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The war started when a few members of the Order macheted our sergeant at arms, Ray Ray Alvarez, at a bar and grill in San Jose. They told him to take off his colors. Our colors were the same as our allies', the Soldiers of Mars: red on white, a top and bottom rocker, and a sidepiece--your standard three-piece patch for outlaw motorcycle clubs. They were also the same colors as the Order's, practically an invitation for someone to go alpha male on someone. Another problem was the 1% patch Ray Ray was sporting on his leather. They said he was no one-percenter and it was an insult to the guys who were. Now, Ray Ray was a big boy, and he told the Order guys there was only one way to find out if he was a one-percenter, so they rat-packed him: whacked him with machetes and kicked the guacamole out of him. Ray Ray lived, but he was a quart low on the red stuff and being held together with stitches and surgical tubing, shit shoved up his nose and dick. Luger and I went and saw him at the hospital. "Hey, Ray Ray, don't you worry, bro. We're gonna kick mud holes in those chumps."

Ray Ray made a beeping sound in between the Darth Vader breathing, but I saw it in the way his eyes stared up at the ceiling: He wanted us to kick mud holes in those chumps.

I also told him I'd just have his old lady pay the $100 he owed me, if that was okay.

That night in bed I told Nona about it. "I don't understand. I thought they were fighting the Soldiers of Mars," she said.

"We're allies." My club was the Freak Patrol.

She sat up on her side. Nona had dark skin and long black hair and the best rack money could buy. There is nothing like a two-year-old pair of tits on a 30-year-old body, like adding a whole new wing on the house. She had a scorpion tattoo on her right boob and a Little Devil on the inside of her thigh. She claimed she was mostly Indian, Paiute or Lummi or some other tribe long demapped, but nowadays everybody claims to have some Indian, like if they got a skin in the bloodline that somehow excuses their other land-swiping ancestors. Whatever helps them sleep at night. At the rate we're going, someday we'll all claim we're spades. Me, I don't sweat the past. The skins got the shaft? Call it God's will. My people put your people in chains? Your people should have had their shit together.

"What does that mean? You get all the Soldiers' problems but none of the rewards of their business?"

"It means we hang out. We ride together."

"So you could be killed? Or go back to prison?"

"I'm not going back to the joint."

Nona was a stripper at the Silicon Palace. You know that stuff you see in the movies about the kindhearted stripper who just does it to pay for college or to support her daughter? Total horseshit. Most of them are geeked on gak or shooting dope, one step away from prostitution, basket cases whose daddies were never around. Or were around a little too much. We'd talked about making an amateur porno movie to sell on the Internet--what can I say? chicks dig me--but hadn't got around to it. Nona snuggled up closer.

"I'll hide drugs in my pussy and mule them into the prison for you. I'll write petitions. If you die, I'll get a tattoo on my back of you with a big mustache and a headband."

"Right on."

"Just be careful. Don't act without thinking, like you did with Charlie."

Her boss, Charlie, fired her from the Pink Poodle because I kicked in his car door after he asked her to be in a threesome. I'd been trying to get Nona to do that for months, and this cock-sucker wants to chisel in and turn it into something sleazy?

"This is so exciting," she said, climbing on top of me. "You could be maimed. Or crippled. You might have to eat through a straw."

We fucked till the pictures fell off the wall, then I made her make me a sandwich.

I first got the bug when I was a kid. My father and I were on a road trip out West, South Dakota, Wyoming, somewhere. We stopped for lunch, and bikes suddenly filled the whole street, a wall of chrome and thunder. There must have been a hundred of them, long-haired Vikings in leather, gunning engines and sneering at the hicks in their feed-store caps. Four guys gassed ahead to block the next intersection, a bike blocking each lane of traffic on each side of the street so the pack could roll past. It was fucking beautiful.

