“I went to the porn convention and I made a film. Wanna see it?” They all piled in front of the TV and I put the film on. After about the twenty fifth porn star waving and saying, ‘Hey Cisco wish you were here.’ He looked up at me with a big smile.
“Can I get a copy of this?” Cisco asked me.
“I made it for you. That is your copy.”
“I love you brother.”
“ I love you too my brother.”
Life is an absolute roller coaster ride but it’s safe to say at that moment I was on top of the ride. The best feeling in the world is to see your brothers smile. Have a good time. That’s it.
78
The tattoo shop was working itself by now. I called it Evil Ink Tattoo, which was maybe not the best name, but I liked it. It was next to Oakland Custom Motor Cycle which was the local motorcycle shop in town. A lot of brothers always hung out there. In fact everyone in town riding a Harley hung out there. Probably scared away a lot of customers.
I have worked in so many tattoo shops in my life, all over the world, and always giving the owners half of my salary, fifty percent, of the take which is a basic shop percentage. I always dreamed about owning my own shop. So finally owning one was a big accomplishment for me. I really was living my dream.
I had my own station in my shop and there were four other stations. Business was slow and steady at first. We had only been open about a month. I had a few artists coming and going, maybe staying a few months before something flaky happened and they never showed up again.
I was boxing every day in the morning at Kings boxing gym then showing up at the shop around one in the afternoon. The guys who worked for me opened at noon so I always waited an hour or two before I showed up, unless I had an appointment.
I pulled up and walked in the shop one day and there was a big guy who was pretty wasted standing in the middle of the shop. One of the guys who worked for me named Tony was blocking the door.
“What’s going on?”
“He doesn’t want to pay.” Tony said. I looked at the guy.
“Is that true? You don’t want to pay?”
“He won’t finish it.” The guy said. He was wasted.
“Let me see.” I said. The guy had a full shoulder piece, from his shoulder to his elbow, full color. It was finished.
“He just came in for a final touch up and to bring me the last of the money.”
“How much does he owe?”
“Three hundred dollars.” Tony wasn’t having it, but the guy was way bigger than Tony. I turned around and closed the door and turned the deadbolt locking us all in the shop.
“You’re gonna have to pay. The tattoo looks done to me.” The other artist stopped tattooing and stood up. Now the guy was standing in the middle of the room with three guys around him.
“You guys are ganging up on me.” The wasted guy said.
“Nobody is ganging up on anyone. Tony finished the work, now you have to pay.”
The guy then did the stupidest thing I have ever seen he took out a pocket knife and flicked it open.
“Don’t do that. You’re gonna piss me off.” I said.
“FUCK YOU.” He said to me. I immediately knocked him out with a right. As soon as he dis respected me he got dropped. He was out cold. I didn’t care so much that he had pulled a knife on me. Or didn’t want to pay. Not as much as I cared that he had dis respected me.
I went next door and walked in the bike shop. There were a few brothers there and the owner of the shop who was in his sixties.
“I just knocked this guy out. He pulled a knife, he didn’t wanna pay. Come have a look.”
So the owner and one of the brothers walked back to my shop with me. I figured ut was better to have someone else there who has been around. Especially since technically my tattoo shop was on his property.
We walked in the shop and the guy was still out cold. Tony had grabbed the knife and his wallet, which had no money in it at all. I poured a cup of water on the guy and he woke up and sprung to his feet. He reached in his pocket for his knife.
“It’s not there.” I said. “Time to pay and since you have no money you are going to have to call someone to bring the money down.” I handed him back his empty wallet.
He looked around at all of us and he seemed kind of dazed. He must have taken a handful of pills before he walked in to get tattooed. I would have never tattooed him if he walked in that wasted. Problem they aren’t that wasted when they sit down, so Tony didn’t know.
The guy looked at the door and I could see he was going to make a break for it.
“You gotta call someone. Who you gonna call?” I said again.
“Hey fella. This aint the place you wanna rip off.” The owner of the motorcycle shop said to the guy.
“What do you know about it?”
“A lot. Time to pay.” He said.
The guy pulled out his pockets showing he had nothing in them.
“Aint got no money.” And with that he made a lunge for the door. He tried to push the owner of the motorcycle shop out of the way and I dropped him with a left. He walked right into it. His head cracked the tile we had just laid down a few months earlier.
“Shut the door. Get the plastic.” The motorcycle shop owner said.
“Will you calm down?”
“Old habits die hard.” He said with a smile. Just then the guys phone rang. The other brother looked at the screen.
“My Love. This must be his chick.” He flipped it open.
“Hello. Yes he’s almost done. He asks if you can bring down three hundred dollars to pay for the tattoo. Ten minutes? Great. Thanks.” That brother talked to her just as smooth as silk and she showed up ten minutes later with the cash.
“What happened?” She asked as she handed over the money and looked at her bashed up boyfriend.
“I fell down.” He said.
