A blue finch sang merrily from atop a gargoyle leering from the roof of the long, squat, black warehouse. The silver Special Agent Zebra Express, a tricked-up Thunder Mountain Custom Cycles 240 Blackhawk, rumbled outside Bandit’s sprawling lair in Wilmington. I sat patiently waiting for the tall iron gates to part, occasionally executing zesty throttle rolls on the fuck-stock 103 Screamin’ Eagle (you’d scream to if they did that to your intake), nipping from a sterling silver flask embodied with Louis 13th cognac; my lucky number. Bandit was late. He was having a fight with his concubine, Jailbait. Glass could be heard smashing against the marble pillars inside.
“But honey muffin, pussy willow,” Bandit whined. The shatter of glass. Unintelligible screaming. “But buttercup…”
This went on for some forty minutes until at last Bandit skulked out of his den, scowling.
“Mornin’!” I shouted heartily. I lit a 1997 Cohiba Esplendidos.
“Yeah, whatever,” Bandit snarled, straddling a new Big Dog Custom.
“Trouble with the missus?” I asked.
“Fuck you. Let’s ride.”
“Glorious weather, wouldn’t you say?” I asked.
Bandit popped the clutch and was gone in a roar of pipes and howling rubber tree.
“Merciful heavens, somebody got up on the wrong side of the prostitute this morning,” I commented as I gently eased out on the clutch of the 240 Blackhawk and pulled the first wheelie of the morning. The first wheelie of the morning is somewhat of a ritual with me. I use it to relax, to think things over, to mull the philosophies of great men and arrive at vast conclusions regarding the broader struggles mankind faces such as religion, fork rake and paint jobs.
I found Bandit sitting at a red light among the massive ships of Long Beach Harbor, glowering.
“Care for a cigar?” I asked.
“Yeah, give me one goddammit,” Bandit snapped.
“Sorry, fresh out,” I said, taking a drag. “Drink?” I asked, offering the flask.
Bandit snatched the silver flask from my gloved hand and tipped it up. He then held it above his head and looked down the empty neck.
“It’s empty,” he said blankly.
“Yes, well, that’s because I drank all of it waiting on you. But it was superb. The flask bounced off my helmet as Bandit roared through the red light.
“Such manners,” I said, picking the dented item up off the street and slipping it into its holster. “A trip to finishing school wouldn’t be wasted.”
The assignment was simple. Myself, Bandit, Eric “Straight Face” Ellis, Toph “Funny Man” Bocchiaro and Ernie “Gut Shot” Lopez were to take the five top factory-custom choppers in the world for a ride and road test. The story– to inform Gentle Readers as to the pros and cons of the world’s top choppers. These weren’t one-off Hitchhiker Specials. These were the real McCoy, CAD-designed choppers meant to be ridden beyond the city limits and state line. There would be no trailers. No “chase trucks”. And unlike other runs, this one had rules. Each man was supplied with one piece of T-Bag expanding luggage.
“You have to show up for the run with the bag in its smallest configuration,” Bandit ordered. “Then as we go and ‘acquire’ things, you’re allowed to expand it. But this is gonna be like the old days, the ‘70’s, when we didn’t roll out with forty fuckin’ pounds of laced undies and Crackberries. We rode, we stunk, we had a good time. No semi’s, no fancy trailers with fuckin’ corporate logos painted on ‘em. We sleep where we find a friendly woman, we wash when it rains.”
At the parking lot Bandit and I waited another hour for Straight Face, Funny Man and Gut Shot. I had a strategic advantage offered by the 240 Blackhawk, a pop-on, pop-off rear seat and sissy bar.
‘That’s handy,” Bandit noted when I showed him the two buttons required to snap the seat from solo to pay-ho.
“No, kind sir,” I corrected, “that’s common sense.”
“Since when did you have a British accent?” Bandit asked suspiciously.
“I’ve always held proud my mother tongue,” I shot back.
“Where the hell are they?” Bandit said, looking at his twirling Rolex in dismay.
“Must be late,” I offered, lighting up another Cuban ’95.
