Fast Fenders

Fast Fenders

Posted by Tom Pennington on Sunday March 04, @03:51PM

What can happen in the world of collectables.

"I will travel anywhere, face any obstacle, stand up to any human being, in the pursuit of my dream."

Rocky "Joe Boy" Ganzano

Rocky "Joe Boy" Ganzano was my hero. Plain and simple, I wanted to be just like Rocky Joe Boy. He wasn’t tall, he wasn’t smart, and he wasn’t good looking. He wasn’t even very cool. The chicks didn’t dig him, the mothers didn’t try to pawn their daughters off on him, even the nerds didn’t think much of him. But to me, he was a God.

Rocky Joe Boy did one thing that I admired more than anything anyone had ever done in the history of the world, at least as far as I was concerned. He did it with aplomb, with panache, with style and courage and just about any adjective you can think of. He was a story book hero of epic proportions when it came to the one thing, the only thing, that Rocky Joe Boy could do better than anyone else drawing breath on this planet.

Rocky Joe Boy hunted model cars.

There, I said it. The whole world should know what this courageous human being paved the way for the rest of us to do. He hunted little model cars the way big game hunters hunted elephants. Not the kind of cars you put together with glue and paint, but little, diecast, miniature cars cast to look like their full scale namesakes. Rocky Joe Boy was a collector of the famous Fast Fenders miniature cars.

The Fast Fenders cars were much sought after because of their authentic look and wide popularity. Fast Fenders had been making the cars for over twenty years when I first met Rocky Joe Boy. We were both adults working in a factory that made chicken fryers. Since it was a food related industry we had to wear hairnets all the time. We looked a little funny, I guess, grown men wearing hairnets and examining our little miniature cars. But we were a proud lot, us Fast Fenders collectors, and Rocky Joe Boy was the best one of us all.

Rocky Joe Boy showed me the ropes early. He was a dedicated Fast Fenders hunter, rising every morning on the weekend to scour the local department stores for new models. "Ya gotta get up early." he’d tell me, "because the other hunters will all get there before you do. And ya gotta get a route, so ya know when to go to what store. Say, after ya get to know some of the gals workin“ in the store, ya know that the girl over at Biggie Mart puts out the new shipment at seven, but the gal over at Supermart doesn’t put ”em out till after lunch. Ya get to know your stores, your personnel, you know. That way, the guys who just try to make money off these things don’t come in and steal ya blind."

Rocky Joe Boy wasn’t collecting Fast Fenders cars for the money. He did it because he loved the cars. Although he had a collection worth several thousand dollars, he would never think about selling it. Rocky Joe Boy never bought cars from Fast Fenders dealers, either. "It corrupts the sport of collecting." he’d say, "See, most people don’t see what we do as a sport, but it is. It’s better’n baseball, more exciting than football, and it requires the dexterity of basketball. Not to mention the concentration of golf and the gracefulness of tennis."

I admit it, I was even confused by the sports analogy. "What I mean," he explained, "is that you have to stay loose and be light on your feet, while remaining focused on your purpose. If you think you can swill beer and smoke cigarettes and then go run through Biggie Mart the day after Thanksgivin“ lookin” for Fast Fenders while two fat women shove shoppin’carts at ya, you’re nuts. Ya gotta stretch them muscles, son, and get ready for the competition."

I didn’t like stretching in the parking lot with Rocky Joe Boy before we went into the stores, but I did it because I admired the man and I wanted to be just like him. "That’s right," he’d say as we touched our toes, "you’ll be glad you did this when you need to side step some guy in a big hurry to get to his first day of gun season. I pulled a hamstring once tryin” to get out of the way of an early bird sale on shoes. I was out for a month after that one."

We hunted the elusive Fast Fenders cars for some years together before Rocky Joe Boy defined himself as the premier miniature car hunter that he was. It all happened when a rich New York executive placed an advertisement in the newspaper. The rich executive found out that the Fast Fenders Corp., in order to commemorate their thirty-fifth year in business, was issuing one of a kind cars. Only a dozen of the cars would be released, and after they were cast the molds would be broken and no more would ever be made. This announcement sent the price of the tiny cars through the roof. But it was nothing compared to the next bit of news.

Fast Fenders announced that it would make one, and only one, of a certain model. The exact date of manufacture, the location, the distribution, everything about this one model was super secret. It caused a frenzy of speculation and hunters rushed the stores daily in search of this elusive and precious one-of-a-kind model. The man from New York, who had collected Fast Fenders since their inception, offered a million dollars to the person who could bring him the car.

Rocky Joe Boy had never sold a single Fast Fender. He had never bought a single Fast Fender from a dealer. And he thought anyone who would degraded the sport shouldn’t be allowed to hunt Fast Fenders. Stubbornly, he refused to even look at the ad. "That man should know better." he said.

