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| Map of Travels |
| Mad Tiny New Jersey’s answer to Cellini and Leonardo “Hey Tiny, where the hell are ya?” I stuck my head through the door looking for the giant, hoping he’d hear me .I had an armful of cycle fenders and gas tanks and needed his expertise. His big, friendly paint-covered face popped up from behind the dustiest Continental I’d ever laid eyes on. It’s a wonder he heard me with the hot air heater making a awful racket and the Strawberry Alarm Clocks or some other berry group tearing up the wireless. Eye’s twinkling, Mad Tiny walked around the Continental and grabbed a handful of my metal. “You cycle guys are all alike, making more noise than the rear end of the bikes that you straddle. He stood for a moment looking down at the pile of “befores,” shook his head and shuffled back to work. Squatting down he sloshed water all over the fender with one enormous hand and slowly began to sand with the other. Sitting next to the Continental, his 350 pounds made it look like one of the smaller lower-priced three. The first time I met Tiny in his crowded West New York shop, he was leaning his six-foot chassis against a paint-cluttered workbench, holding court. “In this business you gotta be a listener. Everyone who walks into my shop has a tale. You get so used to hearing the same story, day in and day you get so you listen with half an ear. In the fifteen years I’ve been in business there isn’t any type of accident I haven’t heard of. The funny part is it’s never their fault. I’ve come to believe it’s some kind of unknown being that goes around smashing up cars.” I put down the last of the fenders as Tiny finished sanding. He threw the rag in a pail and wiped his hands on his shirt. “Time for coffee,” he yelled. A few minutes later with coffee in hand, I noticed he hadn’t ordered pastry. He must have read my mind. “I’m on a diet. My doctor says I have the perfect weight for a man ten foot two.” To take his mind off my big piece of cake I changed the subject. “Have you ever thrown a leg over and felt the wind in you ears?” “Once,” he chuckled. “Some kid came tooting in here one day on his motor scooter for a sparky paint job. I climbed on to bring it into the shop and the rear tire blew out from under me. Poor kid almost cried. I told him I saved his life seeing as was riding with a defective tire.” “Well Tiny, if you don’t mind, I’d just as soon you didn’t sit on my machine. Come on, finish your coffee and talk to me about my problems.” I grabbed him by the arm, which is like holding onto an oil drum and gently coaxed him over to a heap of parts on the floor. He studied the bits and pieces for a minute and then started to get this wild look in his eye. “Under my hands this ugly looking thing will become a work of art, Ummm . . . how about metalflake candy orange with purple trim. I’ll mold some glass fiber in to flare out the sides and . . . “ I gagged. “Hold it, hold it I almost shouted. “This is no circus calliope you’re messing with. My character demands something sedate and inoffensive like racing silver with red trim.” Tiny didn’t say anything. The light in his eyes dimmed and went out. He turned and shuffled off. Contending with the world’s only undiscovered genius is one thing, but when he’s disturbed, that’s a tank of another color. While Tiny was spraying primer on a car and I was scheming where I’d get treasury notes to pay him, a prospective client walked in for an estimate on his wrecked car. I listened to the music for as long as I could stand it and stuck my head out the door. Tiny was practicing the art of listening. Another customer with a sad tale, I thought, as I ducked back inside out of the cold. Tiny was brought up in Bergen County, New Jersey, the place that holds up the other end of the George Washington Bridge, and has been tagged with his nickname since he was a kid. The “Mad” part wasn’t added until a few years ago. A guy with lots of green brought his “Vette” into the shop and engaged Tiny’s talents to turn the car into a Go and Show dazzler. The customer haunted the shop and one day as he watched the giant dance around the car spraying what was probably the zillionth coat of lacquer, he said to Tiny, you’re mad man, mad, mad, mad.” The finished car was exhibited at New York City’s Coliseum custom car show with a big sign that proclaimed “Mad Tiny” of West New York was the genius that made it all possible. A well-known custom car man from California called Tiny at home to discuss some of the car’s details. Tiny’s wife answered the phone and informed the caller that no one with the name “Mad Tiny” lived with her. Secretly she may have considered him a little mad but who talks to strangers about such things. Tiny’s frame filled the doorway as he stepped back into the shop. “People expect to much when you give them an estimate. That guy was a shopper. He’ll hit a couple more body men before the day is over hoping to pad the estimate. Today’ s insurance companies are no dopes. There was a time when scraped fenders could be replaced with no feedback from the adjuster, but I spend more and more of my time banging out dents and filling with plastic body filler. God may save souls but I save fenders.” I cleared some space on the workbench so Tiny could start working on my tank. “Which one do you want to start with first? Don’t worry your jumbled brains about color yet. