Greed, Commitment and the Unknown

Mid May in the mid 80's...Been building automated machines and staying pretty much on the low side..Got the pan frame hanging in the spare bedroom, motor split between the coffee table and the dinning room..Thursday night decided to skip out on the after work bar stop and see about finding the bottom of the table and getting the motor done..

About 9 the phone rings..Pick it up and it's Crockett..did some long deliveries for him last year..Drop a car off in Dallas and another in Houston..Don't ask, don't want to know just hammer down and get it done..This ones a little different, gas station outside of Portland..be there at 3pm Saturday, trade an envelope for the package..Leave..drop the envelope in Roseburg a Jammer and Big john..Only wheels I got is the bike..Crockett just says meet me in Stockton Friday afternoon..5g's in the deal half up front..Greed..

Friday afternoon pack the FXST and hope the new motor stay's together..Spun the cam bearings under warranty and the local shop dropped the new evo two in..Did a little cam work and no charge..damn remember those days..Head to the truck stop to meet Crockett..Pull in and there he sits.. big man did two tours in 'nam with with Big John..Just like this deal I never asked cause I may not want to know..He climbs out and hands me a 10" bar bag and say's that away you can always see it..hands me some cash and the ramp to get off at..Two dudes, an envelope..don't fuck around when the deals done, get on the road to Johns..See ya..Commitment

Nice ride through the night..a little jittery..partly induced and partly not knowing..Hours of riding your mind tends to wonder..Seen a lot of movies about deals gone wrong..had a couple go wrong but on my turf..strange land here..About 10am the sky opens up in buckets..No time to stop so I just keep rolling..I hit the station about 1:30 am and found a dry spot..Now I had pretty much convinced myself in the 16 hours on the road the deal was going to go wrong..I pull the saddle bags off and head to the can..Pull the little Star 5 shot 45acp out and lock and load..sweet pocket gun not much bigger than a 25.cal..Slide into the pocket of my new Heine Grecke jacket and hope I don't have to blow a hole on the coat.I wait and hour seemed like a life time.Unknown..

Three pm roll in and I don't see any caddies full of goons, in fact the first car to pull in is a 1972 Delta 88..beat to shit and out hope to dirty looking hippie dudes about my age..He man you got my stuff..smiling a stupid way to stoned smile..Ya you got mine..Oh ya here man..I hand them the bag..Number two asks if I want to count it..No dude if it is not all there I am sure the next thing you will feel is pain..It still pouring but it don't matter..I'm out of here..I want to be rid of the envelope as bad as the bag..

I hit John and Jammers about 7:30 pm..I was wound tighter than a kick start spring on 1937 Indian Chief..I wanted Jack and lot's of it..John and Jammer were always good hosts and we drank ourselves silly..I drank my nerves back to normal..simple job and a way overworked mind..I got two days to cruise home..and a pocket full of Ben Franklins to get me there..It was my last haul, Crockett just sort of disappeared..Jammer told me years later that he packed up to some tiny island with a few million in cash..She started to tell me what he was moving and I stopped her..don't want to know............

Rat..