“You said you were out of those,” Bandit remarked.
“Must have lied,” I noted.
The boys finally rolled in. Straight Face rode a Hell Bound Steel. Gut Shot was on a Texas Choppers. Funny Man straddled a ponderous Bourget.
Bandit looked over the T-bags. They were compressed in their smallest form. But Gut Shot had a second bag strapped beneath his T-Bag.
“What the hell is this?” Bandit demanded. “Did you bring your douche bag?”
“It’s, uh, well, yeah,” Gut Shot countered. “I need my douche bag!”
Nobody brought a single tool beyond Bandit’s manicure kit. We were allowed one extra sock, a toothbrush with holes drilled in the handle for weight, one knife and one pistol of our choice. Bandit also carried the weighty paper map. I had bent the rules slightly and also brought Street Cuffs and a ski mask in case we met any nice ladies. Each man carried $5,000 in Primedia cash.
Rolling south on I-405 at 100 m.p.h. we made good time to San Diego. First stop, Heavy Cycle Customs, owned by Mike Maldonado. The 240 Blackhawk rode well, smooth, swift handling, breathing freely in the low triple digits. We passed cops, cops passed us, but there was no interaction. Perhaps our glorious rides let them know we were men to be reckoned with. Perhaps it was because we hid behind semis each time we encountered them. We may never know.
Maldonado was building a Tattoo Family custom chopper. He also had on hand a small tricycle.
“This is what I ride to work,” he told us, whizzing around the small shop on the flamed children’s tricycle, leering like a loon.
I made a note in my digital recorder. “Keep an eye on this Maldonado,” I told myself quietly. “He’s absorbed too much chrome polish.” A shotgun stood in the northwest corner of the shop. “And he’s armed.”
From Maldonado’s we rolled south to another custom shop, Josh’s Boars Nest. There we read girly magazines and Funny Man worked on his tan, stripping down to his purple thong and lying ass up in the grass next to a chopped and dropped ’67 Caddy.
“Want to rub some sunscreen on you?” Bandit asked.
“No, I’m fine,” Funny Man replied, smoking Thai Stick from a wooden pipe.
“Okay, but don’t get burned,” Bandit said. “Wrinkles the skin prematurely.”
Straight Face and Gut Shot fiddled with the paper map.
“Where we goin’?” Gut Shot asked.
“Shit if I know,” Bandit said, looking longingly at Funny Man.
“How do you use these paper maps anyway?” Gut Shot asked in frustration.
“Let’s go east,” I offered.
“East is good,” Straight Face said, mounting up.
“Besides, west is water. We’d be drowned,” I said.
“Yeah, I always liked east,” Gut Shot said.
“East is fine with me,” Funny Man added, putting his leathers back on. “Hey, Zebra, what’s the story on that chick that paints the leather?”
“Who, Ocular Diva?” I asked, clipping a new cigar.
“You motherfucker,” Bandit muttered, eyeing my new cigar.
“Yeah. She wild?” Funny Man asked.
“Oh, she’s wild all right.”
“Can you hook me up?” Funny Man asked.
“I want to go to that whorehouse in Tijuana,” Gut Shot whined.
“No whorehouses!” Bandit snapped. “This is a serious assignment. We’re to determine which of these fine motorsickles is the top factory-custom chopper in America.”
“Well, I can already tell you that,” I said blithely. “It’s mine. The Thunder Mountain Custom Cycles 240 Blackhawk. It has the longest name, the best paint job and it’ll outrun any of you popeyed faggots.”
An explosion of rubber and straight pipes shattered the air. I was left reeling in a fog of rubber smoke and gasoline fumes.
“Why you goosey swine,” I said, tearing off after the vanishing taillights.
We rode along back highways, highway 71, highway 75, Highway Buck Rogers, stopping every 20 miles or so for vital beer. In the town of something-or-other we had lunch at a Mexican cantina.
“Are we in Mexico?” Gut Shot asked hopefully. “I love Mexico…”
“No, goddammit! We can’t take these unregistered sumbitches south of that border. We’d never get ‘em home. The Federalies would be riding them in an hour.”Gut Shot looked south. A tear rolled down his dirty cheek.
