American Outlaw (22 page)

“It’s ridiculous,” I complained to Karla, that evening. “Why should I be putting my energy toward a team that actually resents me for doing the best job I can?”

“Maybe you should give notice,” she suggested. “That doesn’t sound like a very healthy environment.”

“I’d love to,” I said. “But we’re not exactly doing a million in retail yet, are we?”

I’d set up a space in the garage where I could build my fat fenders, and I’d manufactured a few of them from raw material. My design was good, and my craftsmanship looked up to par; I’d put one over the rear wheel on my Harley and to me, it looked pretty damn cool. But a nagging problem remained: Who was I going to
sell
them to?

I was stumped. On top of the issue of sales, my problems seemed magnified by a shadow of doubt: try as I might, I couldn’t quite accept the idea that I could actually become a successful person by starting my own motorcycle business. When we were growing up, the biker world simply wasn’t respectable—it was for Hells Angels and speed freaks. Even though I loved this work, the thought of a man working steadily at this particular craft to support his family still seemed a bit foreign to me.

And I wasn’t the only one having doubts.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” Karla said. “Because, I’m actually curious. But I mean, why would anyone pay so much for a motorcycle
fender
?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I admitted. I placed my hand on her growing belly to soothe me. “It is kind of odd, when you stop to think about it.”

“I mean, why do guys care so much about bikes in the first place?” Karla wondered, her arms folded.

“Beats me,” I said. “One of life’s greater mysteries.”

But somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that there was a pretty good answer to Karla’s question. Motorcycle fans saw themselves as rebels, just like punks did. Rejecting the status quo of society generally takes a certain kind of courage, but more than that, it takes
style.

I was a jock turned delinquent turned bodyguard turned welder. I knew my market: men. They were ex-cons, trespassers, and reprobates; but more, they were guys who saw themselves as fitting in somewhere outside of normal. A fierce-looking chopper was their indispensable outlaw badge. When they thought about peeling out, riding into the desert, boots smoking with the speed of the ride, I wanted Jesse James and West Coast Choppers to be the first name off their lips.

“Yep, honey,” I said to Karla, affectionately running my hand over her stomach once more. “Pretty weird. I really have no idea why anyone gives a damn.”

——

So for the time being, I stayed on at Boyd’s, ignoring the dirty looks my coworkers sent my way. Fuck them, it wasn’t like Boyd had given me a Porsche. At night, I hung with my lady and teased her about being pregnant.

“Hey, you want one?” I asked, motioning to my beer.

“Real funny, Jesse,” she sniffed. “God, I wish you could be pregnant for just one day, and see how easy it is.”

“I got troubles of my own,” I cried. “I’m out there trying to start a business! Make a buck for this little baby!”

“Who are you trying to sell your fenders to, Jesse?” Karla asked.

“Well,” I said, “I took a few to the swap meet last weekend.”

“Are you serious?” Karla laughed. “The
swap
meet? Did you actually sell any?”

“One,” I admitted, embarrassed. “Look, I understand the swap meet, okay? That’s where I grew up.”

“Okay,” Karla said, looking serious. “No more fooling around. It’s time for us to get cracking. What we need to do is go around to some
shops
. We need to get you to a place where someone might buy, like,
ten
of your fenders.”

“Maybe Performance would want some,” I mused.

“There you go,” Karla said. “We’ll start there. Where else?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s probably about ten bike shops in the area we could try.”

Karla grinned. “So what are we waiting for?”

Karla was right. Most of the bike shops we talked to liked fenders, and agreed to take on a couple right away, to see if they’d sell to customers. And immediately, they did. I started receiving progressively more excited phone calls from store owners, demanding that I furnish them with more custom fenders.

“This is incredible!” I told Karla. “I mean . . . I can’t believe it. People really like these things!”

“Of course,” Karla said, sounding authoritative. “A chopper really looks good with a wide back wheel, covered by a fat fender.” She giggled. “Don’t it?”

Soon, the orders began piling in. From one week to the next, they doubled in size. Then tripled. My margin was great: I was selling each fender for several hundred dollars, and reaping a nice profit on each piece.

