I don’t like to say anything bad about anybody, but Garnet McEwen—he was a backstabbing fucking prick.
Former Satan’s Choice member VERG ERSLAVAS
Cecil Kirby quit the Satan’s Choice in a dispute over pizza with a member named Billy the Bum. Shortly before the big patchover to the Outlaws, Kirby felt he was being threatened by someone who was involved with him in motorcycle insurance scams, and he wanted the Bum to watch his backside while he went into a home to sort things out. Billy the Bum replied that he couldn’t at the moment because he had just ordered a pizza. That meant Kirby didn’t get the backup (or any pizza), and he quit the biker club in disgust. Not long after that, the Commisso crime family reached out to him to do some work as an enforcer.
Around this time, someone pulled up outside Mother McEwen’s home in St. Catharines and opened fire on him. McEwen considered his survival a miracle, and he credited it to a higher power rather than poor marksmanship. “That’s when I seen the Lord,” he later said.
Something bigger than patches was changing as international clubs were pushing into Canada. A love of motorcycles and riding wasn’t always at the core of life in outlaw motorcycle gangs now. Clubs revolved around business. “I don’t think the cops were ready for what happened afterwards, and they were certainly powerless to stop it,” Erslavas said. “After 1977, it became a much different game.”
Outlaw bikers had become an increased priority for police fighting organized crime. In June 1977, Inspector William Sherman of the RCMP told the press that 75 percent of drug trafficking in Ontario was controlled by biker clubs. As if to support his case, in August 1977, police seized more than a million dollars’ worth of drugs during raids in Toronto, Kingston, Wasaga Beach, Hamilton and other communities. Most of the people arrested were Satan’s Choice and Vagabonds.
Surprisingly, and to the chagrin of some of the remaining Satan’s Choice, the club maintained relations with the American Outlaws, and their fugitive exchange program continued. It was an uneasy balance, as the remaining Choice members valued their independence while the Outlaws wanted to further their expansion onto Canadian soil.
While Guindon languished in Millhaven, a couple of American newcomers appeared in St. Catharines. They seemed to ask too many questions, with the story that they were fleeing American charges relating to vaguely explained gun crimes. They were turned away by other Choice members who weren’t convinced by their stories. “You never know who the fuck they are,” Guindon said. “They’re going from chapter to chapter. They could be anybody. They could be a police officer. Undercover…He might be a pigeon…You always wonder.”
One visitor who came to Southern Ontario under the mutual aid pact with the Outlaws was Harry Bowman of Detroit. He was known inside the biker world as “Taco” because of his Hispanic appearance, and authorities also knew him as Harry Bouman, David Bowman, Harry J. Bowman, Harry Joseph Bowman, Harry Joe Bowman, David Charles Dowman, Harry Douman, Harry Tyree and “T.” Whatever the name he was using at the time, he was always recognizable by the multiple tattoos covering his body, including a skull and crossbones with crossed pistons and the words “Outlaws” and “Detroit,” and a swastika and a Merlin the magician figure on his forearms.
Bowman became chapter president of the Detroit Outlaws in 1970 when he was just twenty-one, and rose up to become north regional president later in the decade. He moved about Motor City in an armourplated Cadillac and later developed a war wagon with gun ports and bulletproof panels and glass. Often appearing psychotic and paranoid, he could also be charming and accommodating.
Bowman was at the Kitchener Choice clubhouse when Oshawa member Lorne Campbell got into a near punch-up with another American Outlaw named Brillo, who had ridden up from Nashville with a stripper. Brillo’s Harley Panhead broke down, and Kitchener Choice members were rebuilding its engine when Brillo got word that an Outlaw had been killed in the United States. The news meant he needed to rush back to Tennessee. Before he departed, Brillo left his old lady with Campbell, telling him, “Look after her. I don’t care if you fuck her. Just make sure she’s not abused.”
