Harley and Me

by Bernadette Murphy

  I move my body to get more comfortable. If I hold the grips by only my fingertips, I can raise my back almost upright from my normal pitched-forward posture. That position feels like heaven. For a while. When it gets tiresome, I try the opposite, extending my legs onto the highway pegs along the fork, and leaning back a tiny bit, the lip of my pelvis hard up against the back of the seat.

  Everything is bathed in gold this morning, a life so real and precious I, too, cannot leave this world behind. Even for the promise of—what? A picture-perfect afterlife? Or this mortal one in which I might stay crisp and clean all the time? I’ll take the life I have, this one right here with seared pant legs and less than clean T-shirts, with stinky socks and grime under my fingernails. Though I still fantasize of one day becoming the embodiment of pristine womanhood (if not sainthood), the truth rides shotgun with me this morning. For perhaps just this one moment, the woman I am is exactly the woman I wish to be.

  Miles and miles of prairie lurch by.

  We hit Mitchell just in time for lunch. I’d posted on Facebook earlier this morning that we’re in South Dakota and friends have replied that we must see the Corn Palace there. But first I want to find the Flintstone characters and look for the budget motel where Josh Ritter stayed. I do a Google search on my phone for “Flintstones, Mitchell, South Dakota” but come up with a blank. Hungry and tired, Edna, George, and Rebecca find a patch of shade for a little relief from the pounding heat. George smokes a cigarette while Edna and Rebecca down water. I try different keywords but still come up empty.

  “Let’s just go to the Corn Palace and while we’re there, I’ll figure out what happened to the Flintstones.”

  The Corn Palace in Mitchell takes pride of place in this city of fifteen thousand. It’s open to the public and the kind volunteers who serve as docents will be happy to tell you, if you ask, “Just what is a corn palace?” that this is the world’s only corn palace. That, however, doesn’t answer the question. With its turrets and onion domes, the Moorish revival architecture of the exterior is completely sheathed with cobs, husks, leaves, and corn silk. If it’s made of corn or other grains, it’s used here. (As a native of Southern California, I’m reminded of the Tournament of Roses Parade where all the floats are decorated exclusively in flowers and plant material.) The smell of popcorn is immediate and overwhelming. With more than five hundred thousand visitors annually, the Corn Palace—part coliseum, part basketball arena, part multipurpose auditorium—serves as a venue for concerts, sports, and exhibits, as well as the focal point for the annual Corn Palace Stampede Rodeo and Polka Festival. (I’m having trouble picturing a rodeo inside what looks to be a high school gymnasium gussied up in corn husks, but I couldn’t have imagined a corn palace in the first place, so I chalk it up to a lack of imagination on my part.) But whatever it is, from my perspective, this kitschy monstrosity looks like the world’s grandest bird feeder.

  Sandwiches and air conditioning at a little café across the street revive our spirits as I continue Googling for my Flintstones. Finally, the mystery is solved. Josh Ritter must have been just as brain-fried as we are when he passed through this part of the world. Turns out that Fred, Wilma, Barney, and Betty are to be found in the Flintstones Bedrock City Theme Park and Camping Resort, located not in Mitchell but in Custer, South Dakota, some 316 miles in our rearview mirrors.

  After lunch we step outside and the heat hits us like a sledgehammer. Rebecca and I break out our “hydration vests” made of black fabric and quilted with little pouches of water-retaining gel. We fumble in the bathroom, splashing water, trying to get the vests to soak up as much H20 as possible. Dehydration and heat stroke will be as serious a threat today as the speeding eighteen-wheelers and the monotonous asphalt. Leaving the café, my vest in place, trying not to drip all over the floor, I almost run into a man entering the establishment.

  “Oh, little lady, you’re going to be mighty hot out here wearing that.” He points at my vest. At first sight, it must look like leather.

  I squeeze its side and let water drip onto the hot concrete pavement where it begins to evaporate on the spot. “I hope not.”

  “Ahh!” he says. “Perfect. Wish I had one of my own today. Safe riding, now, you hear?”

