American Outlaw (26 page)

“What a surprise,” Karla said, annoyed.

“Baby, do you know how many T-shirts we sold?” I began, triumphantly.

“I don’t care, Jesse, I really don’t,” Karla said. She sounded exhausted. “Look, I’m just calling you because I need to know, are you coming back to Long Beach tomorrow, or Tuesday?”

“Call the shop.” Rick goosed me in the side, pointing out a very fat dancing girl. I stifled a giggle. “Because right
now,
I just don’t have any idea.”

“Yes, I’ll call the shop,” Karla hissed. “
They’ll
tell me when my husband is coming home. That’s just
great.
”

“You’re killing my buzz, Karla,” I said, pronouncing every word carefully. “
Murdering
it.”

“Well, I won’t do that anymore,” she said, furious, and hung up the phone.

I held the phone up to my face for several seconds longer, though I knew it was dead.

“Who was that?” Rick asked, not taking his eyes off the stage.

“My wife,” I said. “She was curious to know if you and I are going to have another vodka and cranberry here, or move on to the next bar.”

“Next bar,” Rick said.

The street was a blur. We stumbled down it. For shits and giggles, I pushed a big meathead-looking jock in the back.

“Watch it, douche bag!” he yelled.

“You want to throw down?” I mumbled. A sour taste came up in my mouth and I vomited in front of me, coming about an inch away from ruining my jeans.

“Let him go,” the guy’s girlfriend told him. “He’s totally wasted.”

Rick steered me into another club. We sat behind the bar and listened to heavy metal on the shitty speakers. I looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar. A douche with leopard-spotted hair sat next to me. I waved at him in the mirror.

“Hi!” I said. “You have a lot of earrings, don’t you?”

He frowned at me. “Whatever, dude.”

“No, really,” I cried, “your earrings go all the way up to the top of your ear! Did you even
see
that? Hey Rick, get a load of this feller’s sexy little hoop earrings!” I laughed uproariously.

“Calm down, Jesse,” Rick said.

“I am calm,” I told him, calmly. “Waitress,” I said. “Oops. I mean,
bartender.
Barkeep! We’d like a bottle of vodka, over here.”

“A bottle?” she said.

“An entire bottle, miss,” I answered. “Your best stuff. I want to show you a secret talent of mine.”

The bartender sighed. “Sure.” She placed a half-filled bottle of Smirnoff’s in front of me. “What’s your talent?”

“This,” I said. “Duck.”

I picked up the bottle by its neck, and, as hard as I could, hurled it into the mirror. The mirror and the vodka bottle exploded into a spray of glass shards. Rick and I winced.

“What the fuck was that!”
the bartender cried.

I sat there and swayed sickly in my seat in the silence that ensued. “I’ll . . . uh . . . pay for that mirror.”

“Jesse,” Rick said, hooking an elbow around my midsection, hoisting me to my feet. “I think it’s time to go.”

11
 

“Sir?
Sir?
Is everything all right in there?”

Each brisk rap against the airplane’s restroom door felt like an ice pick jabbing into my brain.

“Sir? Excuse me?”

In response, I vomited loudly and explosively, spattering the small stainless-steel toilet with a frightening-looking gush of phlegm and blood. Turbulence rocked the plane and, sweating, I let my forehead play back and forth against the cheap industrial mirror, trying to find some coolness there.

“He’s been at it for half an hour,” I heard the stewardess complain to a coworker. “It sounds like he’s dying in there.”

I groaned. “I’m fine,” I mumbled miserably. My voice was so low, I knew no one had heard me. “Honestly.”

But the saliva was building up in my mouth again, acidic and
nauseating. An icy shiver surged through my arms and chest, and I knew what was coming next. I positioned my mouth over the toilet and once more retched convulsively, my eyes tearing up, my diaphragm clutching, tight and miserable.

I squinted down at the toilet. It was filled with vomit.

This isn’t me,
I thought.
This isn’t how I want to live.

“
Excuse
me.” The stewardess knocked relentlessly, annoyed. “Sir, is everything all
right
in there?”

