Bandit gave me this assignment a week ago, after a three-daydrunk. I was just comin’ around and, as usual, was on my last financialleg when someone dragged me out from under the work bench and said, “Ifyou want money to eat, here’s your assignment.” It was this tallOriental bookkeeper with big tits and a smile that would meltconnecting rods. Her name is Sin Wu and she works for Bandit doingodds and ends and sexual favors while studying for a degree at CalState Long Beach. If she ever graduates, we’re fucked. And if Iwasn’t a stone alcoholic, I’d be in love.
I would bet she pestered Bandit for a week tryingto get an assignment for me. Part of my problem is that I fuck upmore than I accomplish. I admit it. I procrastinate, avoid and forget more work than I care to admit.So when she leaned over me and gave me a shot at that motivational cleavage, I brightened.This job was a chance to redeem myself to my brothers. Bandit left me an address and a one-line assignment:”Find C.J. and write about his engraving business. You’ve got a week.” There was also an envelope, whichcontained the key to a Big Dog 107-inch Mastif. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Sin leaned realclose to me, avoiding my beer and puke breath, and whispered in my ear, “Take care of that puppy.” Thenshe squeezed me. I felt like Julia Roberts had just moved in with me. I went to work.
With the taste of her lips on my cheek and 107 inches of purethunder between my legs, I rolled past the docks to Jesse James’ WestCoast Choppers, where C.J. had been engraving flames, spider webs andJesse’s Iron Cross into a set of shorty exhausts, along with all kinds of other really wild stuff. Man, he engraves things on metal that I hadn’t evendreamed of. He wasn’t there, but I talked to some of the guys and they alllooked a little gun shy, like I was a known snitch trying to collect money for a mafia boss. It seems C.J. was the president of a major Southern California outlaw club for quite a few years, until he went to prison for a second time. I was beginning to squirm. The foreman at Jesse’s shop told me to go back to the harbor to an old machine shop where some of the club guys hang out. SuddenlyI wished I was on an all-black Shovelhead, but that Big Dog made mefeel like a weight lifter with a fresh shot of steroids. I was havinga blast. I pulled up in front of the no-name machine shop and thepipes reverberated off the tin walls as if I’d ridden up on a 4-pointearthquake. Three of the meanest looking old-world bikers walked upto the opening of the dark shop and looked down at me. “I’m here tosee C.J.,” I said.
“The hell you are.” One reached behind the door and came awaywith a 6-foot length of 3-inch pipe. Something told me I had come tothe wrong place. As the arching steel tube whistled over my head, Itested the power of that Big Dog for the first time. One of the otherguys spat at the ground and shouted to go check out the old Barris shop inLynwood. I was scared to shit as I cut a dusty trail out of theindustrial side of the harbor. Barris’s shop no longer exists, but Ifound out that C.J. hangs in the north Long Beach/Compton area, so I wentto a couple of bars he was rumored to frequent. I was shown thedamage he had inflicted on several occasions, then I was escorted to thedoor. Sheeeeiiiitt!
The more I found out about C.J., the more tentative I got. Hewas a self-taught customizer in the mid ’50s. He used to hang around theold Barris shop, where he picked up on pin striping from Dean Jeffries.Every once in a while, ol’ Von Dutch would come around and give him a fewpointers. In 1971, a bike he built and painted for a friend won the best ofshow award for paint at the Long Beach Custom Car and Bike Show,which at the time was one of the most prestigious events on the West Coast.
On to Page 2………
