Easy Rider

Art rode his bike to our house last weekend, and when I say bike, I don’t mean the 3-speed green bicycle that tossed me to the ground on my parents’ driveway in 1986. No, the type of bike I’m talking about is a lean, mean Honda Shadow Spirit.

I’d seen his bike only once before and I’d wanted a ride, but back then he hadn’t purchased a spare helmet yet. Now he had one, and I was ready to test-ride this baby.

We went outside and Art handed me the spare helmet. It looked too big for me.

“Do these come in sizes, or is this a one-size-fits-all kind of thing?” I asked him.

“Yeah, they come in sizes, but this is a medium, so if anything it might be too big for you,” Art said. “It’ll probably feel tight going on, though.”

I tried to pull the helmet over my head. I’d always thought my head was average-sized, maybe even on the small side, but the helmet was proving me wrong. Evidently I had some excess weight around the chin that the helmet didn’t like.

Art, who had easily pulled on his helmet, was watching me. “Just yank it on,” he said.

I squeezed my head through the neck of the helmet. There was a frightening moment when I thought I wouldn’t emerge out the other end, but eventually my head popped through and into the helmet.

My ears didn’t quite make it, though. They got caught by the helmet, which squished them so that the tips of the ears were folded over against the sides of my face. They didn’t hurt, but I was nervous about having post-ride Spock ears, so I stuck my hand inside and pushed the tops of my ears back to their normal positions.

Ears rescued, I still wasn’t comfortable in the helmet. It encased my head tightly and I felt like a stuffed sausage.

“It’s kind of hot in here,” I shouted to Art. “How do I breathe?”

He reached out a finger and flipped my visor open.

“Oh,” I said, as fresh air swirled in. “I didn’t think of that.”

Helmet on, it was time for the safety talk. Art straddled his bike and told me, “The most important thing to remember is not to get on or off the bike until I tell you it’s okay. Otherwise I could lose my balance and we’d tip over.”

“The other thing to remember is that as we go around corners, you should look over my shoulder, in the direction that we’re turning. You can hop on the bike now, and just hold on to me as we ride.”

I studied the bike. It had a secondary seat behind Art, with a high backseat and footrests. I walked toward the bike from the left, and then wondered if a motorcycle was like a cow and needed to be approached only from certain angles. I didn’t feel good about the left side, so I swerved behind the bike and walked toward it from the right.

I put my right foot on the footrest and hoisted myself over the seat. Art started the bike, and I looked for a safe resting spot for my hands. I didn’t want to intrude on his personal space but at the same time, I didn’t want to fall off as soon as he ran over the first leaf on the street. Eventually I settled on placing them lightly on either side of his waist, and holding on to his jacket.

“If you give a guy a ride, is it kind of weird to have him holding on to you?” I asked Art.

“That’s why I don’t give guys rides,” Art said.

Ah, I thought. And that’s why the helmet is a size medium.

We took off down the road. We weren’t even to the end of the street before I realized how much riding a motorcycle rocked. The wind blew past me, and even small dips in the road felt like a roller coaster ride.

Art pulled up to the stop sign. “Which way?” he said.

“Um, right,” I said.

Art didn’t move. After a while, he turned his helmeted head toward me and said, ‘You’re going to have to speak up on the bike. I can’t hear you.”

“Oh,” I said. “GO RIGHT!” I yelled.

We took off. Eventually we got on one of the roads I really liked, because it had gorgeous houses and For Sale signs scattered up and down the road. But what I hadn’t noticed until now was how windy the road was.

I sat stiffly on the bike. I was afraid to turn my head, for fear I would upset the delicate balance of man and bike. And every time we rounded a corner, I had to clench my butt muscles to keep from swaying too much. I felt certain we were one small sway from falling off the bike.

“I am a statue, I am a statue,” I chanted quietly to myself. “I will not move, I will not wiggle, I will not–ooh! Look at that cute yellow house for sale!”

We got to the end of the road at last.

“Now which way?” Art said.

I jerked my head to the right. “That way.”

Art turned toward me. “Uh, you know, ‘that way’ doesn’t really help me when I can’t see you.”

“Whoops! I meant, that way.” I took a chance and flung my arm to the right, gesturing wildly.

Before Art could move the bike, I quickly brought my arm back down and clutched his jacket again. It was time for my statue impersonation again. My butt muscles were beginning to ache.

Art got us back to the house and stopped the bike. “It’s okay to jump off now,” he said.

I hung onto his shoulder and laboriously climbed off the bike. I unfastened my helmet and squeezed out of it. As I felt my ears to make sure they looked normal, I said, “That was awesome!”

We went inside the house, and I couldn’t stop beaming. Chris was playing cards with his friends, and I ran up to him.

“Chris,” I said, “why don’t we get a motorcycle? I mean, if we don’t have a baby, it’ll just be the two of us and we can ride together on the bike! Think of how much we’d save in gas money! I mean, the mileage on a bike is great! And a bike would be cheaper than a baby! Hey, if we decide not to have a baby, can I get a motorcycle instead?”

“Sure,” Chris said. “If you’re going to put it that way, a motorcycle sounds pretty good.”

“And can I get a purple bike? And with little saddlebags for Paco to sit in? And a bright blue helmet? And maybe a little serving tray so you can feed me grapes while I steer it and everything?”

“Art, what have you done to my wife?” Chris demanded.

“I’m a biker babe now,” I announced. “I mean, after we pay for the garage and the kitchen, and my biological clock stops ticking and I get a leather jacket and finish the motorcycle safety course and buy a cheap bike.”

I thought about what I’d just said. “Okay, maybe I’m a biker babe in a few years.”

Posted by: ssjane | September 17, 2004 | 8:14 pm
Posted in: This Life