Even Though We Could Only See Her From the Waist Up, We Both Knew She Had Some Hidden Talent...
I was lying on the pavement with the motorcycle on top of me, looking down the ramp towards the bar, which had already closed. That's when I realized I crashed and that I had to get up off the ground to avoid being hit by a car. The bike wasn't running, and I was very drunk…
I slid out from under the bike and stood up. Luckily, the only thing that got hurt was my ego, which was crushed.
The bike weighed about 440 pounds full of fuel, and I had no problem lifting it off the ground. Once it was upright, with my left hand, I clicked the shifter into neutral, turned it around, and pushed it back down the ramp toward the bar, whose outside lights were still on. Once I was there, I tried to start the bike, but after a dozen kicks, it wasn't happening. The crash bar on the shifter side was all bent up, but I couldn't see any other visible damage to the bike.
There was a payphone outside the bar at the bottom of the stairs. Back in those days, everybody carried spare change, and a local call was only 10 cents. I slipped a dime into the slot on the payphone and called the condo, hoping Moose would pick up…
It was after 2:00 a.m., and the nearest phone to the guest bedroom was a Harvest Gold rotary phone hanging on the kitchen wall fifteen feet away. I let it ring for almost two minutes, and then I hung up. I figured Moose was sound asleep, and I knew he was a heavy sleeper. I was beginning to think I might have to push the bike across the street to the beach and spend the night there.
I called back and let it ring until I heard Moose's muffled voice say, "Hello…"
"It's me, Moose. I crashed on the ramp, and the bike won't start. I'm at the bar, and I need some help…"
Moose didn't hesitate, "I'll be right over."
He took the Torino and was there in about 30 minutes. When he arrived, he saw the bent-up crash bar and immediately asked if I was okay. I was seeing a side of Moose I didn't know existed.
He glanced at the bike and said, "Fortunately, you hit the kill switch on the way down, which is what you're supposed to do." He pushed it to "RUN" and kicked it once, and it started right up.
I asked Moose to ride the bike home, and he did. I took the Torino, which, in my condition, was a much safer way to go.
The next morning, I removed the crash bars, which had actually saved my leg and my bike, and tossed them in the trash. They had worked for me, and I figured that would be the one and only time they would be needed. I mean, how often do you crash on a motorcycle?
1973 Yamaha TX 650
We'd been looking for jobs, and my father stepped in and said he needed some shippers and apprentice cutters at his clothing manufacturing shop. We accepted.
The shop was in an industrial park in Hialeah. My father shared a portion of a large building with another guy who had just been released from prison. When I heard about the guy's past, I asked my father why he shared a building with such a shady character, and he said, "Better to know who you're dealing with than be surprised later…"
Moose's father was a cutter, so he was familiar with the job. I had grown up around clothing manufacturing, and I'd always been fascinated with cutters. They were the highest-paid guys in the shop and garnered the most respect.
I worked with a guy named Enrique, who everyone called Henry. He didn't speak a word of English. Moose worked with another Spanish-speaking guy at the table next to mine. The tedious part of the job was pulling the fabric down the long cutting tables over and over again.
Advertisement
Henry was on one side, and I was on the other. A heavy roll of material, usually six feet wide, was placed horizontally on a roller at one end, and we each grabbed a corner and pulled the fabric to the other end, which was about 75-100 feet away. Then, we put a heavy metal ruler across the end and walked back to the roller, smoothing out the fabric on the way. Then Henry would take the big scissors and cut the fabric, and we'd place another ruler on that end and then start pulling more fabric. When the correct number of plies were spread in one color, we'd change to a second color if that's what was called for. The fabric could be anywhere from 50 to 200 ply high. It was all done manually in those days, and it took forever.
After the last ply was spread, we put down a full-length blue paper marker with the pattern of each part of the garment printed on it. We'd pin it so it wouldn't move, and then Henry would take the big electric fabric cutter, which was actually a dangerous-looking, shiny chrome, high-speed ban saw, and cut out each shape. If he wasn't careful, he could easily lose a finger or two.
When he was done with one pattern, I tied it up. Later, after all the patterns were cut and tied, I packed them in a plastic shipping crate so they could be shipped to Colombia to be stitched by cheap labor in a sweatshop. I picked up all the remnants and swept the floor, too. Moose was doing the same thing with the other cutter.
With jobs and a steady income, it was time for Moose and I to move out of my parent's condo in Miami and rent a place of our own…
There were a lot of houses for rent, but the one that caught our eye was completely furnished and located in Miramar. We took our motorcycles for a ride by it and liked what we saw. There was even a garage that was perfect for the bikes. We called the owner.
When we met with the owner and her daughter, we found out the owner's husband had died recently, and she had gone to live with her daughter, which was why the house was available. We drove over in the Torino, choosing to leave our bikes in Miami and put on our best clothes in order to make a good impression.
Moose was the star of the show. I knew he had a great line of bullshit, but how he worked the owner and her daughter could've earned him an Oscar. He had 'em eatin' out of the palm of his hand. It was 1976, and we got a furnished house in South Florida in February for $200 a month and only had to give a $200 security deposit.
We emptied the stolen U-Haul trailer in Miramar and took it to the shop in Hialeah. With some help, we pushed it up a makeshift ramp and stored it in the back of the shop where it was out of sight.
After we moved in, we went to the supermarket down the street and bought some food, and then we went to the package store beside it for some beer and cigarettes. Before we headed home, we stopped at the Fotomat in the parking lot. Fotomats were small hut-like structures where you could get film developed in 24 hours. They were popping up everywhere…
Thomas McGovern. Getty Images.Advertisement
We had some rolls of film we needed developed, so we pulled up next to the drive-through. A cute girl was seated inside, and even though we could only see her from the waist up, we both knew she had some hidden talent…
After we got a receipt, she looked at us and said, "Do you guys need weed?"
We did need weed, but why was the girl in the Fotomat asking us? Was she a narc? We figured, what the hell. "As a matter of fact, we do. Whataya got?"
Right now, I have Jamaican and some Colombian. I have nickel, dime, half-ounce, and ounce bags. Lots of buds and no sticks."
This was fucking crazy! We bought a dime bag of Jamaican to test the waters.
It had been a good day for us. We moved into a furnished house with a garage that was within walking distance of a supermarket, package store, and a Fotomat where we could buy weed from a girl who was fuckable!
And I hadn't even turned 20 yet!
I walked 47 miles on barbed wire
Cobra snake for a necktie
Built a house by the roadside
Made of rattlesnake hide
Brand new chimney made on top
Made out of human skulls
Come on, baby, take a walk with me
Tell me who do you love?
To be continued…
*All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental…