Becoming A Son

by David Labrava

  “You better.” I said. I knew he wouldn’t. I knew I was on my own. I had no money on my books so I started drawing on envelopes and post cards right away to get items off the commissary. After a few days of not hearing from Carl and watching other guys make bail I called some friends in Florida who helped me make bail.

  I got out and got back to Arizona on the next flight.

  On the plane I tried to see the good in this situation. It was hard but I realized once again it’s all a test in this life. I was offered dope and I refused. That was the test. I smiled thinking I had passed the first big test in a very long time.

  57

  I made it back to Arizona and told them a story how one of my family members in Florida was sick and I had to postpone my enrollment. The school was very cool. They had enough going on with students coming and going and dropping in and out. They had no idea I had gotten arrested and offered to switch my campus enrollment to their other facility in Orlando Florida if I needed to. This was now an option I had not thought of.

  I had to stay in Arizona and keep flying back and forth to San Diego while I went through the motions of going to court. I would meet Carl there and we would stay in a hotel right near the court. Carl had a high dollar attorney and I had a court appointed one. The first parts of the case went quick, arraignments, hearings, discovery, pre trial, the whole bit. It took about two months to get to the pre trial.

  As the case started Carl’s attorney stood up and addressed the court.

  “Your Honor, before we begin, and in the interest of saving the court time and money my client would like to make a statement.”

  “Go ahead.” The Judge said. Carl stood up.

  “Sir. I want to say I grew that weed up in Washington and drove it down here myself to sell it. My co defendant here had nothing to do with it all. He was just giving me a ride. He didn’t even know the weed was in the car.”

  “Is that it?” The Judge asked.

  “Yes Sir.”

  “Sit down.”

  The Judge called the attorneys up to his bench and they had a little conference. They came back and the Judge called my name. I stood up next to my attorney.

  “Yes your Honor.” I had been in court enough times to know how to address the Judge.

  “I’m looking at your rap sheet and it seems like you get in trouble every two or three years.” He looked at me but I didn’t say anything. He looked back at the paperwork.

  “In light of what your co defendant said, and the fact that your attorney has stated you are about to start school, which is true, is that correct?”

  “Yes your honor.”

  “This court shall impose three years of supervised probation. Report to the court clerk.”

  “Thank you your Honor.”

  “Try to stay out of trouble son.”

  I looked at Carl and shook his hand. We didn’t say anything. Nothing needed to be said. I never saw Carl again after that. Not in my life.

  I couldn’t wait to leave the west. I had already done all the paperwork to show I had family in Florida, which is the only way I could transfer my probation.

  Once again I was on a mission. This was a wake up call from HELL. I now knew I could never ever let my guard down again.

  I had learned enough to not let it stop me though. I wasn’t going to beat myself up over the past. I couldn’t change it and I knew it. Got to just keep moving forward.

  I got another u haul trailer and packed up my stuff and headed for Orlando Florida.

  My dream was very far away in distance and also in time but I never lost focus. I wanted to understand the motorcycle front to back. I wanted to own my own bikes and live over seas in Holland and ride with the friends I had made earlier in life. I could say I wanted to go back in time before many of my big mistakes and start again. Go back to a better time in life. But you can never go back. Only forward. Three steps forward and two steps back.

  It took three days to get to Florida. I would drive without the radio only stopping only for gas. Just driving in the silence with only the thoughts in my head to keep me company. I had a lot on my mind. I wasn’t in any more of a rush than what the state had given me to report to probation. I had seven days to get to Florida. I wanted to find a place and get situated. I was going to school in Orlando and working in Melbourne at Choppers Inc. Which was the premiere Chopper building shops on the East Coast. I grew up in Miami with the guy who owned it named Billy and he agreed to give me a job. I wanted to find a place to live in between the two.

  I knew I had to be careful up in Northern Florida. Laws are different up there. It is redneck city. I never had formal probation before. I had informal probation a couple of times but that’s like nothing at all. Basically just stay out of trouble. I knew this was going to be different. Reporting in, pissing in a cup, not being able to smoke weed. I knew this was going to be tough. I knew I had to get my living and working situation together right away. My money was running out fast like always. I always worked and had a scheme going. Always hustling. All my friends were hustlers. But now I had no real hustle. I had to find one.

  Albie was my friend and a hustler just like me. He was one of the first people I met when I got to Orlando for school. We had met almost a year previously, but only on the phone. We met in a strange way. I couldn’t cross the border to get up north into Canada but I was the one that had the connections.

  Albie wanted those connections. He was up North and I wasn’t. I was in Bellingham Washington, which was as far North as I was able to go. I got no business in Canada. Too cold up there for me anyway. My friend Davey set the whole thing up. He was also from Florida. That’s how shit worked. This guy wants to meet that guy and if you set that meeting up and they work and make out good, you get paid. And you might be getting paid for years, if you were lucky, and if you established your mark which I did.

  Davey handed me the phone.

  “Albie wants to talk to you.” I took the phone.

  “Whats up. We gonna make this happen or what?”