“Ah Anna,” he sighed. “Where for art thou dear Anna?”
“How’s your bike ride?” I asked Funny Man.
“I need more beer to make a final analysis,” Funny Man said, beer foam on his mustache.
“What’s that grandma lookin’ at?” Straight Faced asked coldly.
I saw an elderly granny, 101 years of age, wearing a blue hat. She waived kindly.
“She’s flipping you the bird,” I said. “You gonna do somethin’ about it, or are you some Discovery-Channel cherry?”
Straight Face handily dispersed of her by chucking her over the bar.
“I keep wondering if we should race the bikes? Won’t everybody want to know which bike was fastest?” Funny Man asked.We rode hard for fifteen miles, then, exhausted and thirsty, we pulled over for beer at a non-descript country bar.
“In the old days,” Bandit said, slurping beer, “we didn’t have financial windshields like Discovery Channel. We didn’t worry about bottom lines or corporate horseshit. We were bikers, goddammit! We weren’t in it for the money, we were in it for the fun. We made livings welding steel and loading ships, selling guns, women, whatever it took to ride. We didn’t sell plastic bicycles from China in Wal-Mart. We rode what we liked, we didn’t give a damn if it won some prize awarded by a flaming Hollywood TV flit. We didn’t have agents. We had pistols. We didn’t have ratings. We had calibers. We cared about tire pressure and weather reports, not time slots and public relations firms. This industry has been infiltrated by pussies. It’s time for a purging”
Bandit was still in the bar ranting as we roared off.
The Excelsior-Henderson sounded like a small-block 8. We were standing outside a small custom-builder’s shop in Wucheesee, California.
Bandit threw a leg over, slipping off the clutch before getting his feet on the pegs. He let out a girlish shriek and roared through a stop sign, sending cars in the small town sideways across the intersection. One plowed into a nearby candy store, the “Lolita & Lollipops”, causing three young girls to sail out the back door squealing in fear. Funny Man was off on foot in hot pursuit.
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!” he shouted as he sprinted down the street, cigarette clutched in his front teeth.
I sat with Straight Face and Gut Shot on the curb, awaiting Bandit’s return.
“We need more beer,” I noted.
“We need Mexico,” Gut Shot moaned. “Mexican whores are so dirty.”
“We need raises,” Straight Faced added.
Funny Man came back, winded, sucking hard on a cig.
“Jesus, those minxes were quick,” he wheezed.
“What size tire you runnin’ on that Bourget?” I asked.
“A 600,” Funny Man replied.
“How’s it ride?”
“I’ll need some mushrooms to tell you for sure,” Funny Man stated.
“Mine would ride great to the Mexican border,” Gut Shot lamented.
Bandit came limping up. His pants were torn, his Superman underwear showed through from the rear. His glasses were shattered. One tooth was missing.
“Runs great!” Bandit said, grinning. “Brakes could be stickier.”
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Wucheesee,” Bandit said, taking a hit off my beer. “Last known home of the Excelsior-Henderson.”
That night we drank and lied at the home of Joe Smithershot, former owner of Excelsior-Henderson.
“This run?” Funny Man asked, cranking an Excelsior-Henderson parked next to the pool table.
“It ain’t got oil!” Smithershot cried as the bike fired up, then seized.
“Oh,” Funny Man said. “Better not run it without oil.”
“How far are we from Mexico?” Gut Shot whined.
“You can see Tijuana from the balcony,” Smithershot replied, pouring whiskey.
“Bandit, I didn’t know you had a brother,” I said, looking closely at a photo in the Number One issue of In the Wind.
“I don’t.”
I showed Bandit the picture. It was dated 1971.
“Well skip to ma lou,” Bandit exclaimed. “That’s me!”
“You wore a wig in the ‘70’s?” I asked.
“No. That’s real hair. I mean, yeah, I wore wigs all the time, but I wasn’t wearing one in that photo,” Bandit added. “The chest hair, that was fake.”Straight Face and Gut Shot perused the rag.
