Oh, Rayanne wanted to run. But the world back then had no arthroscopic, lathroscopic or anyoscopic surgical procedure. All surgery required major incision, excision, stitches and scars. She would reveal her body to nobody, or, as she put it, “No pussy for you. Trust me. You don’t want it in this condition.” Which of course led to pathetic insistence that I did, and then to the inevitable dilemma of whether special relief should be merely anticipated or directly requested.
Rayanne didn’t need that foolishness. I shrugged. It was only a simple question, and I couldn’t really fault her for not wanting a schwantz lunging at her tonsils. Then again . . .
Never mind, she slowly unbuttoned her frilly blouse, then reached back to unhook the harness. The front loader was still a few years into the future. Anyway, with no further ado, rack revealed, she said a suckle would be lovely—not the one I’d requested but with my puckered lips on her two jugs. It was her version of a better idea. I complied and found it—to coin a phrase of the day—neat. But strange—Rayanne wanted lips on her nipples, any lips. I sensed difficulty a few minutes in, which is a long time to suck on tits. And I realized that she wanted lips sucking indefinitely.
I doubt she had come to terms on the rational plane. She craved nursing in post partum compensation, and though any lips applying suction would have done, she especially liked a hundred thirty-five pounds o’ motoboy with a Lightning Rocket between his legs. It compensated her loss on a new mode of fitting in, kind of.
Fuck.
And alas. Things soon seemed askew.
Post partum blues leveled out on hummed lullabies. She cradled my head. Don’t get me wrong; I still think of Rayanne, but five minutes was plenty, ten minutes more than enough, fifteen an imposition. She held me in place.
We soon reached an impasse, a repetition of non-variable friction points that could not possibly achieve resolution.
In coming weeks another young woman would sit next to me on the bus from Piraeus to Athens. Carolyn, like Rayanne, would fill the bill on intellect, articulation, womanly wares and an impressive balance between adventure lust and mental stability. But she would also fit into a pattern, call it a set piece on the evolution of romance. Also about my age, Carolyn would seem more mature, and she wore a dress. I loved that. We talked easily for hours and checked into the same hotel on arrival. She said to give her a few minutes, like twenty, so she could freshen up. Then I should come on down. To her room. She pecked me on the lips.
When I went down, she was gone, checked out. I still don’t get it. I can’t. The curse finally lifted in Tel Aviv with a girl who wouldn’t shut up till she did, who kept rattling about the heritage of Zion and our continuing struggle. Wasn’t it great? Being there in the Holy Land at that significant moment in history was . . . significant. And historical.
Our physical exchange was neither, ending in four to six seconds in a more prodigious mess than taking the top off the blender halfway through a smoothie. We thought that was normal.
Not to worry; only two months later the most beautiful campus female in Middle America plucked my heartstrings as deftly as Betty Boop had done when I was merely a lad. Engaged to be married in Boston, she asked if she could come over for a study date. I shrugged. Why not? Betty was smart and a better student than I. We studied all night, mostly physiology and sociology, including the great goodwill and public service that make the world a better place with special relief all around. But, I get ahead of myself.
John and Jane were on again, though she asked him to please keep his fucking mouth shut on the age thing. So we all hung out for a few days in Florence, visiting the original David and the huge flea market, where you could buy a Nazi SS uniform in mint condition for about twenty bucks, maybe from the original owner. I scanned the crowd for old Nazis. They weren’t so hard to spot.
Rayanne was a triumph of the spirit but wasn’t enough. Primed for all of her, I got only wet tit and a cold shoulder. So it soon came time again to hit the road alone.
The last time I set out solo was parting company with David out of Paris, with loneliness in waves. This next solitary departure felt like cleansing, and growth, like letting go for endless miles. On the far side of the mountain, my motorcycle and I could meet the wide world in anonymity and faith as everyone must, sooner or later.
A sign of the times was that the lyric of the times could adjust to any occasion of the times.
