Motorcycles I've Loved (12 page)

“Is there a problem with the bike?” I asked them, breathless. “Because I can move it.” They looked at each other and then back at me.

“
You
ride this?” one of them asked in disbelief. I nodded.

“Should I move it? Is it okay to park it here?”

They started to laugh in unison. I waited.

“So should I move it or not?”

“No, no. It's fine,” the other one said. “We were just looking.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and went back inside. Through the screen door I heard them say, “Would you believe that?” as they strolled away, their thumbs hooked on their utility belts, caps tipped back on their heads. “She's
tiny
.”

I went back upstairs and couldn't decide whether to smile or swear. Was I flattered or insulted? And, more to the point, was I brave, or just an idiot for thinking I could take this enormous, ancient motorcycle all the way to Florida and expect to arrive intact and unharmed? Here lies the crux of motorcycles. The point where reason ends and courage begins. Get it right and it's the purest, most exhilarating balance that ever was. Get it wrong and the consequences are dire—no need to ask why motorcyclists are called organ donors, why mothers warn their children to stay away. It's what the motorcycle-safety class instructor Joe meant when he called me both brainy and ballsy, and it's what Rigdhen meant when he told me if I wasn't at least a little scared of motorcycles I was crazy, or a fool, or both.

I had started out thinking that I would accomplish the journey I had in mind through sheer willpower, but lately I couldn't help but wonder if maybe reason had fallen short, and this was an impulse I shouldn't
have followed.

Vibration

I
had some doubts about riding the Silverwing south, but I was committed to the trip by then and didn't seriously consider backing out. As I got more comfortable handling the new motorcycle, the dread ebbed and a sense of exuberance swelled. The internal alarm bells never stopped clanging, but they softened, became background noise, eclipsed by excitement. I began to pack for my trip, setting aside the essentials that I would take with me as I boxed up the rest. I unhooked the hard plastic saddlebags from the Silverwing, brought them upstairs, and packed them like twin suitcases to make sure everything would fit, then left them in the corner of my room as the rest of my belongings dwindled.

I was familiar with the process of paring away everything but the necessities, and in fact that summer it was easier than it had been in the past. In this instance, my things would be waiting for me when I came back to retrieve them, whenever that was, but in Galway, Ireland, five years earlier, I had gotten rid of everything permanently—everything except the contents of my backpack and my boyfriend—then flown to India.

As I prepared to leave Massachusetts years later, whenever anxiety reached out and grabbed me I reminded myself of that particular journey. The globe-trotting antics of my teenage self impressed me by then, but in a detached way, like looking at someone else's photo album. If she could do it, I thought, flipping through mental snapshots of Kolkata and Sikkim and Delhi, then I can do it, too. Memories of India didn't set me at ease, because it hadn't been easy, but they gave me a sense of faith in my decision. They reminded me that it wouldn't be perfect, but at least I had learned a few things since then. India was hard and it was worth it—I felt lost while I was there, scared, but also alive, and then afterward, I felt more awake for having gone. I think of India as an incredible book that I read when I was too young: even though I didn't fully understand it, I learned what I needed to know at the time. And, if I'm being honest, I should really read it again. Something that I have discovered about leaping into the proverbial deep end is that although I might not have any idea where I will land, or how, I always land somewhere.

The last few days of August arrived and the final stages of moving out had to be tackled, not the least of which was the fact that I had not one, not two, but three motorcycles in my driveway. The Rebel, the CM, and the Silverwing, all in a row. The CM was worth next to nothing at that point, and finding an amateur mechanic to come haul it away was a piece of cake. I rejoiced to see it go—by then it was only a reminder of my failure to do anything but dissect it, and while it had helped me understand the innards of a motorcycle somewhat, my grand plans to make it run had fallen flat on their unrealistic faces. The Rebel, on the other hand, felt like an old friend, and I wanted to make sure she found a good home. The head chef, Zach, had been admiring her for months, so when it came time to find a buyer, he was my first choice. We haggled a little—he tried to soften my asking price with promises of restaurant gift certificates. “Zach,” I scoffed at him, “you already feed me for free.” We finally agreed, and we made plans for the switch-off.

I rode it out to his place in Chesterfield. This was disguised as a favor, but really I just wanted one last day of riding the 250. “Home delivery,” I said, when I pulled up. “How do you like that?” He gave me his snaggletoothed smile and showed me the spot in his garage to park it. I even passed along my Clymer manual, though part of me wanted to keep it, having spent so much time poring over it, but I was feeling generous that day. I handed over the keys, signed off on the title, and that was that. “I'll take good care of it,” he promised. I gave the Rebel one last affectionate slap on the gas tank, then we hopped into Zach's car and he took me back into town.

