She Rode a Harley

by Mary Jane Black

  We have been chasing the first suspension bridge in Texas all morning. Dwayne and Pete saw a story about it on Texas Country Reporter. They decided it would be a fun day road trip for the four of us.

  Dwayne and I are looking forward to a day together on the Harley after Stephanie’s wedding three months ago. We have been busy helping the newlyweds get settled in their new house.

  I have been trying to forget my confrontation with my son and my first husband at the wedding.

  Our two motorcycles swerved out of our driveway at seven that morning, me on the back of our shovelhead and Doris behind Pete on their Kawasaki. In a carrier on the back of Pete’s bike, their Chihuahua, Oscar, watches the passing scenery. Our Texas map matched with Dwayne’s scrawled notes and hastily sketched map from the TV show serve as our only guide.

  Now the midday sun blasts down on us. Doris and I sit on the curb at the gas station in the shade of the awning and watch Pete and Dwayne talking to the old man. Oscar drinks water out of a small plastic bowl and stretches out between us. The man waving out the directions is the fourth person we’ve asked about the bridge.

  In Temple a skinny woman with a Marlboro dangling from her lips was sure the bridge was over by Lampasas. The two teenagers there kicked up their skateboards and told us they had studied about it in school. “Definitely in Brownwood,” they declared with certainty.

  In Brownwood a bent and frail old woman in a grocery store parking lot told us a story about the time she and her husband took their kids to the bridge. As Dwayne loaded her groceries in her car, she told us it was absolutely in San Angelo.

  At the station in San Angelo, after getting more directions from the man at the gas pumps, I wiggle my toes inside my boots in an effort to ease the numbness. The pounding Harley engine under me has partially paralyzed my legs and feet. My butt aches from sitting on the narrow seat for five straight hours. I have never been happier.

  I wrap my bandana around my windblown, knotted hair. Dwayne straddles the Harley and stands up to let me climb on behind him. I hop my leg over the seat, perching my prickling feet on the passenger pegs again. Beside me Doris performs the same balancing act. With a roar and a jolt, we swing left down the road the old man showed us. He waves at us as we pull out of the parking lot.

  Either by luck or with good directions, we see a sign declaring the Beveridge Bridge on a road outside San Angelo. We follow the signs until we finally see the bridge arching over the San Saba River. The single-lane wood-and-iron pipe bridge stands out against the flat, arid landscape of West Texas.

  We stop in the middle of the wooden planks on the bridge and look at the muddy brown river water chugging slowly over the rocky river bed. Doris jumps off and takes some pictures of us to commemorate our reaching our destination. We park on the narrow band of gravel on the other side of the bridge. We wipe sweat from our foreheads as we read the plaque on one of the arches on the bridge. Built by the Flinn-Moyer Bridge Company, 1896. As Dwayne and Pete smoke, they tell Texas history stories to Doris—a Louisiana girl—and me, a girl born in the Ozark Mountains.

  Doris interrupts the stories to point out a small hand-painted wooden sign nailed to a fence post: Bubba’s Texas BBQ and cold beer. A red arrow points up the road. One half mile ahead. We get back on our motorcycles and hope Bubba is still in business. We see the small wooden shack when we veer around a corner.

  Soon we are relaxing on a picnic table with icy Shiner Bock beers and plates of ribs and brisket. Oscar growls at the owner’s pit bull from his position under our feet.

  I phone my principal, Joe, from the pay phone on the side of the BBQ joint to let him know I won’t be chaperoning the prom tonight as planned. I got my first Texas teaching job when I met Joe on his Harley at a motorcycle rally. Dwayne introduced us. Now Joe tells me to have a beer for him, and he’ll find another teacher to chaperone.

  We sit there under the shade of the towering live oak trees the rest of the afternoon. At one point, Bubba joins us and shares a beer. Dwayne tells him the story of our search for the bridge. I watch him spin his tale with a wave of his arms.

