All I Ever Wanted To Be Was A Hells Angel

  I grew up in the foothills of San Leandro, California.  Just outside of Oakland.  Beautiful climate, dangerous enviornment.  It is the central nerve of Northern California, where all of the races collide.  Many black, hispanic, asian, phillipino gangs all separated in the avenues.  I don't mean a rowdy group of teens.  I am talking about 2-3 generations of commitment.  I remember being very young and driving down to the bottom of our hill to E14th st where all the avenues end and as we came to the stop light I heard the coming of a loud roar.  I sat up in my seat and looked out the window.  As I did the roar had almost consumed any other sound and at that moment  I saw the flash of black, denim, and shiny chrome.    "Dad who are those guys"?  My eyes were wide and I was in complete awe of this uniformed group riding loud motorcycles in a tight formation.  Man that was a powerful sight. 

"Hells Angels". 

  I remember going to class the next school day and during "show and tell" (even though I don't think that is what we called it in that class) I got up and told everyone what I'd seen. "Big deal my mom's boyfriend is a Hells Angel" I think Elton Texiera said (what a putz, I used to beat the crap out of him anyways). It was a big deal to me, but what was an even bigger deal was that everyone else had a connection of some kind to them.  I wanted one.  Man I wanted to be one.  To me they were like superheroes.
 Over the years I have been a part of many groups.  From the titans of industry and finance to the titans of going nowhere fast.  I was always in search of that comeraderie, that loyalty.  I wanted to feel like I mattered to someone. that I was likeable and worthy of even being on this planet with the rest of you.  No matter where I went.  No matter who I was with there was nobody cool enough to make me cool, nobody beautiful enough to make me beautiful, and no one okay enough to make me feel okay. For so much of my life I felt completely uncomfortable in my own skin. I felt cursed and I spent half of my life trying to kill that pain.
  All of the things that I have shared in these writings and will share is the stuff I would never talk about.  I thought that talking about it would make me weak in the eyes of others, and truthfully all I have ever wanted was not to be a gangster.... All I ever wanted was to just feel like I belonged.