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me before you or I decide on the finish.” “I have a funny feeling that somehow I lost control of this project. Look, if you’re still pushing that metalflake jazz, forget it. Start with the Honda tank. The others belong to friends and they’re not around to argue the point.” Tiny found a can of paint remover and coated the tank until the tank reeked like Dante’s inferno. “I’d like a half dollar for every tank, fender and frame that’s left this shop. Most of the bikes I customize are big Harleys and the kids that bring them in are nice people. They appreciate the work I do, pay on time and act like gentlemen. People who don’t ride think that people that do are nuts. Characters they may be, but not nuts!” Just then Tiny’s partner Phil Longano joined us. About as much alike as peas and squash. Phil thinks the whole world strange and his partner first in line. Phil keeps the books, mails out bills and in general sees that the business makes a profit. There have been times when Tiny contracted to do jobs in exchange for sausages and Girl Scout cookies. Phil shutters to think of the replies the mail would bring if he shared his good fortune with the electric and gas company. “Motorcycle riders aren’t crazy, huh! Tell your friend about the guy with a bullet hole in his helmet.” Thinking that you shouldn’t judge a rider by the bullet holes in his helmet, I waited patiently to hear this story. Tiny laughed. “A kid wandered in one fine day and asked me to paint his German helmet a deep lavender. There was this big bullet hole in it and I had to weld it closed. Personally I’d have left it alone. The kid was sensitive and didn’t want people to talk behind his back. Deep lavender!” Tiny went back to the Continental and I left for work. A week later I was back knocking on his door. I took a few steps inside and immediately noticed the changes. The floor was swept and the Continental had morphed into a Rambler. Even the radio matched the mood with a swing tune from the middle forties.Tiny was poking around under the work bench and I didn’t see the change in him till he straightened up. His work clothes were new and he seemed to have grown taller. “Have you grown taller or does it look that way ‘cause you have creases in your pants?” “I told ya I’m on a diet. Lost ten pounds. Look at the unused holes in my belt. Every year I go through this. Lose a few, gain a few. Thirty more pounds and I’ll fit the suit I got from a guy who died from overweight.” The giant went back down under the bench and finally found what he was looking for; my tank. It was down to bare metal, filled with plastic filler and sanded smooth. We decided . . . Tiny grudgingly compromised . . . to paint the tank Chevrolet silver which is close to the Honda color, only more lustrous and easier to obtain. The fenders were done and looked great but the other tanks were still waiting until my friends gave a nod on color. The phone rang and Tiny picked up. “Yes, yes we do. Yes ma’m, we mend everything but broken hearts and the Ten Commandments. Sure bring it down anytime.” He replaced the handset and went back to work on the tank. “Wait till her kid gets home.” “What kid?” “The kid that belongs to the lady on the phone.” “Oh?” “She said she ran over her son’s new trail bike and broke something. She hoped she could get it in her car and drive it here before her son got home from school.” “Think she’ll make it?” “No, she sounds kind of small. The bike probably outweighs her by fifty pounds.” As the afternoon slowly passed, riders came in to find out if their bank accounts were large enough to buy a personalized paint job and stayed to watch the comings and goings of others who came in for the same reason and stayed to watch the comings and goings of Mad Tiny. By mid-afternoon Tiny had applied the last coat. The process seemed endless, but the results certainly justified the effort. “You might as well go home. You’ve learned enough of my secrets for one day. The lacquer will have to harden before I can compound the finish and that’ll be better than a week.” A small lady, sure enough, came through the door. “I called earlier about the bike,” she said. “I have it in the car. Would you see what . . .” and I was on my way. |
| FOLLOW THE YELLOW LINE Motorcycle Touring with Stuart Davis and His Side Car www.followtheyellowline.com |
| Ramblings, etc. |