What a lousy day. It was one of those spring days when the snow is almostgone and everything you look at is in shades of gray. The weather fit my moodto a tee. The last thing I wanted to be doing was sitting in this truckhauling gravel and dealing with people who wanted their road fixed butdidn’t have a clue how to go about it. That seemed to be the order of theday though. I saw smoke coming from JR’s garage stove and, knowing that I onlyhad a couple more loads to haul that day, I thought I’d drag my feet a little.I pulled the truck off on the shoulder, set the brakes and walked across thestreet. Hmm, the door was locked. I could hear JR talking with someone inside and wondered what was going on.
“Open the damn door!” I shouted. About a second later, he opened it just wide enough to see that I was the only one there. He didn’t say a word, just waved me in and locked the door behind me. I couldn’t help but notice that he was packin’. Damned strange to be doing that in his own garage.
“What’s up?”
“Oh, just taking care of some stuff for the bank.” Now my curiosity wasreally going. “You want to buy a motorcycle?” he asked.
“Yeah right, as if I can afford a bike now. You know that the ink ain’t even dry on the papers and I’ve got child support due in a week and a half.” Iknew that he was into some odd things, all legal, but odd still the same.
Harley”, he said. “I repossessed it last night and considering the folksthat owned this thing, the bank wants rid of it like yesterday. Thirty fivehundred and it’s yours. Want to have a gander?”
George, his son, walked over to the back corner, pulled a couple sheets of plywood out of the way and there was this tired old scooter. I had to look. Hmm, FL Shovel, bad shape, obviously stripped of a lot of stuff that had made her look good in days gone by. But as I kept looking her over, I realized that there were a lot of good things about her. The basics were there for someone who wanted to build a runner. I got on her and thought, ?Jesus, this is gonna take a lot, even the fuckin’ kickstand is broke.? I stood her up and kicked her througha couple times. Got compression, that’s a start.
“What year?”
“?71.”
“Has anyone checked the numbers?”
“Well, the title matches what is on the frame and cases.”
“Damn you, I really didn’t need to see this.”
“Yeah, I know.” he said. “But you’ve been going through some real shitlately and maybe this will get your mind off it a little.”
“Let me think about it. Mind if I call the bank?”
“Be my guest. Adrian is handling the file. Give her a call. But they needto know right away.”
“OK, I’ll talk to you in a while.”
Funny thing about driving a truck, after a couple million miles ofstaring through a windshield, you find that you have more than enough time to think. Sometimes good, but lately that hadn’t been the case for me. Divorce had reared its ugly head in my house and life as I’d known it for 16 years was suddenly over. There was no joy in Muddville. So here I am, going down the road and all this stuff is going through my head. “Been a while since you rode, dude.Remember the Evil Bitch? Those were good times, even though sometimes therewas two hours of wrenching for a days’ ride. You were pretty happy then,weren’t you? And you’ve been kicking yourself ever since for selling it.”Goddamn convincing argument to be throwing at a guy who was reaching outfor anything that might keep him from going over the edge completely.
“Do it! Get your face in the wind. Remember that acid vision? The girl with no eyes?” That vision had stayed with me for many years. I was 18 and doing my duty for Uncle Sam’s Navy when it happened. Got hooked up with a bunch of guys who were into serious hallucinogens and one of them just happened to have run across a shitload of Mr. Natural acid. He offered to be my tour guide onmy first trip. We were in the barracks watching one of the guys do hishuman flame-thrower routine when I was transported to a different place.I remember the tall grass waving around me on the crest of a hill. The sun was behind me and to my right there were two things of great importance to me: a chrome front end and a woman. She was tall, with long hair. I couldn’t make out the color of her hair or the features of her face, though. But I knew sure as the sun was shining in the sky that she was the one that would make my life complete. The bike was just as important a part of the scene as she was. Then the scene melted away and we were off to watch the sun rise over Lake Michigan, three very fried sailors on a party.
When it happened, I figured it was just another hallucination. But overthe years it kept coming back at the strangest times, and though I didn’t wantto admit it, I knew in my heart that the woman I was married to wasn’t the onein the vision.
“Face it asshole, things have changed and if you don’t get agrip on something, you’re toast. Get back to what you know and go from there. You can always sell it and get your money back. Maybe make a little to boot.”
So there it was, cold hard logic telling me that I needed to dosomething. If I didn’t get out of this circle of eat, work, drink and drug myself to sleep every night, my life was going to be summed up by a name and twodates on a slab of granite. What the fuck, I’ve got plastic. I called the bank and said, “About that Harley, you can start the paperwork. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
If you’ve been there, you can guess the rest. Lots of evenings andweekends in the garage, parts on the kitchen table and catalogs everywhere. Untold hours of staring at her, throwing empties in the garbage andgetting a picture in my mind. Dreams of hot summer nights, parties, longrides to nowhere in particular, visits to the machine shop. Conversationsthat went, “Sure I’ll help you wire this thing, but I ain’t putting my sweatand blood into a harness that’s going on this ugly-ass rusty frame…”There were a lot of pieces from that scooter that went straight in the garbage can with the empties. But there were surprises, too. I pulled the plug onthe primary and got this cold feeling when no oil came out. Saying ?Oh shit, ohshit,? I undid the eight screws and about did a dance when I found the beltdrive…
Looking back and thinking about all the hours I put in on her,replacing or rebuilding everything that was worn out or just plain screwed up, now I realize that I was doing more than fixing up an old motorcycle. I washealing myself too. I needed the garage time as much as having my face in the wind. And I needed that part first. One step and then another.
It was a year and a half before I kicked her over and got to ride for thefirst time in almost 14 years. When I pulled into his driveway, my friend Keith took a long look at me and what I was riding and didn’t say a word. He just turned around, walked into the house and came back out with a beer and the bowl. “You done good, bro. You’ve been gone a long time. Welcome back.”
She wasn’t perfect the first summer, but I got some miles in. The dragpipes weren’t working and I wound up changing the exhaust. The carburetor was junk. I found and rebuilt something better. But that wide glide dual-disk frontend was the one in my dream. Over the winter, I got her up on the bench andredid some things that weren’t quite right, building a stronger bond between us.I mellowed out a little more and discovered that returning to the humanrace wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
The girl with no eyes? Nope, I haven’t run across her yet, but I’m in nohurry now. I’m learning patience. She’ll come into my life when the time isright, just like that Shovelhead.
