Okay, so you got it all now–the Harley, the boots, the jacket, the black leather chaps. You got sexy black gloves going halfway up your forearm. You’ve got silver rings on every finger, long wild hair (black with just a little grey), a very tasteful goatee and moustache, and a wild skull pendant hanging from your left earlobe. When you look in the mirror on your way out the door to your beautiful new machine and turn at just the right angle, you don’t even look fat at all, just … big. And maybe, just maybe, you don’t look 50, either.
Learning how to ride hasn’t been easy. In fact, you maybe regret it a little that you didn’t take that DMV-approved motorcycle course. But, it cost a lot of money and would burn up two full weekend days and a couple of weekday evenings after work.
The first couple of times you started the thing you nearly tipped it over before you got it going in a straight line. And, now, still, just shifting is a problem, stopping isn’t easy yet either, and long turns or even gentle curves on the freeway at anything over 45 miles per hour are a frightening challenge. But you’ll get it. You just got to get out there and ride–and ride and ride and ride.
You can’t believe that it’s really yours–a Harley Davidson Heritage Softail Classic. It’s just so big and loud and black and shiny. It looks, well, it looks like a Harley, like a freaking HOG. It’s got the windshield, and the built-in leather silver studded saddle bags. It comes with a sissy-bar for your back-seat betty (when you get one) to nestle her back into while she straddles the bike and leans into you also all clad in boots and silver and leather with long hair wrapped in a leather-tethered laced-up pony tail. It’s got a one hundred and three cubic inch engine. Everything about it shouts classic and Harley. And it’s yours. It’s really yours.
Of course you can’t afford it. Payments are four hundred a month for six years. And all those accessories–the helmet, the jacket and the boots and the chaps and everything else maxed out your already stressed out credit cards. Plus, the insurance is ridiculous. And the more miles you ride the more you have to spend to keep the engine properly maintained and safe.
So you are all dressed, you’re ready to go. It’s 4 pm on an October Saturday and you leave Modesto to drive to a biker bar 30 miles away in Tracy–up the 99 and on to the overpass to the 120 at Manteca . That over pass is tricky with it’s long tight left turn and you feel like a pussy as you take it at 40 while a line of cars backs up behind you; hell, you can even do it at 60 in your SUV and you are sure the drivers dragging behind are wondering about you, about what the hell is the matter with that biker up there on the hog who can‘t seem to get his ass in gear.
The 120 becomes the I5 Interstate for a minute at Lathrop before you turn into the 205 to get to Tracy . At this point you are feeling okay–the road is mostly straight and you stay in the right hand lane going a steady 60 mph. You are starting to have fun. Other bikers on Harleys pass you again and again and again while you watch after them wondering who they are and where they are going. Are they “real” bikers or someone like you, someone trying to audition for a part in order to get accepted into the regular cast?
When you were about ten you and your father were driving on a mountain highway near Big Bear Lake in Southern California when all traffic stopped. This was the time of movies like “Wild Angels,” “Hells Angels on Wheels,” staring Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern and Nancy Sinatra that were all about crazy violent outlaw biker gangs like the Hells Angels. While you and your horn-rimmed spectacled, crew-cut haired, pocket-protector shirted engineer dad with a house in the suburbs were just sitting there, waiting, you heard from behind a huge rumbling, something that was NOT cars or trucks. What it was was a couple dozen bikers (some with bettys, some alone) all in tattoos and long hair and jeans and chaps and boots and leather jackets with “Hessians” on the back all arriving to the spot where traffic was stopped, dead. And, surprisingly, one of the first guys, who must’ve been one of the leaders, stopped beside your car and leaned over to ask your dad a question. And you couldn’t believe it when your Dad, your awkward, shy, nerdy dad, calmly rolled down the window of his 1963 baby blue Ford Falcon two door wagon with three on the column and engaged this incredible heroic movie-star looking man in polite, calm conversation. Looking back, you guess they were talking about the traffic and why it was backed up but all you can remember was how fucking cool the biker was and how completely and surprisingly unafraid your dad was.
You get off the 205 and make your way to the back roads south of town to the out-in-the-middle-of-Central Valley-nowhere bar you’ve always seen, the one with the ramshackle building and dozens of hogs parked out front from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. everyday of the week. You always wanted to go in but didn’t think you could just drive up in a your Ford Explorer, park next to a fancy chopper and just walk in and order a Bud. It didn’t seem right. But now, why not?
