![]() Abramovich turns away as the motorcycle is about to run this man over, and “when I turned back, I expected to see something terrible. They drag him into the street, knock him over until he crawls onto the median strip to escape, and then another Rat guns the engine of his motorcycle. ![]() In perhaps the most harrowing scene in the book, Abramovich describes two of the Rats kicking and punching a random bystander (a “recycler” who is collecting discarded beer cans outside the clubhouse). Many of the Rats are ex-military, and their behavior in a historically black neighborhood in the midst of a gentrification crisis is eerily similar to U.S. The Rats are quite cozy with the cops, who, Abramovich says, leave them free to terrorize anyone with less power than themselves. The East Bay Rats are a motorcycle club consisting of about 35 members, almost all of them white men (Abramovich mentions one black member, and one Mexican American). He ends up staying four years, and this forms the basis of “Bullies: A Friendship,” a fusion of journalism and memoir as haunting as Abramovich’s childhood memories. And so, four years after the GQ story, Abramovich decides on a temporary move from New York City to Oakland. ![]() And yet Abramovich experiences a kind of kinship with Latham, not just because they both grew up with abusive single fathers, but also because he’s fascinated by the Rats’ world. ![]()
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