Suns Set

Maxie quit drinking, because he worried that his medication wouldn't work as well with booze in his system. But he stayed faithful to Mary Jane and continued to ride his Harley, even after undergoing chemotherapy.

One Sunday this past October, Maxie was feeling pretty sick. He didn't want to go to the hospital; he wanted a family dinner and to watch the Broncos. Finally, though, he gave in and went to the hospital. The doctors gave him a day to live, a day and a half, tops.

Then Maxie went home to die.

Kim asked Maxie what she could do for him. First he wanted to listen to some country music, he told her, and then he wanted quiet and peace of mind. "I lived this long because you are not ready for me to die," he said. "You can do it."

After Maxie passed in his quiet house, Kim put the country music back on.

The only funeral instructions Maxie had given came indirectly, at the funeral of an uncle who didn't have a final viewing. Maxie had told Kim that wasn't right, because many of the people who came to pay their respects didn't get to see the man one last time. "My funeral's going to be so big, because people are going to want to make sure I'm dead," Maxie said.

About 800 people filled the church for Maxie's funeral, and a hundred motorcycles lined the street. His casket was open.

Maxie's body was later cremated; his ashes will be spread on his mother's grave in Louisiana.

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There's a more informal service for Maxie when the Suns of Darkness celebrate their 34th anniversary at their $700-a-month clubhouse on Williams Street, where they moved in 2002.

Sugar, who's known as "Uncle Sugar" these days, stands by the door, collecting donations to help cover booze, beer and food at the festivities. Most of the women coming through get a hard time from Sugar, especially the one who tries to pay with a hundred-dollar bill.

"How you walkin' round the ghetto with a hundred dollars?" Sugar asks. "You might be a narc or something."

Sugar is the last original member of the Suns. Some have died, others are sick, still others have gone "square," he says, settling down with their families. But membership is holding steady at about two dozen. Sugar still rides the 1972 Harley he bought 33 years ago for $2,750. Maxie's 1980 Harley will sit idle until Kim's son is old enough to handle his inheritance.

A 6' 4", 300-pound biker named "Viper" stands by Sugar. Now 45 years old, he joined the Suns ten years ago, a year after his father, "Snatcher," one of the original Suns, passed away. Snatcher got his nickname because he was quick to put his hands on a woman. Viper was just a kid when he first met Maxie.

"Everything was particular about Maxie," he says. "He was the biggest problem-solver. When most people would be running around with their heads cut off, he'd sit back and analyze it."

Viper stays out of trouble nowadays, but back in junior high, he liked to steal. He once nabbed a sack of cash from a carnival -- only to have Maxie surprise him in the parking lot, taking the money and returning it. "If I catch you and your cronies stealing around here, I'm gonna kick your ass and tell your dad," Maxie told him.

Viper quit stealing, and Snatcher went to the grave without ever hearing that story.

The Suns aren't used to partying without Maxie. Sugar remembers how Maxie would claim to be a 200-year-old vampire, and how even racist skinheads took a liking to him, dazzled by a black man's fluency in German and his fondness for swastikas. He remembers what it was like when he and Maxie first formed the club. "We had a bad taste in our mouth for what the United States was doing," he says.

Their concern over the war in Vietnam and the fights here at home echoes in party conversation about the situation today in Iraq and the Patriot Act. "You wouldn't believe the atmosphere now," Sugar says. "People who don't know bikers, they think we're terrorists."

But while some individual Suns may have run afoul of the law over the years, the group itself comes out clean. Sometimes even squeaky. "Don't forget the Easter-egg hunt," Sugar calls to a few bikers as they leave the clubhouse. The Suns of Darkness have hosted that family-oriented event in City Park for 33 years.

There are no kids at tonight's celebration. Instead, the Suns are shooting pool and dancing alongside black bikers from the Hell's Lovers, the Good Time Rollers, the Road Warriors and the Swords of Justice. Alongside white bikers from Tribal Judah, EZ Thunder, Rocky Mountain Riders, the Sons of Silence, Long Range Riders and the Iron Horsemen. Alongside members of the Bandidos, a Chicano club. Everyone's here to party with the Suns and pay their respects to Maxie.

"Maxie was one in a million," Sugar says. "I feel sorry for the people who didn't get to meet him."