American Outlaw

by James, Jesse

  “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.

  “I wish to make a toast!” I cried, holding up a beer in our seedy Laughlin hotel room. “To good ol’ Skeeter!”

  “What’s his last name?” Karla asked. Chandler was cradled in her arms, and she slept soundly. “You shouldn’t toast someone without putting his last name into it.”

  That stopped me. “Man,” I said. I thought
as hard as I could. “I can’t remember that dude’s last name.”

  Karla remained unfazed. “To Skeeter,” she announced regally.

  “Hey, no!” I cried, remembering: “To Skeeter TODD!” I swigged my bottle of Coors, putting it down easy. Then, in victory, because I was feeling so good, I cracked open a fresh one.

  ——

  The following Monday morning, I headed up to Custom Chrome to talk business with Steve Fisk, their head of distribution, a big guy who had been around forever. You didn’t get as high up in the food chain as Steve was without being sharp as hell. He was quick-talking, crude, and was said to be fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese.

  “You do excellent work, Jesse,” Fisk said.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said. “Skeeter was telling me you might want to buy a good number of pieces.”

  “That’s right,” Fisk agreed. “I’m thinking a hundred dollars a fender, too.”

  “A hundred dollars a fender seems a little low, Steve,” I told him calmly.

  He shrugged. “Well, that’s your opinion, Jesse. But keep in mind that we have suppliers over in China, and they’re very capable of duplicating an oversized fender like yours.”

  “No, they can’t,” I said, just as calmly.

  He stared at me. “And what makes you say that?”

  “Just a hunch,” I said. “I mean, why would we be standing here and having this conversation, if you could get my product in China, for less money than I want?” Keeping my voice at an even keel, I continued. “You’re trying to okeydoke me, Steve, but I’m sorry to tell you—I’m not that guy.”

  Fisk said nothing for a moment. Then he spoke. “What is it you want?”

  “I want three things,” I said. “I want two-fifty per fender. I want a minimum initial order of one hundred pieces of each size. And the biggest thing, I want my name on each of my fenders: Jesse James, West Coast Choppers.”

  He snorted. “Why would we do that?”

  “Cause it’s no deal if you don’t,” I said. “I’m not stupid, Steve. These fenders are gonna sell like crazy for you—they’re gonna make both of us a lot of money. And if my product’s out there, I want it advertising my brand, not yours.”

  We stared each other down for a few moments. “You’re a cocksucker,” Fisk said.

  “Yup.”

  He sighed, defeated. “I’ll call the legal department. We’ll get the papers drawn up.”

  From that moment on, West Coast Choppers became a recognized entity. We never looked back. Our logo was part of it. Some people thought it was like a swastika, but it wasn’t, it was a Maltese cross, a symbol of valor and strength. Besides having been popular with hot rodders and motorcycle enthusiasts for many years, the symbol happens to be on every fire truck in the nation.

  I didn’t mind the controversy, though. Whatever brought us more attention, I was for it. We were a new company, and we needed brand recognition. And after a very short amount of time, it began to happen for us. My fenders sold swiftly for Custom Chrome, and soon, other distributors began to knock on the door with increasing interest. I was able to take on my first employee, a welder-fabricator friend of mine named Rick Henry. He tried to help me shoulder the increasingly large load. But demand just kept on growing.

  One morning, I received a phone call from a guy named Jay Sedlicek. Jay lived in Iowa. He’d gotten to know me a few years back when he’d bought some products from Performance Machine.

  “I called Perry today and asked for you,” said Jay. “He said you’d gone into business for yourself.”

  “True enough,” I said. “I’m doing custom fenders, mostly. Need some?”

  “Actually,” Jay said, “I need a whole bike. Can you do that for me?”

  “Man, that sounds like fun.”

  It was precisely the challenge I’d been waiting for. I’d done paint work, exhaust pipes and wheels, and of course, by this time, I had fenders down pat. But Jay Sedlicek was the first guy who wanted a whole bike made to order.

  “Great,” Jay said. “What’s the deposit you need?”

  “How do you mean?”

  He laughed. “How much money do you want in advance?”

  I thought it over. “If you send me a check for twenty-five thousand we can get this thing popping right away.”

  To my utter surprise, he did it. Jay Sedlicek was customer number one. He wanted a flat-track Sportster, a modern XR-750 with big brakes and cool wheels. Beyond that, all the design specs would be up to me.

  Hmmm, I thought. Let’s see . . .

  I bought a used bike and tore it down completely, right down to the bare frame. From there, I began to carefully build it up from the ground, constructing a gas tank, fashioning a dual stainless exhaust system, and forming custom wheels and fenders. I even designed a shaped aluminum exhaust cover, using old-school methods: hammer and mallet. It was the first time I’d tried to make an organic shape out of metal. In the end, it looked pretty gorgeous.