“Twice.” I said. She looked at me like I was insane then helped him to the car. I’m pretty sure she dumped him a week later and started dating one of the brothers. That’s how it goes sometimes.
I walked back in the shop and my phone rang. It was John my movie producer buddy. I didn’t know it at the time but this was the third time Hollywood was calling.
“David.”
“John.”
“I got something.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to do a show. Sopranos west coast bikers style.”
“Sounds cool.”
“If I get it up and running I want you to be the technical advisor.”
“For real?” He could tell I was excited.
“Relax. It’s a long haul from the thought or the idea of a show until it gets to the screen. But if I get it you are in.”
“Thank You.”
He hung up the phone. Big guys in Hollywood do that a lot. Just hang up when the conversation is over.
79
Things started moving a little bit faster after that. Every day I would talk with John and he would tell me about the meetings for the show. It went to all the big networks but nobody was biting.
I didn’t understand a lot about the business. It was still a far off dream that I wasn’t really chasing anymore. I kept writing scripts but I wasn’t making any money doing it. I was just doing it cause I like it. I was in my own world already living more of a dream than I expected. I was a brother and I owned my own tattoo shop. There wasn’t much more that I was looking for.
I started travelling all the time. There is always somewhere to go or something to do and someone to do it with when you are a brother.
Me and Will did everything together. He wasn’t a brother but he grew up in the family and he knew the score. We went to Miami Beach, which is where I am born and raised. Soon as Will heard I was going to do a job in Miami Beach, he showed up at my door with his suitcase packed. He was always up for an adventure.
We got to Miami late at night and Al picked us up at the airport.
“Ready
to work?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
‘Wow.” Will said as the heat of Miami hit him the minute we stepped out of the airport. It hit us like a wave.
“You aint seen nothing yet..” I knew Will was going to have a great time in Miami. That a whole new world was opening up for him. He also got to see where I am from which was cool.
We were always making big plans.
“Big things Big Things. That’s what we’re doing.” Will used to say. “Gotta dream big.”
We pulled up to Red’s house and he was waiting outside.
“Red this is Will, Will this is Red. Red can Will stay with you for a few days?”
“Sure. He can crash on the couch.”
I had a whole bunch of stuff to take care of in South Miami and that’s where the job was and where Al lived and I wasn’t going to go back and forth every day. That’s about an hour drive each way and I had work to do. Got to make that dollar.
“Be good.” I said to Will as I got in Al’s truck.
“The best.” Will said with a smile. There is a lot of trust on both sides when you can walk up to one of your friends and ask if another friend he never met can sleep on your couch for a few days. Especially when the apartment is a one room studio. Red had that trust. He knew I wouldn’t bring over anyone who wasn’t worth bringing.
Sometimes opportunities only comes along once in a while, maybe once a year and when it does you have to jump.
Al’s friends would give a crazy low bid on a paint job. Under cutting everyone in time and money, then six of us with six airless sprayers would walk in and knock it out in three days. Three non stop twenty four hour days. Spraying a four story building, new construction inside and out is a big job. After the cost of materials each of us walked away with about eight grand. Not bad for a weekends work. Aint nothing wrong with good hard work. It builds character.
Al gave me a ride back to the beach when the job was over three days later and we found Will and Red outsides Ted’s Hideaway, the local bar. I walked up and Will was outside with two strippers.
“Look at your boy.” Al said as we walked up. Will was sunburned, with a brand new Hustler hat with a real loud button down Hawaiian shirt and some surfer shorts and flip flops, with a stripper on each arm and a mojito in each hand.
“Having fun?”
“My brother.” He walked and gave me a big hug. He turned tight to the strippers.
“Have you girls met my brother D.L.?”
“No.” They both said in unison. They turned around and walked back into the bar.
“I see you are right at home.” Will smiled and opened his shirt.
“Ta da.” He had a .38 snub nose tucked in the waist band of his shorts. Will was a gangster for real. He put his gun in his belt before he put his shoes on his feet. That’s how it is growing up in Oakland for some people. Will was just for real on every level.
We stood there talking for a while in front of Ted’s just standing on the side walk. It was a quiet night, I think it was a Tuesday. All of a sudden there was a big CLANG. Will’s gun had slipped through the waist band of his shorts and hit the floor. Everyone froze. The bouncers looked at us and Will looked at them, the he kneeled down and picked his gun up, put it back in his waist band and acted as if nothing happened. Red freaked out.
“You guys gotta leave. Everybody saw that.”
“Leave? The only place I’m going is back inside.” Will said as he sauntered back inside.
“You need to relax.” I said to Red. I walked over to the bouncers. I have known them for years.
“We good?” They looked inside and Will was back on the stage dancing with the two strippers.
“Yeah. We’re good.” The first bouncer said.
“Truthfully. Your friend is one of the coolest people we ever met.”
“Yeah. I get that alot.” I said.
“He was here with Red the other night, sat at the bar all night drinking Hennesey and talking stories. We had to carry them both home. It was hilarious. We laughed the whole way.”
