I wrote this as fiction to protect the guilty.
It was a hot evening in Newcomerstown. Chilly Willy's weeknight rush was over. Families had eaten their grease laden burgers and fries, topped that with cones or sundaes for desert, and hurried back home in their air conditioned cars to watch UFC Unleashed on TV.
Cones melt quickly in that kind of heat so I was sitting eating a small bowl of soft serve out back under the canopy that was over a bunch of picnic tables. Nobody else was out there. My butt was on the table and my feet on the seat bench. I was turned toward the street keeping an eye on my new Bonneville Black. First summer I had it. It gleamed. Black and chrome. Simple elegance.
I heard loud straight pipes from four blocks away. A Harley. I couldn't see it, the Middle School blocked all sight in that direction. I listened as it pulled off the red light in front of the grocery store and I expected it to turn right at the next block and ride to the biker bar two blocks north. Instead it kept coming and stopped at another red half a block from where I was.
When the light turned I heard the distinct Harley "clunk" into 1st, and the roar as the bike peeled away from the intersection, on its way, I figured, over to West Lafayette. But, just as the sound got almost to me it changed and was coming right at me. The rider pulled in next to my bike and shut down the engine. Thank God for the quiet. Harley Fat Boy, not quite new and well kept. Long straight pipes with no other obvious modifications.
The rider was wearing jeans, death's head t-shirt, open denim vest, engineering boots and a doo rag on his head. Tattoo on one arm. He was maybe 5' 9", 180. He took the doo rag off and shook down his hair and ran his fingers through it. I thought nothing of it. I wear a helmet, have long hair and do the same thing. Something about the careful way he did that made me look again. He was a she.
She got off, looked at my bike and then at me.
"That your piece of shit?"
I didn't answer.
She walked over to me and stood on the sidewalk between me and the bikes.
"I axed you a question."
"I don't respond to insults. Better I keep my mouth shut. Never quite know what will come out when I am pissed."
"Well, listen to you. You some kind of tough old man, ain't you? Everybody I know calls Triumphs a piece of shit."
"Then you need to get around more, find out there are more brands than Harley."
There was a small smirk at the left edge of her lips.
"Hell. If I told anybody over at the Touraine Club I had a Trumpet they would kick my ass out."
"There are more places to drink beer than the Touraine. But you may not have noticed. I don't know why all you Hog riders run together like a pack of lemmings anyway, wear the same clothes, parrot each other's prejudices, pimp your bikes exactly the same way, and put on straight pipes that you have to know piss off all the non riders as well as a lot of riders like me."
I figured that would piss her off but I was sick of her attitude, sick of Harleys, not too happy with the redneck Harley owners in town with their 'monkey see, monkey do' attitude, and damned sick of being awakened every night by drunk Hog riders roaring home from the Touraine Club. Frankly, I just didn't give a shit what she thought. She could try to beat up this old man if she wanted. And maybe she could. I half way expected her to give it a shot.
Instead she says, "Hold that thought," and walks into Willy's. She is out in a minute or two with a huge vanilla cone with sprinkles! Sprinkles? Talk about ruining a carefully cultivated image!
She walks up to the table, and sits down on end of the table opposite me. And starts eating her soft serve, which is melting fast in the heat. After she is pretty sure she can say a word without having it drip, she looks at the two bikes sitting there side by side.
"You know, you are the only person I ever met who told me straight out what I have been axin' myself for quite a while now."
I didn't look at her. It might make her clam up.
"I used to ride on the back of my husband's Glide but I got sick of looking at his back and finally told him I wanted my own bike. Took him two years to get worn down enough to agree. I went looking on my own and I told him I really liked a 650cc Yamaha V-Twin. Fit me real nice. Easy to maneuver around in parking lots, just my size. I sat on a pretty red up at Apex in Philly."
"You didn't get it, from the looks of that Fat Boy."
"Hell no, Tom had a fit. Said that no wife of his was riding no rice burner. It was a Harley or nothing. And he didn't want me on any Sportster. Sportsters are, he says, for wimps. So now we are making payments on a used bike that cost twice as much as the Yamaha, is hell to move around when it isn't running, a bitch to turn in curves, doesn't fit me and is too damned loud."
"Other than that you like it, huh?"
This time I did look at her and she smiled.
"Yeah, other than that. That and this tat that I didn't want, wearing a vest that I don't like, these stupid t-shirts that say that I am someone that I'm really not, and riding with pipes that embarrass the hell out of me. And, yeah, I don't like never having a beer here in my own home town anyplace other than the Touraine."
"I imagine that would feel just a bit confining."
She changed the subject.
"Your wife ride?"
"Yeah, as I got fatter she got more and more tired of looking at my growing back. She started riding in '04. We do a lot of touring. She has racked up over 35000 miles since then. Loves it."
"What does she ride?"
"Kawasaki Vulcan 500 parallel twin cruiser."
"Isn't that small for the interstate?"
"Actually, we ride at least half of our trips on two lane highways. We take our time and enjoy the sites. And, no. Its not too small at all. It will cruise all day at 65-70 with a full touring kit of windshield, tank bag, seat bag, rack bag and saddlebags loaded with gear. At my age I don't want to go any faster than that anyway. Besides, her bike has a top speed of 125 so she is only using a little more than half of its potential."
She just looked at me, saying nothing, gave a small nod and then she was up and off the table. She threw the rest of her sodden cone in the trash can and stood on the sidewalk looking at me again. Her attitude seemed different.
"Well, nice to talk to you. And your bike really ain't bad. I just kind of get in a rut, you know?"
"Me too."
She walked to the big Fat Boy, swung a leg over it, stuffed her hair under her doo rag, thumbed the starter and the engine roared into life. Over the din she yelled at me.
"Thanks. Tom don't know it but after he gets a couple of beers into him tonight I am going to encourage him to have an attitude adjustment. I got me a sweet little red Yamaha in mind that he needs to reconsider."
I live on the main drag into town. About two months later I was sitting on my front porch and heard this straight piped Harley coming down the highway from a mile away. It turned off US 36, cranked it up for the one block to our street, turned in and roared down the street toward me, and I saw that it was her bike. From a distance she looked different, no doo rag for one thing. As she got closer I saw that she was a he. He was wearing a full double breasted leather biker jacket, zipped up, in the summer no less. I was starting to think I was developmentally challenged when it came to identifying the sex of Harley riders.
It was her bike alright, but it wasn't her. Old Tom must have had that attitude adjustment.
Couple of weeks later I'm sitting on the porch again and this guy roars by on a full dress Glide, straight pipes. Its far too big a bike for him. Short hair, t shirt, tats. Looked to be about 5' 6' or so, maybe 140 pounds soaking wet. Following a half block behind him was the prettiest little bright red 650cc Yamaha V Twin you ever saw, decked out in full touring kit: windshield, saddlebags, luggage rack, and quiet OEM mufflers. Had a nice purring growl to it. Not obnoxious at all.
As she rode by I saw that she had gotten rid of the vest and the doo rag and had tied her hair in a pony tail. She had a grin from ear to ear. I stood up and clapped as she went by. She pumped her left arm into the air, at the end of which were two fingers raised in a V.
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