“Yup,” I gasped, leaning up against the wall. I pushed the flush button with my knee, and tried to steady myself. “I’m coming right out.”

——

“I made a decision,” I told Karla on the ride home from the airport. “I’m quitting drinking.”

She said nothing, just gripped the steering wheel tightly.

“Seriously,” I said. “I know I can do it. Will you support me?”

She remained silent, staring instead into the thick traffic as we weaved our way down the 405 South, toward Long Beach.

“Well, hell,” I said, slightly offended. “I knew you wouldn’t be
happy
to see me, but I guess I was . . .”

“Jesse!” Karla cried. “Shut up! Just shut up!”

My insides curled up inside me. I could tell something bad was about to happen.

Karla began crying. She sobbed softly, as she gripped the wheel, her forearms tensing.

“This traffic,” she whispered finally. “It’s ridiculous.”

“Karla,” I said. I put my hand on her knee. “Karla, please stop. What’s going on? Tell me.”

“I just . . .” she said. She sniffed, shaking her head. “I just can’t live like this.”

“But I’m going to stop boozing, I told you. I promise.”

“It’s not the drinking, and you know it.” Her face was the picture
of exhaustion and resignation. “You’re not here for me. You haven’t been for years.”

I sunk back in my seat.

“I’ll try harder.”

Karla shook her head. “Jesse, our marriage hasn’t worked for a long, long time. You’re obsessed with your business. And when you want to have fun, you choose going out with your friends over spending an evening with me, every time.”

“But I can
change,
” I protested. “We could go to a counselor, or something like that . . .”

She gave me a tight, sad smile. “I’m sorry—it’s just too late. It’s over, baby. And you know it.”

I sat there in silence, absorbing the news. The wheels of our big black truck rolled across the pavement quietly, sunlight streaming into the cab, harsh and unwelcome.

——

Only a few days later, I moved out of the house. At first I slept at the shop, but soon I was able to find an apartment down the street from Karla and the kids. No matter what happened between us, I wanted the kids to have both of their parents nearby.

I felt awful, like I’d failed. But I knew Karla was right in ending it. I had never prioritized her needs. Though in my heart I’d known our marriage was falling apart, I’d never attempted to fix it. My own desires had always come first: work, partying, getting fucked up with my friends. Deep down, I felt ashamed, and I promised myself I would never make that same mistake again.

I consoled myself by vowing to be a better dad—there, I could still redeem myself.

“Why are you picking me up from school, Daddy?” Chandler asked me.

“I want to spend some more time with you, honey.” I gazed at
her in my rearview mirror, strapped into her little car seat. “I miss you a whole bunch.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping at our house?” Chandler asked suddenly.

“It’s kind of complicated,” I began. “Mommy and I are taking some time off from each other. You know how you get mad at Jesse Jr. sometimes?”

Chandler nodded.

“And you don’t want to be around him?”

Chandler nodded again. “Because he’s a butt-head.”

I laughed. “Exactly. Well, that’s the way that Mommy feels about me, right now.”

“She thinks
you’re
a butt-head?”

“She sure does,” I said.

“Did you tease her?” Chandler asked, wide-eyed.

“No,” I said. “It’s more like, well . . .”

“Daddy,” Chandler said, tiring of the conversation, “when we get home, will you give me a ride on your bike?”

“Yeah,” I said, gratefully. “We’ll go real fast, sweetie.”

Karla and I began to slowly strategize how best to be parents apart. It saddened me, but I knew our separation was for the best. The bond of friendship we’d formed over the course of our marriage would last, I was sure of it. Now the important thing was for us to stay close to each other, since we were going to be connected through our children for the rest of our lives.

Life at the shop continued at as hectic a pace as ever. Fenders, once our lifeblood, were now pretty much out of the picture, as we moved into producing our expensive custom choppers full-time. The demand was immense, so I raised my prices precipitously. You couldn’t even get in the door without throwing down $60,000 to start. But instead of scaring people off, our high price tags only seemed to attract more interest.

“Dammit,” I grumbled, peering at my steadily growing waiting list. “I’ll be in my grave before I can make all of these bikes.”

