At first the hard-riding HORSE staff compelled me to blast each issue with rugged anecdotes of outlaw lore. If I went much further with my own road stories, I might confess to some treacherous crime that would bust my three strikes standing to an even half dozen and you'd never hear from me again. So I turned my attention to other notables hiding from the law in the desert, in ghetto dojos and this issue, on an island, in the middle of the Pacific. This tale involves the old school, Choppers, cops, wrenches, bike thieves, heart and hard work.
Brother, Mark Deacon, started riding and being chased by the cops shortly after his mother ran off, and his dad hauled him, his brother and his two sisters, to So Cal. His first run-in with the law took place in 4th grade around a modified Corvair. In 1965, centered in the grizzly concrete jungle of Monrovia, California, a Los Angeles suburb, he rode a lawn mower powered scooter on the asphalt thoroughfares, at the age of 12. It was strictly forbidden by law in Southern California. Black and white Dodge muscle cars burned rubber with sirens blaring after the kid, with no brakes and a 5- horsepower engine. Today cops wouldn't be bothered. They're buried in gang-bangers, crack houses, and terrorist cells.
“I went to jail that day behind a Briggs and Stratton engine,” Deacon said. They held him until his truck-driving dad came home from the bar.
Deacon's days of riding unlicensed, outlaw vehicles were over. He headed to a local junkyard and bought a '50s Ariel Square Four.
“It was a project just to get it running,” Deacon said. Although it was street legal, Deacon was an unlicensed rider who was immediately under screaming scrutiny of the law once more.
“I knew I could cut across the elementary school yard and out the back,” Deacon remembered. “There was an orchard on the other side that was shredded and turned into a construction zone. Cops couldn't get in. I jammed through the site, into a dirt field and out on the other side of town.” That would have worked, except a good citizen flagged the officer down and told him where Deacon lived. He went back to jail and waited for his dad to leave the bar at closing time.
So much for the classic Ariel. Shortly thereafter he met a guy who advertised a 305 Honda Scrambler for sale. Deacon asked the owner to hang onto the hot rod looking Honda, and he struggled for the cash, working odd jobs at a machine shop, gardening and cleaning gas stations. With that hot wad of cash, burning a hole in the pocket of his Levis, he jammed to the kid's house. The bike was still leaning up against the side of the stucco garage, but he was told that the kid had just shipped out to Vietnam. He was distraught, but had a plan. He returned to the middle-class California bungalow, and no one was home. He dropped the cash in the mailbox in exchange for the dusty machine, fired it to life and sped down the street.
Once more lights flashed and sirens wailed, after the kid's parents turned him in for Grand Theft.
The Man tore his young fingers from the hot rubber grips and sent him first to Juvenile Hall in LA County, then to the Pacific Lodge Boy's Home in Woodland Hills and finally to the Youth Authority in Whittier, where he did time until he was released prior to turning 16. Immediately he started his own business, rebuilding bugs behind a small home with a giant garage, in the suburbs of Los Angeles, but his collisions with the Man didn't stop.
Deacon became a man of the Wrench, who felt comfortable restoring, rebuilding, modifying or fabricating anything with steel. In 1969 his yard was stacked with scrap vehicles, rusting parts and half baked repair jobs. A gentleman arrived one sunny afternoon and asked Deacon what he did? Deacon loved every minuscule aspect of each project, from a carburetor rebuild, to welding a frame gusset. He opened up to the citizen, as if he was receiving the mechanic-of-the-year award. When he completed his jubilant pitch, the man behind the Ray Bans, handed him a card which proclaimed that he was an officer of the Los Angeles City And County Zoning Commission. Deacon was shut down. Fortunately his reputation preceded him and he went to work for Bob Bozini's Porche/Audi.
“Bob was forced to put up a bond, ” Deacon muttered, “since I was under age.”
He shut his business down, but he used his garage to build bikes starting with a 1970 YDS3 Yamaha twin which he built into a drag bike that ran 12.02 at 110 mph at smoggy Irwindale Motorspeedway in 1973. While working on bikes in his shop he was approached by a Hells Angel prospect that gave him $4,500 to build him a chopper. Deacon told him, “Sure, I can do it.” He bought a Paughco frame, Invader wheels and a stock engine, and built the man a hard running scooter.
Deacon endeavored to bolster his positive attitude to overcome the myriad of obstacles he encountered as a youngster, but a lingering suspicion grabbed at his balls. Wrenching historically caused him establishment woes. He decided to run from the wrench and began a career in making silver, turquoise jewelry and playing music. He studied at the feet of Indians in Arizona and New Mexico. A highlight was making Jewelry for James Cann, but the Man would haunt him once more. In 1974, at a 4th of July party, in Medford, Oregon, while playing in a band, finally the positive hand of fate moved over Mark Deacon. He met Katy. They have been together ever since.
Shortly thereafter he helped a friend move back to Southern California. Dead tired in San Bernadino, California, 800 miles south, he pulled to the side of a lonely street and fell asleep. An officer flashed a light in the VW Van and spotted a bowie knife. The Berdoo cops jacked him up and found the scrawny remnants of a pot plant in his friend's belongings. The harmless incident triggered one of Deacon's most terrifying memories.
He was thrown in the clink with hardened criminals for three weeks. Murderers harassed him and taunted him.
At one point the public defender worked with him to fill out an OR release form, but when he was dragged before the judge and the case was reviewed, the judge threw out the charges with time served. He quickly returned to Katy, but that didn't end the terrible nightmare. Two years later, in Oregon, he was arrested for never appearing on the OR release. The judge's paperwork and the own-recognizance form never connected. He was extradited back to Berdoo to stand trial once more.
Between the cops, Mexicans trying to run him down on his first Sportster, in LA and a desire to find a positive place to raise a family, he uprooted and moved to Oahu in 1976. In 1979 he returned to the world of the wrench and built a turbo charge Karman Ghia. He became the builder/driver of the fastest VW, “Red Rider”, in the world at over 156 mph in the quarter mile and 9.06 seconds. The racing world drew him back to the continent for seven years.
Deacon married Katy and moved to Santa Cruz, then Watsonville. He kicked off a machine shop, Right-Way Machine, which he sold after the earthquake in '89 and built Cadillac Cafe in Watsonville, California. “Bikes flew past the shop constantly,” Deacon said. “One day a large pack was screaming by when a bike broke down, sputtered and pulled into the driveway. Then another scooter crapped out. A club member strode up to Deacon and said, “We gotta get a truck unless you can fix these bastards?”
Once again Deacon muttered, “Sure,” joyously and dropped his VW vocation for building bikes. “I got rid of anything that had to do with cars.”
Within a year he had rebuilt 65 engines. “The Romance associated with H-Ds was similar to Volkswagens in the '80s,” Deacon said. “I built the little bug that couldn't and the same notion applies to building Harleys. People say that Harleys aren't fast. They're the underdog.” He packed his shit and shipped back to Oahu in '96 and opened Pro-Street Cycles. Since returning he built the fastest pro-stock Harley on the islands. He runs 162 mph at 8.22 seconds in the quarter mile.
“We devastated all the Japanese bikes, which was a real big plus for Harley,” Deacon said.
Last year I flew to Hawaii to the first Choppers Only Show in Waikiki. The jammed packed event at the Hard Rock Cafe was a sellout success produced by non-other than Deacon. His band Biker Blues rocked the joint.
“I'm building Choppers now,” He said grinning. He's building a hot rod engine with Billy Lane for a Discovery project. Just goes to show that a kid gone bad can wrestle his sorry ass into a shop and make good.
–Bandit