  Back on the road, the hydration vest helps for maybe the first hour but soon dries out, and the heat starts to bake my brain. Over the vest, I wear an armored jacket. The liner has been removed so air can flow through to the vest, though it still feels as if I’m wearing my own personal sauna. But safety is my priority. The list of experience I wish to have in this one cherished lifetime continues to grow. In the motorcycle safety class, I learned about the ways a motorcyclist can protect herself and I take them all seriously. Though my bike is matte black and I favor black clothing and helmet, I make sure to wear some kind of reflective gear when it’s dark. A full-face helmet, while hot and uncomfortable, is the best safety choice. I bought the kind worn by professional racers to provide as much comfort and protection as possible.

  Yes, it can be argued that no amount of safety gear can make what I’m doing completely risk free. That’s valid. Yet I would argue that life is not safe and can never be insulated from every hazard.

  There are no assurances, and given that hard-edged truth, I have only one option: to appreciate the moments of grace as they come along. I have been blessed to be as fully present as possible with my own children and then to send them on their way with the knowledge that we shared every moment we could and that’s the best we get. And though I’d like to live to an advanced age, to see my children find their places in the world and launch their careers, to maybe one day bounce a grandchild on my knee, there are no guarantees. Yes, I could die on this motorcycle trip, get struck by lightning, or come down with a fatal disease tomorrow. All the more reason to grasp this present moment, and particularly those moments that are not exceptionally memorable.

  It’s unbearably hot right now, the sweat stings my eyes, and my riding clothes have become the Crock-Pot in which I’m slowly cooking. But my senses are tuned in 100 percent. I smell the prairie. I feel the heat rising off the asphalt. My eyes are focused on the road ahead, searching for potholes or cracks in the asphalt, watching for road debris or an errant vehicle. I am here, fully inhabiting my flesh and bones, an embodied spirit glorying in the sense details of being corporeal. This may not always be the case. But right now, I am present. I am alive.

  • • •

  By midafternoon, we’re getting close to the Minnesota border. George pulls off at a rest station. I’m wobbly getting off the bike. One look at Rebecca and the others and I know they’re also suffering with the heat. Walking into the visitors’ center, we are greeted with the most delightful air conditioning. I never want to leave. The drinking fountain spews refrigerated water. Trying not to draw the attention of the ladies working behind the information desk, we douse our hydration vests. Eating dried fruit and nuts revives us a bit, as does the liter of water we each down.

  As we leave, Edna notices a hose on the grass outside. She turns on the water and arcs the spray in our direction.

  “Wanna really cool off?”

  Rebecca steps into the spray. “Let me have it!” She raises her hands and pirouettes in the water’s sweep. I’m next, squealing when the stream douses me. George takes the hose and sprays Edna down, and then it’s George’s turn. Eventually, we squish across the parched lawn to our bikes. Wet woolen socks slosh in hot leather boots. Sodden hair plasters drenched skulls. We look like the least badass bikers imaginable.

  We mount the bikes just as a group of HOG (Harley Owners Group) riders pull up, decked out in their colors, undoubtedly en route to Milwaukee as well. We nod hello, ready to leave, knowing how ridiculous we look. We don’t care.

  George holds up a hand to ask us to wait. He fishes around in his saddlebag, pulls out a book, thumbs through it, then removes his helmet and puts it in his carrier. I notice a number of the other bikers who have pulled up are likewise s
ans helmets. George explained that he’d checked his HOG book to verify the helmet laws in the state we were entering. We find out later that evening that we’d ridden though South Dakota wearing helmets that weren’t required by law.

  I’ve been with hardcore bikers when we’ve passed into nonhelmet states. Within yards of crossing the state line, they stop and remove their helmets. I am always agog at the freedom and joy they feel doing so. Yes, I’d love to pull this bucket off. But I wouldn’t consider it for a moment. My life—on or off the bike—is not assured. Still, I can take all precautions that increase my chances.

  Only nineteen states and the District of Columbia require all motorcyclists to wear helmets. This, despite data showing that helmets drastically reduce the risk of injury. Helmets are 37 percent effective in preventing deaths and about 67 percent effective in preventing brain injuries. Who wouldn’t want the extra benefit on their side? In states that require helmets, deaths and injuries typically drop when the law is enacted. The opposite, unfortunately, is also true in states where such laws are repealed.

