Extended family:
Jacob “Hook” Shepherd was really better known for an unfortunate incident with a meat hook, which had resulted in the loss of his eye and the suspected murder of six Hells Angels. The Tennessee chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle gang, to which Jacob belonged, was particularly noted for its excessive violence and the willingness of its members to kill cops. Jacob had never been one to shy away from “collateral damage” when it involved the public, and indeed he never once in his life cared much about anyone who didn’t wear the same gang patch as he did.
Though he’s never admitted it, Jacob never was able to recall exactly how he met Elvis’s mother but for a man prone to long binge drinking sessions and sexual depravity this was not to be unexpected. When Elvis’s mother died in childbirth however, a whole new part of Jacob that he’d long since buried came to light. If he had been a smarter, more educated man he probably would have refused custody and left Elvis in the care of the state but he didn’t. He borrowed a pickup from a gang member, and took his daughter home with him.
Jacob saw in Elvis a shot at redemption, a chance to give someone a fair chance at going straight and becoming a product member of society. It was a chance Jacob never felt he had, and now he had the chance to become the father he himself had never known. By all accounts Jacob was an excellent father, skillfully insulating Elvis from the violence of the world around her. There was always an aunt or an uncle to watch after her, and of course never once was she bullied until high school. When around his daughter Jacob didn’t drink, didn’t smoke and even tried his hardest to abstain the use of profanity. He gave her every opportunity to succeed and for the most part she did.
The First act of violence:
Throughout her life Elvis had been protected by the aura of fear her father and his gang projected, and while she had known bullies here or there none of them kept that up for long. Steve Alvarez was different though, not only was he the captain of the football team, he was the son of the DA. He sniped at Elvis all through high school, though he never had the attention span to keep it up.
The day before graduation Alvarez was feeling particularly cocky, he was leaving for Stanford in a week after all. He’d gotten out to the parking lot earlier than most, and seen fit to remove the valve cores from both her tires but this simply wasn’t enough. When she came to find her bike flat, he was so gracious so as to offer to refill them in trade for sexual favors. A verbal argument erupted, and when he’d had enough he pushed her to the ground.
The moment she hit the ground, a rage like she’d never felt before began to well up inside her. Quickly she scrambled to her feet, and as Alvarez turned to face her, the blow landed. She caught him with a textbook right hook in the jaw, sending an audible crack through the parking lot as Alvarez fell to the ground unconscious and bleeding. She’d of course broken some bones herself, two in her right hand had been fractured enough to nearly generate a clean break.
She wasn’t too torn up over graduating from high school in the county lockup, though her father was far less than pleased with her explanation of “a misunderstanding”. It would take a substantial bribe mixed with threats of violence to get the DA to drop his case, and free Elvis but the damage had still been done. The first act of violence had been committed.
Outlaws forever, Forever Outlaws:
“Big” Jim was had been a favored uncle since Elvis was a little girl. A man of considerable size, remarkable strength and exceptional kindness he was one of the more liked members of the Outlaws. Jim had begun to soften in his age, hadn’t swung on someone in years and now a man of nearly sixty he had finally prepared to retire and stop looking over his shoulder. Late one night outside a tattoo parlor, a group of seven angels caught up to him. Jim went for his knife, and they shot him down in the street. In the violence that resulted, another six Angels and two more outlaws were killed before law enforcement could get a handle on things.
It didn’t take much to convince Jacob to get involved, his kid was off and living the straight life now right? Elvis would hear about her father’s arrest only after he plead guilty to the murder of three angels and the attempted murder of a police officer. As soon as he was incarcerated the edict had gone out to shun his daughter, to keep her away from the gang and away from the life Jacob had tried so hard to protect her from.
She’d been working as a mechanic since high school, which while it didn’t afford her much it did grant her independence. She wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted when the gang began to push her away, but she knew she didn’t want to stay put. She sold just about everything she owned, finally got her old Café Honda running and took off.
The Cause:
It took about a year for the money to run out, though it didn’t really stop her from her wandering much. She’d gone days at a time without eating, stealing fuel with a siphon before racing off into the night and sleeping in parks when she could find the peace to sleep. Initially her involvement with the ferrymen was one based on a dislike of the police, one rebel helping another without much investment in the cause. As time went on though, slowly her willingness to help began to grow.
Plainly Elvis didn’t like cops, she had grown up in a society that disliked them and so did she now that she was a biker. Every time she got a ticket for her bike being too loud, too fast, too dark or illegally parked her indignation only grew stronger. That alone, that seething distrust for all law enforcement may very well have been enough to
make her join the ferrymen even if she wasn’t evolved.
Thing is she was evolved, and the thought of even more police harassment not just because of her bike but now because of the way she was born absolutely infuriated her. So by the time she’d decided she could tolerate the control that would come with being a full time member of the Ferrymen, the decision was as good as made. It took a phone call to get her moving, this time to New York.
