American Outlaw - Jesse James [0]
Gallery Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This work is a memoir. Events, actions, experiences, and their consequences over a period of years have been retold as the author presently recollects them. Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed, and some dialogue has been re-created from memory. The timeline for some events has been compressed.
Copyright © 2011 by Jesse James
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Gallery Books hardcover edition May 2011
GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks
of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Designed by Jaime Putorti
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011006187
ISBN 978-1-4516-2785-5
ISBN 978-1-4516-2788-6 (ebook)
For insert photograph credits, see page 361.
To Chandler, Jesse, Sunny, and my beloved Katherine
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
AFTERWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INSERT PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS
PROLOGUE
“Oh shit! It’s him! Get ready, get ready!”
I walk out into the bright California daylight, a baseball cap pulled low over my eyes.
“Jesse! Yo! Jesse—look over here, man!”
“Jesse James! Hey, how’s it going, asshole? Got time for a picture?”
Like most pack animals, paparazzi aren’t nearly as charming when they’ve turned against you. In fact, Beverly Hills gossip photographers, seen up close, are snappingly vicious.
“Jess, you like sluts, right? Yo! Jesse!”
I clench my jaw and glance over at my sixteen-year-old daughter, Chandler, to check her reaction. She stares straight ahead numbly as we hurry toward our truck. It infuriates me that my children—Chandler, Jesse Jr., and my six-year-old, Sunny—have to deal with insults that should be for me alone.
But paparazzi never play by the rules. These guys make up their own moral code. And for the last week, they haven’t hesitated to make my life hell.
“Come on,” I order my kids, “let’s hop to it. Let’s go.” Chandler quickly raises her science textbook to cover her face, so they can’t get a shot of her. Smart.
“Jesse! Did you talk to Sandra?” cries a skinny, ragged-looking guy at the head of the pack. “Hey, did you talk to Sandra? Did you talk to Sandra?”
For paparazzi, peak performance hinges on volume and repetition. The loudest-crowing cock rules the roost. They hurl spiteful insults at the top of their lungs, their cracked lips hemmed in by patchy beards and wet mustaches.
“Jesse! Jesse! Are you a Nazi?”
Camera shutters click on full auto. I keep my head down: only a few more yards to the truck.
As we approach my vehicle, I open the doors remotely with a click of my key. Chandler helps Sunny into the backseat. Jesse Jr. hops up front like a champ.
Incredibly, the photographers continue to shoot. By now, each of them have likely taken several hundred pictures of me and my children just on the way to our truck, all interchangeable and nearly identical.
“You know what?” I say. “You guys got all the shots you need today. I’m trying to take my kids to school now, so just leave for a while. Let us have some space.”
“Yeah, you heard the guy!” one guy says, laughing. “Back off! He needs his space!” Derisive laughter follows from the pack of sweaty, middle-aged men.
“Hey, we didn’t screw up, Jesse,” one of the men admonishes me.