  We cross into Minnesota, the state where my soon-to-be ex-husband was raised. Both sadness and anger wash over me. There was a time when I loved this state. We visited it as a family and brought the kids a few times. But now I can’t help thinking about the dark side of its midwestern values and the “don’t ask for more than the world offers you” mindset. J was stuck twenty-plus years in a go-nowhere job, unhappy, yet unwilling to risk and change things. He thought that same mentality should govern our marriage. Right now, he’s pissed as hell because I have shown the audacity to think I deserve better. To wish for a relationship with real intimacy, deep love, something more than “you agreed to this, so you’re stuck with it.” Being here again, under very different circumstances, makes me bristle.

  We’ve been on the road for at least eight hours when we stop for gas and I search on my phone for nearby hotels. We’ve stayed at low-end lodgings the last few nights. I find a slightly more upscale chain and we agree to book it. As we pull up, I laugh. The hotel parking lot is filled to bursting with Harleys outfitted for cross-country travel. The hotel itself is basically an annex to the local Harley dealer that sits next door. We seem to have found the right place.

  After dinner, Rebecca and I walk to the grocery store to refill our stash of dried fruit, nuts, Lärabars, and apples.

  After a soak in the bathtub, I nestle into my nice hotel bed, appreciating the thread count of the sheets, the efficiency of the air conditioning, the firmness of the mattress, the wonder of pillows. I have laughed more today than I have in years.

  Day Six: Wednesday, August 28

  Albert Lea, Minnesota to Milwaukee, Wisconsin 367 miles

  I don’t move all night. There’s something about physical and emotional exhaustion that brings a gift: the deepest sleep imaginable. I wake rested, ready to get going. Today we’ll finally reach Milwaukee and get a few days of downtime. Though my body has at last adapted to the vibration and strain of controlling this nearly six-hundred-pound machine at high speeds, I still will be glad for the break.

  At the serve-yourself-breakfast in the little dining room, we meet bikers from Vancouver, Mexico City, Idaho, and Alaska. All of us are on our way to Oz.

  Unlike many of my fellow riders, I don’t profess a particular loyalty to Harleys, even though making a cross-country trek to attend the company’s 110th anniversary might suggest it. It’s just a matter of circumstance. If Rebecca had owned a Triumph dealership, I’d probably be on a Triumph. Ditto Ducati or Moto Guzzi. I have a fondness for all beasts two-wheeled and motorized. I appreciate the fact that Harley-Davidson is one of a declining number of manufacturing ventures in this nation that’s still doing well, and the all-American satisfaction in the bikes and their storied history.

  The morning is cloudy and humid, still warm but not as scorching as yesterday. We ride. I keep experimenting with different ways of sitting on the bike to give my shoulders a rest. Before we left L.A., I did two modifications to the bike: the addition of highway pegs so I could stretch my legs on long runs, and a more comfortable Mustang touring seat, the cushiest I could find. It has a depressed center spot, nicely designed to cradle one’s behind while offering in a little lip of a backrest. When I first bought Izzy B, I added a riser to her handlebars to bring them closer to me. But I still found I pitched slightly forward to reach the controls. Any time I ride, after an hour or two on the road, I feel intense pressure in my shoulders from holding my upper body upright. That riser modification to bring the handlebars closer, alas, was basically undone with the new seat that pushed me back by about an inch. My behind is now more comfortable, yes, but I have to reach even further forward to reach the grips. Which means that as I reach forward, different parts of my anatomy hit the seat and absorb the vibrations in a new way. Something I haven’t thought much about until we start to cross the Mississippi River, the point of entry into Wisconsin.