  Bubba spits out a long stream of tobacco juice and laughs. “Hell, boy, the first suspension bridge in Texas is in Waco. That’s probably the one on the TV. You four sure as shit were lost. A little ignorant too.”

  We all join in the laughter at our stupidity.

  Dwayne drinks some beer and says, “Any day on two wheels is a good day.”

  Bubba agrees, “Hell yeah, I wish I still had my Harley.”

  We hoist ourselves back on the motorcycles. The two motorcycles rumble together down the two hundred miles home. We stop for gas at a station in a small town somewhere in the middle of the endless Texas plains. Doris and I stretch out in the dried grass beside the parking lot while the men fill the tanks, and Dwayne buys his lottery ticket with his lucky numbers. It’s midnight when we pull into our driveway. Pete and Doris honk goodbye as they continue on to their own house.

  Home at last, I pull my boots off my tired feet and set them by the door. I pull off my Harley overalls and sling them over a kitchen chair. Dwayne pours us each a glass of iced tea. We’re walking through the living room on the way to the bedroom when I notice the blinking light on the answering machine.

  I push the button as I sip my tea. A man’s voice identifies himself as Dr. Gilmore. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I performed your mother’s last two cancer surgeries. I admitted her to the hospital today. Please call me as soon as possible.”

  I hear Dwayne turning on the water in the bathroom, and I stand there frozen in the dark. The warmth of the day has left me.

  SECURITY

  We’re on our way home from my mother’s funeral, an eight-hour drive. Night has fallen, and a blanket of darkness surrounds us, occasionally broken by flashes of light from passing cars. The sound of old-time country music plays softly on the radio with intermittent bursts of static.

  I lean my head back against the headrest. A trip to see my mother in the hospital after the call from her surgeon has ended three weeks later in her death. I did not leave the side of her hospital bed for more than an hour or two through the pancreatic cancer diagnosis and surgery. Now my bones ache. My eyes burn.

  Mom begged me to get Steven to visit her. I finally went to his work to ask him to see her after he never returned my calls. I even promised him I’d leave so he could talk to her alone. He told me he was done with both of us and walked away. I told Mom he wouldn’t come. At her funeral, I held Dwayne’s hand by her graveside with Stephanie by my side and hoped Steven had heard my call about the funeral and would have a change of heart. He never came.

  I have never felt so exhausted or so alone in the world. My father killed himself twenty-three years ago, and now my mother has died from cancer. I am truly an orphan now.

  Dwayne reaches out and grabs my hand, rubbing his thumb lightly across the back of it. “Do you remember the first time I met your mom? She must have cooked a whole cow for that stack of steaks.” He releases my hand and lights a cigarette.

  We listen to Hank Williams singing about being lonesome for a few minutes.

  Dwayne powers down the window with a click. “I quit my job at the Harley shop,” he tells me. “I know it seemed like the perfect job for me, but it just didn’t work out.”

  He waves the hand with the cigarette through the space between us as he describes the custom motorcycle shop he wants to open in a few weeks. “I found the perfect building for it in College Station. It has a space in the front for bikes ready to sell and a huge work area where I can put the lifts and tools.” He weaves his dreams through the dim light inside the car.

  “Wait. Stop.” I put my hand on his arm. He throws the cigarette out the window. “We just sold the house to avoid paying a balloon payment on the mortgage. How are we going to make it on just my teacher’s salary?” This year I returned to teaching both because I missed it and because it was a steady source of income. Now it will be our
only paycheck.

  He assures me he will work on people’s cars and motorcycles until his shop makes money. “I just can’t work for Bruce anymore, baby. I can’t put up with his shit. That should have been my Harley dealership.” He reminds me that he still has his prototype for an electric motorcycle in the garage. “It’ll make us both rich.”

  I turn in the seat and face the window, rubbing my itchy eyes. I feel as if I’m floating adrift in space.

  The silence stretches between us. Dwayne lays his hand on my neck. “Talk to me, please.”

