Phil Cross: Gypsy Joker to a Hells Angel Read online

  High school was something that I didn’t take too seriously. I suppose I just kept going because it was what you were supposed to do and that’s where my friends were during the day. I didn’t play any sports in school; I just never got into it, not even watching them. I liked solitary hobbies like coin and stamp collecting. It sounds like I was some sort of bookworm or something, but I wasn’t like that at all. I just wasn’t much of a joiner, and I was always comfortable being on my own. I went to the movies whenever possible, usually with my brother. I loved going to the movies, especially the action-packed ones, and I still do.

  I got my Martin guitar when I was fourteen and I still have it.

  I had to take a bus to school, and I hated riding that damn bus. One day, in my sophomore year, I noticed this car parked by the bus stop with the key in it. Without even really thinking about it, I jumped in and drove it to school. I parked it down the street so that none of the teachers would see me driving it. After school, I took the car back to the bus stop. The next day, there was the car, with the key in it again, so I took it again. After school, I had my own key made in case the owner was ever so inconsiderate as to not leave hers. Yeah, I had decided to drive to school every day from then on. I drove that car to school for most of the rest of the year. I always made sure that the gas gauge registered in the same area so that the owner wouldn’t notice it.

  I finally had to give up “my car” when I was late getting back to the bus stop one day. I had been hanging out with some friends and lost track of time. I parked it a few blocks away from the bus stop and walked away. I tossed my key too, just in case. I was back on the bus.

  I got my first bike when I was a senior in high school. It was a 1955 500cc BSA, and it was a real piece of shit. I went down the first time I rode it too. I got on it and rode down the street, went into a right-hand turn, took it way wide, and slid under an old man’s car. I got up, and the old dude got out of his car and looked at me and then looked at the bike just lying right there under his car. I was able to pull the bike out from under his car by myself. The whole time, that old guy never said a word. There’s nothing like breaking it in right. That bike cost four hundred dollars, so I had to sell part of my coin collection to get it. I kept it a secret from my dad for as long as I could because he really hated motorcycles. He was really mad when he finally found out I got it, and he got madder when I wouldn’t apologize. As he was yelling, his face got redder and redder, and I began wondering if a human head could explode. What’s funny is that a few years later he got himself a dirt bike, and we did some hill climbing together. That and working out at the gym were really the only bonding we ever did, and that period of time didn’t last very long. We never really had anything to bond over again until my daughter Amanda was born thirty-five years later.

  While I was in high school, I worked for Keeble Construction during summer vacations. It was the same company that my dad worked for. Seeing as how my dad and I weren’t really close, you would think that working where he did would have been a terrible experience. It wasn’t, though. Although he didn’t have much patience, for some reason he didn’t ride me at work the way he did in my personal life. I don’t know why—maybe because it would have been unprofessional, or maybe he didn’t want the other guys working there to think I was a jerk (or worse yet that he was). Don’t get me wrong; it wasn’t like we were pals or anything. He just sort of left me alone. Fine by me. I just wanted my paychecks so that I could go out at night and have some fun.

  Fun mostly meant going out with my friends and occasionally some girls. I didn’t want some girl messing with my life and nagging me like I had seen with some of my friends. The last thing I wanted to do was go to a football game or a school dance, and that’s what the girls always seemed to want to do. So I pretty much just went with the girls who got around. It was easier that way. I never did go to a high school football game, or any other school event. I didn’t even attend my graduation. The school wouldn’t let me, and it just sent my diploma in the mail.

  I couldn’t go to the graduation ceremony because I got drunk at the senior sneak day. The sneak day took place in Santa Cruz, at the boardwalk. Some of my friends who were already out of school were there. They were all drinking, so, of course, I got drunk with them. After that, it seemed like a good idea to take my bike up onto the boardwalk and ride it up and down. The teachers saw me and started running around trying to catch me (I can still remember the looks on their faces). They didn’t catch me until I took the bike out onto the sand, but even then they had to work for it. I got a special ride home with one of the teachers that day and an invitation to stay away from school if I wanted to graduate at all. The friends who I got drunk with took my bike home for me.

