© copyright 2017
FUNNY WHAT A MOTORCYCLE DOES TO SOME WOMEN—especially a Harley. Maybe it's the residual bad boy persona so engrained in American culture. But the rap and cadenced thump of that heavy V-twin exhaust seeps a kind of allure into most minds. It rouses the dormant spirit of rebellion that resides deep in the soul of a good many people out there who have allowed the doing of things to usurp their inner wants.
After a ride over Angeles Crest Highway I had descended the mountains toward Pasadena, where the air had been still and hot all day. After a full two hours of riding I slowed for the first traffic light one encounters when coming out of the mountains that spells the forest is behind, and the city ahead, as residential neighborhoods begin to take shape. Houses dot the area, with a lot of tall green hedges that hid homes from traffic, and vice-versa. The traffic light had just gone red, so I blipped the throttle and downshifted several gears, sidling up alongside the lone vehicle stopped at the limit line; a subdued gray mini-van with a taped over taillight—remnant of some shopping market mishap perhaps.
Coming to a stop I flipped my faceshield up and waited for the light to cycle. After a moment I glanced to my right and saw the silhouettes of two empty car seats placed in the back seat of the nondescript little van. I watched her as she slowly took the Harley in from front to back, admiring the chrome. When I routinely revved the engine the thump of the exhaust seemed to stir her from her complacency and she raised her eyes to meet mine. She looked to be in her late thirties and had long blonde hair tied without fanfare into a ponytail (the way women routinely do when their motherly duties necessitate efficiency over style). She had an exhausted disposition, probably result of carting her children back and forth to school, or thanklessly hustling them between Karate and little league. She wasn't unattractive. But her eyes had a kind of repressed sadness to them.
Now in the annals of the secret, and too often misinterpreted silent exchange of looks between a man and a woman, there is that one unmistakable glance that speaks volumes. She held my gaze for one of those overlong—and too often fleeting moments—that hints of invitation to eroticism. One must act quickly in such cases, before those lusty thoughts evaporate on the whim of what might have been. Her body slumped sensuously into the patterned cloth seat of her tired mini-van and her mouth did one of those subconscious quivers that can only be found in a sensuous thought.
The
don't walk
signal had just begun its long countdown from 24. The housewife and I were still looking at each other. The physical circumstance couldn't have been more of a contradiction; me, single and childless, on a Harley-Davidson Fat Boy, dressed in denim with my steel toe boots and my full face helmet. Her, a young mother, certainly married, behind the wheel of that aging mini-van, anchored by the reality of responsibility suggested by those two empty car seats. But her eyes were saying plenty as the seconds ticked down, the
don't walk
signal falling fast 17... 16... 15. The light would turn green and she would speed away from the intersection, never to be seen again. With the confidence that comes when you have nothing to lose, I motioned for her to lower her window. She stirred slightly from her delirium, and cranked the window down.
"Should we be talking?" I asked.
She seemed surprised by the question. "What do you mean?"
"Are you single?"
"I'm married."
The signal countdown had reached its end and the light turned green. I motioned with a leather-gloved finger at the shaded curb ahead on the other side of the intersection. "Pull over up there."
She straightened in her seat and gave the gutless little mini-van some gas. I dumped the Harley into first and let the clutch out, tucking in behind her. I watched as the van crept through the intersection, half expecting her to come to her wits and speed off. But after clearing the intersection the brake lights illumed and she pulled to the curb beneath a cooling overhang of tree branches. I pulled the Harley in behind her and shut the engine off. I figured she was watching me in the mirror so I made sure to uphold the perception of cool and swung a leg over the seat, un-strapping my helmet as I sauntered up to the driver's side window. As I approached she turned her body in the seat to face me.
She had a youthful look about her, a prettiness obscured by the duties of motherhood. She more than likely had a husband, busy with work demands, who has forgotten to pay attention to her as a woman, abandoning all the simple passions they had enjoyed in their early months of courtship, now squandered in lieu of adult pursuits, forgoing the base human needs in favor of the accumulation of "things." I see them all over the place; women, beautiful women who have been forgotten in boring marriages, absent lust and sensuality, made to feel unappealing by the rudely ignoring ways of listless husbands, lost in lives of quiet desperation. These women, no longer chased, no longer adored, slowly let go of their womanly desires as they make pitiful excuses for the way it is;
We're older now, you do those things when you're young
. Fuck that. Yes, I see them out and about, those lovely gems of overlooked women, all desperately in need of a proper fucking.