"You wouldn’t believe it to look at me now, but I used to be one fat kid. I lost my dad when I was young, five I think, and then my mom again died when I was ten. Back before my mom died she worked really hard and stuffed me with full of every last scrap of food I could fit into my mouth. She was always a little paranoid anyways, but she made sure I wasn’t starving, and then kept me from really going out or doing anything fun. I didn’t blame her; she was just trying to protect me. But, lots of food and no running about made for a very fat kid

After she died, I ended up moving through the system. It seems like truly caring people are rare in the foster care system. Most seem to be greedy for the extra food stamp benefits, for the state helping to pay for the care. Thankfully, I was never really abused, at least not physically, or sexually by any of my foster parents – but some of their kids were just fucking evil.

Anyways, I was a tubby little bastard until I was 15. When I was 15, two things happened. First, was the coach of the track team stopping a bunch of the guys from beating me up one day after gym class. He then gave me this speech that was filled with loathing, about how he hated fat people and that God had given him this perfect engine of a physical body and I was wasting and destroying it. At first, I was ashamed and then I got angry. I told that judgmental fuck that in a month I was going to try out for the track team, and he laughed and said the day I ran track was the day he quit teaching. The second thing that happened is that I changed. I’m not talking puberty change, although that shit was fucking awful let me tell you.

No. I changed. After that day, I ran every day. I ran until I threw up, and then I ran some more. I ran like I was being chased by a psychotic bully, or like I was being chased by that mean junkyard dog. If I had to go anywhere, I ran. I ate salads, and greens until I thought I was turning into a head of lettuce, but I ate it anyways. I started working out, at first just with weights and then with resistance training, and cardio. I worked myself to the bone, but at the end of that month I had dropped about 60 pounds, and had become a lean, mean, running machine. I tried out for track, and I beat his varsity runner’s on just about every event. That fuck didn’t quit teaching though, so I told the principle that Coach Jackson had tried to touch me in my special places – and enough kids remembered that he had been alone with me for a long time that the accusation stuck and Coach Jackson was fired.

After that, life got a lot easier. It helped a lot after I kicked the crap out of a few of the bullies who thought I was their whipping boy. God that felt good. Life got better. I graduated High School, enlisted in the Marines for 4 years. Saw some combat over in Afghanistan and Iraq, but didn’t sign back up after that one TOD. After the Marines I took my parting cash and Gi Bill grants and went to an auto-tech school. While I was there I fell in love with motorcycles and cars, greasy hands and the smell of exhaust – yeah, I know that’s weird. I bought my own Harley and started riding it, finished up tech school and got my ASE cert’s. master mechanic, that’s me.

Eventually I prospected out with this MC called the Sons of Anubis, and after a two year term, I’d finished that up and had gotten my top rocker. Then shit went sideways, and the MC came under attack. So, we called another charter and asked for reinforcements. And now..here we are. On the edge, but reinforced."