I shook my head and said, "But, Rocky Joe Boy, it’s a million dollars!"

"Don’t matter, it ain’t right." He folded his arms and pouted, upset that I would even bring it up.

"But, Rocky Joe Boy, look at it. It’s the prettiest thing I ever saw."

I held out the paper and showed Rocky Joe boy the picture of the one-of-a-kind Fast Fenders model car, worth a million dollars. Rocky Joe Boy looked at it and his mouth flew open. There, in vivid color, was the most beautiful replica of any auto ever made. Gleaming chrome faithfully reproduced, fenders curving gently, headlights and grill shining. It was a masterpiece. A car spurned in reality had turned into the most coveted car in model history. Rocky Joe Boy gazed in wonder at a bright yellow 1949 Edsel.

The Edsel, named after one of Henry Ford’s sons, was a disaster for the Ford Motor Company from the day it rolled off the assembly line. Plagued with design flaws and production problems, the car became synonymous with defective products. But the car that never caught on in actuality had a distinct advantage when it came to miniaturization. The model car didn’t have to run. All it had to do was look good sitting still.

The Fast Fenders version of the yellow Edsel did that very well. It was a beautiful thing, delicate and inviting. It was a work of art, and Rocky Joe Boy had to have it.

"My God." He whistled softly. "I’d give a million for this baby myself."

"Do you think we can find it, Rocky Joe Boy?" I asked.

Rocky Joe Boy bit his lip and stared at the picture. I have never seen anyone overcome by a religious experience, but I think Rocky Joe Boy had one just then. He became very still, and something about him changed. With a resolve and a determination that I had never seen on another human being he looked up at me, paper still clutched in his hand, and said forcefully, "As God is my witness, I shall have this car in my hand." I thought for a moment I could hear violins in the background.

Then Rocky Joe Boy sprang into action. We needed a plan if we were going to find the million dollar Edsel. "We’ll need to try to figure out where the car will likely be distributed." he said.

I never knew Rocky Joe Boy knew so many people. Actually, I never knew so many people hunted Fast Fenders cars. There were doctors, lawyers, nurses, mechanics, storeowners, you name it, and they hunted the little cars. There were also computer programmers.

Rocky Joe Boy found a guy working for McDonnell Douglas who was willing to search the databases of the Fast Fenders company and see if he could pinpoint the store where the car would be delivered. Even though it was illegal to hack into company information like this, the man readily agreed. Fender Fever was starting to reach a pitch. Unfortunately the man told us, "I can’t give you a specific. The company is going to distribute the car randomly. Not even company officials will know where it’s going. But, I can narrow the area down a little."

This was good news, because the cars were distributed nationally. The man said the decision had been made to distribute the car in the biggest market area the company had, the place where they sold the most cars. Luckily for us, it was our area. Past that, there would be no inside information.

Rocky Joe Boy moved to the next part of the plan. "Okay, we know it’s coming around here. Now, we need a list of all the stores and their relative Stock to Purchase Ratio, their SPR. See, all stores stock Fast Fenders, but a lot of stores have "insiders", people who can get to the cars before they’re even stocked on the shelves. That lowers their Purchase rating, while their Stock rating stays constant with the rest of the stores. So, if we divide the amount of Stock by the amount of collectable Purchases, we get a ratio by which we can determine the best chance of finding the car."

Now, I had no idea how he was going to determine this, because I could barely balance a checkbook and sometimes Rocky Joe Boy had me sign his paycheck for him. We were just a couple of stupid car collectors. But, true to his motto, Rocky Joe Boy would allow nothing to stand in his path. He got three girls from accounting to go over some figures he got from two lawyers and an accountant he knew who collected. Then he coerced some other collectors into giving him some personal information, and, if that didn’t do it, he did some pretty questionable things to one dealer who had a reputation of getting to collectable cars and selling them at inflated prices. Rumor has it that Rocky Joe Boy confronted him with a tire tool, but that story has never been confirmed.

Once the numbers had been crunched by the girls from accounting we had this long spread sheet of paper that Rocky Joe Boy brought into the break room and spread all over one of the tables. There were some people trying to eat lunch when he did that, and they complained pretty loudly about it, but he ignored them, saying, "Get a life! Don’t you people know we’re doing something important here?" Rocky laid the whole thing out. We now had enough information to narrow the search down to eight stores that had a high SPR rating, and were in the right area. "We’re going to have to concentrate on these stores and hope we get lucky. Now, the only thing we can’t know about is the insiders. We need to prevent the insiders from getting there before we do. So, and I know this is a sacrifice, we’ll have to miss a little work to get this done. We have to be there early in the morning at some of these places“"

I interrupted, "We’ll get fired, Rocky Joe Boy. We can’t just miss work to go Fast Fender huntin”."

