Breakfast of Champions?

Not long ago my wife and I went out for breakfast. This is not exactly an everyday thing for us, but it's not particularly unusual either. We went to a restaurant we generally don't frequent, and which I won't name here, other than to say that it shares its name with a character on an '80s sitcom. The story gets interesting after we sat down and started looking at the menu.

The place was maybe half full when we arrived, and I must admit I didn't take notice of any of the other patrons. Just people having breakfast, or so I thought. I didn't see the table in the back corner, at least, not until someone at that table asked for some strawberry jam. We happend to have some at our table, so my wife tossed the fellow a couple of jam packets. That's when I noticed the table and the people there.

The man who had asked for the jam was a well groomed fellow dressed in a rather expensive looking suit — the sort you'd expect on someone with a job title containing words like director, senior, manager, orregional. Considering the typical clientele of this restaurant, he looked somewhat out of place, but this was magnified ten times when compared to the men he was sitting with. At his table were five members of the Harley Club.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Harley Club, think of them as being loosely associated with an infamous motorcycle gang which I shall not name here. How loose this affiliation may or may not be is the subject of much speculation, but suffice it to say that the Harley Club is not a group you want to have as enemies.

The could be no mistaking the affiliation of this group. Most of them were wearing shirts with "Charlottetown Harley Club" emblazoned across the back. You know the type of shirts, long-sleeved and black with big Harley-Davidson logos — the sort worn by those scruffy longish haired guys in high school who went out back behind the school to smoke. The guys at breakfast had the appropriate hair, long without being ridiculous. A few had leather jackets draped over the backs of their chairs. None of them appeared to be under 35 years old. All in all, a somewhat rough and disreputable looking bunch.

Yet here they were at breakfast with a guy in a suit who appeared to be very much a professional, and certainly not a motorcycle enthusiast. The juxtaposition of attire was quite striking, and got my wife and I to speculating about what the relationship between the bikers and the suit could be. I suggested financial advisor, she thought maybe he looked like a mob boss. We settled on legal counsel. They were far enough away that we really couldn't hear what they were talking about, and we didn't really feel like drawing any attention to ourselves by spying on the local criminal element.

We didn't have to worry about that for long, however. They got up to leave about the time our food arrived. Since we were sitting by a window which faced the parking lot, we eagerly awaited to see what manner of vehicles they would be leaving in. We hadn't noticed motorcycles when we arrived, but of course, we weren't really looking for motorcycles.

We weren't expecting what happened next. The entire crew of six trooped out to the parking lot and they all piled into a beige minivan. The man in the suit was the driver. The notion of five bikers in a minivan with a lawyer was surprising and amusing all that once. They pulled out of their parking spot and eased into traffic, and they were gone. I have no idea where they were going or what they were doing, but I hope it was nothing terribly nefarious. After all, it's hard to take the Harley Club seriously when they arrive in a beige minivan.