Saturday Story

MONARCH MADNESS AND THE GREAT TITTY BUST

Normal Monarch parties, like The Great Ducky Shoot-out, were usually great.

“Monarch Madness” parties were entirely in another realm. Hell, another planet.

Madness was usually held at the Monarch clubhouse, so shooting was not allowed at Madness. There were always a lot of guns, knives and other implements of destruction, but I don’t remember a single fight involving them. An armed group of bikers; is a polite group of bikers.

The Monarchs MC was always in the “giving” group. The MC often held fund raisers for fallen brothers and sisters and rarely missed another clubs party/fund raisers.

But the “Madness” was a yearly party that often set and raised the bar for parties. Complete with booze, dancing girls (literally) and the food was always something. One year it was a chili cook-off, another was a bar-b-que done on site and another was a real east coast clam bake with 450 to 500 pounds of fresh east coast clams flown in the night before.

But the one that stands out to me was the year of the ramped bike show, and the great titty bust. (Pun intended)

The MC clubhouse was in the industrial area of Waipahu at the very end of a set of secluded warehouses.

You could not see the clubhouse from the street, and the MC would set-up plywood walls in the parking lot so the party was pretty well blocked from the public eye. If you got drunk and stupid, you would be “asked”, sometimes forcefully, to leave.

The cops pretty much left the MC alone because they policed themselves; hence no call to the police regarding the club or the clubhouse. The other warehouse users either attended or just stayed away for the weekend.

This was a spectacular party even by Madness standards. There was food, beer, shots, three bands and a ramped stage for a bike show. The bike show was where it started downhill, so to speak.

Monarch Woody was proud of his rigid framed, suicide jockey shifting, kick starting, hard core, old school ape hangered shovel head. A barebones run it like you just stole it chopper. Those days, a chopper was something you built, not something you bought.

But those suicide shifts can be tricky. Woody rode up the ramp, dropped the kick stand and shut it down. The party “announcer” read off the specs then told Woody to “light it up”.

Funny thing, when those bikes are in gear, and you jump on the kick starter, they have a real tendency to launch forward several inches to several feet. With the ape hangers, Woody’s left hand was just level with his shoulder. With a strong grip on the handle bar Woody came down on the kicker. The bike lurched forward, Woody forgot to let go and the sound of his shoulder dislocating could be heard several rows back. So could Woody’s groan. He did not scream but the groan was indicative of pain, a lot of pain.

To his credit he didn’t drop the bike. One of his MC brothers jumped on stage, held the bike while Woody moved off and out of sight. The brother rolled the bike off stage and the next contestant rolled up. Nothing short of death, and maybe dismemberment, stops a Monarch Madness.

Backstage, inside the clubhouse, Woody was doing his best to cover up the amount of pain he was in.

It was decided that there was no choice and ambulance was called. Woody met the ambulance, and responding beat cop, out at the curb so they didn’t have any reason to ‘walk the party”. Even in pain, a patch holder watches out for his brothers and makes sure his guests have a good time and are not hassled.

As the day passed every one waited for the final event, then it was time for the wet t-shirt contest. This was always the highlight of Madness.

Usually there was a 200 to 250 dollar prize that was often supplemented by passing the hat if it was a good contest.

The best thing was the Madness contest was always limited to “non-pro O’ladies”. That means it was a no “dancers” contest. But gotta tell you, some of us have pretty good looking O’ladies.

The contest got off to a rousing start. There were 12-15 starters and they were all trying to get that prize. The water was ice cold so the results were obvious immediately.

There was music, dancing, and the t-shirts soon came off and it got down and dirty.

Remember how the clubhouse was located at the rear of the warehouse? At the rear was a drive around, then a 25-30 foot pock wall. At the top of the wall was a chain-link fence, set 2 to 3 feet back. Then 15 to 20 feet of grass between the fence and the roadway, all this becomes important later.

Madness wet T-shirt contests were usually the last “event” of the day and often took a while to declare a winner. This one was no different. It took over half an hour to get down to the 4 finalists.

Those 4 girls were working the crowd and earning the prize money when the unthinkable happened.

The cops showed up.

A lot of cops showed up.

And they started talking about arresting the “naked in public” women.

Say what!!!!!

For “Public lewdness”.

It appeared these 7 or 8 cops figured they were pretty tough, but I knew they were outnumbered 10 or 12 to 1, and just as out gunned. In any biker group that size, there was always some serious fire power.

None of those guns were visible, and none were drawn, but there were some very angry bikers.

Woody had come back from the hospital and as club “P” he did ALL the talking. The MC members made sure everyone stayed calm, and back; at least away from the cops.

There was one cop doing all the talking about arresting people. He was wearing 2 stars for 10 years police service. But he wasn’t a sergeant. Call him 2 stars.

The Monarchs usually had a good rapport with the area cops, but nobody knew this guy. He was bound and determined to arrest the 4 finalists.

Remember, these cops had parked in the street, walked the entire length of the warehouse, pushed through the crowd, and started talking about arrests.

I overheard one guy ask his wife/girlfriend contestant,

“You gonna win?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I don’t have any bail money. If you don’t win, you’ll have to stay until Monday court.”

The look she gave him would have killed a lesser man. He smiled, she smiled, and I really hoped he was kidding.

Finally the sergeant arrived on the scene. That initial cop was still talking arrest. And as of yet, the 4 finalists were only partially clothed and still wet.

First thing the sergeant does is let the ladies put on some clothes.

Then he asked the”2 stars” how did he see the contest and decide to arrest for “public” anything.

Remember when I described the back of the warehouse area? “2 stars” took the sergeant there. He then parked his vehicle, walked across the lawn, and by leaning his weight against the fence, he could push it outward just enough to see the stage. And he watched for the whole show before deciding to call for back-up on the “public lewdness”. Public?

The sergeant was a veteran with 4 stars on his uniform. He looked at all the other cops and told them to go back to work. He looked at “2 stars” and told him to go back to the office while he tried to talk “the party givers” out of filing a complaint about his unlawful invasion of property, abuse of authority, threatening, and everything else they could complain about.

Seems the sergeant understood this guy had screwed up because the contest was never “in public” and he had had no cause to enter the party. He had also put all the other officers responding in jeopardy.

Hell, we were just happy to get all of them out a there.

So the cooler heads prevailed, the police departed, the crowd sort of decided it was time to go before “2 stars” was back on the road.

A collection was taken, added to the prize money; and then divided evenly between the 4 finalists. Nobody needed bail money and everyone agreed this was one of the greatest Monarch Madness’ ever.