Inside SEAL Team Six(9)

Total hell-raisers.

One summer afternoon I was out on the road riding motorcycles with my buddy Greg. I said, “Hey, Greg, if you see the cops, take off. Because if I get caught, my dad will kill me.” I was maybe fifteen years old. Too young to have a driver’s license. Trying to outrun the cops was always a good time.

We were cruising up a local two-way back-country road north of Methuen when we came to a stop at a four-way stop sign, and I spotted a cop car to my left. I yelled, “Greg. Cops. Take off!”

He pulled back on the throttle but flooded out and stalled.

I hung a right on my Kawasaki 175 and took off. WFO (wide fucking open), we called it. To my mind, WFO was the only way to go.

My bike could only get up to about seventy-two miles an hour max, so on the straight stretches of road, the cop car got right up on my tail. I braked, downshifted, and turned right onto somebody’s lawn. Because the grass was wet, I did a quick one-eighty, spitting up a rooster tail of mud and grass.

The cop surprised me and turned onto the lawn too.

This guy wasn’t going to be easy to shake.

I peeled off back in the direction I’d come from, thinking that maybe I’d catch up with Greg. My Kawasaki screamed, the cop’s siren blared, and adrenaline raced through my veins. Approaching the four-way stop sign, I saw another cop cruiser light up its flashers and join the chase.

Now I had two cop cars on my tail.

I tore through one town after another, running through my repertoire of tricks. My favorite was to stick my right arm out like I was pulling over, then, when the cruisers passed me, gun the bike and scream by, shooting the cops my see-ya smile.

But nothing seemed to work. After forty-five minutes of being chased, I began to worry. None of my previous escapades with the police had lasted this long. I was actually more worried about my father than the cops.

My long hair flying out of the back of my helmet, I tore down country roads with the cops on my tail. Approaching cars had to swerve off to the side to give us room to pass. I was a small kid—maybe five seven at fifteen years old—and the bike was too big for me, so I was bouncing up and down on the seat and gas tank, which hurt.

One police car inched up to my back wheel, and, determined not to get caught, I zoomed faster, past a large farm where some of my buddies and I had worked. Some of the Puerto Rican workers out in the fields picking corn recognized me and started cheering. They yelled words of encouragement.

Salem, New Hampshire, was just ahead. I saw the light at the five-way intersection turn red. To my right was a Dairy Queen parking lot crowded with pickups and station wagons filled with families and kids going out to get a summer afternoon sundae swirl or shake.

I made a split-second decision and turned into the crowded lot.

People panicked. Mothers screamed, “Watch out!” and grabbed their children. They wrapped them in protective hugs while their husbands cursed me: “Lunatic!” “Asshole!” “Hoodlum!” “Stupid punk!”

I wove my way through the maze of vehicles and people, braked when I absolutely had to, and skidded my way through.

The cops had to steer around it, which meant that I gained a little time, but they quickly caught up with me on a long, straight country road. My bike was screaming hot and I was running low on fuel.

One of the cop cars—the one that was aggressively staying near my back wheel—passed and cut in front of me. I braked hard, downshifted fast, and faced two options: One, slam into his car broadside. Two, cut left into unknown terrain.

I chose the second and was immediately confronted with a five-foot-high stone wall. Sudden death. At the last second I spotted a tiny opening and miraculously squeezed through.

Whew!

A second or so later I hit something that stopped me and almost caused me to fly off the bike and do an endo (end over end). A large root had lodged itself between the frame of my bike and the engine.

I tried pulling the root out. No luck.

Looking back, I saw the cops running toward me with their sticks and pistols ready.

I cut the engine and asked myself: What do I do now?

Before I could think of an answer, one of the cops grabbed me by the hair sticking out of the back of my helmet and yanked me off seat and over the back fender. I hit the ground and immediately felt a nightstick crash into my ribs.

I felt a sharp pain. Then another. Then dozens in succession from multiple cops.

They beat the living hell out of me until I passed out. I woke hours later on a bench in a local jail, badly bruised and hurting.

I called my mom, who was extremely upset but managed to remain calm. She came and got me released on bail.

I said, “Mom, I’m really sorry.”

She looked at me sadly and shook her head. “When your dad comes home tonight, make sure you tell him everything that happened.”