Cannibal Corpse, M/C

The boys had settled in and even Fish had stopped talking about women, and the others drifted off, snoring and shifting in their sleep, Jumbo muttering things under his breath. Moondog was silent. He never made any noise when he slept and you could never be sure if he was sleeping or not. Slaughter knew it was the sleep of a combat veteran, a guy who’d lived in a war zone. They always slept light like that. He was told he did it himself, and Moondog had seen a lot more action than he had. In a lot of ways, the war had never been over for him. He went from combat Marine to outlaw biker to convict at the federal Atlanta hellhole. In their own way, Slaughter knew, each was a combat duty station.

He pulled off his cigarette, trying to wind down, having trouble as he always did.

He closed his eyes and right away pictured a small, gangly-limbed boy in a blue confirmation suit that he knew was his kid brother Perry. Red Eye. It was funny, but whenever Slaughter thought of the kid he pictured him in that confirmation suit standing there in church, his eyes filled with the bright wonder of the Sacraments and the saints, the mystery of faith. To Slaughter himself it meant nothing. It was a racket. They wanted your money and that’s all it was about: money and power. Even as a kid he knew that. Fuck the trappings and ritual. That was eye candy and soul food, a delightfully delirious drug for the brainwashed Catholic masses who were scared of life and terrified of death and haunted by their own sins and gnawing guilt. The marrow, the blood of it was money.

But not to Perry, not to old fucking Red Eye.

It all meant so much more to him and the shit the priests and sisters spewed out in school were absolute truths not to be questioned. Again, unlike Slaughter himself who as a kid was constantly in the shit for asking questions. But, Father, if children are the lambs of God then why did he let all those kids die in concentration camps? And the priest bearing down on him, whacking him with a ruler until his knuckles bled. Because he loved them, you little bastard, because he loved them. Ah, yes, the mystery of faith which was no mystery at all: just believe it, don’t question it, accept your sedative, drink deep of your tonic of Roman propaganda and dig into your pockets and fill the collection plate.

Old Red Eye.

It was no wonder that he ended up as another little braindead devotee of the Legion of Terror. He’d wanted to belong to something all his life and the small bike clubs he’d hooked up with—imitating his big brother, no doubt—were too hedonistic and narcissistic for his liking. There was no underlying spiritual dogma, no divine godhead, no symbolic ceremony in 1%er clubs. They didn’t celebrate the spirit, they unleashed the animal.

Maybe had Slaughter bought into some of that stuff he wouldn’t be where he was today, and then again, maybe if Perry had rejected more of it, he wouldn’t be where he was today: in a federal lock-up awaiting execution, the only thing standing between death and him, not God or Jesus or the Saints, but his rebellious hardcore brother who believed in nothing but the brotherhood of the road, the Devil’s Disciples, and held up his middle finger to country, flag, and organized religion in general.

Man, all that belief and faith of yours, Red Eye. Look what it got you in the end. Me. One seriously fucked-up savior.

Yet, for all that and for his many malfunctions of character, Slaughter was going to pull it off. Even laying there, wired tight from the day, with his brothers sleeping around him, he knew he was going to pull it off somehow and that was probably because he had to pull it off.

But why am I thinking that if I do my problems are only just beginning?

Because he was dealing with the feds. Dealing with a bloated bureaucracy of parasites, rats, blood-suckers, and self-promoting career junkies. What Slaughter knew of them—the ATF, the DEA, the FBI, federal prosecutors, the judicial system itself that was rotten from the inside out—gave him little hope that they’d hold up their part of the bargain. These were spin doctors and perception managers, leeches in three-piece suits. They would fuck him (and Perry) as easily and casually as they fucked each other and the Constitution they were supposed to uphold.

Which is why you better get yourself some insurance, something that’ll screw them as they screw you. Allow the fuck-ee to become the fuck-er.

Yeah, that’s how you played the system.