Long Island Railroad Motorcycle Maintenance
The unsolicited old school advice never stops as we wait for the 5:33am train into the city
Fourth in a series of conversations I had with Tom da Lung Eyelund Carpenta as we waited for our early morning commute into Manhattan…
“Youse looks cold. Ten years in Callerfonia? Eleven years too long, Son. Lucky for youse, tin blood only lasts a year until youse dies a diabeteez.
No worries, youse should heat up again real soon. Especially since youse now divorced.
‘Sides, da weadder is wawmer dese days, just like da music is worser. WTF is up wid what da young people listen to?
When we’s was kids da old fucks hated Led Zeplin. We tawt dey was crazy. Now we’s da old fucks, hate every channel on da radio.
Dat’s because all da good drugs are gone: acid, weed, shrooms, ludes. Evertin was better when we grew up, today’s kids got absolutely no idea what deir missin.
Fer eggzample, years ago I got my Harley’s gas tank painted at dis shady shop in Albertson. Two days a service, an dey wanned twenny-six hunnert dollars!
I immediately called bullshit on dat, so dey explained deir process in detail: Dis fucken guy wearin tiny round sunglasses, leadder jacket, and steel-toed shitkickers locks himself in a small dark room, wraps himself in a Hazmat suit an Injin blanket, and pulls bongs until he chokes on da vapers an goes blind.
He den goes about visualizin inside his disturbed mind da fucken skeletons he’s gonna den paint on my bike’s gas tank, cookin da weed until he can’t stand it any longer, and finally leaps on da rig droolin paint, gittin er done.
So I says fuck it, if he’s gonna go all-out like dat den bring it, make dat shit happen!
And yessir, dat freak did an incredible job, wort ever penny. Flamin fucken skulls dat made babies cry from across da street.
Included wuz outstretched skeletal arms across da top, dat when I looked down on da tank while ridin looked exactly like a silhouette of my own arms reachin to da bars, blazin on fire, and taken no names.
My wife loved it, too, so much so she tried ridin da bike, until she rode it right into da backyard fence.
So now if she wants to ride she rides on back, remindin me how tings have certainly changed since our yout: marriage, bad drugs, mortgages, a chaotic playroom, and Mickey D’s jungle gym a spoiled rotten brats.
But dose flamin fucken skeletons are still rollin, Son!
Here’s our train, da five-turdy-tree to da second.
God bless America!”
More adventures with Tom continues…