Fight Club

JAN. 29 , 2005. Dozens of motorcycles are parked outside an aircraft hangar-size warehouse located in the postindustrial lowlands of West Oakland, in a zone the locals refer to as Ghost Town. There are gleaming, chopped-out Harleys, ancient Honda CB 400s, and a bevy of heavily modified, matte-black Japanese sport bikes. Few streetlights illuminate this particular block, and on this jet-black night the area is draped in a near tangible darkness. My tour guide, clad in a leather vest and a black Oakland A's cap, worn at an angle, meets me a few feet from the front door of the warehouse. He's a member of the East Bay Rats, the punkish clique of motorcycle freaks who are throwing tonight's shindig. His name is Alex. Tonight is fight night, an annual Rats event, and we are here to take in the spectacle of humans doing bad things to one another. We are gonna watch people get pummeled. Watch blood spew from their faces. Watch their poor little brains short-circuit as they get KO'd. This, in many ways, is the real-world equivalent of the movie Fight Club – subtract Meatloaf, Ed Norton, and Brad Pitt's hammy ass, and add in a real-life cast of hundreds of pugilism-loving spectators and a horde of brawlers, some skilled, some not so.

Yeah, I know: It's ugly. It's twisted. And yet, for some reason, I can't wait.