street—and leave be-

hind a cloudy trail of exhaust and testosterone.

Could they be one-percenters (1%ers), as outlaw bikers call them-

selves? Or are they merely posers? This being Florida, it could go either

4 6

way.

You see, in the male biker world there are clubs of weekend motor-

cycle enthusiasts with spit-shined $20,000 motors, sometimes referred

to as Plastics (bikers who bought the look with one swipe of a credit

card) or RUBs (rich urban bikers). There are daredevil professional rac-

ers with corporate sponsors. There are “Power Rangers,” whose cloth-

ing and helmets match their Japanese sports bikes. And then there are

the true rebels—the 1%ers. This nihilistic minority proudly lives on the

fringe and relishes in shredding societal norms.

One-percenter clubs embraced the term long ago after a newspaper

reported that 99 percent of motorcyclists are law-abiding, while 1 per-

cent are deviants, outlaws. They are the Hell’s Angels, the Outlaws, the

Mongols, and other clubs of assorted vicious names indicating they are

badass bad. They inspired the Marlon Brando black-and-white classic

The
Wild
Ones
and modern Technicolor fictions such as the AMC cable

series
Sons
of
Anarchy
. Daytona Bike Week is their mecca, and Florida,

a favored home address.

I’m heading in the opposite direction of the questionable male biker

herd, bound for an annual gathering of the Leather & Lace Motorcycle

Club, a group of women bikers. But I’m not sure the scene will be any

tamer than the machismo one in Daytona.

Lace’s founder and president, Jennifer “Jenn” Chaffin, has danced in

proof

and around the gritty 1%er world since she was sixteen. Her first hus-

band was chapter boss of the local Warlocks Motorcycle Club, an MC.

He was assassinated in their garage by members of a rival motorcycle

club in 1991.

Her second husband is the chapter boss of the local Mongols, an MC

that the U.S. Justice Department considers so dangerous that it tried

to ban their name and emblem—a stoned-looking Asian man in biker

uniform kicked back on a chopper. His head is shaven with a spit of a

topknot as to remotely resemble Genghis Khan’s warriors, who wore

helmets plumed with horsetail hair.

I discovered Jenn and her club on the National Geographic Channel.

lee

The documentary
Biker
Chicks
portrayed them as thrill-seeking women

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who ride in the shadows of a dangerous world of crusty biker gangs

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that treat women like property and pee on new members’ patched

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vests as part of the initiation ritual.

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Jenn laughed about that fabled ritual when I reached her by phone.

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“I don’t know where they got that.” Her voice is like a smoldering

5

campfire, smoky and steady. She talked candidly about her club and

6

her late husband’s murder. She chuckled about how her late husband’s

1%er brothers picked on her when she rode with them, situations that

would make most people, male or female, weep in self-pity or crack

with anger.

Despite Jenn’s candor, I still didn’t understand why women would

subject themselves to the sexist world of hard-core motorcycle clubs,

much less a woman who had lost her first husband to its brutality. I

wanted to learn more.

She invited me to join her and about fifty Lace members who are

camping at her house during Bike Week. She added that only officers

are allowed to sleep inside the house. In other words, I’ll have to sleep

in the yard with the other members and the yet-to-be-initiated, the

prospects.

I packed my sleeping bag and made a hotel reservation just in case

there was a random police raid.

Tending Farms and Killing Fish

Jenn lives about 30 miles south of Daytona Beach in the Intracoastal

hamlet of Edgewater, a small town fueled by boatbuilding and retirees.

proof

Her subdivision is middle-class circa 1970s with streets named after na-

tive flora such as Orange Tree and Needle Palm. Her ranch-style home

sits on a half-acre lot dotted with palm trees. Purple and red plastic

flowers fill the window boxes. A large screened pool hugs the side of

the house.

Any other time of year, her place wouldn’t stand out. This week you

can’t miss it. Her front yard is lost to tents, RVs, bike trailers, and a

blue Port-a-Potty. A shiny rainbow of muscle bikes, mostly Harleys,

arches the circular drive. The motors wait like prized steeds at a hitch-

ing post, resting, but ready to bolt.

The afternoon is quiet. Two Doberman pinscher pups hop around in

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a portable pen. A burly, bearded man wrapped in quilts sleeps on the

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floor of an open bike trailer. A couple of women in black leather jackets

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hover by a smoldering fire pit sucking on cigarettes. The “sisters,” as

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club members call one another, are resting up for their annual Moon-

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shine Wednesday party.

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The sign posted on the front door spells out Jenn’s rules:

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NO drugs.

No smoking inside the house.

No parking motorcycles on the grass.

No stray animals, 2-legged or 4-legged. This means that if anyone

“meets” someone while they are out they may NOT bring them

back to the house.

Evidently things aren’t always this sedate.

A leather-vested, lanky sister with a bandanna wrapped around her

head answers the door seeming puzzled that anyone would bother to

ring. “A journalist? Come in. I’ll get Jenn,” she says and leads me past

the formal living room where an artificial Christmas tree still stands.

It is March.

We follow the smell of roasting beef and potatoes to the eat-in

kitchen, the pulse of the home. A half-dozen middle-aged women sit

proof

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Leather & Lace

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sisters are

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always ready to

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ride. Photo by

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author.

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around a heavy dining table quietly pecking at their laptop computers

as if they are devising a plan to solve world hunger. No one’s drinking

beer, smoking pot, or partying in any form. If it weren’t for a couple

of club leather vests, they could be mistaken for a ladies’ Bible study

group.

The kitchen is homey, in a matronly biker way. Tiny ceramic bikes

line whatnot shelves; a motorcycle mobile dangles from the ceiling; yel-

lowed newspaper clippings about the club hang on the wall like a child’s

school artwork.

Jenn saunters in and greets me as if I’m the cable guy, friendly, but

not gushy. That’s not her style.

Jenn’s in her fifties, a grandmother. She’s wearing slouchy black

knit pants and a denim shirt. Her long, ash-blond hair is as straight as

straw, her nose is broad, and her eyes are the color of a clear Florida sky.

She speaks with the nonchalance of a hippie, but has the magnetism of

a queen.

She says the club just finished its business meeting as if to explain

why the women are busy at their laptops. Dinner will be in a couple of

hours, kicking off the Moonshine party, which doesn’t actually involve

White Lightning but homemade Kahlua and vodka Jell-O shots.

Jenn’s not one for idle chitchat, and after causally announcing who

proof

I am to the other women, who barely look up, she heads back outside

and leaves me standing alone by the Crockpots.

An enthusiastic young newbie from Colorado Springs bounces in

and assumes I’m a club member. Before I can explain otherwise, she

hugs me and says, “It’s so nice to meet another new sister!” She is not

any less thrilled when I awkwardly explain that I’m a journalist.

Someone at the table finally speaks, She Bear, identified as such by

the name patch on her leather vest.

“I keep killing my fish,” she says without lifting her eyes from the

animated world on her laptop.

Turns out the women are playing Facebook games. They’re tending

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one another’s crops on FarmVille, sharing menus in Café World, and

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feeding each other’s virtual pets.

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A sister returns from a bedroom wearing glittery red slippers and

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announces, “I had to take off my bra. It was killing me.”

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Another with a heavy New York accent shows off her new lipstick,

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which she claims stays on for days. “But I think it might be too red,” she

86

says and purses her lips for all to see. “Whattaya think?”

“Maybe wear it more at night,” another responds.

A graying sister from Missouri ducks out to check on her interna-

tional award-winning Persian cat and kittens that are curled up in her