“Lotta guns and nude women,” Straight Face remarked.
“And wheelies,” Gut Shot said.
“Why can’t we print stuff like this?” Straight Face asked, pointing out a photo of Bandit riding with a naked mime on the back of his ’74 chop.
“We CAN!” Bandit exclaimed, slinging Jack all over me. “We must! We have to get motorcycling back to its core! Good times! That’s what it was all about. Fuck the whiners and their alleged $100,000 bikes. Fuck the good guys trying to make Disney Land out of a lifestyle. I hereby order you to print the wildest, most outlandish material you can find, henceforth.” Bandit finished off his drink.
“Can we print the part where you said Primedia was run by a bunch of corporate robots and boot-lickers?” I asked.
“No, you can’t run that,” Bandit countered soberly. “Heavens, I could lose my pension.”
By the end of the night Gut Shot was hanging off the balcony screaming south for his long lost love, Big Lucy. Funny Man was getting cozy with the 13-year old daughter of Smithershot. The polka, “Thunder and Lightening” by Johann Strauss, skipped along in lively fashion from the jukebox. Straight Face was reading the Number One over and over again mumbling to himself, “I can’t believe they got away with printing this stuff. These guys were real bikers.” Bandit was weeping and blowing his nose on a silk bra he’d produced from his coat pocket and bemoaning the state of affairs of motorcycling.
The next morning, just before dawn, amid the straight-pipe snores of Funny Man and Straight Face, I heard Bandit mumble in his sleep, “Men, we’ve been on this ship a long time and I’ve come to admire you all. Just remember, what happened on the boat, stays on the boat.” Then he let out a curious giggle. I immediately rushed to the balcony and vomited toward Mexico.
We rode hard all day and covered nearly 100 miles and 671 bars and beer stops along the grueling route to Idyllwild, California.
Idyllwild is a small village hidden in high mountains. We had to ride a dirt road the last seven miles to even make the city limits, which are marked by an archway of deer antlers and bear skulls. It’s home to people who need to hide, have something to hide or just plain should be hidden from proper society. It’s a pretty, unassuming village where Truman Capote once ducked the feds for crimes against nature.
“We’ll camp here,” Bandit said, hurling his T-bag into the large cabin. “We stay put until they burn us out.”
“Who?” Funny Man asked.
“I don’t know,” Bandit replied. “Surely somebody’s after us. There’s always somebody after bikers!”
“There is?” Gut Shot asked, swinging his leg back over his motorcycle and preparing to ride.
“Where’s the pussy?” I asked.
“In town,” Bandit said. “But don’t go down there. It’s too dangerous.”
“Bullshit, after dinner we ride,” I said.
“Okay, but I warned you,” Bandit said.
We ate a lavish dinner of wild buck, boar, pheasant and crushed peas served on leaves of banana. The imported Czech beer went down by the gallon. Everything was available to us in the secret Hot Bike cabin. Except women.
“Where are the hookers?” Straight Face demanded, swigging beer, becoming more and more surly by the minute.
“If we were in Mexico, we’d have plenty,” Gut Shot added bitterly.
“You want hookers, gotta go into town…” Bandit snarled.
“Fuck you, I’m going.” I stomped down the long flight of wooden stairs. The others came. All but Bandit.
“You’ll be sorry,” Bandit said in a sing-song voice. Then he laughed uproariously to himself, then he faded into dark weeping.
“Come on,” I said. “This is pathetic. Let’s ride.”
We arrived in the center of the flagging metropolis at 9:00 p.m. There was one pizza parlor and one bar. No other signs of life.I armed the alarm on the 240 Blawkhawk, then locked the front forks, then set the pager on my belt.
“You’re paranoid,” Gut Shot told me.
“Fuck you man,” I snarled, suddenly paranoid.
“It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you.”
Gut Shot recoiled and drew a blade.
“Back off man,” he said, “I’m a member of the Brown Recluse gang.”
“Anybody seen my pipe?” Funny Man asked.
