Atwell Dave - The hard way out my life with the Hells Angels and why I turned against them

B ack in 2002, Im pretty sure that my workday was not a lot like yours.

Believe it or not, like most people, my day started at around 7 a.m. I was always an early riser, and Id wake up at about the same time even if Id been up for three or four days straight.

As soon as I was ready, Id head out to meet the boys. But first, Id stop at a little hole-in-the-wall place called the Fish Joy. Sandwiched between a dentists office and a Chinese restaurant in a nondescript little strip mall at the corner of Brimley Road and Brimorton Drive in Scarborough, it was a fish and chips place, but I generally went there for the all-day breakfast, and because I knew it well.

I was a Scarborough guy, and that actually meant something to us back then. If youre not familiar with it, Scarborough is a huge community of more than half a million people just to the east of Toronto. Its officially part of the city of Toronto now, but it wasnt when we were growing up, and it still feels different. People in what we call downtown, the proper old city of Toronto, dis Scarborough all the time, calling it Scarberia (because they say its isolated and without culture) or Scarlem (because of its prominent black population and reputation for crime), but we never saw it that way.

When we were young, Scarborough was exactly where we wanted it to bea real-life embodiment of the Canadian dream. We were all middle-class affluent and had nice big houses with yards and garages. The streets were wide and safe. We knew everyone in the neighborhood. We were those kids who played road hockey and shouted, Car! and dragged the net out of the way when someone wanted to get through. We went down to the creek to fish and later, as we got older, to enjoy a few ill-gotten beers. It was, to our way of thinking, exactly how people were supposed to live.

So I felt totally comfortable and at ease in a place like the Fish Joy. It was small, and not much to look at inside. At the back, just in front of the kitchen, there was a counter where you could place your order. And in front, between the beige, mostly artless walls, were four cheap Formica tables (three four-seaters and one two-seater) with throwaway bended steel and gray vinyl chairs. The whole place smelled like french fry oil, which always made me a bit hungrier. But I wasnt dining at the Ritz; I was just getting a solid breakfast and maybe a few early beers in a place I grew up in.

I was generally the only person who sat down there. Most people went to the Fish Joy for take-out, and many who had intended to stay and eat quickly changed their minds once they saw me. I should explain here that Im a big boyat least I was back then. Im tall, about six foot, and for much of my life I weighed more than three hundred pounds. And I was a biker. Not just a biker, but a bona fide hardcore Hells Angel full patch. In fact, I was sergeant-at-arms for the Toronto Downtown chapter. And I looked like it. Id come in wearing jeans and a T-shirt with heavy leather boots and a prominent, but totally legal, knife. Oh yeah, and I rocked a mullet back then. Even people who didnt know me knew not to mess with me.

From Fish Joy, it was a short drive or ride west to the office. Located at the corner of Kennedy Road and Shropshire Drive in the heart of Scarboroughs Dorset Park neighborhood, a bar called Country BeBops was our meeting place. We never did any business in the clubhouse, which was farther downtown, on Eastern Avenue, because we knew that anybody could be listening there. And if the wrong people overheard the wrong thing, we could lose the clubhouse. Instead, we did it in a place we knew was ours alone.

Later, after everything went down, the media would invariably call BeBops seedy, but thats just lazy writing, a placeholder adjective that stands for any place you wouldnt want to bring your grandmother for brunch. BeBops was much more than just seedy; it was nasty, like there was a flashing neon sign out front exclaiming Crime Happens Here.

By eleven every morning, the place and the lot out front were crawling with bikers, their women, prospects, hangarounds, friends and business associatesmy people. Their presence, as well as the Mad Maxlike assortment of customized Harley-Davidsons and hot rods out front, kept anybody who didnt belong inside at arms length.

There wasnt much to it. There was a meager patio tucked into the corner out front, a small bar and a tiny little kitchen. The bathrooms were downstairs with the office and a large storage area, and the main floor had ten or twelve round tables with crappy little chairs and, much to everyones annoyance, an uneven pool table.

There was no ATM inside Country BeBops. We all knew that having one would draw too much unwanted attention from outside because every withdrawal would be for the same amount$40. Thats because pretty much everybody who frequented BeBops knew that $40 would get you a half-gram of coke, a Percocet and a beer. And thats all the people there really wanted.

It was a great setup, really. The bars owners didnt deal, and could deny any knowledge of dealing going on within its premises, and the dealers had a safe place to do business, complete with an early warning system in case the cops decided to drop by.

Thats what it was all about for the people who came inside BeBops, just their daily routine, chasing their dreams one hit at a time. Other people, those whose lives have never come into close contact with organized crime or the drug trade, would never believe how mundane it all was for us. It was, for better or worse, our normal.

Billy Campbellwho we called Bald Billysold coke. But he was nothing like what people think of when they think of a coke dealer. He was just a guy, a truly nice guy (and his wife was a doll), who sat at a table with a log book and a bottle of Blue. Hed dole out coke, note it in his logbook, take cash, then down a swallow of beer. Hed be in by eleven every morning and out by four, just another day at the office. Except, of course, he made a shitload of cash and hed be drunk when he left. Not stumbling, but definitely loaded. He and I had a very cordial relationship until one day, out of the blue, he told me that my girlfriend owed him $300.

If those milling around outside were my people, those who ran the inside were my inner circle. The Hells Angels Toronto Downtown chapter included my friends TC, Bully, Doug Hoyle and Bobby P.

We were all Scarborough boys who rode, partied and did business together, and BeBops was our headquarters. We all felt safe in there. The people outside would ward off any undesirables, and warn us in plenty of time if the Doughnut Gang showed up.

Even though they were my friends, business associates and sworn brothers, theyre the kind of people who wear on you the longer youre exposed to them. So I numbed that exposure by starting my business day with a not-so-little hit of brain juice. My typical dose came in the form of a couple of big glasses of vodkastraightwith a wedge of lime.

And, usually, Id get it from Sheila (her last name isnt important). It wasnt hard to like Sheila at all. She wasnt what youd picture a bartender in a biker bar to be like. She had a smile for everyone who asked for a drink. She was about as tall as me, curvy with a pretty face, short, dark, curly hair. She was always well dressed and well groomed. She wasnt skanky in the least, just a good old East Coast gal, hardworking, honest and plainspoken. She was friendly and loyal, and I can still recall several times we had late-night heart-to-heart conversations and solved all of the worlds problems over a few lines of coke. The thing about Sheila, for me at least, was that she was such an undeniably respectable person that it made the life we had, dealing drugs and selling stolen goods, seem normal even though we all knew society called it wrong and we could easily find ourselves behind bars for doing it.