The last gasp of moving out was suddenly upon me. The house had to be cleaned, the remnants of past tenants dealt with. There was a yard sale that spanned an entire weekend and swallowed the front lawn, and the final harvest of the garden, which yielded more kale than I knew what to do with. Matt loaned me his truck, and with it I drove all my worldly possessions to the storage space I had rented. It was the smallest, cheapest unit I could find, and it was only with some help and a little ingenuity that everything finally fit inside. After cramming the last truckload in, I pulled down the door, clicked the padlock shut, and took a breath. I was officially a nomad, and there was only the Silverwing to concern myself with now.

•   •   •

W
HEN
I
HAD FASTENED
the saddlebags back onto the motorcycle and strapped down the rest of my gear, it was time to go. I went over a mental checklist to be sure, searching for anything I might have forgotten, anything I might be missing, but there was nothing. I was ready. I started the Silverwing, got on, and with a touch of the throttle and a gentle easing out of the clutch, my toes left the ground and I was off.

As I coasted down the lumpy driveway, I quickly realized that something felt very, very wrong. The handlebars were jerking back and forth, practically leaping out of my hands. I blamed the ruts in the road and kept going, putting all my muscle into keeping the front tire straight, and I succeeded, but just barely. As I gathered speed, the frantic wobble began to smooth itself out. Then by the time I hit pavement it was only a mild vibration, and the faster I went, the smoother it became. I breathed a sigh of relief. That was weird, I thought. For the next few miles I took the machine through its paces, searching for some clue to the vibration, but found nothing.

It was only when I approached a four-way stop and had dropped to under 15 mph that I felt it again. There was a car in front of me, a car behind, and two others waiting for their turn at the stop sign. I wrestled with the handlebars, giving it everything I had to keep the wheel straight, but the slower I went, the more violent the shaking became, until I was almost at a complete stop and suddenly the Silverwing flew out of my hands, dumped me unceremoniously on the asphalt, and fell on top of me.

A fallen motorcycle is a terrible thing to behold. So terrible, in fact, that just thinking about it makes me feel ill. I have seen a few motorcycles this way, and it never gets easier. It always hurts to look at it, but in the moment—if you're the one who's dropped it—there is adrenaline flooding your body, blurring your thoughts. What especially hurts is to remember it after the fact, when everything is in slow motion and there is no biological distraction. I close my eyes, and suddenly there it is—a machine known for its speed, its agility, its raw power, only on its side it has become just another hunk of metal. Like a crippled horse or a capsized boat: the worst has happened and shame rushes in. In the moment, the task of getting a fallen motorcycle upright dominates, but in hindsight, the fall happens over and over, like a scratched record stuck on a hideous note.

Motorcycles have fallen on top of me before. In fact, this particular motorcycle had fallen on me before. But in traffic? That was new. As I squirmed out from underneath it, people appeared on all sides, asking me if I was all right, if I was sure, if I was
positive
. I slipped my helmet off and assured them that I was fine, willing myself to vanish into the craggy pavement as two men heaved the bike back up and rolled it onto the grass by the side of the road. I shook off the shock of losing control as best I could, and stammered something about the vibration, about the handlebars leaping out of my hands, trying to make sense out loud of what had happened; trying to recover some small semblance of dignity when the road refused to open up and swallow me. A particularly distressed woman continued to ask me if I was all right every twenty seconds. The two men who had lifted the bike left me in the hands of this very maternal woman and drove away. Eventually, I convinced her that I really was fine, that I didn't need any more help, and thanked her profusely for her concern until she, too, got into her car and drove away. The four-way stop was suddenly empty. I took a breath and sat down next to the bike. The implications of what had just happened came over me all at once, and it was only until I managed to shove them all away that I could see my immediate problem. What now?

I called Matt, and to my tremendous relief he answered. I explained what I could, and suddenly with his familiar, concerned voice on the other end of the line, my throat tightened. “Where are you?” I asked him, in what I hoped was a casual tone. “On my way,” he replied without hesitation, and hung up. I've never been so relieved, nor have I ever been quite so grateful. I found some shade underneath a tree and waited. Another motorcyclist came through the intersection, saw the bike parked on the grass, and stopped. “You okay?” he shouted. I gave him the thumbs-up. “Everything's fine,” I shouted back, and forced a smile. He gave me a salute and roared off. I said it again, quietly, just for me:
Everything is fine.

Vibration isn't generally desired. In almost any kind of machine, vibration is a sign of something gone wrong, a clue to imbalance, or unwanted friction. In a few instances, such as music, vibration is favorably cultivated, but in so many others it's the reason for an appointment at the repair shop or the prelude to a blowout. The unfavorable vibration is a mysterious and worrisome pest, hiding inside the coffeemaker, the muffler, or at the bottom of a glass of water as a
Tyrannosaurus rex
approaches. More technically speaking, vibration is an oscillation around an equilibrium, an interruption in the balance. There's a lot to be said for balance; I clearly still have some things to learn about it.