We all looked in a t Will having a blast. I looked at my phone and I had a missed call from my friend John.
“David.”
“John.”
“I got something. I think we might be in business.”
“You are kidding.”
“No. I’m not. I need you to meet this writer. He’s going to write the show.”
“I’m in Miami.”
“Nice. What are you doing in Miami?”
“Visiting my mom. Did a big paint job with six guys. I’m here with Will.”
“Time to come home. We have a job to do.” He said before he hung up.
I looked in the bar and it was raging. I could have stayed in Miami another week or two but home is home. It’s always going to be there. I was pretty excited about the possibilities. Will wasn’t too happy about leaving he could have stayed another month. Then a new bug hit him.
“Hollywood Takeover in full effect.” He started saying all the time. Will knew if I was going he was going. At least along for the ride. I started making arrangements and we left Miami two days later.
80
We got back to Oakland and life fell right back into line. Will always had ten things he was working on and he got right back to them. I went straight back to what I was already doing which was waiting for a customer to walk in my shop to buy a tattoo. I had to work. I had to make a dollar and I knew it. Or even better a stack of hundred dollar bills. STACKS of hundred dollar bills sounded good. Either way the hustle never stops. Ever. And I knew that.
John was going to bring the writer up to meet me so I started getting ready for that. I had no idea really what a technical advisor was for a television show. I knew I could discuss motorcycle life with him. What it is like to ride around with a bunch of brothers on bikes, but that is all. I knew I could not discuss my personal business or my brothers personal business and I let that be known at the beginning. I have been around guys on bikes my whole life, so that is what I discussed. They sent an art team also, and I had to go over the bikes we ride, the clothes we wear, all of it. Whatever had to do with motorcycle brotherhood life.
I had already been a cameraman for Zalman King so I knew what it was like to work with a film team but this was different. It was bigger it had a way more professional feel, like it was really going t happen. Everything about everyone I met was totally professional. They were very thorough. They asked questions I never even thought of, things I took for granted because I had been living this life so long it was all second nature to me. They had to understand this is a lifestyle, not a job.
John drove to Oakland and picked me up and we drove to The hotel the writer was staying at.
“There he is.” John said as the writer walked over to our car. He got in and the first thing he did was give me a box set of the last show he worked on, some really successful cop show.
“I’m Kurt. This is for you.” He handed me the set.
“I’m D.L. Thank you. Where do we begin?”
“I’ve got questions and you have answers so lets go somewhere so we can sit down and hash this out.” He was one cool cat I could tell already. He knew what he was doing. And I was taking notes. I’m always taking notes. Mental notes.
John peeled out in his big bad BMW and we went to my house. We sat down and Kurt took out his legal pad and we sat and talked for hours. This went on like this for a few days. I learned a ton just by hearing the questions he would ask. I got to look into the mind of a creator. Someone who was already successfully writing and making a living in film, something I wanted to do.
After about a week of the question and answer bit, we went to my tattoo shop which was across the street from the house where a lot of my brothers hung out. Kurt met a bunch of my brothers, all shapes and sizes, ages and occupations. He got to see they were all regular people. Most just worked nine to five jobs and went home to their families. Just being motorcycle enthusiasts
was our common bond.
We went over the bridge to the city with one of my brothers in his souped up Charger. Around us a bunch of my younger brothers did wheelies across the bridge next to our car. We went to the house where some of my city brothers hung out and there were some East Coast brothers where there. One of my brothers from the east can be considered pretty scary. He has a thick east coast accent. He knew I was hired to work on an upcoming TV show.
“Is that the TV guy?’ He said real loud.
“Yeah.” I said.
“Did you tell him I’m gonna cut his throat if he doesn’t put me on the air.” He started laughing at his own jokes. He knew he made people nervous. He liked that.
“No I didn’t tell him.”
“Give him my cod.” He said in a thick North East accent. He held out his business card. I took it.
“Tell him I’ll be expecting his call.” My brother said as he chuckled at his own humor. Tough guy humor. All I could think was it’s a good thing Kurt didn’t hear that conversation. I wasn’t sure if he was up on tough guy humor.
We jumped back in the Charger and high tailed it back to Oakland.
“I think I have almost everything I need. Lets sit down and go over these last few questions at your house and that should be enough for now.”
“You got it Boss.” I said. He was the Boss. I could see that already. We burned over the Bay Bridge back to Oakland weaving in and out of traffic at ninety miles an hour. After another high speed ride across the Bay Bridge we got dropped off at my house for the last round of questions. Hours later we were done.
“I think that just about does it.” Kurt said as he started putting his notebooks away. I knew this was my opportunity. I held out three magazines I had articles published in. I had a pile of magazines under the table. I handed them to Kurt.
“I write. I have been writing for years. I have articles in all those magazines.” I pointed to the stack of magazines. Kurt started to brows through the articles. I got up and put the DVD in the DVD player that I made with Zalman King. It started playing and right away I was on the screen. We watched it for a minute.
Becoming A Son Page 39