A Visit With an Outlaw

How a Golf Cart Brought us Together

Some interactions are so full of parody and paradox that it would be a crime not to share them with the world. When the gritty mobster or muscly henchman suddenly becomes part of your mothering day, you must write about it. Such was my recent and unexpected visit with a kindly member of a biker gang.

It all started with our dead golf cart. Arriving in Florida for a few days of holiday fun, we found that the golf cart was on island time, at best. The batteries were new, yet held no charge; it was a highly inconvenient situation among first-world problems. We tried everything to get her up and running, but at last I decided to call a “mobile golf cart repair” company, the fruit of some Googling.

Although the owner couldn’t come out and inspect it himself, he was able to send his “tech” who would get me squared away in no time. Perfect! The men of my house would be out of my hair, happily tucked away at the clubhouse or course, and my teen daughter could cruise the neighborhood later in her Club Car phaeton later in the day. A working golf cart would solve all sorts of entertainment issues.

The real entertainment, however, lay with the broken one.

My cart repair tech arrived but parked his stout pickup truck out by the curb. As he walked up, he addressed me from a distance. He let me know that he doesn’t park in driveways because “most people are kinda scared when they see me,” so he approaches from a reassuring and polite distance. He’s rather muscly and covered in tattoos, with a rather prisonesque look on his calligraphy-covered knuckles, each fist spelling its own threat.

I made it a priority to put the fellow at ease. I told him I was from Atlanta—and not its suburbs—and therefore was completely at ease with his scary markings; in fact, I preferred them! In truth, his looks placed him more in the vein of a “Vinny” or “Frankie” type, and less like the urban gangsters that frequent my corner of the city. Either way, one must tread carefully.

He got straight to work in my garage, but as he tested out the batteries, he still made plenty of friendly conversation. As it turned out, he visited Atlanta frequently. I expressed some surprise and interest in his frequent forays there, and that’s when he told me that he does a lot of “rides” there. Given that he was built more like a power-lifting plumber—and with voluminous body ink—I was a little unsure of what “bike” he might ride, so I casually said, “you’re not a cyclist, are you?”

Oh-how-stupid I must have sounded. No, he was not some pee-wee fitness cyclist; he was a rider. Specifically, he was an Outlaw motorcycle gang rider. The outlaws had a couple “clubs” up there in Hotlanta. Had I ever heard of the Outlaws? I told him I’d seen that on the back of a leather jacket before—and trembled.

Not only was he an Outlaw, he was also an Italian with roots in the local pizza business, in case I was curious. Oh, the Italians—like the Sopranos! Lots of personal backstory ensued, with even some marriage and infidelity drama; he was still married, “but this other girl is still obsessed with me.” Lots of fuzzy details surrounded the marriage, which had been rudely interrupted when he fathered an extramarital child—his now-estranged “wife” was more than a decade older than him, too, so I didn’t inquire further on that topic.

As it turns out, we did have some things in common. He and I shared blue-collar roots; I grew up down the road from his current home and favorite biker lounge. In fact, when I was in high school, I distinctly remember my Southern Baptist mom describing “trashy men hanging out at that bar!” He certainly wasn’t shy, and we shared working-class sympathies, so we traded some history. (If you want to have an entertaining and truthful conversation, talk to a working man—it may do your heart some good. )

There was plenty of material still to cover, though, especially since the batteries continued to hover despairingly at 1.5 volts, despite his various attempts at resuscitating them. With this questionable gift of extra time, he delved into his golf game. Don’t let the tats fool you, he said; he could drive a ball 300 yard, easily.

No doubt he could drive some golf balls with his massive arms, and he had some stories to prove it. The first story placed him at Top Golf, an entertainment staple of crowded shopping meccas. Just a few beers in, he manfully challenged another customer to a long drive contest; Outlaw won, a feat that sent the ball over the facility’s sky-high netting. The record-breaking feat is on film, expletives and all. (This venerable golf swing was perfected during his golf course maintenance era, he said—but that’s another story. )

His final golf story—which allegedly took place at a fancier local club—was a tale of blue-collar Outlaw pride. Upon his arrival at the clubhouse, the pro shop guy looked him over and said there were “no more tee times available”. Well, you don’t tell an Outlaw something like that. He informed the pro shop guy that he had “two thousand in cash” in his pocket, “ready to drop”—probably not the usual form of payment at such clubs, I’d guess.

Nevertheless, “money talks,” as the Outlaw wisely noted, and the golf man produced a tee time for the gangster golfer; “he didn’t know I had that kind of cash.” He purportedly turned down the offer and walked away from the pro shop man with both his pride and his cash, but not without declaring, “I’m never coming back here again, and I’m probably a better golfer than you are!” That’s Outlaw golf, 3-D chess-style.

My son had walked out into the garage to check on the progres of his cart, still hoping to drive to the range, so I made introductions. As it so happened, Outlaw had just moved into some political discourse, sharing the working-man philosophy that drove an election. Friendly as ever, he stopped and surprised both of us with a bit of prophetic encouragement: “You’re about to see something you’ve never seen in your lifetime, son—America’s coming back.” Friend or foe, I sure hope our Outlaw is right.