“Speaking of pipes, I’m thinking of replacing this Kerker with a trombone. Anybody here ever seen that before? Probably have to re-jet it,” I noted.
The bar was a terrifying array of vertical family trees. A narrow creature, no more than six inches wide at any point approached and barked at us.
“Why is she making that sound?” Funny Man asked, placing a bar stool between himself and the hissing, snarling creature.
“Four beers you wretched abortion!” I shouted. The creature retreated into a dark hole that stank of rotting beer. “Careful man,” I cautioned, don’t let ‘em think for a minute that you’re afraid. If they do, they’ll pack jump us like wolves.
Here the story gets somewhat off track from what would otherwise be a standard article about road testing factory-custom choppers. Of course a beautiful woman was involved. Or what would have to pass for one on that lonely, snow-covered mountaintop. She said she was a federal agent, and I believed her. But she was the only good-looking woman more than six inches wide in the entire place.
“Hi, what’s your blood type?” she asked, smiling pleasantly.
“What?” Straight Face retorted.
“Bartender! Drinks are on Primedia!” I shouted. A general alarm ensued.
Her name…was…
“…we gotta get outta here, Zebra!” Gut Shot hissed into my ear… “…is that thing real?” “…another round!” Skinnies swirling about, singing. “We’re all so beautiful!” Funny Man was screaming… …overturning tables…falling bottles… …hysterical laughter… …dancing now, no matter what keep up with the band, never lag behind the band, the music will keep you s… “…to the bikes!” “…faster! They’re gaining on us!” “Where’s the road?”
Mountain roads…darkness, diving elk…screaming big twins…factory customs pushed far beyond limits and stress tests ceilings…sliding, sliding, rubber working above and beyond…is that Funny Man waving goodbye?
The cabin, slam the iron gates, secure them with the Bourget…running up the stairs, carrying the one woman we managed to find…not so narrow this one…and so soft…did the Hellbound Steel get dropped…?
She smiles, pulls a front tooth from her head, busts into maniacal laughter. It’s a what? A homing device…? Your who? Boyfriend? You never said anything about a boyfriend. He’s the one who put the homing tooth in your head? With a what? Hammer? Hammer. Jesus! A hammer? Bandit shouting. Some sort of problem at the front gate. Get your gear! Fire ‘em up! Locals on the way! A lynching?! Something about four bikers tearing up a bar!
“At least let us see the tits,” Straight Face keeps pleading. “Nipple studs!”
Just like old times. Issue One coming to life now. Glory and hellfire, buckshot and cinched-down helmets. Bandit is mounted on the rumbling Big Dog, goggles on, a tense look on his face, S&S held at a steady redline, ready, ready… Funny Man struggles to turn the quarter-mile long Bourget in the driveway, crashes into Straight Face, knocks him off his Texas Chopper Devil Blender. “We should have gone to Mexico!” Gut Shot is screaming. Little Miss Radio is on the balcony, wailing with laughter, playing a violin? No, that’s a raccoon she’s strangling…
Dancing light. Good fairies? No, torches. Coming up the mountain. The Blackhawk clears its throat, always the gentleman, even in times of strife. Fire all around us now. Oh they’ll burn us alive all right. Bandit’s taillights, so pretty, see how it twinkles in the distance? Cool winds. Black night. Ride deeper into the black. Darkness is the biker’s friend…
Back at the Republic of Literature in Hollywood I take stock of the events of the weekend. We rode some 5,000 miles according to my haphazard notes. Stole 20 women and four head of cows. Killed three men. Is this right? Always trust the notes. The notes know. The memory fades. I look at the tooth. That’s a transmitting chip in it all right.
The 240 Blackhawk sits in the garage, still covered in beer, tequila, blood and bug shells. Did Bandit make it out alive? Were we really in Idyllwild? Is Idyllwild a state of mind? Did Gut Shot survive the crash? What was the squat green man trying to tell us?
Gentle Reader, only two words of advice came from that hellish road test. Ride a 240 Blackhawk and never ride through the state of mind known as, Idyllwild.
Special Agent Zebra
The Republic of Literature
Therepublicofliterature.blogspot.com
