We were on the edge of the desert....

...when I suddenly found myself a white male in the United States of America.

Odd.

Therefore, I have taken to my midlife crisis, with zeal, in an effort to blow it all. If I get through this and still have all this success I've had handed to me, then it will truly be mine. I feel like the guy David Byrne sings about that asks himself: 'Well...how did I get here?' Great song, by the way.

Goddamn Catholic upbringing won't allow me to believe that I've really earned all this shit.

So anyway...this morning, after faking my way through a rather uneventful morning at work, I brought my truck home and grabbed Spedly's 1980 Honda CB900 Special and rode it back to the office. It was raining. I felt fantastic. Nobody that looked upon my dirty leathers and this evil-looking, drop-barred, noise-belching contraption barreling down the road would believe that I am responsible for overseeing the livelyhood of about 50 people. What fun. I cranked up the bike and kept it in 2nd gear at about 45mph...creating a roar that I'm sure would have disturbed any small forest animal within 2 city blocks.

"Fuck them," I thought, "They need to know who's in charge here, and the louder this damn thing gets, the more clear it becomes who has their finger on the trigger."

So I rode the rest of the way back to the office, never shifting out of 2nd.

As I showed up at the store, I rode into the detail area, where Spedly should have been. Only...NO SPEDLY. I asked Peter where the hell he was, and he shouted out that he just called. Evidently the fucker had broken the clutch cable on the Blue Devil (the club's 1991 Honda Nighthawk 750), and was trying to get something together and get his ass to work. I momentarily thought about trekking off to his house, which wasn't far away, but decided against it. I barked for Peter to have Spedly see me as soon as he gets in, and rode off to the main shop.

I returned to my office, worked on a couple of pricing spreadsheets for the new accessory guide, and then parked myself in the service drive to watch the goings-on. I just couldn't get into anything today, so I trekked across the street to detail in an effort to locate Spedly. Whilest over there, I bummed a smoke from Peter and we talked about the workload and how there weren't enough cars to keep all his guys busy. Build-out will end shortly and he'll be bitching about how there's not enough time in the day to get the work done. Sometimes working with people is like swinging a pendulum and then getting it to slow down after you get it going. They're never happy.

Whilest we were chatting, Spedly finally pulled up. I broke off the banter and walked out to him, motioning him to cut the engine. Spedly is a very dear friend of mine, even though I am technically his supervisor. I got him this job detailing cars and, whilest he was a terrible risk, he has managed to do all right for himself. Overall he's made pretty good progress on developing decent work habits and sufficient desire t make a paycheck. What I still hold hope out for is that I can positively affect his decision-making process in the rest of his life.

Now, remember I told you that he's a very dear friend of mine when I say this...Spedly is poor white trash. His plight really is nobody's fault but his own, as is the case with the majority of his ilk. Responsibility is a word lost upon him and his wife. I digress...

"You need to come with me. I need to show you something." I said with an overbearing tone of seriousness in my voice whilest looking at him over the top of my glasses.

"What?" Spedly held his hands out like he was trying to prove his innocence.

"Just come with me, pal." And I started walking back across the street, Spedly in tow.

"Did I screw something up?"

I didn't answer.

"I'll finish that Camry right away."

I love it when silence does its job. The boy was telling me stuff I didn't even want to know in an effort to stave off the impending unpleasantry I was obviously going to lay at his feet.

As we turned the corner to the back shop, he started laughing when he saw his CB sitting in the impromptu 'Motorcycle Parking' area next to the compressor room. It looked good. I enjoyed the look on his face. He was excited.

Spedly acquired this bike to replace his failing CB750 back around the first of the year. Since then, its been moored in my garage for a complete run-through. Lono and I went through that bike pretty thoroughly, with Lono doing most of the work. We polished every piece of aluminum that would come off the engine, solved nasty fuel leak in the carbs, adjusted the valves, rebuilt the frontend, installed new bars, seat cover, fixed the air suspension, changed every fluid, took out dents and damage to the fuel tank and side covers, painted said tank and side covers, painted all the hardware, modified the turn signal and headlight mounts, replaced the stock tail light with a Harley tombstone (just to piss off the Harley guys), and reconditioned the finish on all the instrument cluster cases. I know I'm missing something, but fuck it. I finally got everything dialed in and running just two days ago, and decided to motivate Spedly a little bit.

The sinister purpose of the ride to work this afternoon was to torture Spedly. The benevolent purpose of the ride to work this afternoon was to motivate Sepdly. He has been dragging his feet for 6 months to get the title switched over, and now the bike is ready. So I told him, in no uncertain terms, that if the damn thing wasn't switched over in 2 weeks, I was going to Bob's and changing the title into my name and riding it in front of him until he gave me the money it cost to license. I know its a heartless thing to do, but I'm just the bastard to do it. And it has to be done.

After all, the boy needs direction.