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.
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 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 crashed on the ramp, and the bike won’t start.
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 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.
I mean, how often do you crash on a motorcycle?
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.
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.
Henry was on one side, and I was on the other.
The fabric could be anywhere from 50 to 200 ply high.
It was all done manually in those days, and it took forever.
If he wasn’t careful, he could easily lose a finger or two.
When he was done with one pattern, I tied it up.
I picked up all the remnants and swept the floor, too.
Moose was doing the same thing with the other cutter.
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.
Moose was the star of the show.
He had ‘em eatin’ out of the palm of his hand.
We emptied the stolen U-Haul trailer in Miramar and took it to the shop in Hialeah.
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.
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.
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.
And I hadn’t even turned 20 yet!
To be continued…
*All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental…
