(no subject)
When I was just into my teens and friend of mine and I used to hang around this bike shop in Folsom name of Bicycles Plus. We were heavy into the BMX and when we were too lazy to ride, we'd go to the shop and laze around. We'd hang out in the back with the older fellas that worked there who were also riders. We looked up to them because they were badasses and they had our dream job. They'd fuck around in a shop, building bikes and eating McDonalds and when they got out to ride they were ridiculously good. We wanted to be a part of what they were and in a way I suppose we were, they let us hang around so there it is there. Sometimes my friend and I would build bikes in exchange for parts and whatever. After awhile though, it got to where we were building bikes to just not over-stay our welcome and that was fine with the owner so we were cool with that, the free parts were an afterthought anyway.
There at the shop, the help treated us like little brothers, sometimes offering the lived in advice a man of 24 might have to pass on to a 14 year old and sometimes fucking with us. Some of those times, relentlessly. Like the time when Nate The Mormon, who was working there to build a cash cow to fund his "mission" in South America, would whip us with bare brake cables which, when you consider it, are about as thick as some middlin piano strings. Bare metal, "WHACK!!!"
It got to where the boss had to tell him to mellow out but he didn't want to so he kept on, and we suffered.
Perhaps Nate The Mormon was overcome by the spirit. Or maybe overcome by what was really possessing him, that Devil frustration, welling up in his eyes like a the virgin he was and what doesn't get released below is channeled through his hands in anger.
But fuck that poetry I tend to fall into, this story's about another fellow worked there, a guy stunted in his mental growth, a dog whose desire to fit in took him to the tree and beyond and if you don't know what I mean by that, you soon will. This story needs no drawn out telling, its character needs no lines drawn on his face to show his sorrows by me. He needs no history back through his generations to find where the problem reared its head in his upbringing because this is not a tale of sadness nor is it one of revenge with the twist of empathy for the villain so as to endear him to the reader just before the lynching. No, it's a humorous story through and through.
Sean Dehart, sort of tallish, if I remember right, almost as old as the other employees at the shop, and large, as in wide, and unlike most large as in wide people I'd ever known, he lacked the qualities that most large as in wide people have. I myself was once large as in wide and I don't recall being a spoonful of baking chocolate bitter and hateful towards my younger and smaller friends but this guy was. The sad thing about all this was he only acted that way because he thought that's what all the other guys working at the shop were doing, he mistook their quid pro quo hassling of us for just beating up the smaller guys. See, we had the brains and could hurt with words whereas they, the workers, could injure us, it was a give and take situation, one might spit in one of our sodas and we would speak the truth about his crosseyed girlfriend. Dehart didn't seem to see it this way, he just wanted to belong and so fucking with us out of school was how he spent his day. He was a follower and never once the leader and when the day was done, he wanted us to hang out with because the older guys wouldn't have him.
Back at the shop I remember a time when they used to throw all the old tires and innertubes up into the tree over the gully behind the shop until the city came and told them they had to get them all out and the owner made Dehart go up the tree and get them. Back then his nickname was Doughboy and all I can remember was Doughboy, halfway up the tree, dragging his weight over the bark and an old man we all called J.D's Dad hollering "SHIMMY ON UP THAT TREE DOUGHY!!! YOU FUCKIN' PUSSY!!!" And Doughy wanted to belong bad enough that he sure as hell shimmied on up that tree, complaining all the way, scared to death.
He took lip from everybody just to belong and for me, when I see that, I spy weakness and I want to get rid of it, so I've got no sympathy for these that make these beds for themselves.
When the time was right, he followed, from the days of the shop on out into the future, the the scene for most was mini-trucks, he wanted a mini-truck. When that scene shifted to lowered classic cars, he got himself an early 50's chevy and tricked it out. Everything, from the hairstyles to the speech patterns to the costly cars to his likes and dislikes so personal you'd wonder why, would shift with the waves of his peers, and when that wave shifted to 5.0 Ford Mustangs, his life would change forever.