  I was actually surprised that I hadn’t already been given the boot from graduation because I had recently scared one of my teachers. He was always riding me and ridiculing me in front of the class. So one day when the class ended, I waited until the other kids were gone, closed the door, and he and I had a little chat. I got right in his face and told him that I didn’t care if he liked me or not, but that I was fed up with him treating me like he did. I made it clear that if it didn’t stop our next meeting would end badly—for him. I never had any trouble from him after that, and I have to give the dude credit because he must not have ratted me out either.

  I know I got into more trouble than I can remember in those days, and I’m sure it worried my parents. When I enlisted in the navy, they must have thought that all of that stuff would be behind me (or that the navy would get me ship shape). Well, they were wrong; being in the navy was just the beginning.

  My graduation photo. I got the photo and diploma but didn’t get to go to the ceremony.

  I WENT INTO THE NAVY straight out of high school. When you enlist, you put down your first three choices of location for duty. My choices were: overseas, overseas, and overseas. I didn’t care where I went; I just wanted to see the world.

  I’m surprised I have this photo from boot camp. Cameras weren’t allowed.

  On deck, aboard my ship, the USS Aludra.

  From the look on my face, that damn Patsy Cline song must have been playing again.

  I joined the navy at the same time as my buddy Clark. Clark and I went through boot camp together, but he didn’t go overseas with me. When I got to Japan, there was a letter waiting from me from Clark. He wanted to let me know not to feel bad about my girlfriend breaking up with me, and that he thought my ex-girlfriend was a lousy lay anyway. The only problem with Clark’s letter was that I didn’t know she was my ex-girlfriend (but I sure figured it out quick). I don’t think highly of that ex-girlfriend, and I still think Clark is a dirty motherfucker.

  After boot camp, I went overseas on the USS Aludra. Life onboard ship can be a little bit tedious; I nearly went crazy. A bosun’s mate, the sailor in charge of the ship’s PA system, played Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” over the PA system all the time, all the way to Japan and all the way back, for three tours. Man, to this day I still can’t stand that damn song. But I finally did get it to stop playing.

  My mom loaned me two hundred dollars so I could get a slush fund going onboard ship. The slush fund worked like this: I would loan five dollars for a payback of seven dollars, and ten dollars got me fourteen, etc. Eventually that bosun’s mate got in debt to me, which is how I was finally able to get some relief from that God-awful song.

  One night in the Formosa Straits, I wasn’t bored at all. It was during a hurricane, and I talked the bosun into letting me out of a ship-wide lockdown. I went forward, one deck above the captain’s bridge, and tied myself to the rail to watch the show by the light of the full moon. The waves were so tremendous that the fo’c’sle (the bow of the ship) would plummet completely underwater, covering the ship almost to the bridge, and then it would come bursting out of the water sixty to eighty feet high. It was like riding a giant breaching whale. What a trip!

  Junior Richeson, my buddy in the navy, and I hung out when we were on liberty. Junior didn’t get into the kind of trouble that I did, but he and I did get into some shit together. Take China for instance.

  The USS Aludra.

  We were on liberty in Hong Kong, and there was a bar that Junior and I wanted check out. We saw this little Chinese guy pulling a rickshaw, so we decided to take the rickshaw to the bar. The driver took us down all these little side streets and alleys, and eventually we ended up in front of a whorehouse. It was obviously a set up, so we told him we weren’t going to pay him. He started screaming at us in Chinese, and a huge crowd gathered around. Things got out of hand, the crowd turned into an angry mob, and they wanted us. We took off on foot with the mob chasing us down the alley. We knew we needed to distract them, and we could only think of one way. We reached into our pockets and pulled out our loose money, and we threw it back over our heads. We were able to stop and look back to see the crowd scrambling all over that alley, fighting for the money. Junior and I loped off, grabbed a taxi, and got to the bar after all.