  It’s about ten thirty. The morning is warming and the sun feels good on my face. Right here, with a row of semis to my right and traffic moving smoothly at eighty miles an hour, I feel a delightful sense of buildup. I’m sitting more forward than normal to reach the grips, but now, instead of feeling the strain on my shoulders, my consciousness is elsewhere. The sensation is downright pleasant. Okay, more than pleasant. I look at my fellow riders. Is it obvious what’s happening? Slowly, hoping no one notices, I rock my pelvis subtly in time with the vibrations. Mild but very enjoyable waves of pleasure course through me. Then they build and I feel my eyes grow wide. Is this really happening? I’m having an orgasm on a bridge traversing the Mississippi in broad daylight surrounded by truckers. My back arches and my hands grip the controls. Waves of euphoria flood my blood with the neurohormones oxytocin and prolactin, as well as a healthy dose of endorphins. Tingles run along my arms and curl my toes in the heavy leather boots. A shiver makes me even taller. Truckers, cowboy-driven pickup trucks, and soccer moms stream past, unaware.

  I’ve gotten away with something amazing. Right here, in public.

  I’ve long suspected that it might be possible to orgasm on a motorcycle, with all the vibrations thrumming through one’s body for long stretches of time. But it has not been my experience in the two years I’ve been riding, nor have any of the female riders I know ever mentioned anything about it.

  Not that I asked.

  Discussing sex and its shadowy backroom intricacies is not something I normally indulge in. I am of the belief that sex is an ineffable private experience and thus best left in the realm of the unspoken.

  After the orgasm subsides, I need to process what just happened. Do I say anything? Is this normal? The last two years have all been about my journey toward authenticity. There’s no authenticity in silence, in pretending things didn’t happen, but how do I talk about this? Perhaps I’ve unknowingly morphed into some kind of lone cougar. Will I be picking up thirty-year-olds before this trip is over?

  Male friends often joke about my motorcycle being a five-hundred-pound vibrator. I laugh, putting it in the category of just another urban myth. I didn’t expect this.

  Maybe it’s the new seat? Or that I’ve been balanced on top of 565 pounds of vibrating iron for so long that this was simply inevitable? Or perhaps it might have to do with me beginning to rediscover my sexual self?

  I have to admit that sex has been on my mind a lot since my marriage ended. Certainly a lot more than I expected. Just a few weeks ago I purchased condoms, something I’ve never done. There is no man, active or wished-for, in my life. Still, the condoms are a talisman, giving me some assurance that I won’t be sexless the rest of my life. It seems I’m waking up from the deep narcolepsy to find myself in a new and unfamiliar land, utterly flummoxed to be here. I am celibate for the first time in my adult life.

  I knew my marriage was over when I had sex with J for the last time, more than a year ago. I found myself completely incapable of giving in to the feelings of desire I’d always be
en able to jump-start in the past. I couldn’t manufacture even the tiniest trace of yearning. Instead of appreciating the joys of touch, I became hyperaware of the gardener’s leaf blower buzzing next door. I couldn’t block out the stale taste in my mouth. I watched dust motes move under the ceiling fan, wishing it would hurry up and end.

  For many years, sex had been the rubber band that held us together, the oxytocin producer that made us feel warm and loving toward one another. We used it to smooth the rough patches, and over two and a half decades and three kids, you can bet there were a lot of rough patches. Sex was the one area of our marriage that stayed good the longest.

  Long after we’d stopped talking about the things that mattered, long after we’d gotten into the habit of putting the kids’ needs ahead of our own, long after we’d prized our role as parents at the expense of our role as spouses, we could still communicate with this one physical act of expression. We might not have been able to say the words to support each other emotionally, to ask the questions that would bring about the disclosure of deep dreams and harbored hurts, but when given the chance to spend intimate time together, all those frayed parts didn’t seem to matter.

  That’s not an altogether good thing. If our sex life hadn’t been good, perhaps we might have sooner confronted the issues that bedeviled us. If this physical act of reconciliation had been less effective, maybe we would have demanded more from our marriage and worked to ensure that it met our needs. Or, possibly, the divide would have been apparent sooner.

  And now I find myself orgasming on a motorcycle, buying condoms, embracing an awkward truth that keeps popping up in my dreams, as I ride, when I write and run and walk and eat.

  I miss sex.

  On a level that’s deeper than physical, that’s something other than loneliness, I am craving a man and the release within me of pure, fireworks-grade carnal desire. Which is fine, I guess, except that it’s not what I expected at this point in my life and I am bewildered by the unrelenting nature of this drive I didn’t anticipate.