15

STRANGE TIMES FOR SAMCRO

Chapter 7 Measure of a Man Projectile

The mood around the table was grim. This was the biggest threat to SAMCRO's survival in its entire history. If they couldn't come up with a way to take out the VPUs, they could kiss their charter good-bye. The VPUs were ruthless when they targeted an outlaw MC for elimination.

Bobby's beads had turned red with fear and anger. The snakes in Jax's beard that had been resting peacefully, suddenly did a spinning merge into one big snake as it had done earlier before they left Jax's beard to console Bobby's beads and suggest Bobby add rap to his Elvis act. This time though, they merged and turned into a rattlesnake.

Clay stared at the rattlesnake in Jax's beard and wondered if it were close enough to strike him. He leaned closer to Tig just in case. No one else seemed to notice the rattlesnake, so Clay decided not to mention it because they would think he was crazy and he hoped the rattlesnake would bite Jax and kill him. He wouldn't have any more rivals for Gemma's love then and he could take down the picture of Jax taped to the ceiling above the bed.

"I can't believe a single VPU would have the balls to come into our town and mess with a friend of SAMCRO's by touching his butt with our clubhouse being right across the street," Tig said.

"I don't know why everyone has so much sympathy for Chucky," Juice said. "He did worse to me. The guy took all my clothes off. Who knows what he touched when he was doing that." Once more, there were tears in his eyes.

"He probably just gave you a feel and a squeeze or two," Jax said cheerfully.

"Juice if he popped your cherry, you would know it," Tig said.

"How would you know that?" Chibs demanded.

"I'm just saying . . ." Tig said. "It's not from personal experience. You hear things."

"I heard a rumor that all the VPUs are ex-special forces. They all got kicked out of the military for killing too many people," Chibs said.

"I don't think you can get kicked out of the military for killing too many people. I think you get kicked out for killing the wrong people," Bobby said. His beads clicked their agreement.

"I think we get rid of the coffee/cupcake place and that will move the VPUs away from us. We can't have a war in Charming," Clay said.

"We could have a stealth war," Jax suggested. He was stroking the head of the rattlesnake nestled in his beard and it was purring like a cat. "Not with the VPUs. We attack and destroy the cupcake place like they did in Animal House."

"Which part?" Happy asked.

"At the end where they sabotaged the parade. We sabotage the cupcake shop. We break in secretly and add some stuff to their flour, so their cupcakes come out all screwed up. Their grand opening and closing will all happen in one day," Jax said.

Clay nodded. He hated to admit it, but Jax was the second best brain in all of SAMCRO. They really needed to recruit more smart people. SAMCRO was suffering from having too many idiots as brothers.

"Good idea. Jax you work up the plan. Let's meet tomorrow."

"What about the VPUs and my cut?" Juice whined.

"You reach out to all of the charters and Laroy. Find out what they know about the VPUs. I'll ask Unser. There has to be police intel on these guys," Clay ordered feeling very presidential.

The next morning, Clay woke with a pounding headache. He took a handful of aspirin and drank a cup of coffee. He looked above the bed and noticed the picture of Jax wasn't there. Did Gemma take it down? Or had it never been there at all?

Those damned mushrooms wrecked his mind. He couldn't imagine anyone taking them for fun. He needed all of his brain cells to come up with a plan to get rid of the VPUs and the fancy coffee/cupcake gashes and keep the neighborhood free of soccer moms.

There was also the problem of Juice losing his cut. He had mixed emotions. He wanted to get it back for the club's honor, but he would really enjoy watching Juice get circumcised. It wouldn't be as satisfying as shooting him, but it would still be entertaining.

Chibs and Happy came to escort Clay to SAMCRO. Due to the VPU threat, no one was traveling alone.

"Where the hell is Tig?" Clay demanded.

Chibs and Happy exchanged uneasy looks.

"We have more trouble."

Clay shook his head, annoyed, frustrated and angry.

"Anyone dead, arrested or on the run from the cops?"

The two men shook their heads.

"Well, how the hell bad could it be?"

"You'll have to see it to believe it."

Clay kissed Gemma, grabbed his helmet and left with the guys.

"I'm in for another fun-filled day in the beautiful town of Charming."

There was a bright side. Since Clay had cancelled the after church party, he wouldn't find crow-eaters in various stages of undress draped over the furniture and on top of the men of SAMCRO and the floor would be free of vomit. That's always a plus.