I went to my first Bike Blessing two years ago, when I was 28. You could feel it a mile off: the rumble of (continued on page 140)1%(continued from page 110) Thunderheader pipes, twin cam engines, speakers blasting Monster Magnet's "Space Lord." Incoming clubs converged on the road: the Henchmen, the Alky-Haulers, the Ghost Mountain Riders. Guys in spiked helmets with their honeys hanging on tight. Gunned-up peckerwoods sleeved with cheap prison ink. Missing links with their guts slung over their belts, riding big baggers with windshields. In the lot in front of the club were Twisted Souls on Knucklehead choppers and Mad Hatters on rat bikes, Hell's Angels on Sportsters and Galloping Gooses on Dyna Glides. Bikes were electric blue and blood red and tricked out with drag pipes and monkey bars and beautiful leather saddlebags you could smell from 20 feet away. A bail bondsman's promotional van handed out T-shirts. Broads in leather tops shimmied past with their poopers hanging out of their chaps, and there were old-timers with gray beards down to their belts and 1% tattoos on their arms--"one percent" signifying the extra chromosome, the superpredator, the one percent of all humans who would survive a nuclear war with the cockroaches.

And me, Wade Parker.

They raffled off a Shovelhead and had a bike judging, then the priest blessed bikes with holy water from the back of a pickup. I was there with a partner from the joint, Ted Manley. While I'm mentioning Ted, I should come clean about something. Now, I'm not proud about it, but I'm not sorry. Things just get twisted up in the joint. When Ted and I were cellies, we had a third cellie, a junkie named George. Ted and I are big guys, both over six foot, and we were hulked up at the time, so we figured if we didn't do it, someone else would. George kept a clean house and made us coffee, and I trained him to crawl beneath my bunk in the morning and gently shake me, whispering, "King Wade, it's time to get up. Coffee is ready, your highness." It was all in good fun, and Ted and I laughed about it many nights while liquored up on pruno. When we got short, we figured we needed to get our heads screwed on right before we hit the bricks, so we traded George for a carton of squares. I guess you oughtta file that away for later.

Ted and I ran into a guy from the Harley shop where I'd started working. They called this guy Luger because he had a tattoo of a gun on his stomach and it looked like he had a Luger shoved down his pants. He was with the Freak Patrol and asked if we'd seen anyone with Order patches. There was a rumor they were crashing the blessing.

"If you need help, I'll nut up," I said.

"Save it," Luger suggested. "It's club business."

"Fuck that, man," I said. "I'll throw down for the fun of it."

"I appreciate that, Wade," Luger said. "Hang on a second."

Ted looked at me: "What are you doing?" He was an ugly redhead with a crewcut and freckles and arms loaded with bushy hair. He had a fucked-up upper grille and squinty eyes, and it looked like you could hit him with a two-by-four straight between the peepers and it wouldn't bother him none. In the joint, he used to stir his cotton with his needle and could never figure out why his rigs were dull.

"I hear these guys ride hard," I said. "Maybe this will help get me in."

"You can ride with me," he said.

"You're fucking married, man." To a real hog too, the sort of broad that would slap down 12 bucks for a margarita and a box of squares but bitch about a $3 gallon of milk. She had a little Dirty Sanchez mustache and a crappy little bike and always wanted to ride with us.

Luger came back with the sergeant at arms from the Soldiers of Mars, a huge fucker named San Jose Scott. He had bushy pork chop whiskers, his arms black with ink. He was holding a bunch of red bandannas.

"Luger says you're in," he said.

"Fuckin' A."

Scott tied a red bandanna around my arm. This way if two clubs were fighting, we wouldn't get confused.

"You're all right, bro," Scott said, thumping me hard on the chest. Luger also invited me to come to church, their weekly club meeting, on Thursday. Even though the Order didn't show, I had the Freak Patrol's respect before I even attended a meeting.

The Order was the fastest-growing motorcycle club in America. They'd cracked the old top five--the Vagos, the Outlaws, the Mongols, the Soldiers of Mars, the Sons of Silence--and knocked the Mongols out of southern California, looking to run the state. We'd heard rumors: They were started by Vietnam vets after the war and were into the occult and satanism, and their initiations involved torture and branding. They were into strip clubs, prostitution, meth, the usual shit. It was a turf war, about money, prestige and power. During a recent rally, the cops had pulled over two vans filled with automatic weapons, only a block away. Right before the attack on Ray Ray, the Order had been seen around town in packs of 60, wearing scabbards.

It was time to draw a line in the sand.

