The Wrong Road to Sturgis
---Wayfarer (on his way somewhere)
I met the wildest girl I had ever known, somewhere between a rock and my hard place, which is where all the dangerous women linger in memories.
She arrived on a ‘112’ engine Indian motorcycle under a sky so blue it looked government-issued. Black boots. Red in her hair. Tattoos crawling across her skin like the illustrated history of several wild nights. I knew nothing about her, which immediately made her more interesting than most people I know.
I was supposed to be going to Sturgis. Meet ‘the Bandit’, help out with reports and photographs. Run errands. Be useful. Right now, I was captured by her glare and rooted to the tar road like a fool about to be her roadkill.
Bandit’s email mentioned, there were motorcycles to photograph, builders to interview, bands to hear, drunks to avoid, certain deadlines to miss professionally rather than recreationally. Somewhere ahead, city of Sturgis and the Buffalo Chip was preparing to swallow another army of riders, musicians, vendors, mechanics, models, millionaires, lunatics and men who had spent forty thousand dollars making a motorcycle look as if they owned nothing.
I had a job to do. Yet man is not made of ‘wood’. I was flesh and ‘bone’. I offered her my best regards. She smiled with a certainty about my intentions. Then she took the other road.
There are moments when a man's entire professional career is reduced to a turn signal. Hers blinked left. Sturgis was right. I stopped at the crossroads.
The sensible voice arrived first. “Go right,” it said. “You have assignments. People are expecting results and revenue. You are supposedly an editor and a journalist. Bandit is counting on you ‘Goddammit’.”
Then the Devil appeared. The Devil does not carry a pitchfork anymore. He has weaponized the roll of a dice. My personal evil sat invisibly in the passenger seat, wearing sunglasses and apparently having no respect for my employer’s schedules.
“Left,” he whispered.
“Why?” I murmured.
“Wild girl. You know she is the one. She will set you free.”
This was not a sophisticated argument. Actually, it was corny and crude. Unfortunately, it was devastatingly effective when a man’s been on the road too long, with nothing but pretty cover girls printed on back issues of Easyriders magazine. The gasoline fumes in the heat of noon didn’t help either.
I watched her motorcycle disappear toward the horizon—or perhaps I imagined the motorcycle. Memory becomes unreliable when desire takes over the editing desk. Maybe she had never promised anything. Maybe she had never even looked back. The great romances of the road often require only one participant and a dangerously lonely narrator.
Behind me was responsibility. Ahead of me were two roads. One led to the biggest motorcycle rally in America, where thousands of stories were waiting to come to life. The other led to absolutely nothing I should confess as my thought crimes. Yes, I wanted the second one.
The cruelty of the road was in its unfamiliarity that gets etched in heart and mind. Like a tire burnout that is harmless and starkly visible at the same time. These roads offer freedom and also refuse to provide me a direction. Choices are left to the rider as the machine obeys the pants that ride it.
Every highway eventually asks what kind of fool you intend to become.
I sat there with the engine running. The Devil grew impatient. I could smell her even as his stinking ideas fogged my mind. It was as if she was here with me, while I was sunblind and muddleheaded from heat and blood surging through the wrong end of my decision tools.
“Women like that don't come twice.” Says the Devil.
“Neither do dollars past these deadlines.” I sighed.
He considered this. “Deadlines aren't wearing those boots.”
The bastard had me there. All I could think of was what I could be for her. Snap on to her like her fur-daddy on her velvet skin. I was going insane with sweat, heat and ticking of a wristwatch so loud, I couldn’t make out my own engine’s idling by the roadside.
I plucked a bottle of water from my bedroll and dumped its contents on my face. Then I turned toward Sturgis. I rode for miles telling myself I had made the mature decision. The professional decision. The decision of a responsible Associate Editor. Bandit would be proud, I almost said aloud, as my thoughts surged to realize the extent of pending workload ahead. It felt terrible.
Well before sunset, the Black Hills appeared ahead, motorcycles filling the highway around me. Bandit’s Emporium was packed with people grabbing hold of bikerdom rarities. Stories were ‘happening’. Brothers and sisters, young and old, new and veteran riders—they were seamlessly a sea of enthusiasts riding a wave of passion for two-wheels and its one true freedom. Sturgis Rally was gonna explode into action anytime now. Work, noise and glorious American media madness waiting to give me a lifetime of memories and memorabilia.
Somewhere behind me, on another road entirely, was the best woman I had ever known. Or never known. Those are the hardest ones to forget.
Bandit heard me out and slapped my dumbfounded face, “Fool, Sturgis Rally is another five days from now. You could have danced the dance and been here on time for more. Now that you are here, get the emails replied, you are burning daylight Goddammit!”
* * * * THE END * * * * *
Story by the Wayfarer@Bikernet.com
Model is the enigmatic Danielle Hahn
Photography by @mountainshadowsphotography
Biking from @shop_tinytriangles
