Cain’s Cycle

By Bruce Hunsberger

Cain’s Cycle is the dramatic tale of an unnamed narrator as he is drawn into the demanding and dangerous world of motorcycle gangs.

After he meets Speed, the one who will become his future blood brother, a young man seeking a sense of belonging, commitment, and brotherhood purchases a chopper and all the accouterments and joins the Pagans, a motorcycle gang known for racing, drinking, using drugs, and confronting anyone who crosses them.

The young man idolizes Speed who mentors him during his first few days as a Pagan residing in a camp located in an abandoned amusement park outside a small city. Nobody in the gang is as close as Speed and the young man. They share everything—booze, dope, and women. When the fellow cyclist performs the ultimate deed for the young man, their bond is strengthened even further. As a series of events unfolds, the young man shares a glimpse into a disturbing yet tantalizing world where true love and romance complicate longstanding routines, where the actions of the motorcycle gang become increasingly violent, and where the quest for brotherhood turns into a mission for survival and revenge as a bond is put to the ultimate test.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532075759

Bruce Hunsberger

Bruce Hunsberger was a native of Pennsylvania and graduate of Kutztown University who worked as a laborer, entrepreneur, and writer. He authored two novels, Railroad Street and Honey, the Movers Are Here and published stories in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Redbook, and various literary journals including Nantucket Review and Seattle Review. Bruce’s wife is publishing this novel posthumously.

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Copyright © 2019 Bruce Hunsberger.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-7576-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-7575-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019907518

iUniverse rev. date:  06/17/2019

Contents

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1

T he police asked how I got involved with the Pagans, but the answer really isn’t that hard. I can’t come on with any poverty plea - I mean a poverty childhood or anything like that. We always had enough money.

But there was the usual hassle. I’m sure you know what I mean. I couldn’t get along with my parents or my two brothers. No sense going into detail, you know the story. You’ve heard it a million times. We lived together but we weren’t a family.

Family is what the Pagans gave me. A sense of belonging. Of being around people just like me, who understood me and loved me.

You know I never had to be afraid to tell any Pagan that? I mean, that I loved him. I could never say that to my father because he’d act like I was a queer or something. He didn’t know that one man can love another as a brother and there’s nothing queer about it.

That is what I feel most sorry about, losing that family feeling, that love. Sometimes when we were all high on booze or stoned and especially when we were camped someplace at night with a campfire and all, I’d just fill up with it so much I’d have to just jump up and scream it and I’d cry and bust bottles against trees or anything to get it out, to let it out. It hurt so hard in my chest and I wanted everybody to know how I loved them. Once Speed had to hit me with a wrench to keep me from throwing myself into the campfire. I mean it, I would’ve done it. I was so filled up I can remember right now how I felt, and believe me, I thought the only way to let it out was to just throw myself into that fire, to catch on fire and give off heat and light and make everybody’s eyes dance. You know what I mean?

Speed. He is my blood brother. He named himself Speed because he likes to ride fast, and because he was a methedrine freak. I think he - but why pursue it.

I just happened to talk to him in a bar one afternoon. I was in there alone and he stopped in with two buddies and they started shooting pool and he asked if I’d want to join in so they could play partners - you know, two against two.

He looked crazy - hair to his shoulders, beard, the whole bit. Why go into it? I was too scared to say no. But I found out they were nice guys. They looked mean as hell, but you got the feeling they stuck together. Like brothers. And there was something very admirable about that. And they had a good time together. So I joked around with them and they made me feel like one of the gang. I drank with them the rest of that afternoon and almost to midnight. Before they left, Speed asked if I wanted to ride with them. I said I didn’t have a motorcycle, but Speed said I could ride double with him until I got one. So I said sure.

Speed and I are blood brothers. I say are because there is no was about something like that. His blood runs in my veins and my blood in his. I got the scar on my wrist. We stood almost in the fire and I cut my wrist deep enough to draw a lot of blood and he cut his. Then he held his wrist to my mouth, and while I sucked his blood, I held my wrist to his mouth and he sucked mine. Then with our faces all bloody one of the brothers tied our cut wrists together so the blood could flow from one to the other and while our blood mixed, we kissed, lips and tongues mingling the blood which mixed in our veins. So you see, even after what happened, I can’t deny that he’s my blood brother.