The Milpitas chapter of the Soldiers of Mars, enforcers of the red and white, got on the horn. They were going to make a show of force, and that meant allies--like the Freak Patrol--needed to man up. In this neck of the woods you don't charter a club without letting the Soldiers know, and you sure don't fly their colors without clearance. We were a local club--one charter out of Holy City, about 30 guys--while the Soldiers were national. If they really needed some muscle, though, they could call in a Nomad chapter to break some asses off. Nomad chapters rode 30,000 to 40,000 miles a year, hitting every major rally, going anywhere there was trouble--the last true one-percenters.

At night, riding Nona, I close my eyes and imagine riding as a Nomad. Nothing but fists and asphalt forever.

"Hey!" she'd say, hitting me. "Hey! It's me under here! Me!"

What did I do to get thrown in the joint? It's not complicated: I tried to rob a store with a broadsword. I was chasing the bag bad back then, shooting coke to even out the dope. I don't even remember going in the place. They showed pictures from the security cameras at my trial: me banging on the store doors after I got locked in with an emergency button; me standing in about a half foot of chips and cookie packages as I tried to chop up the Plexiglas security cage around the counter, where the little slope who'd locked me in cringed; me stabbing the frosty machine; me lying on the ground holding my bloody leg while the slope stood over me waving a piece.

I got five years, did 42 months. I tried to rap with the Aryans--I dug the white power thing and all--but when they started saying I had to stick to white pussy, man, I had to shine those yahoos. The bikers you could reason with: All that shit about wind in your hair and the open road and a nice-looking broad hanging on, it was the only thing keeping me from going crazy when I racked in for the night. I'd never felt like a part of nothing, but I fit right in with those guys. A few bikers even helped me out when a wetback broke off a shank in my side. The doctor said I might have died otherwise, but then, he didn't know I was a one-percenter.

One night the Order rolled past our road captain's house, 20 of them going slow, eye fucking him, letting him know they knew where he lived. He stood on his porch with a hand behind his back, pretending he had a piece. We put together a list of names and addresses using Luger at the Harley shop, where I'd been fired after the service manager caught me banging his girlfriend in the bathroom. If a guy with an Order patch got work done, Luger lifted his name and address from the work order. Then Nona got harassed, so four of us met at the Iron Monger.

"Yeah, man," I told them, "they yelled at her, spit on her car, blocked her. She couldn't figure out what was up. She freaked out." I took a drag off my cigarette. "When she got back we figured out she had a club sticker on her bumper."

After she'd calmed down, she said it was sexy "getting jammed." She thought she might have run one over when she tried to ditch them. There was a long silver scratch and blood on the side of her Camaro. She'd spent so many years fighting off her stepdad, those chumps didn't stand a chance.

I added, "So you better warn your people if they got a sticker, they might want to scratch it off."

"When we're riding alone, maybe we shouldn't wear our colors. You know, for safety," Boston Bob, the club president, said. He looked like Ron Jeremy but without the big cock thing going for him.

"Safety?" I said. "These colors cost me $300. I had to kiss your asses for six months. I had to run bags of blow up to the Soldiers in Frisco in the middle of the night. I worked my ass off. My colors ain't coming off."

I noticed then that it had gotten quiet. A bunch of guys had entered the place. They dressed like bikers, lots of prison tans, and their arms had big raised scars. Then I saw the scabbards. The shit hit when a few Soldiers stopped them halfway across the room.

Since you're expected to take one for the team, I always take two. Before Boston Bob and the others were even standing, I was on the other side of the room with my chair, going alpha male on their asses. I knocked one peckerwood out cold and broke two legs off the chair on another guy's mouth. I kicked a third guy in the stones, then wrestled another to the ground and chewed his nose off. I made animal sounds. I'll do that. I was getting ready to chew an ear off when I saw Luger getting choked by a stringy-looking guy. I grabbed a pool stick and broke it on the dude's head. Then I realized Boston Bob was getting his ass kicked by two guys. I lumped one good on the jaw before I got lumped on the melon from behind. I crashed to my knees, hearing bells, everything suddenly black. I was out only a second or two, but when I got back to my feet, the Order was already gone. The bells were police sirens. I stumbled over a broken TV, which I realized was what hit me. Blood dripped from the caved-in screen.

Luger caught my arm. His face was bloodied, an eye already closing. "Come on, man." Our rides were out back.

