American Outlaw

by James, Jesse

  The welding money came through as promised. For the first time in my life, I had cash to burn. The dumb part of me wanted to blow it all on toys, of course, but something inside me told me not to be such an asshole. Getting a better place to live would be way smarter.

  “Your week’s up,” the night manager at the Red Lion Inn coughed, irritably. “Whatcha gonna do?”

  I decided to stay put. It was the easiest thing to do, and broken mattress springs be damned. The shipyard had me working fourteen-hour days, so I wasn’t inside that motel room very often. Also, this was the first time I’d ever had a pad of my very own, and hence, I had nothing to compare it to. The lukewarm shower, broken mirror, and trashy courtyard view were just so much gravy to me.

  Each month I sent off some cash to my mom to help her with her rent, but beyond that, I didn’t have that many expenses. On weekends, I’d make myself a bag lunch and drive to downtown Seattle, where I’d end up at the Aquarium or at the Ballard Docks, watching the sea lions play. I’d park myself with my bag of sandwiches and laugh as I watched the sea lions swim around and poach the world-class salmon. They’d take one huge bite, and then just toss the rest of the fish away. Kings of all they surveyed. I dug them a lot.

  There was a secondhand bookstore downtown that I grew fond of, and I took to wandering around in there and exploring their shelves. No one had ever told me I was smart when I was in school, but I had always liked reading, even if I’d spent more time on the football field trying to shake the life out of people. Now I had ample time to sift through the piles of good-smelling old books, pick up the ones that looked most interesting, and bring them back to the Red Lion to pore over more carefully.

  One book I got in Seattle was The Old Man and the Sea. For some reason, I really got into the image of that old man out there on his skiff, fighting for his giant catch. I found myself going over his fate again and again as I was welding. Everyone said it was a sad book, but I thought it ended pretty happily. After all, he’d knocked off three or four sharks with his own hands, hadn’t he? That old man was a badass. At night, I read that book in my bed, falling asleep with the lights on, exhausted from work.

  Thinking back, it was an odd period of my life. I was totally alone and, surprisingly, I had no desire to be with anyone else. Something was happening to me, with all the isolation and hard work I was doing. It truly solidified my sense of being and what I was capable of. It was as if my body was absorbing the solitude like sunlight, synthesizing something powerful from it. I don’t recall making a single friend during the ten months or so that I spent in the Pacific Northwest. But I don’t recall ever being lonely, either.

  ——

  Eventually my stint in Seattle came to an end. I had to get out. The weather was making me stir-crazy and nuts. When April came and it was still dreary and gray, I simply couldn’t handle it. And although I continued to gain competence in my job, I didn’t quite see where it was going. Welding paid great, and I could feel good about being a craftsman, but where was the future in it? I didn’t consider shift leader the highest goal I wanted to strive for.

  The other guys at work didn’t dig me all that well, either. I was the youngest kid, by far, and I never paid much attention to them when I came in, just put my head down and got straight to work. It made it that much worse that I’d received several promotions since joining the shipyard.

  One day one of the guys asked me, point-blank, “Who do you know?”

  “I don’t know anyone,” I said.

  “Come on, don’t be a wise guy,” he said. “You related to the boss?”

  “Yeah, he’s my mother.” I glared hard at him. “Anything else you need to ask me?”

  He shrugged. “Nah.” As I walked away, I heard him mumble, “Wiseass.”

  I called my mom from a pay phone at the Lion that night, and told her I was coming back to California.

  “Oh, sweetie, that’s great,” she said.

  I cleared my throat. “Can I stay with you for a little while until I get my own place?”

  Long Beach had not changed much in my absence. In fact, it was precisely the same as I’d left it. In a way, I felt oddly insulted, like, how could this place function without me? I was Long Beach! On the morning of my arrival, I walked down the street to get a gallon of milk, passing at least ten people on the street on my way. Total poker faces. Nobody acknowledged my existence, much less said “hi.” I sighed, relieved. I was home, all right.