  A flood of fear and worry pours out of me. “We have no house. We are driving my daughter’s cast-off car.” Then I take a deep breath and whisper, “I couldn’t even pay for Mom’s funeral. I had to set up payments on it since we have less than a hundred dollars in the bank.”

  Anger and disappointment hang in the air. Dwayne moves his hand away from me and grips the steering wheel. “I thought you knew I’m not the kind of guy who retires from thirty years at the same job.” He moves away from me. “I guess now you also know why you’re my third wife.”

  We don’t speak for the rest of the trip. The only sound is tires humming down the pavement. Hours later we arrive home, and we fall into bed. I sleep far on my side. He sleeps across the gap on the other side. It is the first time we haven’t wanted our skin touching each other in the bed.

  When the alarm buzzes the next morning, I forget in my anger not to wake him by touching him. His nightmares have ended, and he hasn’t talked about Vietnam since that first drive to Bryan together. But any sudden physical contact in his sleep triggers an old war response. I have learned to wake him with my voice, not my touch. Now, in the early morning light, I reach out and shake Dwayne’s arm to wake him.

  He leaps from the bed and swings his arms wildly. Suddenly, he realizes he’s home with me, not on a battlefield. “God damn it, Mary. I thought I was through with this shit.” He stomps into the bathroom.

  I sit on the bed and lean on my bent knees. My secure life seems shaky in the morning light.

  The following days are spent packing. The first thing Dwayne wraps in newspaper and places in boxes is his collection of Harley memorabilia displayed in the wooden cabinet built by his great-uncle. Dwayne stripped off years of paint and varnish to stain it ebony with a hand-painted Harley bar and shield at the top. We have added some of the things we’ve bought at Harley shops across the country. The buckles from my first pair of Harley boots are the door handles.

  We will need to move out of the house in a few weeks. Our first house together. The giant live oak tree shading the front porch. The barn turned into Dwayne’s garage, where the radio is always on. A room I turned into my library with three walls of bookshelves Dwayne built. It has been sold, but we haven’t found anywhere to live yet. My stomach knots at the thought of no house waiting for us. I don’t know where we’ll live.

  One morning after a silent breakfast, Dwayne suggests I visit Stephanie. She and her new husband live a few miles away. Grateful for some time away from the packing and tension, I grab my keys. I pull out of the driveway and head to her house within minutes.

  But I don’t go to Stephanie’s house. I drive out to the Brazos River and get out of the car. I stumble down the rocky riverbank to the edge of the water. I plop down on a flat sandy rock and stare at the murky water. I pick up a small rock from the ground and pitch it into the gurgling brown water. It sinks with a small plop. I picture my mom’s face at the moment she stopped breathing.

  The Texas sun beats down on my head, and I wonder how I can move past my fears about money. I continue to throw stones into the murky Brazos and think about hiding money for years to escape Tom. I remember lying awake in the night listening to his heavy breathing and wondering if I could find a safe place for Stephanie and me to live. I thought all I’d need was money and a house to be happy.

  I think of that first night in Dwayne’s trailer as his wife, safe and loved by him, and looking at the stack of money in his drawer. We promised then not to let money come between us. I remember his pawning his tools to buy Stephanie a wedding dress. I whisper most nights as we fall asleep, “You are my home.”

  I drive back to our house earlier than planned. I’m determined to talk through my worries about money with Dwayne. I need to tell him I know I’m lucky to have found him.

  As my car pulls into the driveway, I notice him and another man standing there. Our shovelhead Harley gleams in the sunshine between them. Dwayne reaches out and hits the starter button. The motor roars. The man squats in the gravel and peers closely at the motor.

  I park quickly. Pebbles flies from beneath my tires. Dwayne and the man turn to watch me walk toward them. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  Dwayne looks me in the eye. “I’m selling the shovelhead. Darrell here has always wanted it.”

  “The shovelhead is half mine, you know.”

  “Baby, we will get another motorcycle. We need the money.”

  Darrell shifts uncomfortably in the dirt. He stands up and steps back slightly. He avoids looking at either of us.

