Slaughterhouse Eight

In his revision of the Bandidos massacre, Stephen Reid conflates his extensive knowledge of the crime with his artist’s understanding of its horror and meaning

Crows skim across the freshly turned soil, their wings flaring as they lift into the bare branches of a solitary white oak. They join others already hopping excitedly in the tree that borders a farmer’s field. It is midmorning, springtime in southern Ontario. The crows are screaming, in torrents and eddies. They smack their wet licorice lips. They smell dark and evil intentions in the air.

An aging and inglorious biker is kicking stones in the dirt yard of the farm. Another gang member steps up close. They stand, not speaking, staring down, not seeing anything. Each is a leader within his own chapter. They wear almost identical ink. Half drunk on machismo and last night’s beer, these are men of myth and mediocrity. They carry with them fables of brotherhood and past battles.

They start towards the barn, silent but for the gravel crunch of scarred Dayton boots along with the slip and whisper of leather on denim. One is nursing a bruised ego and fuelling a wounded pride, the other drags his unremarkable career as a small-town biker like a millstone. Each carries the suspicion, deep and unarticulated, that his life is taking place in a lesser fable.

Inside the barn are eight men, of similar ink. They also wear leather and denim, and are drinking longneck beers, a little hair of the dog. Their leader drums his fingers on the tabletop, waiting in silence for the approaching two. Ostensibly, they have been called here to iron out a few club problems.

Outside, the two reach the barn, one places his thumb on the latch, pressing down, pressing into the possibility of violence. He turns, “If we kill one, we kill them all.” The second biker nods, and the door opens. They step into their own legends, maybe into the glorious annals of outlaw biker history. The crows erupt like hell’s cheerleaders.

No one but the shooters and the dead knows exactly how it kicks off. The din is brutal. A few of the victims stand tall, others drop to their knees, hands clasped in prayer, begging in that adorable way killers all like. The last shot rings out, followed by a total silence. Eight bodies leak out across the plank floor.

The blue smoke and smell of cordite drifts up through the shafts of sunlight piercing the barn’s walls. Dust motes dance in the rafters.

The crows go silent. The silence is everywhere, born of deafness and sudden disbelief. The cloying stink of loosed bowels and fresh coppery blood fills the air.

Suddenly there is cursing, the stomping of Dayton boots on the wooden planks, beer bottles tip over, the sickening sound of gas and burps as bodies are turned and death is ascertained. Pockets are rifled for car keys and money. Gold jewelry is ripped from limp wrists and flopping necks.

The inert and bloodied bodies are sprawled every which way to Jesus, making the crude clubhouse look like one of those high school disaster dramas. The swastika banners and rebel flags remain unflappable, pinned to the weathered boards. A crudely lettered sign reads “LIVE HARD / DIE FREE.”

The shooters, the hopeful legends, suddenly realize their lack of premeditation and planning. It is breathtaking. They have no fresh-cut graves, no plastic sheets to catch the spewed gore, the DNA. They have created a forensic wet dream.

Panic reigns. Underlings are ordered into cleanup duty. Car keys are sorted and matched to the right vehicles. As the bodies are dragged out and dumped onto the seats of the automobiles, those doing the grunt work learn just how slippery blood is and how fetid the freshly dead are. The grisly task is almost complete when the crows lift off from the oak, in one fell swoop, and begin to alight around the farm buildings. They perch on the eaves of the barn and the power lines that stretch across the yard, becoming silent witnesses to the last body being carted out. Blankets are hung in the windows of the makeshift hearses.

As the tires kick up dust and the vehicles leave the farm, the chorus of crows start up, their voices delirious with fury and blood lust. They dance madly along the wires, scolding the retreating convoy.

Then the yard is empty but for two bikers, the two shooters. They stare at their boots, kick some stones. From the wires above, the black philosophers of murder, giddy with mockery, scream over and over.

“Kill one, kill them all.” Stephen Reid’s most recent book is A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden. The former bank robber turned writer lives on Haida Gwaii.