Vulture Culture

Palpable tension filled the room the way foam insulation fills up the spaces between walls. It suffocated every ounce of the air and every molecule screamed with silent pressure. Steven's heart dropped like an anvil dropping from his chest into a well with a rope connecting both. A meeting of the most notoriously lethal biker gang in town was assembled in silence, waiting for him to walk into the tiny trailer. His new friend, the beautiful girl who'd introduced herself and moved onto his street the last month had scouted and recruited him for whatever this was.

Steven thought she had looked familiar. He'd noticed her downtown before where the biker rallies were held. Steven had often passed by the area to shoot pool at a popular pool hall on sixth street, and he'd seen the girl there once before. As the door clicked closed behind him the recognition of her face clicked with his memory. Steven turned over his shoulder to look at her and she smiled when she knew his mind had connected the dots.

"It's you," he practically whispered, instantly afraid that his shocked, quiet voice would convey weakness to the lions in the den that had just locked its only gate behind him.

The beautiful fox grinned and patted Steven on the back. "I was wondering when you'd remember me. We watched you for a while shooting pool the day of the rally last month and your skills stood out to us."

Steven's mind reeled as he glanced around at the stoic and massive bikers chilling on couches around the living room, every single one wearing sunglasses indoors and staring at him with serious grimaces. Pungent weed aroma suddenly wafted into Steven's nose, instantly leading him to spot the joint going around the circle. One of the bikers hunched over underneath a lamp in the corner of the connecting sectional and made an aggressive sniff of his nose as his hand held a one hundred dollar bill to it.

"What am I doing here?" Steven began panicking to himself.

He managed to steady his breathing and form another question to ask Stephanie, the girl, "What I can I do for ya'll? He thought deeper. "Ya'll need me to win some games of pool for some bets or what?"

Roars of laughter erupted through the small trailer living room and the sudden change in noise level jolted Steven so that he visibly jumped. A huge bearded bear in a leather jacket, with a bull nose ring spewed Lone Star beer out over the football rug in the center of the floor. Stephanie put a hand on Steven's shoulder as she attempted to recuperate from her howling bout. The bikers of the group who were smoking weed coughed and it sounded like the lining of their lungs was permanently torn like old mansion curtains. The roaring settled and receded back into the quiet of the night, allowing Stephanie to explain to Steven, "No, nothing like that."

"We noticed at the pool hall that you had a jacket with a vulture sewn onto it."

Steven knew the one they were talking about because it was his favorite leather jacket. He'd found the vivid and colorful design of the vulture on the Internet and had bought it and sewn it on himself.

"Yeah, I do. I made that jacket. Well, I sewed on the patch anyway."

Stephanie smiled and said, "We were hoping that was the case. We want you to sew the same patch to all of our jackets. Don't you know who we are?" she asked positive that he'd heard of them.

Steven raised his eyebrows, surprised Stephanie would ask him this question, like he was supposed to know. He stared at her like he'd just done a line like the biker who was currently bouncing his knee up and down rapidly by the lamp had done and said, "No. Some Austin Texas biker gang."

The biker next to Steven cleared his throat and stirred on the couch slightly, hinting at him to maintain a respectful tone. Steven understood by the stern energy these men gave off, that that was what the subtle grunt had meant. "I mean, a respectable Texas born and raised biker CLUB, no doubt."

Stephanie chuckled and said, "We're the Austin Texas Vultures and we want you to make us all new jackets for our CLUB."

Steven contemplated the strange scenario with the even stranger request attached as meat to its bones. The idea sounded intriguing and suited to Steven's talents because he had made a lot of art in the past, including patchwork for leather jackets. Before rifling through the rolodex of the supplies in his mind as well as the time and spacing he would need to approach the project, one of the bikers in the room said, "Take a seat kid."

The two men on the couch to Steven's right made space for him to sit down in between them. This immediately made Steven feel uncomfortable, despite the friendly attitudes of the bikers. Who knew what chemicals and poisons were running through the blood of these wild animals, constantly restructuring their D.N.A. and feeding crazy impulses into their brains. To keep everybody calm Steven complied and sat down on the 80s upholstery that squeaked with springs that sounded like they had secrets. Who knows? Maybe those springs had once had a knife and a body pinned to them. Steven forced his imagination to stop right there.

"Get this kid a beer," the same biker that had told him to sit down yelled to his brothers in the kitchen. A skinny old timer with tattoos wrapping around his arms and a bird's nest of a beard got a Lone Star out of the fridge and brought it to Steven.

"'Preciate it," Steven said and cracked the can open and took a sip. Finally, his nerves that had been as tight as yarn in cement relaxed.

The huge biker standing in front of the kitchen bar continued the negotiation, "So, Steven. We're willing to pay you to get this project done." He waved his hand at a biker across the living room. The man pulled out a briefcase and slid it across the ancient shag carpet desert. The huge one picked up the briefcase and opened it and showed Steven a large stack of money inside. "Will twenty grand be enough?"

Steven choked on his beer and settled into this randomly developing story unfolding like an outlaw pop up book in the own backyard of his life. "Yeah," Steven paused and gulped as he looked at more money than he'd ever seen at one time in his life. "That will be plenty." It wasn't only the question of payment that was going to smooth out the edges of this odd tale and Steven had a silver platter full of them, ready to dish them out.

Before Steven could offer one of his horderves, the biker sitting to his right reached out and shook Steven's hand as he was staring and holding his beer in his other hand. "Great man! My name's Ed. Ed Hardy. It's great to meet you. We'll go out to my shop in the desert this weekend so you can check out the spot where you'll be working. The future of outlaw Vulture style depends on you man."

THE END