  Of course, me being me, I wrecked the bike on its first test drive, trying to pop a wheelie at breakneck speed.

  “You freakin’ idiot,” I mumbled, lying on the ground, dazed and bleeding.

  So I had to start from square one and bust my ass again to rework it in time for the deadline. But in the end, the job got done. The check stayed cashed. Jay never knew.

  The orders kept coming—at a pace that surprised even me.

  “Shit, you think we can keep up?” I asked Rick.

  “I don’t know, Jesse,” he said doubtfully. “If this keeps up, you gotta let me hire someone.”

  Our turning point was the day we installed a fax machine in the office. Now distributors could simply fax me purchase orders for the parts they wanted, instead of calling up and haggling with a human being.

  “Goddammit!” Rick would cry, frustrated, every time he’d hear the mechanical screech of the fax machine go off, followed by the sounds of an order being printed. “How are we ever going to get ahead?”

  That thing used to go all day. Orders for tens of thousands of dollars used to stream in, hour after hour. It was almost magical. But I was working constantly, and it was wildly stressful. I was sleeping about three hours a night. Still, when I was building a crate in the driveway outside of Doyle’s to ship a $20,000 order that I did in one week, it made it all worth it, and then some. For the first time in my entire life, I truly felt successful.

  “You’re looking good,” Karla told me one night when I’d finally dragged myself home to our tiny house. “Tired, but good.”

  “I’m happy,” I told her.

  “We’re really doing it, huh?” Karla asked.

  “Yeah, I guess we are. It’s kind of amazing.” I opened up the refrigerator and took out a beer. I took a drink from it, and looked my girlfriend over for a long second. “You know, you look really good, too. I think being a mom agrees with you.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Definitely,” I said. “Are you the hottest mom in Long Beach?”

  She socked me on the shoulder. “Jesse, you’re such a sweetheart.”

  I opened up the refrigerator again and stared into the pale light. “We have anything to eat in here?”

  “Oh,” Karla said. “I made some pasta. Chandler and I ate earlier. But I think it was mostly her eating, and me cleaning up.” She laughed. “Go on ahead and take a shower. I’ll heat it up.”

  I kissed her. “Thank you. You’re the best.”

  “I know,” said Karla, moving past me, lighting the gas on the stove. “Now, if you will please go wash yourself, I would be eternally grateful. You smell like burned tires or something.”

  I kissed her on the back of her neck. In the next room, our baby daughter slept an untroubled sleep. In my heart, I knew things could never get better than this moment. Somehow, we’d made it to the top.

  10

  We just got bigger and bigger.

  Orders piled up. I hired another welder, a dude from El Salvador named Eduar
do. He had attitude: “I can weld all day, so just watch me.” I watched him. I purchased another planishing hammer, so me and Rick could both work on shaping metal at the same time. All day long, the pneumatic hammers would pound metal . . . BAMBAMBAMBAM! It was a fine orchestra: the sssstth of the welding torch, sending sparks flying up over Eduardo’s darkened helmet, the constant crreeeeecch of the fax machine . . . plus the Circle Jerks and Bad Brains and Suicidal Tendencies . . . I brought a huge Peavey amp and a pair of thousand-dollar Pioneer speakers . . . a finger touching the dial delicately . . . music smashing up against my eardrums . . . the din hurting my head . . .

  “Turn off that fucking music!”

  “Oh, sorry Doyle,” I said, laughing. “I didn’t see you there. This is how my team works, man!” I turned down the tunes and shut down my planisher. “That better?”

  “No,” he shouted. “My ears are bleeding. Your music sucks.”

  “Aw, stop moaning, you big baby,” I said. “Hey, Doyle, I think I’m gonna need to hire some polishers soon. This is way too much for me and Rick to handle. You know anyone?”

  “How much you paying? I might take the job on myself. My weight machines aren’t selling for shit,” he sniffed. “This is crazy, what’s going on here, Jesse.”

  “Told you, Doyle,” I said modestly. “Didn’t I say I was gonna need more space soon?”

  “Well, do you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about what direction I want to go in. This fender shit pays the bills, but I want to shift over to making whole bikes.”

  “Better money?”

  “Better everything,” I said. “See, I got a picture in my head of the kind of bikes I want to see. No one’s making them. Everyone’s caught up on that same old shit—”

  “Grandiose fucker,” Doyle interrupted me. “Sure, I’ll rent you some more space. Take over this whole building for all I care, man.”

  Shifting over to creating entire custom bikes seemed like the next natural step for West Coast Choppers. I didn’t see a future in building fenders and exhaust pipes for the rest of my life. I might be able to make a living at it, but if I limited myself to making parts, then I might as well be a machine. There was probably more money in selling customs, anyway. You involved the buyer in the decision-making process, and then charged him handsomely for the privilege of weighing in on the particulars of the design.