A couple of months ago on a dreary over-cast So Cal day, the phone rang. It had a different tone. You know, the tone of a teacher calling to report bad grades, a psycho girlfriend calling to say good-bye for the 13th time, or the call from a paint shop that lost your frame. That level of ominous tingling from the phone is terrifying. Bandit gets all the calls. I never get a call. It was the DEA retirement fund.
“Mr. Snake,” the voice snapped on the other end of the line like the thugs from American Express, when you’re late. “We know you were in a club and we’re going to trump up some RICO charges against you, put you away and throw away the key.”
“Why,” I said in my best “I’m innocent” voice?
“Our retirement fund is low and we need some hot indictments,” he said, and I was blown away by his candid approach.
“I’m not worth the powder to blow me to hell,” I said.
“I know,” but we need to scare you into snitching off your closest friends.”
“Haven’t you heard of the ‘Code of the West’,” I asked defiantly?
“Fuck the code, you’re going down,” he pumped up his bad ass routine and I pondered losing everything I had, when I could just snitch off some other sap. I could keep my women and my world class biker trash lifestyle. But if Bandit caught me, I was toast. I was toast anyway, daily.
“Whose it going to be,” I asked shaking in my boots?
“We know you’re close to Lee and Brenda Clemens, at Departure Bike works,” The cop muttered as if he was reading from a file. “Lee did time when he was 8 years old. By the DEA code, once you do time you’re bad forever. He’s got a big shop in Richmond, Virginia. We’re sure it’s a Ecstasy.”
My mind started to whirl. I could write the first Bikernet expose on a drug dealing shop, get all the guys busted, have free parts and take all the Departure women home with me. It started to sound promising. “So what’s the deal?”
“You’ve known Clemens for some 20 years, right,” the cop asked as if he didn’t care how I answered? I was snagged. “He trusts you, right? We’re going to send you into Richmond for his 33rd shop anniversary, wire you, and get the goods to take the shop down.”
“I get to keep the parts, right,” I inquired?
“Sure, sure,” he said. “Just make the bust.”
“And the girls?”
“Just make the bust,” He muttered, “or you’re going down.” and slammed the phone.
I kicked back and pondered all the snitch stories I had heard over the years, all the guys who turned on their brothers and friends. I pondered their excuses, fears and greed. I packed my shit and flew to Richmond. Before I left the airport I was convinced that it was a E lab and someone was getting away with murder. The roof leaked, the walls were framed, but the drywall had been hung fourteen times. They hang it, it rains, they tear it down, it dries out and they hang the shit again. Maybe the drywall was full of Meth and they sold the powder and started over.
I had second thoughts about my mission, but every time I tried to cop out, the cop blasted me with a tazer they had taped to my side. I’m sure Lee thought the dancing jumping bean at his side was just another strange Californian.
“Where’s the E, Lee,” I asked shortly after arrival?
“What,” he snapped?
“Oh nothing,” I said?
“How you doin’,” Lee asked?
“I’m fine, but tired. Got anything that’ll keep me going,” I asked? It was 9:00 in the morning as we headed toward the shop. I was rethinking my mission, until I was given a tour of the shop on the drizzly morning of their 33rd Anniversary. I didn’t know whether it was me, my mission or the staff that seemed whacked. Lee didn’t come around the shop much anymore, except when Brenda called a red Alert. Everyone looked at me, as if I was an undercover cop. I wasn’t, I was a snitch. What’s worse?
Let me see if I can paint a clear rendition of my investigation. Before the party I peered in every office and closet of the shop. I rustled through the engine rebuilding area run by Billy who is 40, lives with his folks and goes out with strippers.
I checked the parts stock room and a girl confronted me while going through the drawers and counting all the hose clamps. “What the hell are you doing?” she snapped. She was wearing a patch, “Radiator Hose, MC.” I shut the door and backed away. I checked the service department that was lined with mechanics and bikes to work on. Stephan, the high school intern, was the only guy who would speak to me, but he kept asking my name.
“Snake,” I answered.
“Good to meet you,” he returned.
“Clean shop,” I said.
“Where,” he said? “Who are you?”
And the process started over. I kept tapping the mic taped to my chest after he repeated this scenario three time. I realized his memory was shot. I ran into RB, a customer rolling around the vast service center on a shop stool checking the numbers on every Shovelhead.
“What are you doing,” I asked?
“I own three ’66 Shovelheads,” he said. “I buy every‘66 that rolls into the shop.”
Then a hot blond strolled into the shop as I tried to make a case for tax evasion by counting receipts in Brenda’s office. She made flywheels, used as door stops, melt. It was Tracy, Lee and Brenda’s daughter who married Justin another shop employee. Nobody could tell me what he did, though.
The crowd lined up at the front door for the celebration and no one let them in. I found a key under the door mat and unlocked the door. Shop owners rolled in from all over the state. Customers from far and wide lined up at the counter to purchase T-shirts, but the counterman didn’t show up.
A small blonde rider pulled on my sleeve and glare into my eyes:
Shovelhead, Shovelhead,” he said, “made of steel.
Fastest thing on two wheels.
By Dark of night or light of day,
God help the Panhead that gets in the way.”I looked at him and he glared at me. “That’s from the heart of a Virginian,” he said and cracked open another beer.
The line expanded at the counter yet there was still no help. I went to the service department and Lee was tuning on a bike, changing the oil in another and replacing the front end seals on a Sportster.
”There’s no one at the counter,” I said to Lee while eyeing the 10 mechanics shooting craps against the far wall.
”Where’s Brenda,” Lee said and asked me to grab him a case of oil. I ran to the oil bin and snatched a case then returned to the counter. Brenda, a slight women with agile feet was trying to help two lines of customers. “I need some hose clamps,” she said and I knew just where to look.
I passed through the machine shop where Greg, a large company employee was playing grab ass with his girlfriend Kate and another half dozen employees were watching a local pin striper, who looked just like Johnny Chop, stripe a massive shop vice. With beers in hand they followed him from the vice to a band saw. Customers grabbed beers and followed.
Andrew, the shop fab guy, wrenched on the shop project bike, which we will feature in the near future. He proudly pointed out their frame table and the variations of neck positioning. He was the only employee in the shop working. I couldn’t figure it out.
I just nodded at the assortment of tube benders, lathes, milling machines and frame tables and returned to help Brenda at the counter. I ran from the Chrome exchange wall to the service center to take Lee parts. In the showroom I ran across a customer eyeing one of the bikes for sale. Four Salesmen stood in the corner sipping coffee and eating anniversary cake. I tried to fill in.
The sales guys weren’t interested. They were celebrating the 33rd with bullshit tales of salesmen’s lore. I didn’t get it, but Lee needed a quart of front end fluid in the back and I dodged, sweating, between family, friends, riding buddies and law enforcement agents who were testing the water, the coffee and beer. It was crowded.
As I filled for the no-count salesmen and bagged shirts at the counter for Brenda, then a big sucka pushed me aside. “What the hell are you doing. You don’t work here,” He said.
“Who the fuck are you,” I said?
“I’m Hose Clamp, the bouncer,” he snapped and poked me in the chest.
“I’ll buy it,” the customer said pulling on my sweaty shirt sleave while Hose Clamp punched me in the chest. That did it. I was out of there. I wasn’t snitching off anyone. These people were nuts. They needed an E lab. I jogged out to the street caught a cab and jammed back to the airport. That does it. I’ll never be a snitch again.
