5.28.99

Dave bought a motorcycle the day before I arrived. A Honda VFR Interceptor it is. This has been his dream for over four years. He was going to have one, we even went to look at them and he began negotiations for a loan, when his promotion to Korea landed squarely in his lap. He's never stopped talking about it and I'm happy for him to finally get a thing he has wanted for so long. He said to me that he has not been this happy since those first months when he first met me. I can tell; it is plainly written in the sparkle of his eyes and the smile more frequently spread across his cheeks. There is passion in him now. The VFR is one of the most technologically advanced bikes on the market. A sport-touring bike, it looks like the common CBRs and Ninjas, but has a slightly less aggressive posture for comfort and a bit of a smaller engine. It is deeply, dazzling red. The guy at the bike shop said the craftsmanship is so seamless that the repair manual for the VFR is thin and rarely requires updating, with some parts of the engine never needing repair. Changes from year to year are slight. I was not afraid to ride with him because he is a cautious driver. He was a little awkward at shifting for awhile, and unaccustomed to the added weight and drag of a passenger, but I never once felt like I was in a dangerous situation. We rode in the evenings when he returned from work, when the light was a deep yellow turning to orange and the pastures out beyond West Chester were luminous green. Swarms of insects glowed in the last rays of the setting sun: hyper-kinetic fog. Old colonial-style mansions in such beautiful variations of stone, brick, and board were corralled with their horses and goats within white fences. Rolling hills and gentle curves. We crossed bridges, including a covered one. I borrowed a helmet from the bike shop for the first few days until the one I ordered came in. It fit terribly and painfully. Besides being too large, the chin strap was attached too far toward the back, leaving an unbelievably small space for my neck. When I rode while wearing that helmet, it wobbled on my head and choked incessantly. The night I got my own helmet, a Shoei RF800, I could not believe the difference. The fit was perfectly comfortable. No movement whatsoever, but not too tight. The wind still roared but it was muffled a bit and couldn't feel it at all. I felt like my head was inside a new car and my body was flapping out through the sunroof - the new plastic even smelled like a new car. We rode through Valley Forge that day on curvy little two lane roads. Streams and farms and pastures. Smell of approaching summer and more clouds of iridescent insects. Deer. Lavender blooming in pale purple patches amongst lush deciduous forests. It was so beautiful. The new helmet helped me relax. I realized how much the raw noise and movement from the wind contributed to the feeling of discomfort. So much sensory information is absorbed through our heads. When the degree of sensation is subdued or clarified, we feel more comfortable; it's the in between, unfiltered noise that makes us overwrought. Saturday we decided to test our comfort level by driving the bike to Atlantic City. Freeway all the way, on roads we did not know. We missed a couple of turn-offs, spat profanity at one another in Camden, New Jersey. But we made it. We weren't impressed with the city: cheesy, dumpy, casino town. We walked through Trump Plaza on the way to the boardwalk. Doubled our money there: 2 quarters into video poker, 4 out. Quit while we were ahead. We took off our shoes to wade in the Atlantic. I had never been to this ocean before. We watched all possible variations of humanity streaming along the boardwalk. The kind of diversity only witnessed in places like hospitals, bus stations, and casinos. On the return, the sun riding low. A raging river of motorized vehicles flowing back to higher ground. I felt more comfortable on the back of the bike, relaxed and hanging on only loosely. Better able now to anticipate the movement of the bike over the uneven texture of the road and the erratic flow of traffic. Moisture was collecting before the sun, which appeared to set and then rise again as it sank through alternating cloud layers. Its reflection on them glowed red behind a most industrial city. Pinnacles of modern skyscrapers rising over oil refineries, whose eternal flames reminded us too much of Bladerunner. On the bike, our clothes fitting in rage, this scene was made more vivid. We crossed a long high bridge before those refineries; rode high above a jungle of arthritic pipelines and toxic wasteland. A cross wind struggled with Dave for control of the bike. Me, I hung on, the wind heavy against my neck, thunderous roaring in my ears - fury of inconsolable flame. Magma sky and fires of hell below; the city of the damned just beyond.

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