I started hanging out with the Unknown Bikers around 1975, and I became one in 1976. I went over to the South 9th Bikers in early 1980, the same year I went to jail. We were all hanging out together already, the Unknowns and the South 9s. It was just that I started hanging out over here more than over at the other side.
I got into the gangs very, very early. Like 12 or 13. By the time I started with the Unknowns, I already had a little reputation. I was from one side of the Southside, and the Unknowns were from the other side. A lot of them I met through fighting with them. We just got along. That’s when we were first coming up. Me and a few other guys started making a lot of noise, you know, fighting all these other gangs.
The South 9th Bikers’ turf was around Broadway, from like where the BQE starts at Havemeyer to what was called Jew Town, where the Hasidics start. The Unknowns used to be from Union to Rodney, Metropolitan to like South 4th. The Dukes were on Roebling and South 3rd, over to South 1st. Then you had the Satan’s Souls for a while, who were on South 5th and Hoover. Then you had all these other little clubs in between. You had the Dirty Ones up by Graham Avenue. There’s still a lot of people around. You go to parties and see a lot of the same faces.
We used to look up to the Hell’s Angels back then. We used to make choppers with four- and six-poles—extensions, you know? And we used to ride over to East 3rd in Manhattan, to the Hell’s Angels, and visit with them and whatnot. We had a building on the Southside that we painted up with “Free Sonny Barger.” He was the Hell’s Angels’ national president who was locked up at the time. So our style of dress and everything was like them. That’s how the whole biker thing came about first. We were trying to imitate them.
We were fighting with everybody. We came into a lot of weapons at an early time. One guy’s father was a hunter, and he went on vacation. The son made it seem like it was a burglary, and we made off with all his weapons. Some shotguns, a .30-06, a .30-30. The father ended up getting most of them back after people started getting arrested with them, because he came home and reported them stolen. Back then, gang-wise, there weren’t too many guns used. Mostly a lot of chains, bats, and knives. Eventually, though, it got to where you were lucky to get within a block of each other. Everybody else had to shoot, because we already were.
We were always armed. It was nothing to have like three or four shootouts a day. It was like a game. I remember cars coming by and shooting at the guys, then we would jump in the car and go after them. We’d be going across the Williamsburg Bridge, shooting at them, them shooting at us. To Manhattan, then back across the bridge, and once we got to Brooklyn they would just split off to their side and we’d keep driving to our side, like it was nothing.
Naturally, there were a lot of shot-up people. I would say, three out of every five shootouts, somebody would get hit. There’s a lot of people walking around messed up to this day, and a lot of people dead. I caught a few. The only time I ever went to the hospital was the first time I got shot, because I didn’t know what to expect. After that I knew it was nothing serious, so I never bothered to go to the hospital. Like one time, I saw it was clear through so I just patched it up, and forgot about it. Or if you get hit with a shotgun, forget it. If it ain’t from close range, you just have to wait for the pellets to come out later. I guess I was lucky. I wasn’t hit too often.
What was so funny was that a lot of the people were intermingled, family-wise. This guy’s sister might be living with that guy’s brother, or you might have a kid with that guy’s sister. Like I remember coming home and having my sister-in-law crying, and I would walk in the house and make believe I didn’t know why. “Why you crying?” “You know why—you shot my brother.” It was crazy.
Back in those days, we always had a clubhouse. What used to happen was, we’d hang out at someone’s apartment, but then they’d move out. So we’d take the apartment over. The landlord wasn’t going to come and tell us we couldn’t do it—we’d kick his fuckin’ ass. After a while, if he called the police, then we would be angry at him. He couldn’t show up to collect his rent. But it isn’t like we were setting out to take over the building.
There was one place on South 9th where the landlord—he was a Hasidic—saw that as long as we were in the building, none of the tenants complained about the addicts burglarizing them or people shooting up in the hallways or on the roof or anything like that. So after a while, he would make an apartment available to us. With us in the building, there was security. He didn’t have to worry about his building getting messed up, because we wouldn’t allow that. So it worked both ways. In September 1979 or ’80, there was a big fire. I ran up and down the fire escape, taking a lot of the tenants out. So that kind of shit won over a lot of the tenants. You come running through the building with the cops after you and you could run into any door. It was a two-way thing. They didn’t have to worry about getting robbed or nothing on the block. It’s even like that now. Clubs may be doing their dirt, but the people on the block ain’t bitching because they do good for the block. They help people out.
We never really had any problem with the Hasidics. Back in the early days, we used to have a habit of snatching their hats. We used to convert it to our style, with bandanas and patches and everything. The problem with that was, if you snatched one of their hats in the wrong neighborhood, you’d have a hell of a chase. If they caught you, you were going to get an ass whuppin’. They weren’t pussies. Hell no. They yell one word in Yiddish, and everybody comes out the woodwork.
It was a handful of us that really made most of the noise. I turned out to be one of them, and it cost me a lot. I wound up doing like 13 years and change in jail. I got convicted for a gang-related manslaughter. I got arrested October 1980, came home December 1993.
It was two carloads of the fellas, just headed toward the block, coming from Greenpoint. Just passing through. We were at war with two clubs called the Dukes and the Arabian Knights. Someone happened to see two of the guys from the Arabian Knights so we pulled over. When everything was done, there was one of them dead from a gunshot and a knife wound. Me and another Unknown Biker were convicted for it. But I wasn’t there, I just wound up getting accused of it. At that time I was doing a lot of harm to the Dukes, and the cops figured, let’s get him off the streets.
When I did get arrested, my little brother—may he rest in peace—he was involved. They had me in the bullpen with him when the witnesses came. They looked at both of us, and I was a little relieved because I said to myself, well, they really was there, so I’m gonna walk. But they looked at us and they said, “It was Alicat” So it was Alicat. They gave my brother a summons, and I stood in jail for a decade and change. Even the cops told my mother one time they knew I didn’t have nothing to do with it. They knew it was my kid brother, but all the witnesses were saying it was me. So that’s how it happened. My kid brother ended up dying. He got killed a few years later. In fact, all three people who were involved in the murder ended up dying within three years of it. All of them met violent deaths.
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