Rocky Joe Boy looked at me like I had just spit on the flag. "I don’t mean every day, just now and then. Besides, a little sacrifice for a cause is good for you."

I gave in grudgingly, "All right, but my wife is gonna be mad as hell if I get fired."

"Okay, now here’s the thing. Even if we get there right when they’re stockin”, there’s no guarantee we’ll find it. We need to become insiders. We need to make friends with the people who stock the shelves."

"But you always hate insiders. You say it ain’t fair to have somebody sneak back stock for you or let you buy stuff before it hits the shelves. You said it spoils the beauty of the sport."

Rocky Joe Boy scowled at me and replied, "There is a one-of-a-kind Fast Fenders car worth roughly a million dollars at stake here. Do you think you can make a new friend for that kind of money?" He tapped his foot and waited for me to answer. I hung my head in shame. You should never try to second-guess your hero. "All right, then, pay attention. Tonight we go to Biggie Mart and Supermart. We start getting to know the stockers there. A few days goes by, and we get to be friends, then we snap the trap shut and we get them wrapped around our little finger. They’ll do anything for us, anything! We’ll be their friends, their confidants, their best buddies, and in return they’ll do what we want, when we want. We’ll become their drug, the thing they can’t do without. They’ll sell their mothers before they let us down. We’ll own them."

There was such an evil look on his face, he scared me a little. Enough, in fact, that I refrained from telling him I thought he was crazy as hell. Instead, I nodded enthusiastically and we made plans for that night.

We stretched in the parking lot. Since the mood was so intense we did jumping jacks and pushups, too. I got pretty sick of that real quick, I can tell you. Then we started working the stores.

It was no wham-bam-thank-you-mam trip to hunt Fast Fenders like it usually was. We hung around, met with the stockers, looked through the stock, and got to know the people in the store. We told a woman with only three teeth how pretty she looked. I listened with interest to a high school girl tell me all about her boyfriend. I even caught Rocky Joe Boy talking about hemorrhoid medicine with an old guy in Biggie Mart. It was, all things said, a humiliating evening.

"Rocky Joe Boy," I complained as we pulled out of the last store, "I don’t think this is going to work."

But Rocky Joe Boy was a man possessed. With a weird glint in his eye he wheeled out of the parking lot, saying, "It’ll work, boy, it’ll work. It’s a beautiful plan."

He was a man obsessed. Day after day and night after night I went to the stores with him, struck up dumb conversations with people I didn’t know, and tried to worm my way into their confidence. The older women who worked in the stores thought we were hitting on them and started to flirt shamelessly. Especially the one with only three teeth. Then one day the announcement came.

"Fast Fenders Miniature Cars announced today that the bright yellow Ford Edsel has been released, and is on it’s way to one of their distributors at this very moment."

It was like a call to battle stations. Not only Rocky Joe Boy but also every collector within a hundred miles girded their loins and prepared for battle. Rocky Joe Boy said, "This is what we’ve been waiting for. All our planning and preparation has come down to this. Let’s not let it fail." He looked a little like Patton when he talked like that.

The woman with three teeth was really getting friendly by now, and she was hinting that for the right consideration she might let us have the first look at any new shipments she got in. Most of the store people weren’t collectors, and all they knew was that we desperately wanted the one-of-a-kind car. But they were ignorant as to its” real value, and we weren’t sharing the secret. In fact, it was a closely kept secret about the actual worth of the little car, but you could see in the way people fought to get to the stock right after it was put out that something unusual was happening.

I saw a lady who taught school grading papers while she waited for a stockboy to put out a case of Fast Fenders. I looked over her shoulder and saw that it was a mid term exam. "Those must be pretty important." I said to her.

She nodded. "It’s about half their grade for the semester. They’ve got a lot riding on these papers."

Just then the stockboy came out to put out the cars. The schoolteacher and I tensed like runners waiting on the sound of the gun. The boy looked at us and slowly went about opening the box. As the tape holding the box closed ripped open I knew I was going to need an edge. As the boy lifted the first Fast Fender out of the box, I grabbed the pile of test papers and threw them across the floor. The woman watched the papers scatter, contemplated the damage losing the tests would do to her students, then turned and slammed me in the belly with her elbow. She clawed past me and started to dig through the open box, looking for the prize.

Now, I’ve never hit a woman. But that night I did sling one around by her purse strap and flip her neatly into yard and garden supplies before I turned to hurriedly look through the new stock. The stockboy grew large eyed and stepped back, raising his hands as if I was robbing him. "Don’t be afraid." I said calmly as I rifled his new case of cars. "Shoot, nothing here. Okay, I’ll be back tomorrow." I left before anyone could call security.

