Our most trying event in the history of the East Bay Dragons Motorcycle Club tested the resolve of every member - especially mine as founder and president of the club. I won't be specific what year it all happened. Let's just say sometime between long ago and yesterday.

The East Bay Dragons MC are my bike riding blood brothers, my motorcycle club, and together we've been riding Harley-Davidson chops up and down the streets of Oakland for over 40 years. You could describe us as a premiere, all-American, West Coast, California MC (motorcycle club). All black, all Harley. And damned proud on all counts.

But this time the club really got into some shit. One of our members, Z, got himself shot and killed on the street corner right out in front of our clubhouse late one Friday night.

Z didn't meet his maker alone. He took down one of their boys too, the ones that set out to kill him. It sounded more like popguns exploding, car exhaust pipes backfiring as traffic whizzed by on East Fourteen Street. In the blink of an eye, the shootout ended. Z got shot in the head, and the gunman never made it back to his car. Two black men lay face down on the sidewalk. Blood everywhere. One of their guys and one of ours. Both gone.

Z was a good kid. I didn't know exactly what he had gotten himself into, but I suspected trouble. He had some heavy cats after him, but he wouldn't tell me anything about it, nor did he talk to any of the other senior members about his predicament, either. God knows I'm not one to judge another man over what he does or doesn't do with his life. We aren't saints here; we've all had our ups and downs.

Z's death soon became the club's problem. I asked around and got to the bottom of the matter. He had gotten himself mixed up with a gang of drug dealers. Since we lost one of our guys and they lost one of theirs, I put together a meeting between both sides - their head guy and me. We spoke frankly and tried to cool out an already out-of-control situation.

I talked, and he listened.

"Man," I told him. "Let's forget about all this bullshit. One of my members is dead. And one of your brothers got killed. We're even. That should be the end of it."

But that wasn't the end of it. After Z got killed, word spread that we couldn't wear our colors on the streets of Oakland. Otherwise our members would get shot off their Harley-Davidsons. And they named names, too. A few of our best members were in danger of getting blasted on the open road. When I got through talking, the matter seemed unresolved. There would be violent reprisals. Personally, I hate violence.

The next week we held a funeral for our departed member. We would all ride out to the cemetery to the outskirts of Oakland to another service to bury our dead club brother. Two services were planned for Z, one a wake in our clubhouse.

Only the Dragons were involved in this mess. I felt alone. We had received all kinds of tips and threats, vague and specific, from the street. Z's casket set out in the middle of the main clubhouse floor, surrounded by flowers, friends, family, and fellow motorcycle riders. And as I raise my right hand to God, I wasn't fearful for my own life, just nervous and scared for the lives of those around me, particularly my club members.

The vibes were eerie, sad, and terrifying. Z had died. Nothing could bring him back. So I walked outside to grab some air. Leaning up against the clubhouse, I tripped about the club and what we were all up against. A possible war with an invisible cartel. What the fuck did Z get us into?

I saw a few of my club brothers milling around the front door. Pretty Tony. Hooker. Shad. My trusted vice president, Bags. They knew enough to keep their distance. I scanned the long line of spit-polished, candy-colored customized Harleys parked in an orderly row, backed up against the curb in front of the clubhouse. My eyes rested on Willie "Poor Hop" Harper's lime green Harley Low Rider. I thought about Poor Hop and laughed out loud, almost uncontrollably. How strange. Sadness, grief, and intensity surrounded me, and I'm standing here laughing about Willie Harper.

Poor Hop was off the chain, a totally crazy dude. His full name, Willie Lee Harper. Hustlers and the con men on the streets called him "Harper, the Booty Stopper, the Baby Maker, the Woman Taker." When Willie joined the club, the members dubbed him Poor Hop because he dressed so smart. He dug fancy clothes. Gold jewelry hung around his neck, diamond rings on both hands. Sometimes he wore a top hat instead of a helmet when he rode. Everybody called him "Poor" as opposed to "Rich." And "Hop" for Harper. Willie, a little guy, had guts. He'd go to the Hell's Angels' dances, get drunk and then jump up on stage and sing "Wooly Bully." What more can you say about a guy like that?

Looking down at Poor Hop's Low Rider, I flashed back to a time when we were all on our way to Fresno to attend a club rally.

Our Fresno run is mandatory for all Dragons, and every member turned up at the clubhouse that morning by nine o'clock sharp to start the four-hour journey. We formed a long-ass pack departing from Oakland, riding two-by-two on the open road. As president, I rode front right. Lee Gordon, my steady-handed road captain, rode next to me in the front left position.

Now Lee was an ace road captain, the type of guy who kept everybody riding close together in the pack. A couple of hours down the road, Poor Hop fell out of line, maxed the throttle, and rode up alongside Lee.

He screamed above the roar of forty engines, "Yo Lee! I gotta take a leak."

"Go ahead," Lee yelled back.

Willie rolled out of the pack and pulled off the highway. When he pulled over, Lee looked over at me with a devilish smile. Then he sped up the pack. We had been running about 75 and 80; Lee pulled them up to just under 100 miles an hour. As Poor Hop peed, he watched the pack drift farther and farther into the distance on Highway 5 until we were clean out of sight.

Poor Hop jumped on his bike and slid back on the road trying to catch up. He rode lightning fast until he saw us crest the horizon. He also roared past a highway patrolman sitting in his cruiser on the side of the road. The trooper ate his sandwich. Willie's straight pipes howled. He had etched "Hop the Magic Dragon" in green on the gas tank.

Willie zoomed past the cop, who dropped his sandwich. The cop car floored it on the roadside, sliding from side to side as rocks and dust flew before gaining traction onto the freeway pavement.

Willie just kept going. Soon, he caught the pack. Not only that, but his spot remained open, waiting for him. At the front of the pack, he signaled to Lee the road captain and me. His place next to Hooker empty, hauling ass, really cooking, Hop slowed down just enough to slide right in. Back in the pack.

Seconds later, the highway patrolman drove up to the side of the pack, looking for Poor Hop. For the first time in his life, Hop blended into a crowd. The pack stayed tight. We were movin' wheel to wheel. Every Dragon kept a straight face, all eyes on the road ahead. Even though we wanted to burst inside, nobody dared look over at the cop.

Mr. Highway Patrol eyeballed us all, up and down the pack. He pulled to the front and gazed over. Then he changed lanes to the other side and looked there. Finally he just gave up and drove away. Amazingly, the pack had kept Willie's slot open. Nobody had taken Poor Hop's spot. If someone had, he couldn't have gotten back in and ditched the law. We must have been riding pretty steady for Willie to jump back into the pack like that. When we got to Fresno that day, everybody laughed like hell about Poor Hop's close call with the law.

I shook my head and wiped the smile from my face as I headed back into the clubhouse for the wake. Poor Hop and poor Z. Two completely different brothers, off the hook on both extremes. But we were all part of the same brotherhood. For better or worse.

I put my game face back on. "Damn," I thought to myself. "How we gonna get out of this fix we're in?" One thing remained certain: Ain't nobody gonna tell us we can't wear our colors on these Oakland streets. Not after 40 years.