(NOTE: The following short story was written by John Peabody and was the fourth-place winner in the recent McAlester Public Library Essay and Short Story Contest.)
The sun shone down, warming the day. Spring had come early in March. A few, bright, white, cotton
candy clouds strolled by. Over one hundred people wandered around, enjoying the 75 degree weather.
It seemed everyone in town had turned out for the festivities. The local library had put on a writing
contest, to coincide with National Library Week. People sat in the warm, green grass, many making a
picnic of it. The trees were green again and birds sang, hidden in their leaves. The contest judges sat up
on a platform, above the crowd, accepting entries, as people passed by. It was a nice inviting day and
they were happy to be outside. Looking around at the different booths and the milling crowd, they
thought this was a wonderful idea: to hold a small festival. The turnout was more than they hoped for.
More than 65 entries had already been turned in! First through fourth place winners would be chosen
later. There would be certificates given and even a little prize money handed out. Everything was going
along like clockwork. The theme was “community” and the community had certainly turned out.
Suddenly the calm was split by the roar of twenty motorcycles, screaming into the parking lot, across
from the judges’ platform. Parents grabbed their children. Kids stopped playing and began to cry.
People ran to their cars, dragging blankets and picnic baskets with them. Booth owners held onto their
merchandise; some closed up shop. Birds flew out of trees, car alarms went off. The judges were
shocked. The men and women on the platform just stared, as forty bikers stopped and turned off their
machines. From their vantage point, the judges could make out through the parked cars only the top
rocker of the patches all the bikers wore on the back of their vests. It read “WARRIORS.”
“So,” the judges all thought, “This isn’t just some friends out for a ride together. This is a motorcycle
gang! Come to disrupt and mess up everyone’s good time.” They began to whisper their fears and
trepidation to each other. “What do they want?” “Why OUR community?” “There are so many of
them!” “Probably just out of prison!” “Do they have guns?” “Are they after someone?” “Just look at
how they dress!” “Buncha drug addicts, probably out of their minds on dope.”
Men and women dismounted from the bikes, all dressed in black leather and blue jeans, patches, chains,
and pins covered their vests. Obviously outlaws, these weren’t casual riders. These people must prefer
bikes and scorn people who drive cars. They milled around together, laughing and joking, giving each
other “high five’s.” The judges thought about their contest; communities, well, here was a community in
and of itself, a bad one. Many different communities exist, some good, some bad. Most likely these
club members would start taking drugs and drinking alcohol, right there in the parking lot. Hopefully,
they wouldn’t pull out any guns or knives. These bikers were just ruining a fine day. They began to split
up, walking around in the crowd that remained. They visited booths and wandered about. How dare
they try to be part of this community! They didn’t belong! They didn’t blend in.
The judges were incensed; they knew all about these biker types! One of the bikers began to walk
towards the judges’ platform. Who did he think he was? What did he want? He in his leather vest and
leather chaps, his black boots, his long hair, his skull cap with lightning bolts. What was he going to do?
As he neared them, they could see one of the pins on his vest was a name badge; it read “Snake.” Of
course this evil man was not named Tom or Bob, but Snake. He stood in front of the platform and
reached into his vest. “Oh God!” They knew it now, come to kill them, assassinate the judges, they all
began to panic.
One of the judges stood up quickly and fell off the platform, unconscious, on the grass behind it.
Leaping quickly up on the platform between two judges, the biker jumped off the back and was feeling
for a pulse on the judge who lay sprawled out on the grass. The other judges became animated, yelling
at the biker, “Stop that!” “Leave him alone!” “Don’t touch him! Who do you think you are?”
The biker pulled a couple of papers out of his vest and handed them to the nearest judge, not looking
up. The papers were unfolded; the judge was at a loss for words. It was an entry for the writing contest.
The papers were passed around. They stared at the name on the top of the paper. It read Dr. James
Thompson. From the local hospital, they all knew him. He was a good man.
“He’s only fainted; he’ll be fine.” Dr. Thompson said. By the time they looked up from the papers, the
biker was walking away. They could all see his whole back now; the complete patch on his vest read
“Warriors in Christ,” the local Christian motorcycle group.
The End
McBook 