  I had some cash, so I wasn’t too concerned about how I’d survive. More than that, I had a trade now. I figured that if things got tight, I would be happy doing some welding work in the surrounding area. There were plenty of jobs in Southern Cal for a blue-collar guy who kept his eyes fixed to the metal.

  I was also kinda psyched to put together another motorcycle. Up in Seattle, when I’d started to accumulate money, I’d gone by a Harley dealership to see how much a brand-new chopper would cost.

  “Oh, not too much. Twelve thousand should get you most of the way there.”

  I was taken aback. I was making good money, but twelve grand? Just for some bike that every other corny dude with a fringe vest and leather chaps was riding? I said thanks, but no thanks—it was too damn rainy to ride a bike every day there, anyway—and I resigned myself to the rented Chevy for a while longer.

  But now that I was home and had access to my mom’s garage, I started to dream again about putting together my own model. In high school, I’d made Rhonda’s Volkswagen for almost nothing by being creative, doing the paint and body work myself, and haggling for parts. Maybe with my new welding skills thrown into the mix, I could create a cool-looking custom bike that would blow the local pigfuckers right out of the water. At the very least, it’d do for a hobby.

  Meanwhile, I was enjoying being back. My cousin Dave showed up at my mom’s soon after I got back, asking me if I wanted to head into L.A. to go hang out at Golden Apple.

  “Yeah, man, sounds like a plan.” I was always up for more comics.

  We tooled down in his car and when we went to the store, the owner recognized me right away.

  “Fuck, kid, you just keep getting bigger and bigger. You frighten the shit out of me, do you know that?”

  I laughed. “Whatever, man.”

  “Whatever, nothing! Listen, our security guy is shit. How’s about you come back and work some gigs for me? You were the best guy I ever had, seriously. No one stole anything on your shifts, swear to God. Not even the schmucks working the register!”

  I thought about it for half a second. “Yeah, sure.”

  I mean, why not? I didn’t have anything better to do. After all, it would get me out of the house, push me to be a little more social, which was probably a good thing. I didn’t want to become a total recluse at the age of nineteen.

  Crossing my arms at Golden Apple wasn’t a particularly fascinating endeavor, but I tried to be responsible, and as friendly as a security guard probably can be. I must have looked all right doing it, though, because before too long, other folks started asking me to work security for them, too. And because Los Angeles is an industry town above all else, I quickly found myself around celebrities.

  I met Rick Rubin through a friend, and that led to a ton of work for me. Rubin had just parted ways with Russell Simmons, the cofounder of Def Jam, and was on his way toward establishing Def American, his new label. Rick dug me a lot, and the feeling was mutual.

  “Got a great job for you, Jesse,” he’d say. “How’d you like to work Sir Mix-A-Lot’s record release party? Everyone has to enter the club through a giant ass, you’ll love it.”

  “Sure thing, man.”

  “Jesse! We need you to follow Flava Flav around today. Please, make sure he doesn’t smoke any crack, okay?”

  “I can do that.”

  Anything Rick would ask, I’d do. He was hilarious and ridiculously talented as a producer. He just had that golden touch. Everything seemed fun coming from him or his crew. Rick got me a gig w
orking as a bodyguard for Debbie Harry when she was making a comeback album at the Variety Arts Center, down on 9th and Figueroa. Downtown L.A. itself was a real entertaining shithole way back then. Crackheads ruled the street night and day. Etched into my brain is an image of a completely nude guy strolling down the street, reading a paper, right in the middle of the afternoon.

  Almost against my will, a career began developing for me. I went to a Vandals show at Fender’s Ballroom in Long Beach, which was kind of like the CBGB of the West Coast. You could always count on Fender’s to supply a psychotic punk experience for you—they booked some of my favorite bands, like 7 Seconds, Uniform Choice, and Bad Religion, all super-intense, sweating, straining bands with power to spare. That night, the place was packed and rocking. You didn’t exactly have a mosh pit in Fender’s; it was more like the entire venue was just this giant, swirling mess, and if you didn’t want to be in it, well, you shouldn’t have come, you pussy.