  I mentioned earlier that my fighting career from school continued into the navy. While I was serving my country, I had something like twenty-five captain’s masts (a disciplinary action presided over by officers at your station). All of them were for fighting. Needless to say appropriate punishments were handed down.

  My nose got smashed in a fight in the Philippines. I got into it with a couple of guys from an oiler, the USS Cimarron. I don’t even remember why we fought. A bunch of their shipmates were in the bar, and a whole bunch of them jumped me. I was at the bottom of a pile, getting it pretty good. After a bit, some of them started being pulled off of the pile and flung to one side or the other. I thought someone was helping me because I was getting really beat up. No such luc
k. The guy didn’t want to help me; he was trying to get to me so that he could punch me—which he did. He hit my nose so damned hard that he smashed it something terrible. I actually saw stars on that one.

  My navy buddy Junior and I had this Christmas card made in Yokosuka, Japan.

  After I got out of the bar, I still had to get back to the ship. We had a midnight curfew, and I barely made it back to the gate in time. My white jersey was covered in blood, so I made my way to the center of the crowd of sailors making their way through the gate. I got through the gate, but I wasn’t so lucky getting onboard ship. Once I was spotted, I was taken to the USS Ticonderoga, an aircraft carrier, for medical treatment. The Ticonderoga was the only ship with an X-ray on board. I got one of my captain’s masts, and a new nose for that fight.

  Yokosuka was the place where I got a temporary promotion to lieutenant while I was waiting for one of those disciplinary actions. I was working on the cleaning crew in a detention area, waiting for trial for one of my fights, when I noticed a row of lockers. I started opening them and … BINGO! A nice fresh lieutenant’s uniform was hanging there just waiting for me. Luckily the uniform was a good fit. After I was dressed and looked the part, I stashed the dungarees that I had been wearing and walked right out of that detention center and through the main gate of the base (I was even saluted) without a backward glance.

  The first place I went was to the house of a Japanese girl who I had been going out with. Her name was Yukiko, and she was what was referred to as a bar girl. Her job was to get men to buy drinks. Bar girls weren’t exactly virtuous; they were fun time girls, not really hookers, but if they liked a guy well enough, they would provide the service.

  Waiting in a detention center. I was there because I got into a bar brawl in Yokosuka, Japan.

  Notice the sign that is behind my head in the detention center.

  A fellow sailor and I doing what we did best: hoisting a few.

  Yukiko gave me this photo of her. It was taken before she became a bar girl.

  I walked all over Yokosuka in that uniform. It was surprising how differently I was treated while I had it on. One night when I was in a bar fight, the MPs who came took one look at my uniform and told me to leave before they started to round everyone up. It’s true what they say—rank has its privileges.

  I stayed with Yukiko for two weeks and then decided that I’d better get back. After all, I couldn’t stay in Japan forever (although if it hadn’t been for my family, I might have).

  I walked back onto the base, got my dungarees that I had stashed away, found a safe place to change, and dumped the lieutenant’s uniform. Then I picked up a mop and started working. After about an hour, one of the guards came up and asked me where I’d been. I said, “Mopping.” With that, I was escorted to the detention center. Of course, I got caught for my little field trip, but I never did get caught for impersonating an officer. It’s one of the few times I didn’t get caught doing something while I was in the navy.

  Like all brigs, the brig in Yokosuka was pretty tough, and more than a few times I wound up in a detention area. This is a cell-block with no windows or heaters in the cells. The only heater is at the far end of the cellblock. The door leading into the cellblock had a small open window in it, so you couldn’t keep the heat in, and of course I was there during a cold, snowy winter.

  One of the guards, Sergeant Pandavella, was the guy who told me that he didn’t think that I would live to see the age of twenty-one. He wasn’t trying to be a hard ass. He was a pretty decent guy; he was just trying to give me some advice, in his own way. I bet he’d be surprised to find out that I’m seventy years old now.

