Everyone stopped chatting. Fifteen veterans in leather jackets sat still and stared at the small child in the dinosaur shirt who had just begged us to kill someone like he was asking for more ketchup. His mom was in the bathroom and didn’t know that her son had gone to the scariest-looking table in Denny’s. She had no idea what he was about to say.
“Please,” he said, his voice quiet yet strong. “I’ve got seven bucks.” He pulled some crumpled bills out of his pocket and put them on the table between the coffee cups. His hands shook, but his gaze were serious.
Big Mike, our club president and grandfather of four, got down on one knee. “Hey, what’s your name?”
“Tyler,” the youngster murmured in a gentle voice. “Mom will be back soon.” Are you going to help or not?
“Tyler, why do you want us to hurt your father?” Mike asked in a quiet voice.
The boy pulled the collar of his shirt down. There were light purple fingerprints on his throat. “He told me that if I tell anyone, he’ll hurt Mom worse than he hurts me.” “But you ride bikes.” You are strong. You can stop him.
That’s when we saw everything else: how he leaned to the left, the brace on his wrist, and the yellow mark on his jaw that someone had tried to cover up with cosmetics. Before anyone could answer, a woman came out of the bathroom. She was gorgeous, yet she walked slowly, as if she were hurt. She seemed worried when she saw Tyler at our table.
“Hey Tyler! I’m sorry he’s making you mad. She ran over, and we all saw her wince. We also saw that she had a lot of lipstick on her wrist, but it was smudged just enough to show purple bruises that looked like her son’s.
“Not a problem at all, ma’am,” Mike said as he slowly stood up. “Why don’t you both come with us?” We were almost about to get dessert. Our gift. It wasn’t a request.
She sat down, but only after drawing Tyler near. “Tyler,” Mike asked, “is someone hurting you and your mom?”
She lost her temper. “Please,” she murmured in a low voice. “You don’t understand. He’ll kill us.
“Ma’am, look at this table,” Mike stated in a low voice. “Every man here has been in a war. We have all protected bullies from hurting innocent people. That’s what we do.” “Is someone hurting you now?”
We only needed her quiet, sad nod to get it. That’s when a man in a polo shirt jumped out of a booth on the other side of the restaurant, his face red with rage. “Sarah! What the hell are you doing talking to these strange people? And you, kid! “Get over here now!”
He ran near our table.
Big Mike got up right away. He didn’t scream. He didn’t ball up his fist. He became a mountain all of a sudden. “Son,” he mumbled, and his voice was a deep, frightening growl that cut through the diner’s bustle. “I think you should go back to your booth.” Your family is having ice cream with us.
“They’re not!” The man, who was certainly the stepdad, spat. “That’s my wife and kid!”
“No,” Mike said, taking a small step forward. The other fourteen bikers stood up discreetly behind him.
“We’re currently taking care of that mother and child. You aren’t going to take them anywhere. You will pay your money, go back to your table, and depart. And you won’t do what they say. Do you get it?
The man looked at the wall of leather and anger that had risen up between him and his victims. He was a bully, and bullies are weak. He stammered, became white, and raced away.
The battle was ended, but the war had only begun. We didn’t let them go. While one of our lawyers, whom we call “Shark,” took Sarah to file a restraining order, we took Tyler to the clubhouse. We bought him the biggest chocolate milkshake he had ever seen. For the first time all day, he looked like a little boy instead of a stressed-out client.
We didn’t murder the stepfather. We accomplished something substantially worse. We got rid of him. Shark and some of our more convincing brethren went to see Dad one more time. They didn’t bother him. They only told him what was going to happen to him in the future. This included a large list of assault accusations that we would make sure were upheld, witness protection for Sarah and Tyler, and the continual watch of fifteen veterans who now watched his every move as if it were their own. He was gone by the time the sun came up.
We didn’t simply kill the beast; we also helped heal the wounds. We pooled our money and got Sarah and Tyler a new, safe apartment on the opposite side of town. We helped them move, and our noisy Harleys were the most terrifying moving truck escort ever.
We became Tyler’s uncles. We took him to baseball games. We taught him how to fix a car engine. At his school’s parent-teacher night, a line of leather-clad giants made sure everyone knew he loved and cared for them. We told him that real men protect, not hunt.
A few months later, Tyler gave Big Mike a drawing at a picnic at the clubhouse. A large, happy T-Rex with a motorbike vest was standing over a little boy in a picture. Tyler said, “That’s you.” “You scared off the bad dinosaur, T-Rex.”
Mike smiled, but his eyes were wet. He pulled out the seven crumpled dollars from his wallet, which he had kept flat and safe. He said, “Best pay I ever got for a job,” and his voice was heavy.
Tyler didn’t get the hitman he wanted to hire that day. He got something much better. He had a wife and kids.