Gospel gang
They roll in leather, doing God's work. They brandish their only weapon fearlessly. It's prayer.
By S.I. ROSENBAUM, Times Staff Writer
Published August 15, 2007
BRANDON
They stand in a circle and hold hands, and Joey starts praying.
Some people load up their prayers with lots of "Lord" this and "Father" that. Not Joey. He talks to God like God is standing in front of him in a leather jacket.
"All right, God," he says. "We're fixing to get on the road and go do your work. Please keep us safe and protect us on our ride, and keep everybody upright. Put your hand on the people we're going to visit tonight."
They say "Amen" and get on their bikes and peel out, sun in their eyes and hot exhaust in their faces.
* * *
Here's Joey Long: 39 years old, 5 foot 7, bandy legs, broken nose, smile lines all over his weathered face. Been to prison. Found God. Runs a painting company with his wife.
Cross Riders, the motorcycle-riding ministry group from Bay Life Church in Brandon, was around long before Joey turned up. But after he joined the group last year, he became the organizing force behind its weekly prayer rides.
Each week he posts ads on Craigslist: are you in need of prayer? let my motorcycle group pray for you.
People e-mail him - the desperate, the troubled. Come, they say.
* * *
The bikers kill their engines a few doors down from the Mayhews' Brandon home, so as not to disturb the family.
The Mayhews come outside to meet them. The youngest girl, Peyton, 3, is wearing a blue dress. The sun warms the top of her bald head.
"It was a rough day today," the mother, Anissa Mayhew, tells the bikers. "Chemo, and a spinal tap."
After a year of leukemia, Mayhew is used to having people pray for Peyton, even strangers. It's not always pleasant. At the Dairy Queen not long ago, some woman tried to anoint Peyton with holy oil.
The bikers are careful not to crowd her. They show off their motorcycles to the family's two older kids. Then they form a circle and hold hands.
Afterward, the father, Peter, says he has seen God at work in the year his child has been sick.
"When you think it can't get any worse," he says, "there's God lifting you up."
* * *
Joey's 3-year-old daughter got sick in the first week of November 2006.
Kawasaki syndrome - like the motorcycle, Joey thought. In the hospital, doctors told Joey about the sudden, mysterious inflammation of the lymph system, arteries and skin. Her chances were slim, doctors said.
As the family camped out at her bedside, religious groups stopped by to offer support. Wiccans. Church groups. Some people who said they drew energy from the Earth.
Joey accepted them all. "I told them I'll take whatever I can get," he said.
Then someone told him there was a group of men in leather looking for him.
He thought maybe they were some of the roughneck bikers he used to hang with, back in his bad old days.
But they were members of a Christian motorcycle group, they said.
"It was impressive to see these hard-core-looking, seasoned bikers roll up to the ICU and stand there and pray in front of everybody," he remembers.
When his daughter made a full recovery a week later, some doctors said it was a "medical mystery." Another doctor said it was a miracle.
Joey went out and bought a motorcycle, his first in nine years.
* * *
When the bikers hit State Road 60, the sun's down, but the air is still hot. A couple of kids pull their car alongside, blasting music and wearing women's underwear over their faces. The bikers shake their heads.
At Tampa General Hospital, the bikers have to search around for the right room. "Did you get us lost, Joey?" asks someone in the back of the crowd.
"We were all lost once," a guy named Jim shoots back.
* * *
On June 29, Joey was out for a ride, not on God's time but his own. He came across a bad motorcycle wreck in front of the Cracker Barrel on State Road 60 in Valrico.
He didn't want to stop, he says. Didn't want to see what a bad crash could do to a person on a bike.
He kept going.
Turn around, God said.
Nah, he said.
Come on.
He got as far as Dover Road. Then he turned back.
At the crash site, he asked around, got the victim's name and the name of the hospital she'd been taken to. He called the hospital and asked if the family wanted prayer.
Then he called a few buddies from the Cross Riders, and the four of them went to the hospital and kept vigil with the family of Candace Quesada while she was in surgery.
* * *
Awake, Candace has turned out to be a firecracker. She and Joey have become fast friends. She's already talking about buying a new bike.
The wreck shattered Candace's left leg. She describes her injury almost exclusively in food terms:
The wound itself looks like crusty banana pudding, she says. The leg is raw beef. She remembers seeing the gristle of her shattered bones on the road, she says, gleaming like beluga caviar.
Is she hungry? Joey asks. Sick of hospital food?
She laughs.
One by one the bikers come in, talk a little with Candace, compliment her on her bravery, inspect the helmet she was wearing in the crash.
Can they pray for her?
"I'll take all the prayer I can get," she says.
S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 661-2442 or srosenbaum@sptimes.com.