  I lean against one of the carport metal pillars and watch them. Dwayne switches off the motorcycle. He runs his hand down the metallic black paint on the extended gas tank. He tells Darrell how we welded it together. He describes for him each step of our rebuilding process.

  He finishes his description, “This scooter means a lot to me. It’s our first one together.” He glances quickly at me, then turns away.

  None of us speak. We don’t make eye contact. Dwayne gently rubs a smudge on the front fender. He looks at me again and tries to smile. I know he’s trying to cheer me up.

  Suddenly, Darrell reaches in his pocket and pulls out a large stack of money. Hundred-dollar bills. He begins to count them and lay them in Dwayne’s palm. Dwayne looks at me. “He’s giving me five thousand dollars for the shovelhead. We’re going to be okay now.”

  I push myself off the metal column and join them. I tell Darrell the motorcycle isn’t for sale after all.

  He shakes his head and says it’s the damnedest thing he’s ever seen. Usually it’s a woman who wants to sell the Harley. “Are you sure?” He turns to Dwayne.

  Dwayne hands him the money back. “She’s the boss.” He grins. A real grin.

  Darrell slams the door of his truck as he gets in it. He backs up with a stony flurry and drives quickly out of the driveway.

  We face each other across the Harley. Dwayne wipes a tear from my face with one finger.

  “I can’t mess this up.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  I do as he says. I lay my hands on the motorcycle seat, and he covers them with his. I feel his rough battered hands against mine.

  “Where do you see us living? Some place other than this town, where you have to live with my past.”

  I think about all of the places we’ve traveled and worked. One picture falls from the panorama. “Northern California. San Francisco. I’ve wanted to live in California since I spent my summers there as a teenager.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll go when we get our stuff into the storage place. I know a guy who works at a motorcycle parts place in Morgan Hill. That’s closer to San Jose. Will that be okay?”

  I agree that Morgan Hill sounds perfect. I remind him that teachers can always find a job.

  “If we got each other, there’s nothing we can’t do.” He moves around the motorcycle and hugs me tightly. “Thanks for saving the shovelhead. It was breaking my heart to sell her.”

  On the Sunday before we drive to California to find jobs and a place to live, we go to Roberta’s house for one last Sunday dinner with his mom and his brother, Doug, before we leave. Doug and Dwayne hang out in the garage most of the day, sharing stories about all the times they traveled together for Dwayne’s job. Roberta and I sit, watching an endless stream of cooking shows, since there are no game shows on the weekend. We talk about working in schools. She was t
he cook at an elementary school for over twenty years, and she’s always fascinated by my work with high school–aged students.

  On the way home, Dwayne rolls down the window to allow the smoke from his cigarette to drift out into the wind. With one hand, he reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out an envelope. He tosses it into his lap. “Open it up, baby.”

  I lift the flap and pull out a check. Dwayne’s name is on it, and it’s for $10,000. His mother’s signature is at the bottom. I turn to him and say, “What’s this for?”

  He flicks the cigarette out the window and says, “Mom wanted us to be able to get whatever we needed for our new life in California. She said you were the best thing that ever happened to me, and you shouldn’t have to worry about money when we move.”

  On a warm afternoon four weeks later, we unload the Harley shovelhead out of the back of a U-Haul truck at our new house in Morgan Hill. He holds the ramp as I roll it slowly down the steep incline into the garage. I push out the kickstand with my toe. The motorcycle leans into its new home.

  Dwayne plugs in his garage radio first, the way he does every time we move. He turns it on. “The music is on, so now this is my garage.”

  Jim Reeves floats into the space. We laugh as we recognize it as the song we danced to on our blind date.

  “They’re playing our dance song, baby.” He pulls me into him. We dance and glide as we two-step across the dusty floor.

  CALIFORNIA DREAMS

  1999–2010

  Love doesn’t make the world go ‘round.

  Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.

  FRANKLIN P. JONES

  POLICE SPECIAL