I glanced around: The place was a shambles, broken pitchers and tables everywhere, guys crawling in puddles of beer and blood with their faces leaking, hysterical broads streaming out of the bathroom where they'd been hiding. My head was wet, bits of glass embedded in it. Blood was all over my mouth.

"Jesus Christ, Parker," Luger said, "I thought I was hearing a dog."

A few nights later, coming home from the bar, I noticed a guy on a bike. I pulled up slow so I could get a good look at the patch: some kind of Hitler guy waving his fist, a 1% patch. The Order. I took my Mace out and came real close to him: "Hey, bro, you got a taillight out." When he flipped his visor up to look at it, I sprayed him. He wasn't worth getting off my bike, and I didn't want to open my stitches. I told Luger about it, but he got all bent out of shape, said I shouldn't be doing anything without club member backing.

I said, "Hey, man, calm down. Does your pussy hurt?"

He said he had to talk to Boston Bob and hung up.

This got me thinking. It bugged me the way the guys folded the other night, a lot. Now Luger acts like the voice of reason. Maybe the Freak Patrol wasn't such a good match for me. Maybe I had a little more go in me than the rest. The Soldiers of Mars had an open-door policy on Freak Patrol members. We could patch out in a few months rather than the usual year or so. But I'd gotten a bigass Freak Patrol tat on my forearm--Dizzy, our mascot, a broken-down clown holding a whiskey bottle and a gun. I've run into guys who had huge parts of their arms blacked out because they quit their club and the club wouldn't let them walk around with its tats on them. So there was that to consider.

I went to see Ray Ray at the hospital because I was supposed to meet him that night he got whacked to get my money but I spaced it. He looked like the fucking mummy, all wrapped in gauze. Since Ray Ray was half Mexican he was related to most of southern California, and they were packed in there too, all sweating and praying. There was even a priest, since Ray Ray had stopped breathing earlier that day. His old lady, Esperanza, kept kneading his chest and bawling, "No te mueras! No te mueras, mi amor!"

It looked like a bad time to mention the money to her.

I could see the priest was getting nowhere with the confession, so I said I had some information that might be helpful. I'd heard with Catholics, if you just get it all on the table right before you die, you can still go to heaven, which is great: Fuck up your whole life, sneak a sorry in under the wire. The priest, Padre Ramirez, thanked me but said it didn't work like that. He took me aside and asked if I was prepared to meet my maker. I asked him if that was a threat. He apologized, said Ray Ray might have to meet his maker with his soul still stained with sin. He asked if I ever felt something was missing from my life, if a great weight I could not name pressed down on me. I admitted that while I was in prison I kind of took advantage of a guy and that sometimes I dreamed about him screaming. I even had nightmares about getting shanked by him. He gave me his card, said I should stop by. Yeah, fat chance, I said.

I felt rotten and needed a drink, so I gave Ted Manley a call and we put some booze away. He's quiet when he's sober, but as he gets liquored up, he scoots closer and closer until he's two inches away, yelling in your ear.

"That ain't right, man, that ain't right! Letting a partner just die like that!" he shouted. "Sitting around waiting! Are you not men?"

I remembered I had a list of names and addresses of guys in the Order. We came up with a plan.

We picked up more liquor, then stopped by Nona's to borrow her car. She'd gone out with a friend. We set out for the closest house on my list, some lump named Van Clausen who lived off McLaughlin in a crappy little duplex. I banged on the door. I guess I thought lights would come on or he'd call out or something, because the door opened a lot faster than I expected. A short, hard-looking guy with a pussy tickler corked me right in the nose while I was trying to remember what the plan was. It involved duct tape, because I was holding a roll of it. While Ted whomped a mud hole in Clausen's face, I shut the door and made sure no one was in the back room. It was filthy. The guy didn't have a garage, so he'd been rolling his bike inside, the carpet black with grease. I went to make sure my nose wasn't broken.

"How about some of that duct tape, Wade?" Ted called.

We taped Clausen up pretty good. Ted suggested we really humiliate him, do a Georgie on him, but I felt that as a representative of the club I couldn't be doing that shit. That patch made me answer to something higher.

The next thing I knew, someone was pounding on me. I kept a Desert Eagle under my pillow, and it was in my hand before my eyes opened. I put the gun to their head before I realized it was Nona.