Here's the story as I heard it. Doughboy got himself a Mustang and thought, as always, that he was hot shit. Hot like Mongoose McKuen, hot like Pomona Drags hot. I hear he was at a light on Sunrise Blvd when he decides he wants to race a car beside him (The son of a bitch couldn't even race a bicycle, what made him think he could race a car? Lord knows). The light turns green and doughboy and his 5.0 Mustang go racing off into infamy, the tree of infamy, and Doughy loses a leg.
NOW, that's not the end of the story. Were it to end there, you'd leave here with a little sadness and sympathy for the boy who should have learned a lesson, that being "just because your friends have hot rod Fords and you have a hot rod Ford and they race those hot rod Fords without EVER receiving a scratch does not make it right and does not mean you will not succumb to the tree of suffering and pain. The same lesson being "Just because someone else has and does something does not mean you have to too." If we left the story at that, you may not sleep at night for worry and pray for the boy who could no longer shimmy on up that tree. Granted, it his own damn fault he shimmied INTO the tree but, like I said, his want to live another's life was undeterred by the loss of his leg and was perhaps stirred into a boiling desire, cooking his resolve till the water steamed off and his coveting of others existences burned up the bottom of the pan. Do you see? He just doesn't learn.
And here we go...
The trends shifted, it was no longer 5.0 Mustangs, it was no longer lowered Chevys, it was no longer mini-trucks, and it was no longer BMX and the bike shop. It was harley fuckin' Davidsons.
His parents up and moved to arizona and he, being out of work, went with them. He got himself a prosthetic leg and life was looking up. I don't know who he started hanging out with but he got that Harley bug and so, as he usually does, he got himself a Harley and became a biker. A rough and tumble-appearing Folsom suburb native biker, in Arizona, no less. Lookin' tough.
Now, picture if you will, the highway, well wait... more like the freeway, but paved anyway, german war helmet, leather from his neck to his five only toes. Doughy on his Iron Horse, the road screaming its anthem beneath he and his American machine. The rubber to the wheel to the chain to the growling motor slaving to the fist twisting the throttle. The fire in his soul, the feeling of being alive for just once, and...
"PIIIIIIFFFFFFF"
Off. Flies. His. Peg. Leg. Gone. His prosthetic leg just flew right the hell off on the freeway.
There at the shop, the help treated us like little brothers, sometimes offering the lived in advice a man of 24 might have to pass on to a 14 year old and sometimes fucking with us. Some of those times, relentlessly. Like the time when Nate The Mormon, who was working there to build a cash cow to fund his "mission" in South America, would whip us with bare brake cables which, when you consider it, are about as thick as some middlin piano strings. Bare metal, "WHACK!!!"
It got to where the boss had to tell him to mellow out but he didn't want to so he kept on, and we suffered.
Perhaps Nate The Mormon was overcome by the spirit. Or maybe overcome by what was really possessing him, that Devil frustration, welling up in his eyes like a the virgin he was and what doesn't get released below is channeled through his hands in anger.
But fuck that poetry I tend to fall into, this story's about another fellow worked there, a guy stunted in his mental growth, a dog whose desire to fit in took him to the tree and beyond and if you don't know what I mean by that, you soon will. This story needs no drawn out telling, its character needs no lines drawn on his face to show his sorrows by me. He needs no history back through his generations to find where the problem reared its head in his upbringing because this is not a tale of sadness nor is it one of revenge with the twist of empathy for the villain so as to endear him to the reader just before the lynching. No, it's a humorous story through and through.