Maybe Jackson Browne was camping in Florence that summer, composing Fountain of Sorrow. My solitary departure had been forlorn and confused out of Paris, yet it would repeat itself in confidence. I would be all right. The Florence campground filled with arrivals from Pamplona and Marrakech. It felt like a repeat scene. John seemed keen on settling in one more time, smoking dope, relaxing and having sex with Jane as often as possible. Jane went shopping every day.
I rolled out of the Florence campground to the backdrop of John and Jane squabbling over limited space in the VW van and all this crap stacking up so you couldn’t even lay down anymore, but whose crap is it anyway?
Whose fucking van do think it is anyway?
Fade to the soothing syncopation of pistons gaining rpm on the way out of the campground. Maybe they worked things out. Rianne glanced up from a chore to wave goodbye at my rearview mirror. And so on out of town.
I hit the Autostrada del Sol just south of Firenze early in the morning, bound for Roma. I had no plans other than seeing Rome. I wanted to round a roundabout and stop for an espresso any old where. Things were easing up, what would later be known as manning up. The world eased into friendly terms, and the adventure was hardly begun.
On a long straightaway in mid-afternoon, somewhere south of Baschi but north of Orte, deep in the groove of life in movement, I heard a knock, knock, knocking but not on heaven’s door. I killed the engine because I knew what it was as it got louder and uglier, like hammers on anvils, tearing cylinders asunder. It sounded too late. Life had rolled down an Italian highway to beautiful horizons till it clanged, banged and clattered to a stop.
Bummer. A surly little guy from Manchester who described himself as a BSA mechanic had adjusted my tappets at the campground in Pamplona and then test-drove my motorcycle at a hundred forty. I thought he was bullshitting but wound it out myself and thought he’d done it right. Two weeks later it didn’t matter. I found neutral to avoid seizing the tranny too, then coasted to the shoulder on a rattle and shudder. I didn’t have a degree yet but was already thinking like a college graduate: I needed help.
It didn’t take long. The Autostrada had help phones every mile or so, so it was a short hike to the next box, where I picked it up and asked, “No speaka too gooda Italiano. Parlez vous, humma humma?” On an earful of highspeed Italian I culled for a single syllable of English or maybe French. I found a few here and there and sought meaning. Then I took my only course of action: hang out and wait. An hour later a flatbed pulled up with a ramp and tie downs. I didn’t get it. That wouldn’t happen in the Land of the Free. I rode shotgun, and before too long, somewhere south of Orte, we pulled into a rest stop.
This too was different than your average interstate relief station. Instead of a parking lot, bathrooms and many children, this place was an olive grove with a terrace café overlooking a lake. The driver explained something in Italian and led the way to a table in the café, where he introduced an old man who sat there. The old man told me to sit and ordered a round of Fernet-Branca. The driver drifted off. Who knew? Into that beautiful setting the drinks arrived. Fernet- Branca is a liqueur, black and thick as roofing tar with a dash of mud and sugar, served in a fine, thin jigger with a lemon twist.
Well, it’d been a long goddamn day, so I put it down the hatch. The old man watched to see if I’d drop dead. When I didn’t, he ordered another round. We talked, kind of. In sparse French he said he spent his days there in the café—toujours dans le café—but it wasn’t always like that. He’d been in the guerre, WWII. “Ah,” I nodded. “Tu est un fascist.”
> “No!” he bellowed, winding up to swat me. But then he laughed and ordered us one more round. In an hour the driver came back out and we were on our way. I was not allowed to pay. What a day. What an old soldier. What a gut bomb, but never mind; what hospitality and peace of mind.
Back on the Autostrada, the driver asked many questions.
“The fuck, man. I don’t know.”
So he slowed down and got down to English, kind of. “You moto. Is que?”
“It’s a BSA. 650cc. Seis cent cinquante centimeteur cubique.”
“Ah. Seicento cinquanta centimetri cubici! Sei feefty!”
“Oui. I mean, si.”
He plucked his CB radio from a sun visor cradle and barked a few words, waited and went into overdrive, so fast I couldn’t catch a syllable. He stopped to ask, “You moto. Issa Treeomph?”
“No. It’s a BSA.”
