Fringe Florida: Travels Among Mud Boggers, Furries, Ufologists, Nudists, and Other Lovers of Unconventional Lifestyles (17 page)

lines of business—pot, meth, cocaine, and heroin—all of which were

flowing liberally in and out Florida. Hard-core 1%er clubs, in particular

the Outlaws, strengthened their presence.

Under the leadership of International President Harry “Taco” Bow-

man, whose given name and nickname form a crude euphemism for a

vagina, the Outlaws MC waged a full-on war against any club in Florida

that threatened its illicit livelihood or even bruised Taco’s tender ego.

The Warlocks MC, a Florida-based club with about one hundred mem-

bers, was a primary target. As a central Florida Warlocks leader, Jenn’s

late husband, Raymond “Bear” Chaffin, wore a bulls-eye.

Federal prosecutors in Taco’s later trial claimed that the Outlaws

and Warlocks were warring over the drug trade, that the Warlocks were

selling drugs for the Hell’s Angels, whom Outlaws loathe so much they

wear a patch with an acronym to express their sentiment: “ADIOS,”

meaning “Angels Die in Outlaws States.”

More than one former Outlaw has said the bloody rivalry ignited

over something on its face far less sinister—the bottom rocker patch.

The Warlocks dared to wear Florida chapter locations on theirs.

The Warlocks were also aggressively expanding. In fact, they were

so eager to grow that they unwittingly recruited undercover federal

proof

agents who rode rented bikes. In an absurdly careless move, the War-

locks encouraged the undercover agents to start a new chapter in Fort

Lauderdale. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms ran the

1%er chapter for more than a year, dubbing the investigation “Opera-

tion Easy Rider.”

In 1991, the Florida biker war and the feds’ undercover investiga-

tion culminated in death and massive arrests, touching even the Lace

sisters.

Bear was alone in the garage working on Jenn’s bike when an Out-

laws probate walked in and shot him execution-style, four times at the

base of the skull. Bear and Jenn’s twelve-year-old daughter discovered

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his body when she got home from school.

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ATF agents, fearful that Bear’s assassination would prompt a War-

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locks-Outlaws bloodbath during the upcoming Bike Week, decided to

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end their elaborate two-year undercover investigation of the Warlocks.

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They planned their big bust at the one place they knew they could find

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the club members, Bear’s funeral.

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Local police warned Jenn not to bring the kids to the service, saying

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the Outlaws might launch another attack. Warlocks showed up armed.

After the funeral, an army of feds and local police hemmed in every-

one riding a motorcycle, including Lace sisters. Officers forced men

and women to the ground for a search and confiscated machine guns,

knives, and personal stashes of pot from the men. They hauled thirty-

four Warlocks to jail. Many of the charges were later dropped.

Understandably, being herded and searched by a SWAT team trau-

matized some of the sisters. “None of us had any records. These guys

are the bad boys!” Ewok says, as if talking to the police. “We’re women.

We don’t do that kind of stuff! We do charities! We do yard sales! We

do good things! We help people!”

The event highlighted the complexity of the sisters’ relationship

with 1%ers. They didn’t approve of the gunrunning and bomb-making

that the Warlocks were accused of, but on a personal level they liked

some of them. “Even though you are with people who are 1%ers, many

of the people in his little chapter were friends. At least I had met them

a few times and I’d ridden with them,” Ewok says.

The experience certainly colored their opinion of law enforcement.

“To see how it went down after the funeral was so disheartening. How

disrespectable of the police to do that at his funeral.”

Federal focus on the Warlocks only emboldened Taco, the Saddam

proof

Hussein of bikerdom. Florida Outlaws members blew up rival club-

houses, threw errant members off balconies, broke bones of non-1%er

bikers they thought were too chummy with Hell’s Angels, and even

attempted to control Bike Week, which had long been neutral turf for

1%ers. Outlaws club members were gathering explosives to blow up the

Warlocks’ Brevard County clubhouse when the feds raided theirs and

brought down indictments against more than two dozen members, in-

cluding Taco.

Taco was on the lam for years, making it onto the FBI’s Ten Most

Wanted Fugitives list. He wasn’t captured until 1998 and was tried

in 2001 at the federal courthouse in downtown Tampa. Testimony

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sounded like something from a movie script. Security was tight. Fed-

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eral snipers manned the rooftops of surrounding buildings. Taco was

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convicted of orchestrating the executions of a suspected snitch and

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Jenn’s husband, “Bear” Chaffin, ordering clubhouse bombings and as-

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saults, and various drug and firearm offenses. He’s serving two life sen-

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tences at Coleman federal prison. He keeps in touch with friends and

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foes by mailing an annual Christmas letter reciting what he’s been up

to the past year, as if he has a rich life in prison.

During his first few years in jail, he included Jenn on his mailing list.

“I sent them back saying, ‘you have the wrong address,’” Jenn says of

his Christmas cards. “I thought about suing him for wrongful death.”

An Old Lady Becomes Boss

Jenn’s snapshots show she was quite a head-turner when she met Bear

at a self-serve car wash in Daytona Beach back in 1976. At sixteen, she

had flowing blond hair, an hourglass figure, and a white smile that

set off her beach-bunny tan. She and her mom were vacationing from

Wisconsin.

Bear, riding a chopper, was a tall, lanky twenty-nine-year-old with

shaggy brown hair that swept across his forehead. Despite being four-

teen years her senior, she says, Bear was a little shy. She jokes that

she had to ask him out. They were married a few weeks later after her

mother signed a consent form—she was too young to marry without

one in Florida. Soon after, Bear joined the Warlocks MC and she be-

came his Old Lady, riding on the back of his Harley and wearing the

patch “Property of Bear.”

proof

Club business kept Bear on the road. He was sometimes away for

six weeks at a time, leaving Jenn at home to raise their two daughters.

