American Outlaw - Jesse James [67]
“Who are you trying to sell your fenders to, Jesse?” Karla asked.
“Well,” I said, “I took a few to the swap meet last weekend.”
“Are you serious?” Karla laughed. “The swap meet? Did you actually sell any?”
“One,” I admitted, embarrassed. “Look, I understand the swap meet, okay? That’s where I grew up.”
“Okay,” Karla said, looking serious. “No more fooling around. It’s time for us to get cracking. What we need to do is go around to some shops. We need to get you to a place where someone might buy, like, ten of your fenders.”
“Maybe Performance would want some,” I mused.
“There you go,” Karla said. “We’ll start there. Where else?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s probably about ten bike shops in the area we could try.”
Karla grinned. “So what are we waiting for?”
Karla was right. Most of the bike shops we talked to liked fenders, and agreed to take on a couple right away, to see if they’d sell to customers. And immediately, they did. I started receiving progressively more excited phone calls from store owners, demanding that I furnish them with more custom fenders.
“This is incredible!” I told Karla. “I mean . . . I can’t believe it. People really like these things!”
“Of course,” Karla said, sounding authoritative. “A chopper really looks good with a wide back wheel, covered by a fat fender.” She giggled. “Don’t it?”
Soon, the orders began piling in. From one week to the next, they doubled in size. Then tripled. My margin was great: I was selling each fender for several hundred dollars, and reaping a nice profit on each piece.
One day, Karla approached me with a snooty look on her face.
“As West Coast Choppers’ official business manager,” she announced, “I request a meeting with our chief Grease-Monkey-in-Charge.”
I laughed. “What is it?”
“Jesse, I’ve been looking over the books,” Karla said, her voice filling with rising excitement. “You’re making more on your fenders than at the hot rod shop.”
I was completely taken aback. “That must be a mistake.”
“It’s not, babe. I checked the numbers three times. Honestly, it almost doesn’t make sense for you to keep on working there.”
“But I like those guys,” I said, after a second. “And I owe a lot to Boyd.”
“And we have a baby on the way,” Karla reminded me, patting her stomach. “Just think for a second. Imagine how much we could be earning if you decided to put all your time toward your own business.”
I was silent for a moment. “I’ll think about it.”
But the breaking point came soon. One evening, when Karla was nine months pregnant and huge, she approached me cautiously. “Hon,” she said, “do you know how much West Coast Choppers cleared this week?”
“Nope,” I said honestly. But I knew it had to be a lot. I had stayed up most of each night working to fulfill massive orders from independent bike shops, then rising early as usual to get to Boyd’s. I was beyond exhausted.
“Ten thousand dollars,” she said quietly.
I was amazed. I stood there and said nothing.
“It’s time for you to resign, Jesse,” she said gently. “Like, today.”
——
So I quit. Our garage up on Hackett Avenue wasn’t going to hold me anymore. It had gotten so full of tools, it’d take me forty-five minutes to move everything around before I could even have a space to work. I had a mill, a lathe, and a paint booth, all smashed together in a two-car garage.
“Do you think you might help me find a space?” I asked Doyle Gammel, a few days after I left the hot rod shop.
“Kid, you are truly an idiot to leave Boyd,” he sighed. “But yeah, sure, I’ll help you if you want.”
I let out a breath, relieved.
“Hell, I’ll even rent to you,” Doyle said. “Look, I got five thousand square feet on Minnesota Avenue, and about half of that’s going to waste. My weight machines aren’t moving like they used to.”
Over the years, Doyle had shifted gears, moving from constructing hot rods to making custom gym equipment for the California prison system.
“You do great work,” I said. “The felons of our society thank you.”
“Fuck you, okay?” Doyle replied. “There’s money in prisons.”
To start, I rented a single