"Are you fucking totally insane? There is a man in my trunk! You fucking kidnapped someone!"

I decided not to shoot her and sat up for a moment. Apparently Ted and I had dropped off the car last night, clean forgetting about the dude in the trunk.

"I went to the fucking grocery store this morning, and what do I find in the trunk? A fucking body!"

"He's alive, right?"

"He shit himself!" she sobbed. She was a wreck. I could tell she'd been doing coke all night.

"Come on, take some Vicodin. This is not a problem," I said. "We're just getting even for Ray Ray. Don't worry, baby. I'll get rid of him lickety-split."

She sniffed and nodded, gathering herself. A dark hush came over her: "Are you going to kill him?"

I put my arm around her. "Nah, we'll probably just hurt him real bad."

"Can I help?" she whispered.

Nona wasn't thinking right, so I fed her Vicodins and put her to bed. We had a church meeting that night, and Ted was helping me take Clausen there. The meeting was at our treasurer's house. Sonny was a manager at an automotive store, so he knew how to keep the books. He lived in a nice suburb, Morgan Hill, no Mexicans or anything.

It was dark when Ted and I pulled in, all the bikes out front. We came late so we'd miss the first half of the meeting, when guests and prospects could attend. The second part of the meeting was called Heavy Duty--patch holders only. I popped the trunk. Right off Clausen starts struggling and yelling something even though his mouth's taped. He smelled nasty. I whacked him with the tire iron, then we took him inside.

"Christ, Wade," Sonny said, throwing the door closed. "What are you doing?"

"I got one."

"Mother of God, why'd you bring him to my house? I have children!"

"That's your problem. We're having church, right? I thought we could vote on how we get even for Ray Ray."

"Hey," Ted said, "he's coming to. He'll start getting squirmy."

We ignored Sonny and took Clausen downstairs. Everyone was sitting on folding chairs, drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups. It looked like an AA meeting. We dumped Clausen on the floor and explained the deal. No one wanted anything to do with my plan. They were all tough talk and brotherhood until the opportunity to prove it presented itself.

"You have got to get rid of him," Boston Bob said. "Self-defense is one thing, but this is kidnapping. You're talking about torture."

"I can't believe this," I said. "Ray Ray, our brother, is dying in the hospital. And what are you doing about it? Nothing. You're all gutless punks trying to mad-dog your way out of it, but not one of you has the sack to stick your neck out for a brother. You make me ashamed--ashamed!--to wear these colors." I took my vest off and flung it on the floor. "I thought we stood for something! I thought this meant something!" I noticed Dizzy on my arm. "And this fucking tattoo!" I stormed into Sonny's garage, found a big-ass wood file. I returned and began filing the tattoo off my arm. I didn't get far before six of them wrestled the file away, but my arm was all fucked up and I got blood all over the carpet.

Point made.

So Ted and I ended up dumping Clausen off on his porch. We figured since we didn't squeal when they jammed Ray Ray, they wouldn't squeal either. We still parted his bike, though.

"I heard what happened," San Jose Scott said a few days later on the phone. "We appreciate your commitment."

"Fuckin' A."

"And we'd be happy to let you prospect, but you know we can't have any of the loose-cannon shit. We all need to be on the same page."

"Sure, Scott, as long we ride hard and kick ass."

"You know the Laughlin ride's coming up next week?"

"Yeah."

"We got a Nomad chapter coming in from up north. We're all going to ride down together, in case shit happens."

"Sounds great."

"So you really kidnapped that guy?"

"Fuckin' A."

Ray Ray died 10 days before we all met up at the Soldiers' chapter house in Milpitas to make the Laughlin River Run. They'd planted him at noon the previous weekend, but I was too hung over to make it. Instead, I got a small cross on my back with R.R. in the middle. When I called Esperanza about the $100, she freaked out, said his hospital bill cost thousands. I figured I'd let it slide for a while, but I wasn't going to let her buddy-hustle me just because Ray Ray went over the wall. Hey, I got bills too.

The Soldiers were swilling beers on the front lawn as local guys rolled in. The Nomads showed up about 40 minutes later. They rumbled in and parked and climbed off their bikes and slapped shoulders and joked with their brothers, but since I was a new prospect I just stood around slugging whiskey. I noticed one of them was kind of a pretty boy, long dirty-blond hair and scraggly beard, trying to look hard, but you could tell he wasn't. Then I realized: George! I stumbled over.