•   •   •

F
IVE YEARS EARL
IER
, after teaching English in India but before moving to Australia, I spent a little time in Thailand. Thom was with me for most of that period, but he went on to Melbourne a few days before I did, and I had some time to myself. My last night happened to be New Year's Eve, and as I sat alone in my hotel room, my suitcase open on the bed while the last few hours of 2006 slipped away, bombs began to go off all over Bangkok. The city itself seemed to vibrate from the intermittent blasts. I could hear them in the distance, but for a time I didn't understand what was happening—didn't know what it was I was listening to. In America, my mother had caught wind of the Bangkok bombing headlines almost immediately and was frantically searching for more information, unable to reach me. In Thailand, I knew even less than she did. I sat cross-legged on my bed, watching the news in another language, trying to understand exactly what was going on. Feeling the building shudder, wondering if fireworks could be that loud, or that close. As I watched the picture on the television fuzz up and then sharpen, fuzz up and then sharpen again, I tried to understand what was happening. I tried to understand how it was that I had gotten there in the first place, on that day of all days, and where it was that I was going. I wondered what had gone wrong, what had tipped this delicate balance, and what it would take to set it right again.

•   •   •

F
IVE YEARS AND
half a world away, I sat cross-legged under a thick maple tree, looking at the Silverwing and waiting for Matt, struggling to understand the same things.

Aether

B
y the time Matt's truck pulled up beside me I had stomped down hard on my ballooning hysteria and put my game face back on. The immediate problem, of what to do with the Silverwing, was all I had the energy for. There was no way in hell I was getting back on that machine just yet—I was shaken, and I was afraid that if the vibration happened again I wouldn't be able to stay in control of the bike. I was too freaked out, and all I could think about were the numerous stop signs and traffic lights between where we were and Matt's house—it seemed clear to me that dropping under 15 mph was what had caused the Silverwing to buck me, and I knew that was unavoidable.

Matt listened to my feeble diagnostics and offered a few ideas of his own. The luggage packed too high seemed like a possibility, or a cupped front tire, or a loose ball bearing, but none of it really altered the fact that things sometimes go wrong on motorcycles, especially old ones, and I was riding a motorcycle that I couldn't physically wrestle through a problem like that. Matt volunteered to ride the bike himself while I drove his truck. It was only several miles to his house, he reasoned, and he had a couple inches on me, a few more years of riding experience, and more muscle to back it all up. We transferred my gear into the truck, and then Matt started the engine and took off. I followed him, my teeth clenched, knuckles white on the steering wheel, watching as the handlebars jerked back and forth, then became still as he gathered speed.

He made it without any catastrophes, to my great relief, and parked the bike at his house in the center of Amherst. I pulled up next to him in the truck. “Success!” I cried, and he hopped off the bike. We discussed the problem some more and I did a little of my own research, but the more I learned, the more I realized that the problem could be almost anything. As I read stories of “high-speed wobble” crashes—
wobble
being the technical term, and low-speed and high-speed being the two choices—I came to understand that I was actually pretty lucky getting the low-speed variety, otherwise I would have almost certainly been testing the limits of my bare-bones catastrophic health insurance plan.

As it happened, Matt and his girlfriend, Katie, were heading out of town that very evening and would be gone all weekend. They offered me their room while they were away, and I gratefully accepted it, having no place else to go. After they left, I took a shower and inspected the many scorches and bruises, new and old, that dotted my legs and hips, then fell into bed and unleashed the emotions I had subdued over the course of the day. I stewed in my own anxiety for an hour or two, then slowly, fitfully, drifted off to sleep.

•   •   •

O
VER THE COURSE
of the weekend I got in touch with my friend Rigdhen and asked him to give the Silverwing a once-over. He swung by and took a look at the machine—I told him what had happened, but he had no immediate ideas as to what the problem might be. He shrugged and said, “Maybe it was a fluke.”

“But,” he added, “that motorcycle is no good for you anyway—there's another motorcycle, out in Holyoke, that you should see.” Rigdhen knew the guy who was selling it, and said we could go check it out the next day. I conceded. The possibility that the Silverwing wasn't the right bike for me was something I had been pushing away for weeks, but recent events made this sinking suspicion impossible to ignore.

I've never been good at admitting defeat, and although the realization that I would be a fool to press on with a motorcycle that I could manage only under the best of circumstances was hard to accept, accept it I did. There would be questionable roads, heavy traffic, crazy drivers, and plenty of getting lost—there would be situations I had yet to even imagine. The unknown was no place to be going on a motorcycle I didn't trust and couldn't control. The moment I decided to sell the Silverwing, the relief was palpable. The knots in my stomach loosened, the tightness in my jaw went slack. I decided that I was not admitting defeat, that I was simply using my brain. It had taken an accident on the very day of my departure to wake up this common sense of mine, but once I dumped the Silverwing in the middle of the road there was no turning it off. Willpower was not going to make me any taller, and willpower was not going to make the Silverwing any more manageable. It was over. I never rode the Silverwing again.

