Best Biker Bar

It's early afternoon on a Saturday, and there aren't any posers here. These bikers are the real deal, the long goatees, the black vests, the black halter tops. Twenty-odd men and women with faces as lined as floodplains. The hogs are out back, not far from the barbeque grill made from 50-gallon drums. This two-wheel haunt's in a backwash of a neighborhood, an aging industrial ghetto just west of I-95. Near the door stands an enlarged photo of a long-haired blond, model-pretty, dressed in black leathers, smiling like an open road. Kimber is her name. Was her name. She died not long ago astride her machine, up in Pensacola. Beside her picture is a flier: a memorial service at a nearby chapel later this afternoon for the 39-year-old. Party at Mickey's afterward. These are real bikers. How'd it happen? a bartender asks a brooding man at the end of the horseshoe bar. She made a mistake, he says, thought a four-way was a two-way, went down the wrong way. Hit a car head-on. "She probably never knew what hit her," the bartender offers. She turns to walk away, then stops and calls back, "I hope so, anyway."