Lowrider Space: Aesthetics and Politics of Mexican American Custom Cars

4. Work: The Producer as Author

4 Work The Producer as Author I arrive at a garage on the outskirts of East Austin in the hours between close of business and dusk. Smiley passes me on the way to the sink. “Hey Ben! I’d shake your hand, but . . .” He holds up both palms, which are black with grease. I notice he is wearing a T-shirt from a lowrider car show a couple of years back, but not the gold chain he usually has on while out cruising. About seven or eight men are gathered around a clean El Camino painted green with gold-plated trim and gold rims. A skinny Anglo guy, I guess in his early twenties, is holding a compressed-air tool and trying to chisel out a notch in the bed of the truck. He is Frankie, and this is his shop, he will tell me later. He wipes his upper lip and studies the bed. “This ain’t going to do it.” The hard metal of the bed will not give way. Beside the El Camino on the floor of the shop is a frame of welded angle iron, some four feet across. This is what will hold down the bank of six to eight batteries, the “juice” behind the car’s future hydraulic setup. The frame is from another car and does not fit the El Camino exactly. Notches in the bed will allow it to be secured. But first the notches have to be cut. Locomoco is leaning on the El Camino. His head is shaved, apparently a few days ago, and under the stubble I can make out an Aztec calendar tattoo work 137 spanning the globe of his skull. He straightens up, a huge man well over six feet tall, and remarks in a deep baritone, “I’d take the torch to it.” Tony, the owner of the car, is smaller and energetic. “I don’t know, man. That gas tank is right there.” “It wouldn’t heat it up that bad.” “Nah, but one spark. Damn.” Frankie does not seem concerned that the possibility of using an acetylene torch in the immediate vicinity of a gas tank is being discussed in his shop. He puts away the air tool. Others weigh in. “Use a grinder, then.” “Nah, dog, that would be even hotter.” Tony is stewing. He has paid nobody to be here tonight, calling in a favor owed to his brother as a way to get Frankie to open his shop to them. But Frankie, like everyone else there, is probably mostly motivated by his own interest in the project. Everybody, whether watching or working, wants to see this car get lifted. Tony turns to his brother. “How much would [Ralph] charge me to install a rack?” Ralph owns a shop just down the road. He is known for his work on hydraulic systems and reinforcing frames, including the setup he did for Tony’s brother. The cars with the most respected hydraulics on the street are Ralph’s work. He is also known for being rather temperamental in conducting his business. “Install it? I don’t know. Probably seventy-five. But that’s building a new rack, too. You know [Ralph]. He’s got to do it his way.” “How long would he take?” “Depends on if you’re on his good side.” Tony weighs his options. The sun is setting, and they have been working on the car since getting off work. The current approach seems unlikely to yield much progress, but still, seventy-five dollars is seventy-five dollars. Locomoco takes a torch and almost meditatively starts cutting a length of pipe on the shop floor. He leans close to the small geyser of sparks, no goggles or mask over his face. Tony abruptly turns away from the El Camino and starts packing a toolbox. “Fuck it, I’ll call [Ralph].” He climbs into the car, fires it up, and pulls out of the shop. Before Frankie closes the doors, four men push a dead jeep into the place vacated by the El Camino—tomorrow’s business. There is some joking around 138 lowrider space as most people stroll to their cars to drive home. Tony looks around at the few who are left. “Whattya say, fellas? Get a six-pack and go back to the house?” This is the first form of compensation I have heard offered...