Endless late hours at the coffeehouse, talking about everything and anything till
four am. Everyone would yak about what groovy mod they were gonna throw on their
bike next, and what big bike they were gonna get when they had the cash. The big
bikes sometimes seemed like an unobtainable treasure, so far out of our wallets capabilities
as to be merely a pipe dream. That was fine though, it was allot more fun to talk
about it over another hot cup of caffinated mud in between rides and repairs. CrazyRob
talked about when he was gonna get his Harley, I was planning my Beemer and Eric
was going to build a magnificent machine from a thousand machined bits and drawings
that only he really understood.
Everyone would slowly show up as the sun would fall into the paltry downtown skyline.
We were on the edge between downtown and the "bad part of town"
known as Five Points. Muddy's was a pretty good size for a coffeehouse It had one
large room with lots of mismatched tables and illustrations of all the regular "older"
crowd thumbtacked up on the walls. The ceiling was made up of square brown Victorian
tiles, making it look like a big sagging chocolate bar. There were cow skulls and
a taxidermied iguana as wall hangings and big comfy secluded booths with reading
lamps.. The bar was up a couple of stairs and looked like it had been around for
decades. Our bartender Sheila was always there to welcome us with hot bottomless
cups of coffee and a warm smile. There was a loft full of books with a low ceiling
and little yellow leaded glass windows. There was also a small back room with a pool
table and a juke box that mystically always played "Blue Moon" when the
owners were back there doing "sticky hands", a type of slow Tai Chi sparring.
There was also a back patio where you could sit under the stars and a theater in
the basement where there were plays and performances from time to time. It was always
dark in the coffeehouse, it gave it that cozy feeling like a small cabin with a warm
fire.
So it was there we spent our nights, looking for girls to give rides to and talking
about whatever we found interesting. Usually a few times each night we'd ask the
waitress to hold our coffees and we'd all pile out the door to hop on the bikes and
buzz the yuppie cafe's. There wasn't much need to get to bed early. Allot of us didn't
really have to work, not because we didn't need the cash though. It seemed we were
at that age that nobody expects you to be working hard and trying to save for retirement.
It didn't matter that we wore the same ratty hole filled worn out jeans, or boots
held together with duct tape, or a leather jacket that was older than us and had
the lining falling out in sheets. Nobody expected us to be successful or big spenders
or bread winners. Most of us were single, broke and just having a good time. You
couldn't blame us either, we weren't old enough to drink legally and there weren't
any great jobs to be had. There just wasn't much pressure to be responsible and burn
our youth away for a college degree or working in the mailroom of a big company,
hoping to someday move up. The world didn't take us seriously yet, and we were reciprocal
in that attitude.
Restaurant jobs, that's where it was at! You work 70 hour weeks in the winter when
it's cold and crappy out. When you have nothing better to do than try to get some
cool bits for your ride and maybe sock away a few bucks for a big road trip the next
summer. Of course when spring came along all that cash would go into resurrecting
the bike from it's harsh treatment riding it through the winter. Anything that was
left over would go into yet more shiny new bits for the bike, a couple of used tapes
by The Cramps or Dead Kennedy's, a new pair of riding gloves and a cheapo pair of
blackframed, purple tinted KD sunglasses. In the summer the restaurants were slow
and you could get away with only working ten hours a week. After all why work when
you got a fast bike and the weather is perfect.
Helmets? we didn't need those then, with all of our crashes (usually at least one
bike would go over a week) and all the loopy riding, not one of us ever split our
heads open. It was more than just the invincibility of youth that some people talk
about, it was freedom. I know that sounds like a cheesy cliché', relating
motorcycles and youth to freedom, but it was. Freedom from responsibility, freedom
from worries about our future, freedom from the dogma of our society. We were reassured
of it every time any of the "adults" looked at us. We were just a bunch
of hooligans, having graduated from the smothering years of accusations of being
underachieving juvenile delinquents. Fuck what they thought though, they'd be getting
up at five am to go to a shit job shuffling papers and putting up with cranky bosses.
Fuck em, we were free of their world.
Waking up at 11:30 in the morning on a weekday with a pretty girl sleeping beside.
