I almost quit over this one. Bikernet was in the middle of year-end taxes and financials. We were about to launch the Cantina. Nyla was shooting photographs of the new line of Dragonfly shirts with near-naked women and the Digital Gangster was working his fingers to nubs trying to get everything launched. Where was the big guy? Out in the garage grinding on the frame for John Buttera's desk. He brazed, welded and fucked with the parts so much that he ran out of oxygen and acetylene, and since his tanks were stolen, no one in town would fill them. He had to pay the local muffler shop to complete the final brazing.

Professor NuttBoy and Bandit ate up a couple of days just grinding and rubbing their shitty welds with wet and dry sandpaper. Their notion was to powdercoat the frame, engine and tranny cases for a durable finish, then chrome the rest. First, all the parts were taken to a sand blaster, then directly to the powdercoater for a charcoal silver finish. Of course Bandit had to drop off the parts then vacillate about the color. He took Sin Wu across town for her opinion, then Layla, then some girl he picked up on a street corner. Finally reaching a consensus, they made a decision on the gloss silver. Then the chrome was delivered to a Corvette behind a diner at midnight and that sparked another major problem--getting it back.

With the chrome and powdercoat finally in hand and the glass people screaming at us to get the glass out of their warehouse, Bandit picked up the final fasteners from California H-D and the local hardware store and began assembly. With the business faltering and the IRS calling, we couldn't get the big bastard on the phone. He had kidnapped the professor and his new truck for glass duty. The crew at the glass company was astounded as Bandit and NuttBoy tossed the delicate, 3/8-inch thick, surfboard-shaped chunk of glass in the bed of the truck and peeled out of their lumpy driveway. They weren't surprised when Bandit called the next day about the broken glass. It split near the hole and the sun's heat caused the fissure to creep to the edge of the glass. That was a cool $350 out the window. Bandit ordered another sheet and the photo shoot was canceled.