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As I sat with the two brothers, Tim and John, I reflected on my stay in Cleveland. I came to the conclusion that it wasn't so much the city, as it was the people you meet and hang with. Now everyone has heard all the jokes about Cleveland but the year was 1982 when I was there and I had a blast. We use to go down to the stadium the Cleveland Indians played in. The place was huge and held around 80,000. It was great going to a ball game where maybe 10,000 people showed up in a place that held 80,000.
I told the brothers I could only stay for two days but let's do some partying. I threw down a grand on his desk and said let's score. Tim made a call, then told John and I the shit would be there in 45 minutes. I really didn't want to use any of my own road trip stash. I would just rather buy an ounce and party it away. After all the small talk I asked them about this girl I was kinda seeing named Star. She tended bar at a pretty nice neighborhood joint. It had been five years since I had saw her. Tim told me she still was there and added, "where you think the stuff is coming from?" I laughed - I knew she dabbled in selling but evidently she had stepped up. I asked if she was bringing it and they both laughed and said you bet. I was like "well I'm not sure I want to see her" and they laughed some more. I'm thinking this will suck. Earlier, I told her I would take her to Louisville with me, my next stop. I never even said goodbye to her. There was a knock on the door, my heart started beating a little faster as John yelled for the person to enter. Star walked in and said hello to the brothers. When she saw me, she called me some nasty names. Usually fighting names but I didn't flinch. I asked her if she was done? She says nope and gave me some more. Now I know I had some coming but she just crossed the line. I said "hey knock it off either shut up and throw the shit on the desk or get the fuck out enough is enough". She looked at me with her big brown eyes. I knew what I did was wrong so I told her she was right. Then I told her to smile for me and throw out four lines for us to see if this shit was any good. We all did a blast and I told Tim to pay the lady. I got two days here, so let the games begin! Hey Star, you gonna stick around?
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After I left Buffalo (and Kim), I looked forward to getting to Cleveland.
Back in my barnstorming, gypsy, cable life we had a big job in Cleveland. The place we stayed at was run by two brothers, Tim and John. They were two years apart and were running and remodeling kitchenettes for their family in Bedford Heights, a suburb of Cleveland. The drive to Bedford Heights from Buffalo was about three hours so normally to pace myself, I do a bump every 100 miles otherwise shit can get nuts getting wired by yourself. Today was different though, I had Kim on my mind so I lowered it to every 50 miles on the odometer. Now anyone who has been in this position knows 50 miles can be an eternity (LOL). I cannot imagine how the pioneers did it with covered wagons - I guess it was a different breed of human. I blew into Cleveland about 2pm and, using my great memory, traveled to Bedford Heights. You have to remember this is before cell phones and GPS. This was paper maps and pay phones. Sometimes I wonder how we, as a society, survived without technology. So after a few wrong turns, some extremely foul language and a couple unscheduled blasts up the nose, I saw the building. Now I'm sure Columbus seeing land was a bigger rush then me seeing the high rise, however Columbus was nowhere near as high as I was - so I'm just saying that I got quite the rush. I pulled into the parking lot. It had been about five years since I had been there, but we had a lot of great memories. It felt like I had never left. I parked the car and walked into the office to find these two scoundrels. The woman at the counter asked if I needed any help, smoothly I replied, "not unless you are off work". I asked if the boys were in and she explained that they were unavailable at the moment. I moved right past her and and opened the door. "Hey, you two lazy fuckin' scoundrels - who has the party favors?!" They both jumped up and called me a traveling son of a bitch. "What are you doing here", they asked. "I got 2 days and money - let's do it", I replied. They said the only logical response "why not?!" |
AuthorPeter "Big Pete" James ran the largest motorcycle club in the Chicago-land area. This is his story. Archives
September 2017
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