  I felt bodies smash up against me, arms whacking my face and shoulders. Their drummer was totally beating the shit out of the skins. I felt the high-energy music pump into my bloodstream, and I was enlivened by the collective energy of a thousand screaming fans. Just for the fuck of it, I pushed the giant, red-bearded monster standing next to me in the small of his back.

  He stumbled forward, crushed two smaller dudes in his attempt to regain his balance, then pushed me in the chest. “FUCK ARE YOU DOING??” he bellowed.

  “HAVING FUN, ASSHOLE!” I screamed, pushing the guy next to me so hard he fell on the ground and was trampled by tens of dirty boots in the beer puddles.

  “TOUGH GUY, HUH??” With a crushing forearm, the red-bearded pirate bowled over his three nearest neighbors.

  We continued to fight with each other by proxy. As the Vandals whipped the crowd into greater and greater frenzies, we continued to smack unsuspecting punks in the throat, balls, and breasts, knocking the wind out of them, boldly spinning them into unknown corners where no punk had gone before.

  I was crying with laughter by the time the set ended, even though somebody’s fingernail had somehow managed to cut the side of my face open.

  “What’s your name, man?” I said, extending my hand, blood dripping liberally off my forehead.

  “Dimwit,” he answered. Ignoring my hand, he drew me into his huge body for a sweaty, disgusting hug.

  “Dimwit?” I said, my bloody face pressed into his giant, jean-jacketed vest. “The Dimwit?”

  “I’m him,” he answered proudly. “Drummer for the Four Horsemen. Legend in my own motherfucking mind.”

  I probably should have known. Dimwit and his brother, Chuck Biscuits, were cornerstones of the hard-core movement. They hailed from Vancouver, British Columbia, but had risen to SoCal fame throughout the 1980s. Chuck, in particular, had been in an assortment of the most important punk bands of the decade: the original drummer for D.O.A., he had played with both Black Flag and the Circle Jerks in following years.

  “What do you do?” Dimwit asked me, the sweating crowd slowly filing out beside us. A few of them, who we’d injured, shot us dirty looks. “Beat up on people, I guess?”

  “I’m a welder,” I answered. He looked at me incredulously. “Though lately, yeah, I’ve been beating up on people.”

  Dimwit stared at me, still confused.

  “I’m security,” I explained. “For a comic book store.”

  “You should talk to Chuck,” Dimwit said. “He’s playing with Glenn Danzig these days—you know him?”

  “Sure I do,” I said. “I like Danzig.”

  “Well, they’re about to go on tour to Europe and shit. I think they’re still looking for security.”

  “I don’t know,” I said carefully. “I’m not so sure I want to make a whole life out of this.”

  “You got something better lined up?” Dimwit asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Tour life’s very cool,” he confided. “Just trust me, dude, it’s one hell of a party. Music, chicks, Scandinavian punkers who are, like, just begging you to laugh at them. Great times.”

  Fender’s Ballroom had almost emptied by now. The coarse floorboards were littered with spent cups and broken glass. The manic swirl of energy that had occupied the club was gone, but something still rang there, a certain power and meaning. One lone punk kid who appeared to have drunk a bit too much was still on the floor, crawling painfully across a small pool of vomit.

  Dimwit gestured grandly at the garbage all around us. “I mean, what more could you want?”

  7

  The next morning, the phone rang at my mom’s place.

  “Jesse?”

  “Yeah?”

  “This is Dimwit. Listen, man, I talked to Chuck about you,” he said. “And he’s definitely interested. Danzig’s playing tonight at the Palace, so if you want, you can meet up with Glenn.”

  I decided not to dress up for Glenn Danzig. I wore a wife beater. In fact, I probably looked like a wife beater. My face was still all scabbed from the previous night’s show, and I had the beginnings of a shiner going from a random punch in the face that I couldn’t even remember. In Seattle, I’d gotten even bigger: I was 240 pounds of pure muscle.

  Yep, I thought, looking in the mirror, I’m going to get this job.

  Still, there was competition. A big tattooed black dude, about thirty years old, was already in the room with Glenn when I came in. Danzig looked us over, one to the other.