"Hey, Georgie!"

His eyes got wide for a second, but he didn't let on. "Do I know you?"

"Yeah, it's me, Wade. You know, King Wade?"

"I don't know you."

He turned to say hello to someone. I grabbed him. "Hey, little princess, why's it gotta be all that? Why don't we bury----?"

He spun around and slammed my chest. "I said I don't fucking know you!"

About 40 guys stood around listening, and I realized I better ease off. "Sure, sure, okay. No problem."

San Jose Scott grabbed me: "Is everything okay?"

I told him it was. I could see George muttering to a couple friends. Scott introduced me to some of the Nomads, told them I was the crazy motherfucker that kidnapped Clausen.

We could have made the ride to Laughlin in one day, but we took our time, stopping off at watering holes. We camped outside of Bakersfield, where San Jose Scott was from, and got loaded and told tales of glory. George avoided me all night. I tried to take him aside and tell him I was sorry, that I wouldn't bring it up again. He got mad and walked off, said he didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. Some people, they can't let go of the past.

The next day we hit Laughlin, a little Las Vegas about 100 miles south of Sin City, along the Colorado River, overrun with 80,000 bikers. We hit the main strip in early evening, on the lookout for the Order. A lot of the guys had pieces, but I couldn't risk a weapons charge if a cop stopped me. You could feel the tension as everyone parked their bikes at Harrah's, looking around, not saying much. We saw the Apostates, the Sons of Vulcan, the Hatchetmen, lots of West Coast clubs but no Order. We checked in, and a guy from the Ghost Mountain Riders said he'd seen them earlier, but he didn't know where they were staying.

Scott brought a bunch of blow, so we did a few rails and went to the casino downstairs. We threw our money around like a bunch of drunk Arabs. I hung with the guys from the Milpitas chapter, but there were Nomads around too. I got stupid drunk, started razzing George, calling him little princess.

"Hey, maybe if I pulled out my cock you might remember me then?" I said to him once, when everyone was out of earshot. "You got a good look at it, right?" His face turned so red I thought he was having a heart attack. The guys kept asking me what was up, and I'd say, "Aww, George can tell you." George just got redder and redder, then stalked off. Some people say I overdo things.

I say the rest of the world is half-assing it.

Things get fuzzy after that. I started winning big at the 21 table, laying down $100 and $200 bets, doubling down and winning. Some of the guys wanted to go to a different place, and a big group took off. A little after that, I started losing and yelling at the dealer, slapping waitresses on the ass. The pit boss ejected me from the casino. I wandered upstairs and finally ran into a guy named Roach from the Nomads chapter. He said San Jose Scott wanted me. They'd gone back to do a few more rails.

There were six guys in the room, Scott and several Nomads. And George, holding a broomstick. They didn't look like they were having a good time.

"What are we doing?" I asked.

Scott shrugged, sighed. "George here's been telling us you were a booty bandit back in the joint."

"You gotta be fucking kidding me!"

A Nomad blindsided me with a haymaker, slamming me into the wall.

"It's a yes or no question," Scott said, getting off the bed.

"What about dick-sucking Geor----?"

Another fist hit my jaw.

"It's too bad," Scott sighed. "I like you, Wade. I hoped this was going to work."

They rat-packed me.

The next day, I read about the war in the paper. I was at the county hospital recovering from internal injuries. At 3:36 A.M.--right after they'd thrown me down the stairwell--six Soldiers of Mars were walking through the casino when they ran into 20 members of the Order. It was a bloodbath. Guns blasting, machetes flying. Nine died--five Soldiers, four Order. Thirteen wounded, some bystanders. Every member of each club was immediately detained; dozens more were arrested on warrants, drug possession and weapons violations. Since the Soldiers pulled my vest, I was left alone. I couldn't believe my luck. Five of those six guys were dead, and I could easily have been one of them.

