Free American Outlaw by Jesse James Page A

that here?”
    “The gentleman in question says that you were shoplifting from him, Jesse,” she remarked.
    “Sure,” I said. “Stands to reason he’d say that. It shifts the blame from the real guilty party: him.”
    Ms. Torres folded her arms and stared at me. “Why don’t I believe you, Jesse?”
    “I can’t control what you believe, Ms. Torres. I can only speak the truth.” I nodded toward her crucifix. “We’ll have to leave it to the big guy upstairs to decide, right?”
    Torres frowned. “Jesus has more pressing matters to attend to, Mr. James, than your tall tales. For now,” she said, “you are under my supervision. Is that understood? Keep out of trouble. No more altercations.”
    Whatever. I figured it was all bullshit. It was more fun being a knucklehead. Bobby and I roamed around, sizing up burger stands and electronics stores, fantasizing that we were going to knock off another one when the mood seized us.
    “Wouldn’t you love to get a taste of that, James?” Bobby said, leering at a Burger King shutting down for the night.
    “You bet,” I agreed. “A nice big score, set us straight for the rest of the year.”
    We had plenty of company in asshole-dom. Teenaged Riverside thieves gathered around Bobby like he was king shitpile. There was one kid who fairly idolized him. He was an auto thief who collected Clubs—as in “The Club”—just to be a massive dick about it. The crowning achievement of his life was the double closet in his bedroom that, no bullshit, contained a six-foot-high mountain of Clubs.
    He was so proud of that mountain. He’d slim jim his way into a car, take a pair of bolt cutters, and snip through the steering wheel, which is just wire underneath the padding, and slide the Club off. Sure, the steering would go all wobbly after he did that, but hey, that wasn’t his problem, right? He wasn’t going to be driving that car for very long, anyway.
    We pinched cars and cut them up. We sold them to various scumbags for next to nothing, or ripped them apart and tried to deal the parts. On weekends, I was chained to the swap meet for my dad. But on weeknights, I’d drive into L.A. and hang out at Golden Apple Comics, with my cousin Dave and his girlfriend. She had a Silver Surfer tattoo on her forearm, which was pretty hard-core for the eighties. Golden Apple was down on Melrose, and they stayed open pretty late. We’d geek out on comics for hours at a time.
    After a couple of months of hanging out there, the owner of the store started looking at me all funny.
    “Hey, kid. Come over here.”
    I looked at him suspiciously. “I haven’t stolen anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    “No, it’s not that,” he said. “Listen, I need a big kid like you to work security for me. We got an event coming up tomorrow night, and my regular guy’s busy. You ever work security before?”
    I shook my head. “What do I have to do?”
    “You just make sure no one gets in without paying. And once they’re in, you gotta see to it that no one stuffs anything in their pants. Not rocket science.”
    “What do you pay?”
    “Fifty bucks a night, plus you get to listen to everything, front row. How’s that for a deal, kid?”
    I agreed for the pure hell of it. I thought it was very funny: me of all people making sure no one pilfered anything. But then I decided to take the job seriously. Golden Apple had a lot of great readings in those days. Charles Bukowski came around two different timeswhen I was working. The second time he was there, he brought me several signed first editions of his books. I really had no idea who he was until years later. I just liked him because he was the crusty, angry type of fucker I’d gotten used to at the swaps.
    The days passed, and soon I missed having a girlfriend. Before long I got it into my head that I’d like to try making Patty into Rhonda’s replacement. Beyond the fact of knowing it would piss off that John kid no end, she