Today, I decided to burn all the pine straw accumulating in my front yard. The air just this side of too cold to be outside, I relished the brilliant Arkansas sun. I knew the fire and the labor would soon warm me, make me hurt and make me smile.
The concrete of my barn floor was damp and cold beneath my bare feet as I pulled my yard broom from behind dusty motorcycle fenders hanging on the wall. I navigated my wheelbarrow through my menagerie of Harleys towards the front yard. The fire caught quickly, and I dumped wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of straw on the pile, while ignoring the cold air and engulfing the sunshine.
I built a fantastic flame that billowed smoke and flushed my cheeks in a way that no human touch has in a very long time. A weed-eater-like-buzz of a crotch rocket ripped over the hill behind me, and the beautiful young boy smirked as he rode past the barefoot old lady in a long denim skirt and worn flannel shirt. I propped one foot on the rake handle and absentmindedly offered him the biker’s wave as he buzzed by… He thought I was ridiculous, of course, and I laughed to myself as I made my way to rest on the porch steps and enjoy the dancing flames. If he only knew… who I used to be.
I picked up my phone, and there was a text from an old friend I might could have loved, once upon a time, if the 1%er lifestyle hadn’t been more than he could handle. If only he had never turned to speed to try to keep up with the younger boys… if the sordid world of drugs and hard living, whores and lies and all the other vile things that slither though the darkened underbelly of our world hadn’t destroyed the intimate closeness we once shared and hadn’t killed my respect for him.
The text just said, ‘Missing you.’ I replied ‘well, you always know where I am.’ I sat there on the step for a moment and allowed myself to ponder him. I remembered curling into his body heat in ragged cheap motel rooms after long days of riding, feeling the heat of my sunburn and wind burns touching the heat of his own reddened skin. I felt his massive heart in his massive chest slow as he slid off into his dreams of being someone he never became.
I sighed, and picked up my rake to stir my fire… and my memories stirred with the embers. That first Road King I straddled… and her owner who could make my spine twist like a cat in heat with just his wink and smile… the way he slept with a Bible on the nightstand, a Colt in one hand and my tit in the other. And finally the way he died and turned so cold, after an hour in my arms, in his hot sweaty bed, one bright summer day.
The Deuces and the Dynas and the Softtails and the Electra Glides rode through my memory in a languid procession as I worked the fire, and the men who I wrapped my thighs around their hips and rode away, did too.. The feel of their ponytails whipping my breasts, the scent of leather and pot and wind and freedom mixed with the thump of their heartbeats against my own, their hands dropping off of handlebars to rest on my thigh as they carried me away, again and again and again.
I thought of the worthless drunk I married the first time… of the day he told me I had to choose my Harley or him. I grabbed my scuffed leather jacket and walked resolutely out the door.
I thought of my darling second husband, how he went to bed so warm one night, and I woke to find him cold. I glanced toward my barn, at his Triglide shining in the sun, in glistening tribute to the soldier who loved her and loved me too.
I thought of the one who I tried so hard to share my warmth, to cauterize the chill so many women before me left frozen around his old heart. But no amount of miles could stop him from leaving me, shivering alone in the cold winter snow, again and again, Until, destroyed and half frozen to death, I dragged myself and my stuff back home to heal in the comforting, warm embrace of the Arkansas sun.
I thought of the one that was so beautiful, so smart, so perfect and so out of my league. The Doc to my Kate, the Rhett to my Scarlett, maybe the one I loved most of all. A long forgotten heat stirred within me as I remembered how his laughter and his warm molasses drawl warmed my heart. But no matter how many nights I drifted to sleep with his smile in my mind, my knight in leather armor will never carry me away on his chrome laden steed. His heat, I will only ever know in my dreams.
As the last smokey ashes died in the setting sun, so did my fleeting memories of the warmth of the men that filled my body, now and then and once upon a time. Even now, barren and alone, I am glad they all broke my heart and made me sweat, over and over again. I am glad I loved them all.
In the smoldering ash of my heartbreaks, remains the memory of the flames… They still warm my soul, even the ones who are buried in the cold, cold ground. So many people believe bikers are the wind, but they’re not. They are the fire, they are the burn, they are the heat and they are the sun. And though I am now long withered and cold, they are the old flames that warm me in my dreams and sometimes still flicker a little bit of heat in my tired old mind.
–The Wicked Bitch