One day, Karla approached me with a snooty look on her face.

“As West Coast Choppers’ official business manager,” she announced, “I request a meeting with our chief Grease-Monkey-in-Charge.”

I laughed. “What is it?”

“Jesse, I’ve been looking over the books,” Karla said, her voice filling with rising excitement. “You’re making more on your fenders than at the hot rod shop.”

I was completely taken aback. “That must be a mistake.”

“It’s not, babe. I checked the numbers three times. Honestly, it almost doesn’t make sense for you to keep on working there.”

“But I
like
those guys,” I said, after a second. “And I owe a lot to Boyd.”

“And we have a baby on the way,” Karla reminded me, patting her stomach. “Just think for a second. Imagine how much we could be earning if you decided to put all your time toward your own business.”

I was silent for a moment. “I’ll think about it.”

But the breaking point came soon. One evening, when Karla was nine months pregnant and huge, she approached me cautiously. “Hon,” she said, “do you know how much West Coast Choppers cleared this week?”

“Nope,” I said honestly. But I knew it had to be a lot. I had stayed up most of each night working to fulfill massive orders from independent bike shops, then rising early as usual to get to Boyd’s. I was beyond exhausted.

“Ten thousand dollars,” she said quietly.

I was amazed. I stood there and said nothing.

“It’s time for you to resign, Jesse,” she said gently. “Like, today.”

——

So I quit. Our garage up on Hackett Avenue wasn’t going to hold me anymore. It had gotten so full of tools, it’d take me forty-five minutes to move everything around before I could even have a space to work. I had a mill, a lathe, and a paint booth, all smashed together in a two-car garage.

“Do you think you might help me find a space?” I asked Doyle Gammel, a few days after I left the hot rod shop.

“Kid, you are truly an idiot to leave Boyd,” he sighed. “But yeah, sure, I’ll help you if you want.”

I let out a breath, relieved.

“Hell, I’ll even
rent
to you,” Doyle said. “Look, I got five thousand square feet on Minnesota Avenue, and about half of that’s going to waste. My weight machines aren’t moving like they used to.”

Over the years, Doyle had shifted gears, moving from constructing hot rods to making custom gym equipment for the California prison system.

“You do great work,” I said. “The felons of our society thank you.”

“Fuck you, okay?” Doyle replied. “There’s money in prisons.”

To start, I rented a single carport from him—an area about as big as a patio.

“What do you think?” Doyle asked, watching me load my tools and workbench into the space.

“It’s great,” I said, enthusiastically. “But watch out. I won’t be in just one carport for long, you can bet on that. Soon I’m gonna be taking over your whole shop, Gammel.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, Jesse. But you’re a good kid. You remind me of your dad. Always working,” Doyle said. “He stored his antiques and furniture across the street from here, way back in the seventies, do you remember that?”

“Sure, I remember,” I said.

“Now, that was a
greasy
sonofabitch!” Doyle laughed. “Man, that guy had so many swindles going, it was incredible. Do you remember the time . . .”

“Doyle?” I interrupted. “Do you ever talk to him? I mean, like, these days?”

“Nope,” Doyle said. “I haven’t spoken to him in years.” He looked at me. “You guys aren’t in touch very often, then, I suppose?”

“Understatement.” I laughed bitterly.

“Well, you know, maybe there’s still hope. Reconciliations can happen at the oddest of times.”

I just shook my head. “Doyle, my girlfriend’s nine months pregnant, and he doesn’t even know her name.”

Two friends of mine from the neighborhood, Fast Eddie and Jim Lillegard, came over to keep me company at the shop on one of the first days I was there. Although the new shop was pretty tiny, it still
felt vast and empty compared to my own garage. I didn’t have any orders for the day, and the shop was barren of activity. My tools, scattered all over the place, looked silly and useless to me in their inactive state.

I couldn’t help but think:
Man, what if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew?

Jim leaned over to Eddie and chuckled. “He’ll be out of business in a month.”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, we’ll see,” I said, finally.

Maybe I’m a stubborn sort of guy or something, and maybe I’m a little too sensitive for my own good. But that particular comment has stayed in the front of my mind for the better part of twenty years.