“I gave her a couple,” Campbell said, referring to consensual sex. True to his word, he also found her work as a stripper and made sure nobody gave her any trouble. Brillo returned to Kitchener and started grumbling. “I left my old lady with Lorne and he ended up fucking her,” he said during a visit to the clubhouse. Sitting in the television room, Campbell overheard the Outlaw’s complaint. He stormed out of the room, grabbed Brillo and growled, “I’m gonna throw this motherfucker down the stairs!” There was a certain amount of protocol involved even when tossing someone down a staircase, so Campbell added, “Go get Taco!”
As he waited, Campbell drove Brillo’s head against the wall. Bowman quickly materialized, mollifying Campbell and saving Brillo from a bumpy descent to the main floor. “He was a nice guy,” Campbell said of Bowman.
Though he wouldn’t hear of the incident until much later, Guindon always appreciated how Campbell wasn’t about to be pushed around by the Americans. There was a fine line to be walked with the Outlaws, and the imprisoned Choice leader could only hope that others like Campbell would keep their club alive until his return.
The Choice were far from finished after the big patchover. They were left with approximately two hundred members at the end of 1977, a drop of about a hundred from the club’s heyday a decade earlier. Guindon had suspected the worst about Mother—“He was a stool pigeon”—and now those suspicions seemed confirmed. McEwen realized that the international Outlaws would be a more attractive target for police than the Choice, so he led his club there to improve the price of his co-operation. “That was why he went Outlaws.”
In the wake of McEwen’s treachery, feelings among the Choice were raw, akin to when a family is torn apart. “Every single chapter had to make the choice,” Erslavas said. “Each chapter had to make the call, and each member had to make their own call.” Some chapters, like Ottawa, split right down the middle, with an equal number of members deciding to keep their old patch and members deciding to switch.
“I don’t like to say anything bad about anybody, but Garnet McEwen—he was a backstabbing fucking prick,” Erslavas continued. “Mother was in it for his own personal reasons…his own gain. He thought there was a payday in it for him. Probably the biggest reason was [the Choice who switched] thought they had something to gain from doing business with the Outlaws. There was nothing noble about it.”
Up in Thunder Bay, there were a half-dozen locals and three members from Ottawa in the chapter. It seemed to be fizzling away, and there was no return date scheduled for Guindon, who could revive things. “There was no way we were going to go Yankee, go Outlaw,” Erslavas said. “We decided to fold up, up there…Maybe we felt after that there wasn’t a future there. We let the guys know. They understood and respected it.
“I myself struggled. I loved the club. When I joined, I truly thought I had found my station in life. In 1977, I was only six years in and I didn’t want to quit what I thought was the best thing that had ever happened to me. At that time, it was the toughest choice of my life. I then had to write the letter to Bernie, who was still in jail, and tell him about our decision. Believe me, that was tough. We all signed it, but I recall I wrote it. I looked up to Bernie, and it was hard to find the words.”
Thunder Bay members made a trip down to Windsor during the time that was known as “The Big Split.” They were in the border city to pick up a couple of motorcycles that were being worked on by a custom painter, and stopped by the old Choice clubhouse. This time, the familiar home-away-from-home feeling was gone. The clubhouse and the men inside it had been stripped of anything to do with the Satan’s Choice, and the crest of the Outlaws, with its skull and crossed pistons, was everywhere. “Things were tense, to say the least,” Erslavas said. “Some of the guys were packing side arms openly—the same guys who a couple of weeks before were our brothers.”
Mother McEwen was at the clubhouse, which only made a tense situation tenser. “Some words were exchanged, but I couldn’t really speak my mind,” Erslavas said. “To do so then would have been foolish. I think the only reason we walked out without anything happening was because we knew some of the Windsor guys pretty well and there was certainly some mutual respect.” That mutual respect didn’t extend to McEwen, as far as Erslavas was concerned. “As for Mother, well, he was a piece of shit to sell out. I think everyone on both sides agreed.”
Soon, there was word that Mother McEwen had fled west with a contract on his head. He had been kicked out of the club for embezzlement. Now he was considered a traitor, a stool pigeon and a thief—all good reasons for getting stomped on or shot in the biker world. Guindon heard from behind bars that Mother had weathered a severe beating, which made Guindon jealous. “They beat him with his wooden leg. I wish I would have.”