What Ever Happened to PT?

I was over at KT's site and a comment on one of her posts made me remember someone.

This person, I'll just call PT, was a biker I met at work. Being that I was only a kid at the time of twenty or twenty one, [This was a time in Georgia when the drinking age went from eighteen up to twenty then twenty one then back down then up] I got to like and was befriended by the OLB who was not long out of prison. His chopp was nothing fancy at all and was shot in primer with light rust here and there on the few, now dull, chrome parts.
(On my comment on the post my foggy memory was thinking I was in my truck but alas I remember now I was in my car. But that is neither here nore there and the rest of the comment is true. I'm sure I left something out from then but it happened the way I commented pretty close).

But back to PT. He was a hardcore biker unlike others I'd known up to that point. We would go to some pretty rough places and if he got in a fight with someone, he didn't stand there and argue with them. He didn't say things like "I'm going to beat your ass MF!" or have a conversation about how tough he was. Nope! You piss him off and wham! it was on. No talking or bullshitting around; no warning except maybe a look. Maybe.
To be honest about it I'd have to say he both scared me and intrigued me as well. PT was the type that if he borrowed money from you to get him to payday; it was paid back before he did anything else. He paid his debts first then played with what was left if anything. He didn't whine about how life had done him wrong or make excuses for himself on anything. If he screwed up he said he screwed up.
He had several tattoos but the one I remember was the one he had on his hand. Actually it was on his fingers that said "FTW" in a crude fashion.
He had not been out of prison for long; maybe a few months I think. He wanted me to go drinking with him so he could get tanked and hopefully get lucky. First stop was to get him some beer on the way. PBR was what he liked and he sucked 'em down like water. At the brawlroom he drank more and more. He eyed this girl across the room on the dance floor and went up and started talking and dancing with her. Now I'd been in a few places but this was one of the roughest dives for sure and I was watching my back just trying to make it out alive.
But PT comes over and says this girl will go home with him but I have to take her friend. Her friend sits down at the table with us and she's drunk as hell. She's grabbing at things under the table and telling me what she'd like to do. Says she'll do it right there under the table if I want. Well, she's pretty beastly looking to me, she stinks and is dirty and she's drunk and well, I decline the offer. That's not my style no matter what she looked like and only knowing her for around twenty minutes is not me. I have to have some kind of connection first.
Anyway, I'm turned off by her drunken stupor that I can't get through in words what all else.
PT is pissed off because I won't spend time with her and the one he's with won't leave with him. By this time he can hardly stand up himself and I can see what these two girls are really doing is looking for a couple of suckers. They want to be friends as long as the money holds out and then move on. Then we see that they are there with two guys who they invite over to sit and drink with us. They start that business that their girl friends aren't good enough for us and all that mess. They start trying to get PT in a fight and I'm trying to diffuse the situation; that PT is just drunk. I get PT outside to leave and then he tries to get out of the car to go back in with his Buck knife in his hand. I tell him it's not worth his going back to prison for.
Finally I'm able to get PT to leave and I drive him home and have to get his sister and her old man to help get him to his room.
At work the following Monday he's not talking to me as he's all pissed off about the brawlroom and his missing out on the women going home with him. I keep trying to talk to him but he won't do anything but glower at me. One of the others tells me to just leave him alone. Well he's a friend and it bugs me that he won't listen. So I go up to him the next day and he draws back to punch me and out of no where I swing and hit him first. Luckily Ben steps in between us and keeps me from getting my butt kicked. The look on PT's face is nothing like I'd seen before aimed at me. As soon as I'd swung I knew I'd made a mistake. But he walked away. He just walked away.

The next Monday he comes in after being at the brawlroom again and he makes a B-line towards me and I think "This is it, I'm Dead." The look on his face and the tone of his voice when he says he wants to talk to me has me pretty worried. Then he begins to smile and grabs me and gives me a big bear hug. He tells me that after seeing those two girls again before he got drunk that he can see I did him a huge favor. He also tells me that he respects me for taking that swing at him like I did and... For keeping him from doing something stupid with that knife that night. He said that only a true friend would go that far. He was upset that he had a restraining order saying that he could not see his own young son until he was eighteen. And then only if his son initiated it. The only time I heard him give an excuse about anything at all.
I hope he got to see his son again.

He gave me that knife when he moved along and I still have it in a drawer. It wasn't long after that I quit going to such places. Maybe he helped me too, to see the road I didn't want to take.

(P.S. I sit here thinking that for some reason, all my best friends give me a knife when we part ways on good terms. Why is that I wonder?)