9857. RUDIMENTS, pt. 49

RUDIMENTS, pt. 49

Making Cars

I'll be getting back to more of that

motorcycle stuff shortly, because

there's a lot to be said and I have a

lot to say about it and now  -  once

having started  -  I realize this is

probably the right time and place for

more. Understand, I was never any

genius, but compared to some of

those I hung with, my flag flew a

little higher, and that was the divide.

I couldn't bridge the gap, past that

spot, and once I got to that, even the

language fell, and the salty language

too. I just recently told someone that

I often hope no one overhears me

because my talk often gets pretty

lewd. I was (mostly) being facetious,

(you can ask my wife), but what I

was meaning, more or less, was a

throwback to my Biker days when  -

in the normal run of things  -  innuendo,

foul-ness, and lewdness was just the

way it went. It never mattered. Like

today's Confederate flag in a 6th street

window, let it rip and see what it starts.

Consequences be damned, let your

freak-flag fly. Today's people, by

contrast, are mostly dickless eunuchs.

-

You see, my mind was a cloud, or a

series of clouds, each one drifting past

me while some goon was trying to tell

me something else  -  his critique of all

the fake tits that were around us, the

promise of this or that's boobs in the

upcoming wet T-shirt contest, and can

he be one of the judges? (Yes, I had

to put up with that too). Meanwhile,

believe this, my mind would be on

something else entirely : consumed in

thought  -  something I'd read that

morning, an idea that came while I

was clocking along 71 mph on Rt. 9

threading my way (our way) down to

Plain Jane's  -  a biker field usually

paved with beer, music, and, eventually,

enough nudity of the local natives for a

National Geographic special edition

scratch n' sniff. (If you'd never liked the 
Allman Brothers, you'd never go there. 
It was a Southern-Rock-heavy scene).
I'd always be thinking somewhere else.
Distractedly too.  Like, say, of the Gospel 
 of Matthew, that opening sequence  - 

he goes through the entire lineage of

Joseph, Jesus' father, to show how

everything came out of the correct line

of David's lineage and all that, except

that (Hey! Matthew) the entire idea

here was that Joseph was NOT Jesus'

birth father, and that's what made it all

so awkward. They make a big point of

saying that Jesus' father was God, the

big guy himself, so what would any

of that matter? In fact, there was nothing

of Joseph in Jesus at all so why wouldn't

it have made more sense to just run out

Mary's lineage instead, which mattered?

How'd that flaw get through? Was the

proofreader who missed that one, at least

reprimanded if not fired? What gives?

-

So, you see, I'd be working out these

things, figuring on how to say what and

what to do with the questions and the

context, while some mangy whippoorwill

is going on about his new Harley Leather

shaving pouch for when he trucks to

Sturgis at the end of July. Well. Maybe

they're out there, but I never found one

-  some slob I could talk with, over yet

another biker-beer, about cosmic matters,

the freaking time-space continuum, past

and concurrent lives, the shades of doubt

between moments of certainty, that split

second when you're about to hit 80 mph

while slip-streaming a truck and then

deciding to sneak out and dash between

that piece of shit Chinese Corolla being

driven by some powder-faced Indian

Hindu fanatic and that blue, megaphoned

exhaust crap-heap of an Altima in the

other lane. And then you just do it,

deciding your drunk enough to take

the consequences and beat them. I once

had a guy, (I'll call him Neil) berate me

for such hot-rodding two-wheel antics

because he felt that the others behind me

weren't up to that riding skill level and

yet would follow whatever I did, and I'd,

by that, end up getting someone killed.

Yeah, maybe so, and maybe he was right.

My mother used too call that 'Monkey

see, Monkey do.'

-

Just as in Matthew, when an entire bunch of

really unnecessary information is provided,

way up front in the opening of Chapter 1,

all this biker stuff made me wonder. What were

these guys up to; sometimes anyway. It was all

so opposite of what I cared about  -  gung-ho

flag-waving, patches and stickers everywhere,

allegiances to weird groups of other guys, a

nasty form of what once was called male

chauvinism, always on parade in the guise

of harassing girls, plain and simple and no

more said. I've read two things about the

Biker culture  -  socio-cultural studies and all

that crud. One made the point of saying that

Harley people spend the largest portion of

their income (not 'disposable income, just

'income'  -  which means it comes before

house, home, wife and kids), on their

motorcycles and attire and events. I found

that to be pretty true. And this second one,

a little striking but also pretty true, was that

the homo-erotic quality of Bikers ran pretty

high. No matter all their posturing about girls

and sex and tits and booty, they basically

wanted to look good  -  all those jackets and

leathers and vests and boots, chains, heels

and cleats  -  for each other and in front of

each other. The peacock posture brigade,

quite often, and never as tough as they

seemed  - the regular guys, not the 1%

dudes, who'd just as soon rip your head

off with their teeth and laugh about it.

-

To a lot of the biker world, the usual and

iconic visage was the Death's Head, or else

some weird Valkyrie Norse pagan god. In

whatever space you give it, that was it. I

think they each had names, but I forget. For

all of this, I was never the visual sort so I

think I reacted differently than did others, to

a lot of this stuff. Funny, now, but I kept

making classical references for things I'd see,

even if they didn't exist or weren't wanted.

Most guys would see a topless girl and think

Lust. I'd figure for Venus DeMilo, not on the

half-shell. It just made it difficult for me to

connect. Which is where the alcohol fit in.

It got me through things. Over the ice-hump

of unwantedness. Don't get me wrong  -

I knew what I was in the middle of, the

pageantry and glow, but it was never me.

Horsepower and firepower  -  I'd shrug it

off as if to say 'who cares.' Every other

person, it seemed, had socked their lives

away with motorcycle-extras : Chrome

gee-gaws and gimmicks, special motorcycle

paint jobs and flames, and all that. A lot

of these were union job guys with tons

of expendable money  - townships and highway

crews, steelworkers welders, maritime guys

and truckers. And they all usually had a

messed up family life or two that probably

could have used that money, moreso

than did their exhaust or carburetors or

fuel injectors, turbo after-burners, wide

tires, camshafts and Brembo brakes. Those

soulless things never cried for want or for

more. Nonetheless, they got piled up on

motorcycles like Christmas tree ornaments.

-

To me it was pretty meaningless. The stuff I

rode hardly stopped, let alone went. Unlike

writing, say, when you're in the zone and it

just starts flowing and you have to stop what

you're doing and get it down at that instant,

(which happened way too often in this guise,

to no one's approval). These guys were often

endless and their time seemed always open.

How could (would) it be wasted away  -  

drinking, yes  -  while endlessly cooing 

over, and over, some dandy biker matter 

of little consequence? And not once, but 

repeated, next guy, next bike : sports, speed,

racing, wives, girls, sex, vacation, the islands,

scuba diving, snorkeling, road trips, biker

festivals, Sturgis, Laconia, Daytona, and

Myrtle Beach and Vegas too. It was all their

stuff  -  sometimes I thought I was hanging

with the Rockefellers or some wealthy elite.

It took all I could do to find a straight line,

let alone walk it, half the time.