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Brother Speed and The Little Lady

clip_image002From Behind the Lens

July 2005

By Colleen Swartz

Brother Speed and The Little Lady

To a photographer, especially a motorcycle photographer, Brother Speed’s bike is treasure trove of opportunity. Every inch of it is covered with unusual artifacts collected by a colorful man over many years of travels. Immediately you will notice the hundreds of coins silicone glued over the entire tank, then you will see the dentures affixed to the frame, then the human tooth on the rear view mirror, layers and layers of duct tape cover the seat, stuffed animals and trolls adorn the handlebars and windshield, the license plate is rendered unreadable from oil and road grime. It is a sight to behold, indeed.

What you would truly be missing if you stopped to admire Brother Speed’s bike without seeking out Speed himself would be the colorful stories behind each and every part of that bike.

I met Speed a couple of years back and I made the same mistake that many make. I grabbed my camera and took photos of the bike and only casually made the acquaintance of Speed himself. I see Speed at nearly every bike rally that I go to in the South Eastern United States but this past Myrtle Beach Spring Rally was when I really got to know the man known as Brother Speed.

This year when we set our photo platform up at the Broken Spoke in Myrtle Beach, we were able to rent a house right on the grounds of the Spoke. This was a distinct advantage when it came to getting to and from our workspace as in years past, we had a 5 mile drive to the Spoke which, at the height of Bike Week, could take as much as 45 minutes to traverse. Staying on site made travel much easier plus we were always within walking distance of the platform. Mornings were spent on the front porch of the house, having coffee and breakfast cooked in our own kitchen with our friends (who have now become family) and discussing the happenings from the night before as well as the upcoming day.

I had no intention of holding a formal interview with Speed, but he talked freely and almost continually with me since he was staying at the “Chevy Chalet” (Speed’s 40+ year old truck parked next to our house) while at Bike Week. I found myself waking up earlier than normal each day to sit on that front porch with the likes of Speed, Jay Allen (owner of the Broken Spokes), Sara Liberte (www.saraliberte.com) , Goth Girl (although she arose later than most), Handsome Charlie Ransom (stunt rider on the Wall of Death), Shorty (The baddest woman in the garage – www.shortyinc.com), the crew from Native Films (www.nativefilms.com), Billy Lane’s crew, Dave Perewitz, Kendall Johnson, and so many more colorful personalities. It became my favorite part of the day.

Speed never missed a day, possibly from the home cooked meal he received each morning or possibly from the models who served it to him. Never was there a lull in conversation as long as Speed was around for he would pull stories out of his hat at even the slightest provocation.

Brother Speed received his name from the more than 70 speeding tickets he has racked up over the years. When I asked him if that caused any serious problems for him, he just laughed and said “No, Little Lady, not that much trouble. They picked me up in the state of Oregon for a bunch of them that had stacked up once, that was a bit of a pickle because they threw me right in the slammer for them. I had to be on my way though, I had some friends waiting on me, so I burned their jail down to get out and I had to live in Canada for 6 years. But I messed that up when I returned to the states and they picked me up again. Turns out I had come home just 6 months too soon and they had to lock me up again… I didn’t burn the jail down that time.”

With stories like that floating around the front porch, you can see what roused me out of bed earlier each day.

The dentures? Well, they were Speed’s Mothers dentures. Speed’s Momma is a blues singer and when she needed a new set of dentures, she donated her old ones to Speed’s ride. It is then that Speed holds up his left hand to show me the index finger that is missing a sizeable chunk from its end. Speed says, “I had a few too many Budweisers one night and I got this finger caught up when I reached down to shift. It seemed right that I should glue them dentures in there as a warning that “she bites”.

Speed no longer drinks, partially because of the excess to which he drank in his younger days and partially because of the epilepsy that has gripped him in his later years. His doctor has warned him against drinking, but has endowed him with a prescription for “medicinal herbs” which seems to be put to good use in Speed’s new “sober” lifestyle.

The coins? Speed was in Reno once and he got picked up for vagrancy. Turns out if you don’t have a dollar in your possession, you can be considered a vagrant which is a crime. Since Speed rarely has much if any money in his pockets, he started gluing silver dollars to his ride so that he wouldn’t have such a problem again. Now the coins adorn a great deal of the bike and include not only silver dollars, but gold doubloons, Confederate half-dimes (before they called them nickels) and other rare and valuable coins worth far more that the bike itself.

The tooth on the mirror? “That damn thing nearly killed me! Had such an infection in it I thought I wasn’t going to make it… but I find it hurts a lot less glued to that mirror than it did in my mouth.” Speed traded some labor for that extraction.

I did indeed learn a lot about Speed during those two weeks in Myrtle Beach. I learned about his life and his lifestyle, I learned of his past and his present, I learned about his friends and his family. I have his hearty laugh ingrained in my memory and his smiling face etched in my mind. I learned about a man who has very little and he wants for even less. Speed is a free spirit who called me “Little Lady” and I proudly call him Brother. I rode on his bike, I broke bread with him and he opened my mind to a world where friends are everything and planning is nonexistent.

All of the daily rigors that control my life, my date book, my alarm clock, my cell phone, my computers with my high speed internet connections, a fax machine, thousands of dollars worth of photographic equipment and lights, reliable transportation, a house on the west side, a studio downtown, a 401K and insurance policies… all things I thought I couldn’t possibly live without in my life are totally nonexistent in Speed’s world. And you know what? I have never met a happier person with a better outlook on life. He was there willing to lend a hand with any work that we had, he slept in his truck and he made the best of every opportunity that came his way. He never complained about the heat or his aching bones and my birthday present from him that week was to un-strap the crap on his passenger seat and throw his back into my front as we screamed down highway 17 after a long day of shooting yelling, “Welcome to my world Little Lady!”

Thank you for sharing your world with me, Brother Speed. I hope someday to know that kind of freedom that you hold so dearly and have shared so benevolently with me.

And that is my view, from behind the lens.

Colleen Swartz

June 2005

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