at first , richie thought the thunder five was a bunch of hoodlums , those big guys with scraggly shoulder-length hair and foaming beards roaring through town on their harleys , but one friday he happened to be standing alongside the one called mouse in the pay-window line , and mouse looked down at him and said something funny about how working for love never made the paycheck look bigger , and they got into a conversation that made richie bumstead 's head spin .