You park, not certain if you are parking in the right spot in the right way. You can see a couple of guys both bald and tatted sitting on the front porch. They might be staring at you and they might not–you don’t dare look to find out for sure.
You go inside and find that you’ve lost your peripheral vision–all you can see is straight ahead. A nice looking red-haired woman in tight jeans and a bikini top meets you across the bar from the seat you’ve chosen. You can hear the sound of pool cues striking balls and you smell beer and whisky and leather and sweat and you hear vague sounds of laughter along with scattered angry drunken shouts. The bartender has kind eyes (is she feeling sorry for you because she knows you don’t belong?) and calls you sweetie and honey as she takes your order and serves you Wild Turkey with a beer back.
You’ve only got twenty bucks and nurse the one shot and one beer as “Sydney ” tells you a little bit about her life especially when she finds out that you are both divorced with a boy and a girl in high school. When your new friend wanders off to serve other customers you risk a look around. No one is looking at you, no one seems to care. You wonder what to do next. Here you are in your silver and leather with your Softail parked out in front of a biker bar and you want to see what this is, what you’ve maybe gotten yourself into and you have no idea how to start.
You spring for one more shot and one more beer. Sydney seems to like you and you like being called sweetie and honey but she seems to like all the people in the bar and calls everyone sweetie and honey. At one point she actually leans across the bar and gives one man a long slow French kiss while the other patrons cheer them on.
So you finish your drinks. You are out of money and out of ideas. You know you can’t just stay without drinking. But you are feeling oddly very sober and unsatisfied while you reluctantly walk toward the door to leave. As you pass a couple of tables someone makes a remark you can’t hear and the people sitting there laugh and you know it is about you.
Your bike and helmet are still out there in the dirt parking lot and you try to look normal as you start it up and pull out onto the road. You decide to just go home. But, it is getting dark and so far you hate riding in the dark and once you are on the 205 heading due east the wind has picked up in a vicious northerly-directed rage and as heavy as your hog is you feel like at any minute you are going to go down.
You crawl along at 25 miles per hour on the shoulder while other Harleys zip passed you at breakneck speed clearly completely unfazed by the danger of the wind. Just at the point where again the 205 becomes the 5 briefly before you can get back onto the 120 to Manteca you see a pickup pass you and slow down and stop. There are two men in the truck and there is a Harley Davidson decal on the back window. Bikers.
You stop and they approach, thinking that you are having mechanical difficulties and offer to help. When you explain that it is just the wind and that you can’t seem to deal with the fucking wind they look at each other, raise their eyebrows, wish you good luck, and get back into the truck and leave.
Shit. Now what? It’s getting darker and the wind seems to be getting more powerful and cars and bikes keep racing past like there is nothing wrong. So you try again, get your speed up, leave the shoulder and enter the right lane of traffic and do your best to get up to at least 55 or 60 and join the rest of the highway world. But it’s no use, the wind is so strong you have to actually aim the bike due south in order to keep going in a straight line and you are convinced that if you pass a wall or a parked truck which temporarily blocks the wind you’ll fly off the freeway to your right and into a ditch or into the San Joaquin river.
So you slow down again. You are disgusted with yourself but you just don’t want to die right now. Not tonight. You pull off at Main street and with some struggle manage to get to the Super Wal-Mart parking lot. You sit there a long time before calling your friend Jack to come pick you up. You tell him the bike broke down (probably the clutch) and that you’ll call a tow truck when you get home to get the bike and take it to the dealer.
Once home you go inside and slowly take off the gloves, the jacket, the chaps, the rings, the skull, and the boots and heave them all into a pile in the corner of your room. You sit in your nice big chair and call up your son Sean, who is having trouble in algebra II. You realize how much you miss him and his sister as you help him through a couple of problems. Before you hang up you remind him to be nice and understanding of his mother who is going through a rough time due to the divorce that was really not her fault. You tell him that you will see him tomorrow and to study hard, especially math, so he can go to a good college and maybe grow up to be an engineer someday just like you and his granddad.
–Story by Mike Monson
–Foreground photo by Manuel EstheimSports News | Sneakers