The outside wall of the clubhouse that faced the street had a purple unicorn spray painted on it along with a website address.

Clay parked his bike silently and went into the clubhouse. He had to hold himself together, figure how much of yesterday really happened and come up with a way to destroy the VPUs.

"Half-sack is at the store getting the paint and he'll start painting when he gets back," Chibs said.

"Well, now we know for sure. The VPUs are after us," Clay said.

"That's not the worst of it," Chibs said. "Juice is a mess. He's been crying for at least thirty minutes."

"I am so damned sick of him and his tears. If I wanted to be around a crybaby, we'd open a damned daycare or let chicks in SAMCRO."

"Tig's also involved," Chibs said.

Happy nodded, not saying a word. His throat hurt from talking so much yesterday.

"OK, get everyone together and we'll meet in the chapel. Give me a minute to get some coffee."

When Clay went into the kitchen, he decided against coffee and went to the club's bar and grabbed a beer. He remembered that drinking beer helped him yesterday.

"Where are Piney and Opie?" Clay demanded as he took his position at the head of the table.

"Piney had some chest pains, so Opie's taking him to the doctor," Jax said.

Today, Jax's beard looked OK. No bubble gum and no snakes. Clay concealed his disappointment.

"OK, let's do this like a real drama and start with the lowest problem to the highest. Who's going first?"

Tig shoved the laptop over to Clay.

There was a caption that read "The Real Men of SAMCRO in action".

"Has everyone seen this?" Clay asked.

They all nodded.

There was a web page with a picture of Tig and it included audio of Tig explaining to the stylist that the top of his hair was very resistant and it needed smaller perm rods. There were pictures of Tig in very stages of the process including a picture showing Tig's hair all rolled up in perm rods. More pictures followed showing the perm rods being removed and his hair styled.

That shot down Clay's theory that Tig wore a hair piece, but the perm pictures were more embarrassing.

"How the hell did this happen?" Clay demanded.

"I got these coupons for hair services, so I tried them out a couple of weeks ago. I must have been set up."

Tig was quiet and Clay realized that for the first time since he'd met Tig, Tig was actually embarrassed. Tig was sort of proud of his deviant sexual behavior, but the secret to his curly hair was supposed to stay a secret. He was humiliated. The secret wasn't just going out to the club. It was on the internet for everyone to see.

"Is that it?" Clay demanded.

"No," Juice said in a sad, tired, little voice. "This morning when I was riding to work, I forgot to put my feet down when I stopped at the stop sign on the corner. I fell over."

"Again?"

"Yeah," Juice whispered.

Tig hit a few keys on the laptop and returned it back to Clay. There was video of Juice falling over on his bike

"The video is trending," Jax said.

"At least Juice wasn't wearing his cut when it happened," Bobby said. "See Juice, there is a bright side to losing your cut."

"That's easy for you to say. You aren't the one under threat of circumcision," Juice said.

"Been there. Done that," Bobby said. He moved his head, so his beads clicked together.

"Next," Clay barked.

Juice began to tear up again. Tig hit a few more keys and showed Clay the final pictures.

Juice didn't need to wonder anymore about what happened to him after the VPU knocked him out. The mystery was solved in the pictures. Juice was stripped of all his clothes except for his cut. The back of it was draped across his chest so the name of the MC was clearly visible. The next picture showed a ruler held up next to Juice's penis. According to it, he measured a soft two inches.

"They used photoshop to make my penis look smaller than it really is. I've tried and tried to take it down, but I can't."

"The picture has gone viral," Jax said.

"I'm never gonna get laid," Juice wailed. "My humiliation is world-wide now."

"Tig, you're still in charge of getting Juice laid. Call Skeeter and see if you can reschedule banging the hot dead chicks," Clay said.

"OK. We should be able to do them after the family visitations."

"I have an idea. We should fight fire with fire or, in this case, penis with penis. We take another picture of Juice and photoshop in a huge penis. You can use mine," Jax volunteered.

"Who says you're the biggest?" Tig said, challenging Jax.

"Penis showdown," Jax said. He stood up, unzipped his pants and whipped his dick out. "Let's go."

"Hey Chuckie, we need a tape measure," Chibs called.

All the guys wanted in on the contest. This was the same thing that happened yesterday except Piney wasn't present. Was he really seeing this or was it a flashback? Do you even get flashbacks with mushrooms?

