What you see is what you get with Al Paquette. Sort of. At first glance, the 44-year-old auto mechanic looks a bit rough around the edges. Tattoos cover a third of his 5-foot-5-inch frame and a ponytail hangs well below the helmet he wears when riding his "hawg"--a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide.

But those who know Al see more than the dragons and tiger etched on his skin.

They see a cokehead-turned-Christian who loves God so much he's compelled to tell his story to anyone who will listen.

"Thirteen years ago Jerry Block walked into my garage and told me about heaven and hell," says Al in a New England accent. "I was stoned, and Jerry walked home thinking nothing got through. But I realized that hell would not be one big bash with my buddies."

The next morning Al woke up to a gripping pain in his chest. "I thought it was a heart attack," he says, "and I cried out to God. [Now] I think it was God ripping the evil desires out of me."

That night when Al's wife, Sharon, got home from bowling, she was surprised to find him not smoking a joint, but reading a Bible. He'd also dumped his collection of porno magazines and videos in the trash.

Immediately Al wanted to give to others. So he gave what came naturally--mechanical skills. He started fixing cars for people at night and on weekends, and while working on a car, he'd tell his story. "I was very selfish," Al would say. "I fought in a bad-man contest, rode with a gang and took drugs for 16 years, but stopped overnight." After grabbing a person's attention with that introduction, Al went on to tell about the night his neighbor Jerry confronted him.

"Even people who don't believe in God," says Al, "can't argue with my story."

"Al realized from the very beginning he could share what happened to him," says John Christianson, Al's pastor, "even though he didn't have a lot of Bible knowledge."

But the talk about God turned off his friends. "I'd bump into Al and Sharon at the grocery," says longtime buddy Will Jackson, "and whisper to my wife, 'Here comes the God squad.'"

Although cronies avoided him, Al crashed their parties. He turned down the beer and marijuana offered him and left before things got crazy. His buddies noticed.

"I was a Christian-hater," says Wayne Seay, a friend Al met at a bar 15 years ago. "I thought Christians were wimps. I tried to trap Al since I knew his weak points. He never fell for it."

Since Al's friends wanted little to do with him, he turned to Sharon and their two children--Shall and Lacy. He also developed new relationships at church.

His pastor took Al under his wing. Seeing the biker's zeal for evangelism, Pastor John took Al to a nearby jail to tell his story. "I saw a marquee once that I'll always remember," says Al. "'When your desperation factor exceeds your embarrassment factor, you're a candidate for the grace of God.'"

Talking with prison inmates, Al learned to listen for desperation. "Listening was hard for me because I like to talk," says Al. "Al's grown a lot," says Sharon. "At the beginning it was just his testimony. Now it's evolved from him being self-centered into [him being] a person that people come up and talk to."

In fact, listening opened doors to telling others about Jesus, so much so that eventually even old buddies hunted him down. When Wayne's wife left him for another man, he phoned Al.

"Al just listened and asked if I wanted him to come over and sit with me," remembers Wayne. Al ended up coming over twice in the next week.

The first visit he just listened. "I've been where you are," Al told Wayne on his second visit. "The truth is you're not doing very well right now. You've tried alcohol, drugs and women, and they aren't working. Why not come to church? If it doesn't work you can always go back to what you're doing."

Wayne joined Al and his family for church off and on for the next six months. After Wayne submitted his life to Christ, Al took him along to a prison to tell others what happened to him.

Another old friend, Will Jackson, sought out Al after his employer started drug testing. Will knew that to stay clean he couldn't hang with his usual cronies, so he and his wife started going to church with the Paquettes.

"Alan said things that made me think," says Will. "He seemed more alive--a kinder, gentler Al."

Eight months later, Will received Christ at a church picnic.

Whether with old friends or strangers, Al tells his story to anyone who will listen. Through his involvement in a prison ministry and the Christian Motorcycle Association, Al attracts some rough characters who'd rarely set foot in church. When they admire his bike, Al comments on the "Jesus is Lord" painted on his "full dresser." When they marvel at his 80 tattoos, he lifts his left arm and points to a colorful one of Christ on the cross.

"Al realized where he's been and where God brought him," says Sam Sosa, Al's supervisor for more than seven years. "Al kept a little bit of where he had been." That little bit attracts a world of bikers, prison inmates and others who need Jesus.

What you see with Al Paquette is what you get. A man so changed by God that he's compelled to tell his story to anyone who will listen.