You don’t know what it is like to be a Pagan unless you never been alone, unless you never had to shut yourself up in your room because your people harassed you, or nobody wanted you at their house after school. When you were a Pagan, man, you were somebody. When you rode down that highway or into town somewhere, people took notice. And they were scared. Can you believe it? You better believe it. People gave us all the room we needed.

I loved Speed. After I first met him it was like I was born again. Like he was my real father and my brothers all rolled into one. I looked up to him. I copied him.

He called himself a freak and he dressed like it. You know what I mean. And I wanted to look that way too. I let my hair grow and my beard and I changed my style of clothes. I thought about it like this: Inside me I’m different from everybody else I know. I don’t like the same things, value the same things, none of it. So instead of being secret about it, I’ll be like Speed. I’m a freak, so I’ll look like a freak. Why not? Just let my secret self become public, that’s all. But without Speed I could’ve never done it.

How long do you think it took for my mother to put me out of the house? Are you ready for this? One week after I missed my monthly trip to the barber she said either I get my hair cut or I pack my bags. You should’ve heard her carry on when I started packing.

But I had decided to leave long before that. I decided that I could no longer live at home after my first night with the Pagans. That was right after I met Speed and right after I got my motorcycle.

A friend of Speed sold me this chopper – which of course I couldn’t keep at home in the garage. Imagine me coming home at night on that. You never heard nothing so pretty in your life. My mother’s heart would have given out at the sight and sound of that fine machine.

So I kept it at the Playland where the Pagans camped. It was an abandoned amusement park, a couple miles from town. I kept my clothes out there, too, and I’d ride out there in the evenings in my car and change into my colors out there. We’d ride, then I’d change again and come home. Sort of a part-time Pagan I was then.

One night though, we came back late, drunk, and here the guys who stayed behind had a good campfire going when we got back and there was cases of beer and somebody had scored for grass and there was a girl one of them had picked up. Well, she was balling everybody right out by the campfire. Everybody stood around drinking and laughing and hollering advice to whoever was on her at the moment – Hey, man, watch you don’t fall in! and stuff like that. You know what I mean.

Well, I knew I should be leaving, but I also wanted to stay, so I got a beer and I’m standing there watching -- I mean really watching -- and I guess somehow Speed could tell that I’d never had a woman.

Next thing I know he says to everybody that he wants a vote taken on whether to let me become a Pagan. Everybody just laughs and says, Shit, yes, man. He’s a Pagan. I knew them all by that time, and they all thought I was okay. But when they formally voted me in like that, I wanted to kiss everybody there. Man, to ride with the Pagans!

Then Speed grabs my belt and starts pulling my pants off. Before we let you in, he says, you got to pass the entrance test. You got to ball this lovely mama right here in front of the group.

I was scared. Really scared. I guess, truthfully, I’d always had some romantic idea about the first time - a girl I loved, being married, you know - but then the Pagans were crowding around me pulling off my clothes, and they heaped more wood on the fire to get more light, and then next I knew I was on the girl doing what comes naturally. That’s the only way I can phrase it because I felt like it was somebody else doing it, like I was standing aside watching these two sweaty bodies, glistening from the fire’s heat and light, and watching the Pagans laughing and pouring beer over us while I got it on. And then it was over, and I got up laughing and - I got to admit - proud of myself. Somebody slapped a can of beer into my hand and Speed kissed me on the mouth and congratulated me and yes indeed I did feel like I’d accomplished something.

Speed asked whose old lady the girl was. When Billy spoke up, Speed said, Why don’t you let this newest member use her for tonight - just out of hospitality? Billy said yes, and the girl and I spent the night in the ticket seller’s shanty by the main entrance. So you see why I couldn’t go home that night. And you understand why I felt