  “That depends on you.” I said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Pretty simple. You send the coin right now. The coin is for the connection. You get it? You send it like immediately and you get to meet the guy. You don’t send it, I come up there, you do not meet the guy, I do the deal, it’s a one time deal and that’s it. Take it or leave it.” Albie had no idea I couldn’t come up there if I wanted to.

  “Call you in an hour.” He said.

  “Good choice.” I said before I hung up. The money was there in fifteen minutes and everything went smooth as silk. I met Albie after I had been in Melbourne about two months. He met me at a gas station to but some of my glass pipes. He walked up with a huge smile.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You are man. I been dying to meet you since the border.” We became best friends immediately.

  I rented a house in St. Cloud Florida which is was about forty five miles from Melbourne Florida, and about twenty miles to the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute, ‘M.M.I.’ in Orlando which was in the other direction just to give you an idea. School was from 5:30 P.M. to 11:30 P.M. That gave me enough time to work all day in Melbourne, then get back to go to school at night.

  The probation officer I got, Mr. Wallace was a serious man. A church going, dare to keep kids off drugs type of man. In other words he found his calling being a probation officer. He let me know this fact as he stood behind me while I pissed into a cup the first time. He let me know if I give a dirty test he would do everything in his power to see that I serve the remainder of my sentence incarcerated.

  I already had a problem with authority, so having to report and having him call me and having to take piss tests didn’t sit well with me. Most people back then described me as a problem case, a guy with an attitude. It was the first time I had been absolutely straight since I started smoking at ten years old. My motivation was to stay out of jail, to stay my course and get back to Holland.
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  I wanted to understand motorcycles. I didn’t necessarily want to make my living turning wrenches, which I did for a few years, as much as I wanted to be able to fix my own motorcycle. I grew up with friends that were total motor heads, and I could never engage in those conversations about motor work and I wanted to.

  Making it through school for eighteen months was no easy trick either. The drop out rate was more than fifty percent. And not necessarily for the math or mechanics but keeping life together in a foreign place proved difficult for many of the students. Most of the students came from somewhere other than Orlando, and holding a job and not falling into the temptations that are on every corner in Florida proved too difficult for many.

  I was getting the best of both worlds. At the school I was getting a Harley Davidson accredited education. At Choppers Inc. I was getting a first hand education in Choppin’ Wackin’ and Zappin’ . The guy who ran the shop and owned it, Billy was an absolute Wizard at building bikes. He didn’t just order parts and assemble a bike as much as he he MADE his own parts. Or went to the junk yard to find old parts and make them work. A bike from Choppers Inc. was an absolute piece of custom made art that you could tear it up and down the street on.

  I started building my own chopper on the weekends and after work. I could already tig weld pretty good from doing glass work. All my friends had custom Choppers. The real big rear end tire’s were just coming out. The bike I built had the second 230 series tire ever put on a bike.

  I rented a small house with a big yard and parked my motorhome/glass shop in it. I found a head shop in Orlando that agreed to buy sixty five two piece production pipes from me and five head pieces each month. This is how I survived. I would study my ass off and the last week of each month I would sit down and make the pieces for the shop. All the production pieces had to look the same, the head pieces could be as big and gaudy as I could make them. Glass art has been saving me since I started. It became my get away from everything and my way to make money. It was less hazardous than my previous occupation which was being a junkie and a scammer.

  My life got real busy which is exactly what I needed. The first six months of school was Motorcycle Theory. We lost about half the class in that period. Then each class after that was two months and we would lose at least forty percent of the class. It just kept getting smaller and smaller. That alone is motivation to graduate. I would study like hell, then lay down to try to go to sleep, and turn the light back on and study more. I absolutely realized how important this was for me. I had to finish what I started. I had accomplished things in my life before, none of them good, and none that took any time or dedication like this, so graduating from school was of major importance to me.

  MMI had all kinds of rules that had to be followed. If you miss one day you might not make it through that course. Mostly because there was so much information given on any given day that if you missed it you couldn’t catch up. Miss two day and you are kicked out. You also could not get in any fights there. If you put a bunch of knuckleheads together you are bound to have an occasional problem. I saw guys wait till the last day to smash a dude in the face at the lunch truck then never get their diploma.

  After about ten months of school I started hanging out with a kid who most teachers considered to be the best mechanic in the class. His name was Monroe and he was from somewhere in the mid west. He couldn’t read or write. He would take his exams orally. Meaning they would ask him the questions and he would answer them. Some kids thought this was unfair. He would take apart and put his motor back together hours before anyone in the class then sit there with his arms folded. But when it came time for the exam he would fail ever question. He would leave them all blank. He was real quiet. But he knew motors.

  “Why didn’t you answer any questions?” The instructor asked him.

  “Ask me one.” Monroe talked with a real slow southern drawl. The teacher was a way cool cat. He smiled.

  “OK. Question one. Describe the assembly and dis assembly of a four barrel carburetor. Monroe smiled as he got off his stool.

  “Well Sir, first things first gotta lay out the work mat. Can’t be scratching the customers chrome.”

