GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS, TN—a motorcyclist that previously belonged to the nomad charter of the infamously ruthless Hells Angels Motorcycle Club was reportedly excommunicated Sunday afternoon after his uncharacteristically friendly behavior (“unbecoming of the club”) was escalated to Hells Angels club management. 

Gary “The Strangler” Strangelini, who is known by law enforcement as a Smoky Mountains “enforcer” and has served time for “choking punks out for being chumps,” was in “terrific spirits” just hours earlier, mechanics on the scene at the Smoky Mountains Harley-Davidson dealership told TTT reporters, having seen Strangelini earlier pick up his Harley-Davidson Electra Glide for the start of the riding season. “It’s been a snowy, long winter, so Gary was naturally in a good mood to get his hawg out there on the road for a ride,” remarked lead motorcycle mechanic Dusty Chaps as he took a swig from a large pitcher of beer that sat beside several greasy wrenches. “Heck, I felt like blowing a state trooper a kiss the other day when I rode Daisy through the park,” Chaps erupted in laughter while patting his belly and belching, pointing to a CVO Road Glide in the parking lot belonging to him. “If I hadn’t been worried about getting locked up, I’d’ve pulled over and given the lawman a sweet tap on the fanny, I tell you whut!”

Strangelini had been seen by a string of vehicles he’d passed to indiscriminately and energetically raise his arm up and wave gleefully. “We thought it was odd,” said area resident and legal receptionist Mary Dower. “I turned to [my husband] Chuck, laughed, and said, ‘That wasn’t your brother, Steve, or maybe Larry from down the block?” 

Dower later confirmed that the man she and her husband saw waving was neither of the men to which she thought he may have a passing resemblance. “I for the life of me couldn’t put my finger on it. On God’s green earth. I’m sorry! I don’t know who the heck that was!”

While it’s common practice among motorcyclists (particularly among Harley-Davidson owners, but not exclusively) to wave at each other, waving to strangers—a cager, no less—is generally not seen as proper and, rather, is often closely associated with psychosis, claims Middle Tennessee State University Anthropologist Harry Hogger, who’s spent 30 years studying the behavior of motorcycle clubs. “It’s simple. Cagers and bikers, like oil and water, don’t mix. Would you hug a bear? And I know what you’re thinking. But the bear isn’t a metaphor for the biker; it’s the darn cager! You gotta steer clear, lest get trampled!” 

Hogger, however, did remark that there is one appropriate “wave” a biker could offer to a “cager,” extending his middle finger and bursting out in hysterical laughter. Further reading: The common etiquette of the practice has been outlined by Axle Addict. 

Nonetheless, Strangelini persisted to wave gleefully and indiscriminately at strangers, and had it not been for his vehicle’s noisy Vance and Hines pipes, passing traffic would have heard Strangelini’s infectious giggling, said police officers who had taken him into custody and beaten him senselessly, referring to the joyful motorcyclist as “a sick creep!”

At press time, the City had called in an expert psychiatrist to examine Strangelini for signs of suspected insanity. Strangelini had reportedly been turned over to police by the very Hells Angels management that had excommunicated him. When Officer Dan Lewis, a motorcyclist himself and a member of the Smoky Mountain Police Motorcycle Unit, had inquired what the final straw leading to Strangelini’s ecommunication, Hells Angel Club President Blaze Newman simply said, “He waved at a freaking scooter, man!”