| Phil 'Cheesesteak' Roche | Turner, Harvest and Ramirez | The Wilderness | 2020-04-10 | Excerpt from an unpublished Gazette interview with Philly ` Cheesesteak` Roche. Recorded one month prior to his passing.
Phil Roche, though everyone calls me Philly Cheesesteak or Cheese. Been in THR for all of 23 years now, runnin` the skred-show since Carl Badlands Tulley bled out about 11 year back.
It stands for Turner, Harvest and Ramirez, you`ve seen the offices above the Chinese supermarket? It was a three person bounty hunter collective waaay back. When Nathan Andrus started things up he bought their old offices for our HQ and we jus` never got around to changin` the signs. We started as bounty hunters `cos a lot of contracts still came to the offices, but over time the lines became blurred. Really frackin` blurred.
THR works like an agency - we usually got three or four crews running in different areas. We all work together, share spoils, rotate drivers when needed an keep the same rules. Currently we got 666 Samurai scouting out of Somerstown, Firelight Devils - a group of ex gladiators working the Gateway corridor, an my own unit, Lucky Sevens. We worked Elmsfield for a time but operatin` outta Camp Redemption for the forseeable.
I grew up in the favelas of Shantytown. You ever been? Its a skred-stain on the face of Evan. The first chance I got to escape was when a recruiter from THR offered me an` two buddies a fistful of dollars in return for takin` a car to Sarsfield and checking out the trade markets there. Sounded like easy money.
A few weeks later.. Dingo dead in a raider ambush, an` me and Fingers were fightin` for our lives in The Pit. It was only me who made it through, with these bite marks as a reminder. THR got me out of Firelight even though I was injured, untrained an hittin` the bottle pretty hard even then. I ain`t never looked back
Advice? Frack - a tough one. Remember any cars you got are replaceable, your people aint. Sometimes its better to take a walk in the desert when its lookin like Custers last stand.
Ive been in the Pit more than once and walked way more miles in the rads thats good for me. Ive seen good people and bad people die, some by my own hand, others by my bad judgement, most just cos luck is a perra.
I`ve broken most bones in my body and stutter when I don`t drink, which is pretty much only when I`m asleep but I`ve made it to see my daughter turn 25 and the birth of my grandson.
Not many punks from Shantytown can say that. |