Sean Dehart, sort of tallish, if I remember right, almost as old as the other employees at the shop, and large, as in wide, and unlike most large as in wide people I'd ever known, he lacked the qualities that most large as in wide people have. I myself was once large as in wide and I don't recall being a spoonful of baking chocolate bitter and hateful towards my younger and smaller friends but this guy was. The sad thing about all this was he only acted that way because he thought that's what all the other guys working at the shop were doing, he mistook their quid pro quo hassling of us for just beating up the smaller guys. See, we had the brains and could hurt with words whereas they, the workers, could injure us, it was a give and take situation, one might spit in one of our sodas and we would speak the truth about his crosseyed girlfriend. Dehart didn't seem to see it this way, he just wanted to belong and so fucking with us out of school was how he spent his day. He was a follower and never once the leader and when the day was done, he wanted us to hang out with because the older guys wouldn't have him.
Back at the shop I remember a time when they used to throw all the old tires and innertubes up into the tree over the gully behind the shop until the city came and told them they had to get them all out and the owner made Dehart go up the tree and get them. Back then his nickname was Doughboy and all I can remember was Doughboy, halfway up the tree, dragging his weight over the bark and an old man we all called J.D's Dad hollering "SHIMMY ON UP THAT TREE DOUGHY!!! YOU FUCKIN' PUSSY!!!" And Doughy wanted to belong bad enough that he sure as hell shimmied on up that tree, complaining all the way, scared to death.
He took lip from everybody just to belong and for me, when I see that, I spy weakness and I want to get rid of it, so I've got no sympathy for these that make these beds for themselves.
When the time was right, he followed, from the days of the shop on out into the future, the the scene for most was mini-trucks, he wanted a mini-truck. When that scene shifted to lowered classic cars, he got himself an early 50's chevy and tricked it out. Everything, from the hairstyles to the speech patterns to the costly cars to his likes and dislikes so personal you'd wonder why, would shift with the waves of his peers, and when that wave shifted to 5.0 Ford Mustangs, his life would change forever.
Here's the story as I heard it. Doughboy got himself a Mustang and thought, as always, that he was hot shit. Hot like Mongoose McKuen, hot like Pomona Drags hot. I hear he was at a light on Sunrise Blvd when he decides he wants to race a car beside him (The son of a bitch couldn't even race a bicycle, what made him think he could race a car? Lord knows). The light turns green and doughboy and his 5.0 Mustang go racing off into infamy, the tree of infamy, and Doughy loses a leg.
NOW, that's not the end of the story. Were it to end there, you'd leave here with a little sadness and sympathy for the boy who should have learned a lesson, that being "just because your friends have hot rod Fords and you have a hot rod Ford and they race those hot rod Fords without EVER receiving a scratch does not make it right and does not mean you will not succumb to the tree of suffering and pain. The same lesson being "Just because someone else has and does something does not mean you have to too." If we left the story at that, you may not sleep at night for worry and pray for the boy who could no longer shimmy on up that tree. Granted, it his own damn fault he shimmied INTO the tree but, like I said, his want to live another's life was undeterred by the loss of his leg and was perhaps stirred into a boiling desire, cooking his resolve till the water steamed off and his coveting of others existences burned up the bottom of the pan. Do you see? He just doesn't learn.
And here we go...
The trends shifted, it was no longer 5.0 Mustangs, it was no longer lowered Chevys, it was no longer mini-trucks, and it was no longer BMX and the bike shop. It was harley fuckin' Davidsons.
His parents up and moved to arizona and he, being out of work, went with them. He got himself a prosthetic leg and life was looking up. I don't know who he started hanging out with but he got that Harley bug and so, as he usually does, he got himself a Harley and became a biker. A rough and tumble-appearing Folsom suburb native biker, in Arizona, no less. Lookin' tough.
Now, picture if you will, the highway, well wait... more like the freeway, but paved anyway, german war helmet, leather from his neck to his five only toes. Doughy on his Iron Horse, the road screaming its anthem beneath he and his American machine. The rubber to the wheel to the chain to the growling motor slaving to the fist twisting the throttle. The fire in his soul, the feeling of being alive for just once, and...
"PIIIIIIFFFFFFF"
Off. Flies. His. Peg. Leg. Gone. His prosthetic leg just flew right the hell off on the freeway.