  He began with my competition. “Bill, you’ve got the leg up on experience,” he said. “You’ve done tours, correct?”

  “I’ve been doing concert security for ten years,” he explained. “Been all over the U.S., Europe, and South America. I know this job inside and out. That I can guarantee you.”

  Glenn nodded. “Jesse?”

  I raised my eyebrows, giving him a blank look.

  “Do you have much experience in concert security?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  He grinned. “So, why should I hire you, you think?”

  I looked him over and shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  Glenn looked at me hard. “Chuck Biscuits says his little brother saw you at a show at Fender’s last night.”

  “Vandals,” I confirmed.

  “What did you think?” Glenn asked.

  “Pretty okay,” I said. “They play music you can fight to.”

  Glenn laughed. “Music you can fight to?”

  My rival scoffed. “Real mature attitude for a security guard.”

  “No, I’m curious,” said Glenn. He looked amused. “Tell me more, Jesse.”

  I cleared my throat, shifted in my seat. “Well, I just think punk, it’s about letting off steam.”

  “True,” Glenn said.

  “You gotta pump people up,” I continued. “Otherwise, I mean, what’s the point? All this hair metal crap—Def Leppard and Guns N’ Roses and Skid Row—it’s just soft. It’s a waste of time, if you ask me.”

  “Makes me sick,” Glenn agreed.

  “I like intense music,” the black dude interjected. “Just with soul. That’s all I ask.”

  Glenn ignored him. “What’s your take on Danzig?” he asked me. “Are we tough enough for you?”

  “I’ve always dug your music,” I said, honestly. “I was listening to the Misfits when I was twelve.”

  “Gee, thanks for making me feel like an old man,” Glenn said, laughing. “Well, okay. You wanna come aboard? We have a few shows left in the U.S., then a European tour right around the corner.”

  “Fuck yeah,” I exclaimed. “I’m ready to go.”

  The other candidate crossed his arms sourly. “I like to fight, too, okay? It’s just not, like, my first option.”

  ——

  Doing security was a lot like being back on the football field—only with a super-intense sound track.

  “Just make sure no one touches Glenn,” Chuck Biscuits told me. “That’s your main challenge. Glenn whips everyone into a fucking frenzy, a
nd for some reason, his fans always want to fight him.”

  I laughed. That made sense to me. “Keep them off the stage, huh?”

  “Yeah, keep us safe. Keep the crowd safe, too—scare people, but don’t touch them unless you have to.” He grinned. “Basically, make sure no one gets too bloody.”

  My first Danzig show, in Portland, Oregon, was unbelievably loud, and almost comically intense. I spent two and a half hours on stage, hovering nine feet above the writhing masses, watching them fight and bash one another like enraged beasts. Standing directly in front of the speaker, the deep bass vibrated through my body as the barricade pulsed with the force of a thousand death-metal punks.

  “I can feel it jabbing!” Danzig screamed.

  The near-delirious band beat the shit out of their instruments, as if they never intended to use them again. The music was so deafeningly loud, it made my brain itchy inside my skull.

  “Make me—come alive!” he screamed.

  Glenn Danzig was a monster on stage. Every lyric of every song, he growled forth a primal howl, whipping his long black hair around his head like it was a rabid animal he was trying to shake off. His front-row fans emulated him: they screamed at him, challenging him to fight, giving him the finger, and showering in the nasty sweat flying off his hulking, compact frame.

  After the show, we headed to a Portland strip club to unwind. The Acropolis was kind of a dive, but I suppose it could have been worse. At least no one was wearing plaid.

  “So what’d you think, Jesse?” Chuck asked me.

  “Blew my mind,” I answered, truthfully. “My ears are still ringing, man.”

  “Pretty easy?” Danzig asked.

  “Definitely.”

  “Well,” Glenn said, “I don’t mean to nitpick, but I think there were a couple of things you could have done better. I was getting some bad vibes from this one shithead right in the front row. He looked dangerous, like he was getting ready to jump the barricade and come on stage.”