When Chuckie brought in the tape measure, Clay realized that the little black and white dog from yesterday was really Chuckie. He thought he had taken the little dog for a walk after church last night. He hoped that he had imagined that and he hadn't really tried to walk Chuckie on a dog's leash.

That was some embarrassing shit, but with all the upheaval over Tig's perm and Juice's mini-penis, he didn't think anyone would remember he'd mixed up Chuckie with a Boston terrier yesterday except maybe Chuckie.

Clay put his head in his hands, hiding his eyes, but he couldn't block out the voices. He heard the words "girth", "circumference", "flaccid", "erect", "shaft" and "semi-erect". He took a quick peek from between his fingers. They all had their dicks out arguing. It was almost the same exact scene as yesterday with the same dialogue. Was this a mushroom induced flashback or was it really happening?

Oh, screw him! Screw the club! It was real! The guys were actually measuring themselves. That was it. SAMCRO had plummeted to a new low.

Finally, the guys took their seats.

"After the meeting, you can a picture of me," Jax said to Juice.

Clay scowled at Jax. It figured the little prince would have the biggest dick in the room. It didn't matter how big his dick was—he was still a little pussy mommy's boy.

"I don't really need a stand in penis. I could just use mine and blow the picture up using photo shop and then put it on the picture."

"We had a contest. My penis was the biggest, so you have to use mine," Jax said.

"If I had my low T fixed, I'd have the biggest dick in the club," Chibs said.

"Keep dreaming," Tig said.

"Asshole," Chibs said.

Clay banged the gavel.

"I don't want to use Jax's. I want to use mine."

"We should take a vote," Jax said.

"Fine, let's take a vote."

A quick vote was taken and it was decided that Jax's penis would be the one used on Juice's naked photo because it was more aesthetically pleasing. Juice's day just kept getting worse.

"Juice, give Einstein a call up in Tacoma. Kozik was telling me about what a genius the guy is with computers. He might be able to help you take the picture down or post the revised picture," Clay said.

"OK. I want to take down the video of me falling over."

"What about you Tig?" Chibs asked. "You want them to try take down the video of your beauty routine?"

Tig's face reddened and he just nodded his head.

"Well, that deals with today's big troubles. We still have to come up with a plan to destroy the cupcake gashes and find a way to destroy the VPUs. We have to be constantly on our guard. The video with Tig shows that the VPUs have been planning this for weeks. Who knows what else they have in store for us. We need to get ahead of this thing and get on offense."

"Isn't that going to be hard when we don't know who they are or where they are?" Jax asked.

Jax was talking in that prissy little English accent again. What a douche! Clay scowled at him again.

"That's why we are going to work all our sources and find out everything we can about the VPUs," Clay said.

There was a tap at the door and Chuckie came in carefully balancing two cardboard drink carriers filled with cups of coffee.

"Some girls from the cupcake place gave me all this coffee for us," Chuckie said.

Everyone looked at Clay to see if he would blow up. He surprised everyone by remaining calm.

"Maybe we ought to play along with these cupcake gashes. It's easier to gather intel when they think you're a friend. That's the plan for now."

Chuckie came around the table and the guys took the coffee even Clay who was so vocal about hating fancy coffee.

Juice was discovering how quickly Tig's video perm, his video bike accident and his humiliating nude picture were making it around the internet.

Clay took a long sip of the coffee and grimaced.

"For fancy coffee, this stuff is bitter."

Clay's stomach began to feel contractions and he realized he was going to throw up. In a split second his mind evaluated all the options for the deposit of his vomit. He chose Jax. The vomit didn't come out in a polite little stream. It was projectile vomit and Jax had beige oatmeal textured vomit in his hair, on his face, in his beard and down the front of his shirt. Clay was glad he'd eaten a big breakfast.

"You did that on purpose," Jax said.

"It's not my fault. Those cupcake bitches poisoned me."

"Hey guys, I found something on the internet about the VPUs. There's a rumor that all the members are women," Juice said.

"Women!" they all exclaimed except Jax who was wiping Clay's vomit from his lips.

Juice's day would continue to go bad. A roving band of soccer moms, high on caffeine from the cupcake gashes fancy coffee, chased after him wanting to see if his real penis matched the one on the internet—Jax's.

NEXT UP The cupcake war heats up and SAMCRO begins a campaign of sabotage.

AND AS ALWAYS PLEASE REVIEW AND GIVE ME SO GUIDANCE ON HOW I CAN IMPROVE THIS STORY.

Thanks M.