  In many ways, I really liked the navy, but it didn’t seem to care much for me. I decided not to have a naval career after an incident that happened one day while dropping anchor. The anchor was running out way too fast, so a bosun and I were pulling on the chain brake trying to stop it. Anchor chains are painted different colors along their length to let you know how much is left in the chain locker. Red is the last color, and when you get to red, that anchor better damn well stop or you are screwed. After red, the chain can pull out of the chain locker and rip the fo’c’sle apart and you right along with it. This is why we were instructed to get the hell out of there if we saw red and the brake wasn’t working. OK, so we were pulling on this chain brake with everything we had, and the chain came up red. That was bad. Very bad. When I saw that, I started to take off, just like we were instructed to. I thought the bosun would do the same, but I looked back and saw him still holding on so I went back and grabbed onto the brake again. The chain locker was filled with rust, so when the end of the chain came out, the rust was flying everywhere. I couldn’t even see that man standing next to me. The noise was so outrageously loud that it was like the ship was screaming in pain. We couldn’t hear each other, but I’m pretty sure the bosun and I were thinking the same thing: “We’re done.” Obviously, the brake finally worked, but literally it was just in the nick of time. A few days later, the bosun was awarded a medal for his heroic efforts in saving the ship. (I guess I wasn’t there after all.) I felt that I was overlooked and that ordinary seamen were just discounted; that’s what soured me on the navy.

  Surprisingly, after all the fights and trouble I got into, I did get an honorable discharge, though, so I guess the navy and I are even.

  Everybody wanted to get tattoos overseas. Here I am showing off the one I got when I was fourteen years old.

  This giant Buddha is in Kamakura, Japan. When you go inside it, there is a little Buddha in the head.

  AFTER I GOT HOME from the navy, I decided to pay a visit my friend Junior. That meant making a trip to Oklahoma. There were two problems with this idea. One, I had almost no money, and, two, I had no vehicle, not even a bike. I did have a perfectly good thumb, though, so that’s what I used to get there.

  My first mug shot. The girl I was dating got in a fight with another girl and we all got arrested. My charges were dropped. Of all my mug shots, this is my wife’s favorite.

  Since I didn’t have much money, I couldn’t afford to waste any of it on motels so I had to sleep outside, even though I didn’t have sense enough to bring along a sleeping bag. I slept in campgrounds, parks, or just off the road if I had to.

  It took me quite a bit longer to get to Oklahoma than the amount of time I ended up spending there. Even though it was good to see Junior, I wasn’t real impressed with Oklahoma, so I headed for home after a couple of weeks.

  On the way home, I decided to treat myself to a night in a hotel in El Paso, Texas. Even though it was a cold night, it was a waste of ten dollars. Not only was the room ugly and dirty and full of bugs, but also the damn window was broken out. Plus, I hardly got any sleep because during the night I kept hearing what sounded like eerie baby cries, but I couldn’t figure out where they were coming from. After much deliberation, and once one flew in my window, I realized that the sounds were coming from pigeons that were roosting all over that joint. Man that place just kept getting better and better. If I hadn’t had to pay up front, I would have skipped out on the bill.

  In the summer of 1962, I got a job trimming trees. The work was in Arizona and Texas. I got on my rigid frame and headed to Phoenix. I could only go fifty miles between gas stops because I had what we called a peanut tank. Peanut tanks only hold about a gallon and a half of gas, not great for a long-distance trip. I wanted a sportster tank because they held just over two gallons, but I didn’t have the money to buy one. Harley’s stock big twin tanks held three and a half gallons, but they weren’t considered cool. I could have bought one of those for about twenty-five bucks, but I didn’t want one of those ugly-ass things on my bike. After the first couple of hundred miles, I would have put one on with bailing wire … if I’d had it. I learned right then and there that there’s a time to be cool and a time to be practical.