It didn't matter that I'd only slept four hours in the last three days, The guys
and I had ridden 350 miles in that time. Not to mention I'd fucked this girl next
to me for hours afterward. We didn't need rest, we were charged, amped up for anything,
and it was time for breakfast! The sound of roaring inline twin and four engines
as the whole gang would show up one by one outside the apartment building. Some of
em had been there before I even woke up. They had been changing a broken clutch cable
in the warm morning sunshine, in no hurry.
A quick shower after banging that gorgeous girl another time. I had met her at the
cafe the night before, things had gone very well. Brushing my teeth, throwing on
yesterdays jeans with a fresh pair of socks and boxers along with a nice t-shirt
with something really rude emblazoned on the front. The longest morning ritual was
buckling up the tall riding boots and finding my ignition keys. Then it was down
three fights of dingy stairs to the street to bring in another glorious day with
the gang of deadbeats and fuckoffs I was damn proud to be one of.
The usual go around of where to go for breakfast. A place would be agreed upon, usually
somewhere that we could park on the sidewalk and sit close to the bikes. Then it
was up, the loud roar of a dozen bikes and yelling hoolagans, bursting forth onto
the hot blacktop. Tearing though the empty streets, losing a few of the guys here
and there to stoplights or a thrown chain. Everyone would catch up pretty quickly
if they fell behind though, we all knew where we were going. The sound of grinding
metal and sparks as corners were carved up like a holiday ham. Lots of fooling around,
jumping up and down on the pegs, pulling wheelies, throwing burnouts, standing on
the seat, sitting on the tank, getting punched in the side by that girl on the back
of the bike for riding too fast. We'd all pull up to the cafe and onto the sidewalk.
Of course there was always the five minute wait because someone had a fouled plug
and was taking longer to get there. Then it was over the little fence and onto the
patio to move a couple of tables together. The waitresses were always happy to see
us, they didn't have to worry about us giving em a hard time or sending back the
eggs for being too soft. Half of the guys saying "I'm broke man, I'll just get
coffee". We'd all chip in if someone was really hungry, but we didn't really
seem to need food all that often either. Of course kicking down to get a good tip
for the waitress was a chore for some of the guys, but those of us who worked in
restaurants would always try to get things straight.
It was all the usual yapping about life. Who crashed, who pulled the ton, who got
a big speeding ticket, who got stranded and who got lucky making the rounds with
the girls. Where to ride, that always came up. Sometimes it would be over the state
line, sometimes it would only be to yet another cafe, or maybe to the Montbello house.
Crazyrob's dad had a full machine shop in the basement, and he and Eric could build
or modify anything, even change out a motor in a half hour. After some food and empty
planning for the day's events it was back on the bikes. A small sidetrack to drop
the girl off at home, then downtown to relax in the sun and slam down more coffee.
The Market, a big cafe on the downtown strip with a big patio and room for lotsa
bikes. There was a two hour parking limit so we'd always switch from one side of
the street to the other, until CrazyRob mixed up a chemical compound that made the
tires stickier and made the parking nazi chalk rub right off.
There was always the mystical piece of scratch paper, the rough blueprint for anything
could be created on a napkin or band flier with a borrowed pen or pencil. "Ya
wanna put a turbocharger on that thing? We can salvage one off of that rusting Baha
Bug in Jake's backyard" A turbocharger on a 400 Kawasaki was pretty pointless,
but it could be done. Of course that would mean hours in the garage and a bike that
was unrideable for a couple of days, not worth it by a longshot.
The hot sun baking on our faces and another dozen cups of coffee. Watching all the
pretty girls walking by, we practically made work out of it. Coming up with codes
as to not look conspicuous, it never really worked to well though. Staring led to
flirting, flirting led to fast rides around the block and that led to a phone number
or a planned meeting for more later that night.
As the afternoon waned on it was off to Montbello to polish and fix the bikes. A
hard romp through the industrial part of town and up onto the highway for a ten minute
blast doin the ton. A quick stop at the convenience store for some soda and then
off to the house to break out the tools and rags. An oil change, wire brush the spark
plugs, a quick splash of the hose and a bit of luv with the aluminum polish. The
tunes on the radio blaring, back when the local stations actually played good music.
Then the roundup of everyone and it was back to the city. Screaming down the highway
laughing at all the rush hour traffic on the other side. Back to downtown, to our
home, Muddy's Java Cafe. Sitting around the table, all of us with smiles on our faces
and another cup of hot java. The bikes on the cooling evening sidewalk out front.
It was summer, we were free, the world was ours, we were kings. |