•   •   •

F
OR CENTURIES
there was a theory pursued by the scientific community called luminiferous aether: the medium of light, said to be a substance scattered throughout all of space. It was said to be fluid, without mass, incompressible, and transparent. As experiments were done, contradictions arose, and the theory became more and more complex to accommodate them: for example, aether had to be rigid enough to propagate light but also elastic enough to not have any effect on the movement of the planets. The harder aether became to prove, the more fantastic the theory had to become in order to explain it. The experiments done up until the beginning of the twentieth century all failed to provide proof of aether, at that point a theory deeply ingrained in the consciousness of modern science, yet the assumption of its existence persisted. It wasn't until Albert Einstein reasoned that perhaps the so-called failed experiments were in fact successful that any headway was made. If aether didn't exist, then the complications that had arisen by trying to force a false theory to match up with the laws of physics fell away.

In 1905 Einstein proposed the theory of special relativity, which argued that the speed of light is the same no matter what time or place it is observed from, that there is no mythical substance that transmits light, merely a simple set of laws that govern it. This is in fact what the “failed” aether experiments had been pointing to all along, but it took abandoning an attractive theory in order to see it clearly. The Silverwing had seemed so perfect in so many ways, like an indestructible highway chariot, but ultimately the hypothesis was wrong—the numbers didn't line up, and I began to search for another machine.

•   •   •

I
T BECAME CLEAR
that it would take me longer than a weekend to sort out my mode of transport, so before Matt and Katie returned from their weekend away, I moved my gear to their attic, where an old mattress and a rickety bed frame were hidden beneath layers of trash and junk and things in storage. I threw some stuff away, stacked some other stuff in tidy towers, aired out the mildew, and before I knew it the room looked livable—cozy, even. There was an empty door frame leading to nowhere that was covered with a torn screen, and more than one window was missing its glass, but as long as the warm weather held, I had a good place to hide out while I searched.

The motorcycle Rigdhen took me to see had been sitting in a basement for years, glimmering in its gloomy corner like an open flame. It didn't run at the time, but other than that it was in pristine condition, a 1995 Honda Magna, candy-apple red. It had barely 6,000 miles on the odometer, 750cc's of displacement, and a seat height that fit me perfectly, leaving both feet firmly on the ground. Before the title and the money changed hands, Rigdhen and I hauled the Magna to Northampton to get it back into working condition—in other words, he worked diligently, cleaning carbs, replacing the air filter and the spark plugs, while I pestered him with questions and ran errands at AutoZone. After two days of working and waiting for parts, we started it, and I heard it run for the first time. It was a beautiful, dangerous sound, like a lion's roar, or the snarl of a brush fire.

I went back to Holyoke, got the title, and paid the guy, and after that the Magna was officially mine. I transferred the license plate from the Silverwing and made sure to switch over those little skull-shaped nuts as well. Their plastic red eyes were the same color as the Magna's paint job; it seemed lucky. When I rode it to Amherst I could hardly believe how quickly it responded to my touch, how seamlessly it moved across the road. There was so much power available, I was going 50 mph before I had to change from second gear to third. As Rigdhen would say: it had serious balls.

I took the Magna back to Matt's house and parked it next to the Silverwing. Side by side, the Silverwing towered over the Magna—it looked twice the size of it, and yet where the Silverwing topped out at 80 mph or so, I have never found the Magna's limit. The next day I called a tow truck and took that sweet old highway sow over to Rigdhen's garage in Northampton, where he had agreed to sell it on my behalf. Suddenly, the disaster began looking more and more serendipitous. I had a motorcycle that suited me, and that would get me to Florida without dying of old age. I had been so attached to the Silverwing, in all its retro glory, that I hadn't noticed it didn't fit the equation.

The only problem now was that I no longer had any saddlebags, and with the smaller motorcycle came less room for luggage. I went back to my storage unit and dug out a blue duffel bag, then quickly realized that I was going to have to get rid of some gear. I went back to the storage unit again and dropped off everything that didn't make the cut. The remaining items I managed to stuff into the duffel bag and my backpack, then with my tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and rain gear I crafted a handy little backrest. When I was finished cramming everything onto the bike, I had a sizable mound where the passenger's seat used to be and a snug little place just big enough for me to slide between the gas tank and my gear. I had already gone to the RMV and transferred the Silverwing's registration over to the Magna. My insurance was updated, my paperwork complete. For the second time that week, I was ready to go.