  Then as quickly, efficiently and calmly as can be Monroe took apart an S&S four barrel carburetor describing it as he did it. A lot of kids already were motorheads, they knew every year and every model built. I just wanted to know bikes. Harley Davidsons exclusively.

  Me and my friends always rode hard tail bikes. Rigid frame, that is. No shocks. No stock bikes. Choppers. At Daytona and Bikertoberfest, which are the big bike rallys in Florida we always had the coolest bikes on the strip. That’s why Choppers Inc. got so big. The bikes that came out of this shop were so cool. Real innovative shit. The first hubless rim came out of Choppers Inc., also trimmed up velocity stacks, six gun risers, all custom made billet parts. And we ran around with a real wild crew. I didn’t drink but everyone else did.

  A week before Daytona my phone rang in the middle of the night.

  “Hello.”

  “I’m right outside your house. He hit me in the face. Gave me the boots. For no reason. At a party. In front of everyone” It was Monroe. He was very upset.

  “Come inside.”

  “No. I got a crow bar. I’m gonna make his head meet it. I need you to go with me.”

  I took a deep breath. Here was my buddy and he was upset.

  “I’ll be right out.” It took me less than a minute to get in his car. When I got in Monroe looked like he had been in a fight. Or two of them. As soon as I got in the car Monroe peeled out. He had this old GTO he had been restoring. The outside was a little beat up but the motor purred.

  “You know that asshole John Williams?”

  “Big John Williams? That redneck from Tennesee?”

  “Yeah that’s him. There was a party tonight. The whole class was there. They got a kegger. Everything was smooth.”

  Monroe had to catch his breath. He was upset. He was driving like a maniac.

  “Relax. Go on.”

  “I want to get to the party before he leaves.”

  “We will. Go on with the story.”

  “Like I said, everything was smooth. Then this asshole redneck shows up with his brother and they are drunk drunk. They were bothering everyone. Calling us all kids and punks. I had to take a piss real bad from drinking beers and it looked like there might be a fight. I didn’t wanto to piss in my pants and I was next to the bathroom. I went inside and pissed like a racehorse. Wasn’t inside longer than two minutes. When I opened the door, Big John cracked me in the face with a right. Then him and his brother gave me the boots. For no reason.”

  “No one helped you? No one from the class?”

  “Some girls that were there started screaming for the cops and they took stopped beating me.”

  I was not surprised no one stood strong with this kid. He was real quiet. The two brothers were bullies from up north in Tennessee somewhere. Most of these kids were kids just trying to get a diploma. Have a cool party on a Saturday night.

  We pulled up to the party and the cops were already there breaking it up. One of the students walked over to the car when he saw us.

  “What happened?”

  “They ended up punching some girl in the face.” The kid said who was leaning in the car. I think his name was Sam or something.

  “She got knocked out cold. Someone called the cops and they took off.”

  “Lets get out of here. Nothing we can do now.” I told Monroe. He reluctantly drove away slow.

  “We can’t let them get away with this.”

  “We won’t.”

  “You promise?”

  “Yes. I promise.”

  Monroe dropped me off and I didn’t get much sleep that night. This kid was my friend. I had to make this right. And not get thrown out of school doing it.

  Monday was quiet at work. We took off and drove the sixty five miles to school in silence. When we got to school the two brothers
were in the parking lot. I walked up to them. Some other kids gathered around. I had a friend or two at school who also stepped up.

  “Lets go punk.” I said to Big John.

  “I aint getting thrown out of school. “ He said.

  “Me neither. Lets just walk right over there.” I pointed across the street. “There’s an open lot. I don’t think anyone is going to mind me bashing your teeth in.”

  “I aint fighting round here.”

  “That’s cause you’re a punk. And a bully. Gonna sneak up on this kid with your brother.” I looked at Big John’s brother who was bigger than him.

  “Let’s go across the street and handle it.” Me and John were face to face and the five minute bell rang. That’s the bell that says we got five minutes to get to class.

  “I gotta get to class.” John took off.

  “How about you? You don’t go to school here. Lets have at it.” Big John’s brother looked at me and a couple of my friends.

  “Another time, another place.” He said.

  “That’s for certain.” I said.

  That was a tense week at school. We weren’t allowed to fight and every time I ran into this asshole I invited him across the street to handle it. It got brought to the attention to one of the instructors and they made an announcement that every one better lay off.

  The following weekend was the start of Biketoberfest. The big motorcycle rally in Daytona about an hour away. Everyone was going, the whole school. All my friends rode their choppers up from Miami and we all rode into Main street together. Like I said I ran around with a wild bunch. They would get loaded and drink and fight and do burn outs on their choppers everywhere we went. And we had the coolest looking choppers on the block. Any block.

  We parked in front of a big bar called ‘The Bank’. The streets were lined with bikes on both sides. Whereever we parked there would be a crowd of people around our bikes taking pictures and posing in front of them. My boss Billy wasn’t as famous as he was about to be in the coming years, he was still on the way up, which was cool to watch. Choppers Inc. always had the most innovative shit, and people knew it.