Probably I should have thanked George--he was the only one who lived--but since he was on the floor above me in critical condition, I decided to sneak up there at midnight and turn off his breathing equipment instead. I felt strange afterward, wondering how I survived it all. Nona came down, said she was so proud of me. I even gave Padre Ramirez a call. He hauled his ass down there lickety-split, about the time they were zipping George into a body bag, and he gave me the dope on eternal salvation. Maybe getting cornholed with a broomstick changes a man, but all that shit he was talking about--Pasqualie's wager, Paul going to Damascus to whomp on Christians and suddenly getting the Word--it made sense. I thought about the guys I rode with, one-percenters supposedly, how so many were dead and how I always just dust myself off and get back up. Maybe there's a reason a guy can survive anything, a higher purpose, and as I saw myself reflected in the padre's sunglasses, I just knew, man. I knew God had a plan for me. Me. Wade Parker. Christ's wingman.

I couldn't wait to get started.

The second-prize winner is Douglas Jackson Channell of the University of Alabama, for Night Class. Third prize went to Mac McCormick of Illinois Wesleyan University, for Baking Soda.

Where & How To Buy

Below is a list of retailers and manufacturers you can contact for information on where to find this month's merchandise. To buy the apparel and equipment shown on pages 37, 47--48, 92--93, 112--117, 118--119 and 167, check the listings below to find the stores nearest you.

Games

Page 37: Activision, 310-255-2508 or activision.com. EA Sports, 877-324-2637 or ea.com. Eidos, eidos.com. Namco, namco.com. Phi-lips, 800-531-0039 or nike-philips.com. Vivendi Universal Games, vugames.com.

Mantrack

Pages 47--48: Chronicle Books, chronicle books.com. Galpin Motors, 800-GO GALPIN or galpin.com. Panasonic, 800-211-7262 or panasonic.com. Titleist, 888-324-4766.

Wireless Living Room

Pages 92--93: Casio, casio.com. Go Video, 800-736-7679 or govideo.com. Philips, 800-531-0039. Pioneer, 800-746-6337 or pioneerelectronics.com. Rockford, omnifi media.com. Sony, 800-222-SONY.

Brief Case

Pages 112--117: Angel Rox, angelrox.com. Ben Sherman, benshermanusa.com. Borrell, luigiborrell.com. Boss Hugo Boss, hugo.com. Bostonian, bostonian shoes.com. Bottega Veneta, bottegaveneta.com. Calvin Klein, 212-292-9000. Canali, canali.it. Claiborne, claiborne.com. Coach, coach.com. D&G, 212-965-8000. Dunhill, dunhill.com. Enyce, enyce.com. Geoffrey Beene, 212-371-5570. Ghurka, ghurka.com. H&M, hm.com. Gianluca Isaia, gian lucaisaia.com. Jack Spade, jackspade.com. John Lobb, johnlobb.com. Kenneth Cole, kenneth cole.com. Mark Nason, 800-684-0008. NYBased, nybased.com. Reebok, reebok.com. Salvatore Ferragamo, fer ragamo.com. Sean John, seanjohn.com. Seiko, seiko usa.com. Stuart Weitzman, stuartweitzman.com. Sutor Mantellassi, sutormantel lassi.com. Testoni, testoni usa.com. Tommy Hilfiger, tommy.com.

Face To Face

Pages 118--119: Calvin Klein, 212-292-9000. Casio, casio.com. Hamilton, hamilton watch.com. Kenneth Cole Reaction, kennethcole.com. Oris, oris-watch.com. Swatch, swatch.com. Swiss Army Brands, swissarmy.com. TAG Heuer, tagheuer.com. Timex, timex.com. Tissot, tissot.ch. Tommy Hilfiger, tommy.com.

On The Scene

Page 167: Bottega Veneta, bottegaveneta.com. Cable Ties, 800-926-5981 or cable tiesplus.com. Erotic Travel Tales, cleispress.com. Grundig, hammacher.com or magellens.com. Guide to Safe Travel, piatkus.co.uk. Hermès, hermes.com. John Hardy, 800-237-9477 or johnhardy.com. Louis Vuitton, 866-VUITTON or vuitton.com. Milano Plonge, from Loro Piana, 45 E. Oak Street, Chicago, Illinois, 312-664-6644. Motorola, 866-289-6686 or motorola.com. Podzilla, roadwired.com. Ray-Ban, 888-589-6884. Ten Speed Press, tenspeed.com. Toshiba, 800-631-3811 or toshiba.com.