“Jesse,” Melissa called, “I have a Thom Beers on the line. Will you speak to him?”

“Yeah,” I grumbled. “Put him through.”

“Hey, Jess!” came Thom’s voice. “How’s life?”

“Not great. Don’t know if you’ve heard, but my wife and I are splitting up.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Thom said. “But if it helps, I have some
great
news for you.”

“And what’s that?”

“Discovery, apparently, is poised to give us a
show.
”

“We already had a show,” I said flatly.

“No,” Thom said, the excitement bubbling up in his voice. “I’m talking about a recurring series, man. Get you up on that screen every single week!”

“That’s not where I’m at, dude,” I said quietly. “You know me better than that.”

“Okay, I worded that awkwardly. What I mean to say is, this show is an opportunity for you to do new and exciting things, and get paid
extremely
well for it.”

“Well, now you have me slightly interested,” I admitted.

“Can we go out to dinner tonight?” Thom asked. “Have ourselves a little date?”

I laughed. “Yeah. Why not? I’m single now, anyway.”

We met in Venice that evening, at a typical West Los Angeles faux-hippie hideaway, where the tablecloths were hemp, and the candles were made out of soy.

“Would you two like to start with something to drink?” asked our waitress.

“I’ll have a tofu shake, extra beeswax.”

“He’s kidding. We’ll have a couple of beers, I think,” Thom said. “Whatever’s local.”

“No, no beer for me,” I said. “Just water.”

Then Thom began his pitch.

“They want to give you a show called
American Chopper,
Jesse,” he said. “The network thinks it’d be
very
cool to watch you build your custom bikes.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I hated having that damn camera crew in my face. And they were only around for a couple of weeks. I can’t imagine inviting them into my work for a year.”

“Well, they’re only offering a four-episode pilot,” Thom coughed, politely.

“Even so,” I said. “No way.”

“Well, then, I don’t know,” Thom said. He scratched his head. “I sort of thought you’d like that.”

“That’s not even creative, man,” I complained. “Can’t we do something a little more interesting? Something a little bit more . . . violent?”

“Discovery’s a family channel,” Thom pointed out. “In case you forgot.”

“I’m not talking violent to
people,
” I said. “Just like, a show that has, I don’t know, some explosions. If we’re gonna build something, then let’s build
machines.
”

“Tell me more.”

“What we
should
do,” I suggested, “is push the envelope. Get some of the best mechanics in the world together, and get them to build some Mad-Max, apocalypse-style vehicles.”

“War machines,” Thom said. “Bikes that spit fire.”

“Not bikes,” I corrected. “No offense, man, but I’ve got bikes coming out of my ears. Let’s make some cars instead:
mutant
cars.”

He nodded. “Sure, sounds great. But what the hell is a mutant car?”

“Like nightmare cars,” I said, thinking. “You know, like a Ferrari that can fly.”

“Ferraris already fly, pretty much.”

“Fine,” I said. “A Mustang that shoots missiles.”

“At who? The Soviets?” Thom shook his head. “Hate to tell you, the Cold War’s over, we won. Our grass was greener.”

“All right, then. A Mustang that can mow LAWNS!” I said, grinning as I pictured it. “Can’t you just see it? A freakin’ Mustang 5.0, mowing the lawn at a hundred miles an hour?”

“That sounds goofy.” Thom laughed. “Not to mention
impossible.
”

“Well,” I said, “if it was easy . . .”

“Then anyone could do it,” Thom said, nodding. “I get it. Drama. A bit of a challenge. Maybe we’ll even have some good fights among the crew during the build process. Hey, I think you have something there, Jesse.”

For the rest of the evening, we shot ideas back and forth. At first, there was talk of situating the show in some kind of Thunderdome, where the mechanics would have to grapple up walls and punch one another in the nose to get the tools they needed to modify the cars, but eventually, that idea was rejected. Soon, the basic premise was born: a crack team of professionals, led by myself, would strip down an ordinary-looking car, bus, van, or limousine to its barest essence. From there, it would be rebuilt from the ground up, until it contained one or more magical secret powers.