“Ah.” And back to the CB. “Bay assa ey . . .” Spaghetti, fettuccini, bon giorno, cinquante, no parlo, Alfredo, salami, pastrami, risotto, minestrone. Who knew what he said? Then he said, “Molto bene. Gratzi. Si. Prego.”
He grinned and nodded, with certainty, I thought. So we penetrated Rome. Traffic thickened and streets narrowed. Huge roundabouts with many lanes felt like a challenge and a threat. Who would ever go to the inside lane with maximum travel of three-quarters of a lap? Crazy. Yet a tiny car on the inside lane ahead seemed intent on ramming a scooter, as the scooter wanted farther in and the car wanted out. The scooter stopped abruptly and the driver got off, forcing the tiny car to also stop, and that driver got out too. They went toe-to-toe, yelling and flailing even as they turned and got back in and remounted and went their separate ways, to the inside and outside of the roundabout. The tiny car driver flicked the tip of his thumb off a top front tooth. The scooter driver let go of his handlebars to grasp the top of this left elbow with his right hand and thrust his left hand upward. “Bah fangoo!” He nearly hit another car, causing him to refocus his accusation and bitter claim on that driver, and so they went, round and round.
Most amazing was that the other lanes of roundabout traffic flowed around the squabblers while rounding the roundabout.
We turned onto a narrow street with an inch to spare on one side and barely a scrape on the other and stopped at a narrower alley we would never fit into. Not to worry, the moto mechanic was only a short way down, and he came out with the usual entourage of kids.
Once unloaded and parked inside, my motorcycle went through some brief tests, primarily of putting it into gear and rolling it. Metal fragments clattered inside, followed by wincing, cringing and head shaking all around. It looked like a set-up but sounded like the real deal, a blown engine. The mechanic conveyed the likely damage: maybe it would not be total on the bottom end and so it might not need pistons, cylinders and maybe a new main bearing. Maybe the damage would be only on top—heads, tappets, lifters and valves. He wouldn’t know until tomorrow, because it was already late in the day. But he would tear it down first thing and then call London for parts and get them ordered. With luck, I could be out of there in a day, or maybe three days.
Afraid to ask what it would cost, I asked where to stay cheap. He nodded back up the alley at the city. My flatbed driver waited. The mechanic spoke to him in casual Italian, and we were off again in the flatbed, this time to a park a few minutes away, near the coliseum. I winced, seeing the park crowded with campers. It was Pamplona redux but bigger with more exhaust, body odor and garlic, a challenging blend of scents but infinitely better than shit. Maybe this place had a sewer main.
I got out and shook hands with the driver. He hadn’t mentioned a fee, so I asked, “Combien ça coute? Quanto costa?”
He shook his head. I still didn’t get it. What a country, to care so deeply for its youthful motorcyclists out making contact with the world. The idea at hand was that a country should care for its visitors who would carry home lasting impressions, visitors who were, after all, spending money. The service seemed casual yet today is recalled as far away in a strange place.
A few thousand kids camped on the ground. I didn’t know anybody but neither did they. So I ambled in, looking for a few square feet to unroll my bag and lay down, comforted by the easy move to horizontal, surrounded by an atmosphere both benign and welcoming. Yet a random selection in a crowd of kids would foretell fate for the near term.
On one side were a striking couple, Erik from Scandinavia and Gretchen from Germany. Very few young people had body fat then, because it was a more healthful time in general. We’d grown up without computers or video games. We’d spent youthful years playing outdoors, low tech games like tag, freeze tag, hide ‘n seek, piggy wants a wave, red rover, crack the whip. A hallmark of youth BC (before computers) was the parental call at dusk. You get in here this minute, and I mean now! That was in from outdoors, where pulses surged and life was vital. Thinness was also part of the youth culture because of the speed freaks, but recreational drugs seemed less tragic than the obesity epidemic a few decades down the road.
All the rockers were skin on bones, with a standard physique useless to any purpose under heaven except for twanging electric neon Jesus out of heavily amped guitars and banging on drums. Erik was better built than most, handsome and suave with blond hair, blue eyes and a perfect nose that looked superior. Erik turned to Gretchen, whose blue eyes, blonde hair, perfect nose and stunning posture could make men twitch in fear and longing. Together, they were like data meant to prove an Aryan theory.