“He supported his club. That’s just the way it works,” Jenn told
National

Geographic
.

Jenn wanted to share Bear’s love of motorcycling on her own terms,

on her own bike. He rebuilt her a Harley for her nineteenth birthday.

She rode it around town on errands. “I remember seeing her once com-

ing back from the grocery store with her two girls, one in front and

one in back, with a rope around them so they couldn’t fall off. It was

the funniest sight,” recalls Candy, a Port Orange nurse who has been a

member of the club since its early days.

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Riding with Bear’s Warlock brethren wasn’t always fun. “They didn’t

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want me riding with them,” Jenn says. “Back then it wasn’t a cool thing

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to do. For the most part they were Neanderthals, always trying to con-

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vince me that I wasn’t smart enough, that I wasn’t coordinated enough

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to ride. Fortunately I had a husband who was comfortable in his own

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skin.”

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Bear’s biker brothers went along; he was the chapter boss. That

didn’t stop some of his club members from playing cruel and danger-

ous jokes on Jenn. “Sometimes it sucked hanging out with them. We

would be riding and they would wave me on to pass, and I’d pull around

and be looking at a semi. I’d just hug the center line and wave at the guy

in the car I’m passing as I’m riding along next to him. What do you do?

You can’t move forward and you can’t move backward—you just have

to ride. It was scary at the time, but now it’s kind of funny,” she says.

Bear came up with the idea for Jenn to start her own club. He placed

an ad in the back of a motorcycle magazine. She distributed fliers. Be-

fore long she started getting calls and letters from around the country

from women like Ewok wanting to join, wanting to ride as equals at a

time when most male riders would rather stay home than be seen rid-

ing beside them.

Married to the Club

Jenn’s Lace sisters helped her deal with Bear’s loss, and they showed

up in droves when she married John “Joker” Ely, another 1%er. John, a

husky truck driver with an earful of piercings, is the local chapter boss

proof

of the Mongols MC.

Jenn says that after Bear’s assassination, she swore she would never

get involved with another 1%er. She didn’t know John was a Mongol

until after they got romantically involved. They met at a Lace event for

kids. He had won a bunch of coupons and she bought them from him.

He started calling her about a year later. He lived in Atlanta as did

Jenn’s daughter. “She was going to get married and I had to run up

there and stop that,” Jenn says of her daughter. “We went out while I

was there.”

By the time Jenn found out that John was a Mongol, she was already

hooked. They married about a year later.

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To make it convenient for her sisters, Jenn scheduled the ceremony

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during Bike Week 2009. The sisters camped in the yard as usual.

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The wedding quickly took on Hollywood proportions.
National
Geo-

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graphic
showed up with cameras. Adding to the drama, the U.S. Justice

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Department still had authority to confiscate any paraphernalia from

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John’s motorcycle club. The right would later be overturned in court,

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but at that point federal agents could legally strip Mongols colors off

members’ backs. The wedding was held in a city park in daylight.

Since this was a wedding of two biker club presidents, wearing colors

was considered essential. Plus, what self-respecting 1%er is going to let

the law dictate what they can wear at their own wedding?

The Mongol brothers compromised. Groomsmen customized a dress

coat for John with the cryptic code “MFFM Florida” standing for “Mon-

gols Forever, Forever Mongols.”

As dictated by Jenn, Lace gals wore their colors and lined up their

bikes as a runway to the altar.

The ceremony was Cinderella meets Harley-Davidson. Jenn, with

her hair swept up in ringlets, marched down the aisle of motorcycles

wearing a tiara and white wedding gown with lace, seed-pearl beads,

train—everything
Modern
Bride
insists is necessary. John wore a black

tuxedo, his receding hair swept back. Ewok performed the ceremony in

a white top hat and white tails complete with a Leather & Lace patch

stitched to the back. “I wanted to wear something outrageous,” she

later confesses.

The two exchanged vows underneath a white gazebo in front of

nearly two hundred leather-clad bikers. Jenn’s grandson, the ring

bearer, delivered the wedding bands via a miniature Harley.

proof

After the vows, territorial matrimonial lines were drawn. Lace sis-

ters helped Jenn put on her vest over her wedding dress. John’s Mon-

gol brothers help him with the custom-coded jacket. The ritual symbol-

ized that their respective clubs will always come first. In other words,

if John and one of the Lace sisters are drowning, Jenn will rescue her

biker sister first. And vice versa. Oh, the romance of a biker marriage.

A year into their union, Jenn tells me that John is still understand-

ing and supportive of her and her club. Being a trucker, he’s away from

home a lot much like Bear was. Jenn says, “I kinda like it that way.”

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Hear Her Roar

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John isn’t around for the media spotlight this year. After an afternoon

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CPR class, Lace sisters are prepping for interviews. A crew from the

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cable show
Throttle
Junkies
is coming by to shoot a segment on the club.

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Jenn’s wearing makeup, lipstick even, and is dressed in biker black

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from neck to toe. A flouncy hot-pink scarf wraps her neck and sets

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off the pink Leather & Lace logo on her vest. Her hair has soft waves

that pass her shoulders. She is the embodiment of the club’s theme,

feminine, yet as strong as steel. Even her Harley has those qualities.

The dual, flared chrome tailpipes scream masculinity. The hubs and gas

tank are painted an iridescent purple so deep that it looks almost black.

In the sunlight, the pink Leather & Lace logo bleeds to the surface.

Sisters wearing the patched vests hang out and puff near their bikes

in anticipation of the cameras. The film crew is late, and the sisters are

concerned there won’t be enough daylight for them to be taped riding