I’m writing this in 2013 and life is scrambling. Bikernet has tripled in size, my girl left me, and we have two Bonneville projects rolling. We are more involved in the industry than ever before, and the projects in this old hotel never end. Plus, we are two weeks from Christmas 2013 and it’s Friday the 13th. Hang on! We are riding to two events this weekend, and had a building full of folks last weekend for the Ultimate Builder Show in Long Beach, the David Mann Chopperfest in Ventura, and the MoonEyes show in Irvine.
So if I stumble some, don’t mind me. This story takes me back. In fact, I swear it’s etched in stone somewhere in the massive maze of Bikernet Archives, but what the hell. It’s a good one about simpler times, youthful sex and Al Green. This takes me back to about 1970, before I worked for Easyriders. I was a biker wearing all black, just a leather welding coat dyed black over a grubby parka. I was going to college on the G.I. Bill and working part time at U.S. Choppers off Imperial Highway in South Gate just north of Long Beach going toward downtown Los Angeles. I never washed my Levis and they were coated in grease and road grime.
I begged for this job. I worked doing anything mechanical and welding. I was maybe 22 years old and severely inexperienced, but I had a strong work ethic. I learned how to build a stroker motor out of my ’66 Long Beach cop bike Shovel from Bob George, the builder of the Easyriders streamliner. We slipped 80-inch UL flywheels into my cases. I learned how to weld and mess around a machine shop from my dad, and at a Long Beach trade college.
I was working in this chopper shop run by George the Greek, who ultimately owned Bellflower Harley-Davidson. It was grubby and dark, with a long wooden bench along one wall. My boss, Bob-something, was a custom fabricator, and a good one. He built some wild bikes over the years. He asked me to braze a sissybar and repair it. He offered me a stand-up drill press, since he just bought a new bench drill press. I took him up on the offer and still have that drill press today.
So I’m working in the back, minding my own business and in bounces this chick. She’s dark, sorta Mexican looking, but I found out she was part Indian. She strolled into the shop wearing tight Levis, a black tee that enhanced the curve of her big plump boobs, and a dark satin vest, with some sort of pattern mixed with the sheen of black satin. But her big dark eyes and those succulent lips caught my attention, and then she said it.
“What are you doing, stranger?”
“Just workin’ ma’am,” I replied.
“I always try any new tools in the shop and you’re the new tool,” she said, and jumped up and sat her plump ass on the old wooden bench.
I got up from sitting on a work stool where I was wrenching on an old Panhead.
“You’re a tall one,” she said, as I approached, and smiled. Her smile was a torch against a frozen heart.
Those lips, the curve of her cute mouth and those eyes could rock any 20-something’s world, and then she spread her legs and I slipped between them.
She kissed me like she wanted to devour my soul. As soon as she had me firing on more cylinders that I knew I had, she peeled out, but we had a mission planned. She lived in Montebello, not more than 15 miles away, and she gave me precise directions.
I didn’t know this chick from Adam, her past, or even her current affiliations, but I had her taste on my young lips and I wasn’t letting go. I had a mission.
My Shovel was a rat with lots of handmade welded components. The stroker motor was stuffed into a ’55 Pan wishbone frame, with 1/2–inch rake and an 8-over glide front end.
The time was set for 10:00 and I peeled out on the dark Long Beach freeway after smoking a joint of Hawaiian bud. The summer night air felt good on my face as I peeled onto the 710 and goosed the quick throttle. The freeway roamed away from the coast and into the industrial side of the city. Traveled mostly by trucks, I peeled along past one industrial complex after another.
It was dark, foreboding, packed with concrete, and rumbling truckers, and I was stoned and peeling to see a new girl. What could be better?
I slid off the freeway in Montebello and pulled to an intersection. Everywhere I looked the signs were written in Spanish. I asked a guy on the corner for directions and he didn’t speak English. This was 1970, and I felt as if I stepped into the Twilight Zone.
I shot down an alley behind a main street and red lights flashed. I was immediately pulled over and the first question was “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“What the fuck is it to you?” I muttered under my breath.
“This isn’t the place for a white boy,” one officer said, but they cut me loose.
I found my way to a little duplex with a yard full of scooters and rough-looking characters, mostly Mexican, sitting around drinking. I rolled up like I owned the place, kicked out my kickstand and strolled up to her apartment door.
I’ll never forget listening to Al Green’s latest hit luring me inside. She smiled just as before and kissed me in a way that washes any trepidation away. When I felt those big boobs as soft as heaven against my chest, nothing could be wrong and no one could fuck with me. I was in heaven.
We smoked another joint listened to Al’s first album and were swept away. She loved to fuck and so did I. I consumed every inch of her and about three in the morning, I rode out of Montebello and headed home.
There’s nothing better in the world than to find a willing girl who loves to please and be pleasured. And there’s no high in the world like the ride home from her pad after a night of lovemaking. I think my carb could have fallen off and, oblivious to the missing component, I would have still motored back to Long Beach.