I imagined her in form-fit leathers with a whip. “Veh iss yoh peppahsss?” She spoke with soft deliberation, commanding the eyes of males, a dominatrix to make men cower, to make men give and hope for some discipline too.
She took my hand and gazed into my eyes. Erik asked if I was traveling alone. I said ya, I mean yes. He looked at her. She watched me. She asked, “Do you have the Eurail pass?” Maybe a third of the kids traveled by train that summer. A Eurail pass was a few hundred bucks depending on class of service and countries covered. For one price a pass allowed open travel within certain boundaries and dates. “No. I have a motorcycle.”
They traded another glance, seemingly asking each other, Eina grossa moto? Vas is los?
“A moto. Varoom! A BSA. Six-fifty. Lightning Rocket.”
“Ah!”
“Ya!”
They looked around, puzzled. Where did I park? I told them it was getting an oil change and would be ready tomorrow or the day after. So Erik leaned in close to confide like men in the bond, that he and Gretchen were travel companions, but he would at that point be forced to leave, but she wanted more, so to speak, so if I wanted her—his words—she would be my travel companion.
Wait a minute. If I wanted her? Who wouldn’t want Gretchen? Who wouldn’t crave two out of three falls with Gretchen and a sure loss? Or three out of five? Or some mud wrestling and feather dusting? “Yes. Okay.” And so it was set. Gretchen gathered her things and moved them the few feet from where they’d been alongside Erik over to the snuggle place next to me. I hadn’t yet experimented with psychedelic drugs in the summer of ‘69, but Gretchen’s willingness to let me “have her” felt as removed from reality as anything I’d known. Erik watched and smiled, perhaps recalling his own disbelief at this sudden jackpot. I imagined the works yet wondered why Erik looked so relieved.
Well, he was obviously not up to the challenge. So much woman requires a hefty hunk o’ man to balance the needs of the first party with the supply of the second. I felt confident, pushing twenty maybe but feeling seventeen—twice a night or a baker’s dozen would not challenge the catering department. I wanted to clarify that we would, you know, do everything, but it seemed obvious that we would, and clarifying seemed so . . . American. She held my arm with two hands and rubbed it. A guy came around hawking sandwiches, so we bought sandwiches. Erik excused himself to go down the street for some wine, and the evening was made. Gretchen showed me a pose, twisting her torso to advantage, though I could not imagine a disa
dvantage. She stared at me. She batted her lashes. She blushed at will. She caught my eye and glanced at my crotch. I lay back as Erik returned with the wine. We drank. We moaned and agreed that things were good and we were part of it.
I woke up with Gretchen clinging to me. I caressed her hair. She smiled. I touched her cheek. She murmured. I reached . . . under her blouse. She giggled. Then it was time to rise.
Back at the moto shop in the alley my motorcycle lay splayed, disemboweled. Then came the news: total annihilation. The oil pump had stopped. I was consoled by assurance that it could happen to anyone at any time—that an engine running dry would last a mile or two before seizing or throwing a push rod through a cylinder wall. The mechanic lifted my mangled engine from the workbench, grunting and huffing to say it would make a nice pendant, and he had a chain big enough to hang it around my neck. The assistant mechanics laughed. On the bright side, he could make it new for a hundred sixty-five dollars, about a third the cost of the motorcycle, two-thirds the cost of my charter flight. But fractional values meant nothing. I didn’t have the bread. I nodded and asked when.
He asked where I would go next. I shrugged. Maybe south, maybe north. He told me to go ahead to Greece and have a good time, and when I returned, my moto would be ready. He would need only two days, but the new engine would not arrive for two weeks. I said okay and left.
Odd as it sounds, the youth brigade of the world that summer communicated via American Express. A few decades prior to computers and cell phones, we had Western Union and telephones with dials and cords. Most kids didn’t carry credit cards then. Most cities in Europe had an AE office with a bulletin board and message services. So I went to AE in Rome and sent a telegram to Mom:
All OK. Great fun. Moto broke. Send $165. XXOO to AE Rome c/o me.
1969 and Then Some Page 8