It was like that all over. I saw Rocky Joe Boy give a local lawyer a kidney punch that sent him to the floor. And I got hit so hard on top of the head with a jar of cold cream Rocky Joe Boy had to help me out of the store. "We never leave our own behind." he said proudly.

This went on for weeks, each week getting more frenzied than the one before. Rocky Joe Boy and I missed enough work to get a warning from our employer, and our wives were pretty upset over the amount of time we were spending on this thing. Then, when things looked almost hopeless, they got worse.

Miss Three Teeth finally let us know what she wanted. She wanted sex. With both of us. Me first.

I protested mightily. I invoked the fact that I was married, that I didn’t like toothless women, that I had never been unfaithful, that I had AIDS. Nothing could keep her off me. She thought I was a hottie. Now, I’m no Boy Scout, and I might have even had me a toothless woman before, but I thought that AIDS thing would scare her off. No way. She wanted me more. I looked at Rocky Joe Boy and he just shrugged and handed me a condom. "Any lengths." he said simply.

"You mean you actually want me to have sex with her?"

"Hey, I gotta do it, too. At least you get to go first. Besides, what if she gets the shipment?"

The shipment, the shipment. Frankly, I was getting sick of hearing about the shipment. I just started to hope that someone would find that damn car soon. Miss Three Teeth was starting to name our children already.

Then one day, it happened. Rocky Joe Boy and I were in Biggie Mart. We had just come from checking all the other stores on our route, and were exhausted. We had been slapped twice, threatened four times, forcibly ejected from one store and almost arrested for having sex in a storage room. It had been a rough morning and it wasn’t even noon. Like battle weary soldiers we walked around the corner of a shelf and saw a sales girl carrying a new case of Fast Fenders cars.

It was like in the movies. Everything slowed down, we were moving in slow motion with the sound turned off. I could hear the beat of my heart and the gulping noise I made when I saw her open the box. There was a crowd of people around us, all collectors. The girl reached in the box to pick up some cars. The crowd began to surge. There was a pulse and a swell to the mob as the girl straightened up. Then everything stopped for a moment, as if God had hit the pause button.

There, in the girl’s hand, was a bright yellow Ford Edsel, the one-of-a-kind Fast Fenders car that we had all been looking for.

Rocky Joe Boy let out a war whoop that would have curdled the blood of a Masai warrior. I sprang to his side and we lunged toward the frightened girl. She screamed as she saw a dozen crazed collectors trying to tear the little car out of her hand. Someone elbowed me in the groin and I went down. While I was on my hands and knees I bit the person closest to me on the leg. That person screamed and fell on top of me. I reached out and tripped another as he ran by and was smothered by a fat lady who got toppled from somewhere behind us. As I lay under the sweltering mound of flesh I hoped Rocky Joe Boy could get through the lines to snatch the car.

I couldn’t see, but Rocky Joe Boy told me later, "I jumped over that guy you bit on the leg, faked an old lady left, drove right and sunk an elbow into a municipal court judge, then hopped on top of a pipefitter from Local 727. After that there was only one guy with a kid in front of me. I figured I was home free.

"I never thought this guy would stoop so low. He turned and saw me breathin“ down on him. He knew I was about to reach around him and snatch the car away. I’m tellin” ya, I could feel it in my hand. But then, then’" Rocky Joe Boy broke down in a sob and had to stop. When he could resume he said, "That guy, that miserable guy, he turned and tossed his child at me. Threw that little boy right into my arms. I had a choice to catch the kid or let him fall and grab the car. It was just that close, just that quick. I got kids of my own, ya know. Instinct took over and I caught him so he wouldn’t get hurt. That miserable guy reached right out and grabbed that car away from me. Right outta my hand! It was a miserable feeling."

I agreed. "Rocky Joe Boy, we did our best. No one can fault us for tryin”."

Rocky Joe Boy shook his head, "No, I can’t accept that. We should have tried harder. We should have trained more. I should have let that little rugrat hit the floor, is what I shoulda done."

I clapped my hero on the shoulder. I was proud of him and told him so. He looked at me soberly and said, "And I’m proud of you, too. Not everybody would sleep with a woman with three teeth."

"But you slept with her, too." I disagreed.

Rocky Joe Boy took a deep breath and grinned sheepishly. "I almost hate to tell you, but I never did. She liked you so much she forgot all about me. In fact, I’m goin“ over and help her pick out y”all’s pattern for the weddin”." Rocky Joe Boy thought that was a riotous good joke.

Of course, he wasn’t laughing at the dentist’s after I knocked one of his teeth out. He’s still my hero, but now I just fish. It’s safer, saner, and cheaper. Rocky Joe Boy is still my hero, though. I just get sick of stretching before we fish.