I’ll show you, motherfuckers.

I had no marketing team, and West Coast Choppers had zero name recognition. My only ace in the hole was
quality.
If the motorcycle scene had a dirty little secret, it was this: ever since the 1950s, Harleys had used great motors in their bikes, but their accessories were just sort of shoddy. They cut corners and had as much of their manufacturing done overseas as they could possibly get away with. A few other builders had made a name for themselves producing quality peripherals, but for the most part, no one was very dedicated to making motorcycle components that looked really stunning.

“I don’t care how much this costs to make, or how high the final price is,” I told Karla at home that night. “I am gonna make
bitching
stuff. That’s all I care about.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, breathless.

“I’m going to put my name on it,” I promised. “Jesse James and West Coast Choppers. Hey, did I tell you, I want to use this Maltese cross as our logo? People are going to go crazy, it looks so hard-core.”

“Jesse,” Karla said, her voice taking on a warning tone that, in my enthusiasm, I completely ignored.

“I mean, if people want good stuff, they should have to pay for it,” I said. “And I think they’re gonna cough up the dough, no problem! This is the right stuff, at the right time. Don’t you think?”

“JESSE!” Karla yelled. “The
baby
is coming!”

We jumped in the car and sped down to Long Beach Medical. With me having quit Boyd’s, we had no health insurance, but I had fender money.

“How will you be paying for the room, sir?” a nurse said to me snidely, looking at my long greasy hair and tattooed arms. “Medicaid, sir?”

I showed her my wad. “Cash.”

Funny how good they treated us after that. Karla got the biggest room around, and when her labor continued late into the evening, I was allowed to stay there with her overnight.

“Don’t leave me, okay?” she said, gripping my hand.

“Hell, I thought you were tough,” I chided her. “Thought I had a wildcat for a girlfriend, but I guess I was wrong.”

“Don’t leave,” she whispered.

“I won’t,” I promised her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Karla suffered through twenty-six hours of labor, through screams and grunts and sweats. And I stayed right there with her. I was by her side when the doctor helped a baby out from within her.

“It’s a girl,” he announced, holding her up for me to see.

I almost fainted.
A girl?
I thought.
Couldn’t be.

But then a feeling came over me, the strongest feeling I’d ever felt. I looked at my baby, and it was the oddest thing: I loved her instantly. I loved her more than anyone I’d ever met in my life. I was a father. Instantly, my life had changed. I had a daughter.

——

We named our daughter Chandler. Suddenly, I had two strong new forces in my life: a new baby and a new business I was trying my damnedest to grow. The challenges of both made me very happy.

“Let’s take her up to the Laughlin River Run,” I said to Karla.

“Jesse!” she said. “She’s just an infant.”

“Yeah, but she’s a
badass
infant,” I said, matter-of-factly. “And I’d like her to come to a motorcycle show with her dad.”

So Karla and I drove up to Laughlin, Nevada, with Chandler in tow. She was so small that we strapped her down to a seat with a motorcycle tie-on. I was nervous on the way up: I wanted to hurry up and get our brand out there. We set up in our booth and for the entire first day, attracted very little business.

“Is this even worth the trip?” I grumbled.

“Patience, sweetie, patience,” Karla advised. But I could tell she was feeling nervous, as well.

The second day began in much the same fashion: as they passed by, customers looked with interest at the wide fenders we had out on display, but not a single soul plunked his money down to purchase one.

“This is bullshit,” I said, slamming my hand on the table. “I’m gonna break us down early. We’re heading back to Long Beach.”

But just then, a guy named Skeeter Todd, who worked for a distributor named Custom Chrome, stopped by the booth. He looked the merchandise over with a discerning eye.

“You know what?” Skeeter said, finally. “I’ll buy as many of these as you can make.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked him, laughing, unable to believe my ears.

“No, these are great. You gotta come to Morgan Hill, though, and meet the distributor, Steve.” He looked at me seriously. “I think we can make you a hell of a lot of money, Jesse.”

Custom Chrome, at the time, was the biggest motorcycle parts distributor in the world. It was a very big deal to get an appointment with them. Karla and I celebrated hard that night.