the poet's secrets

It’s late, Li Po, but I’ve some questions, as the moon rises behind a veil of mist, shapely

yet demure: How did she guide your pen? And

how many lovers did your verses win you?

Were they wealthy, were they married? Who
was your favorite? Did she ride you, with her robe loosely tied round her pale, plump belly, until she smiled like the young moon?

I beg you, Li Po-- share your secrets with me.

On The Road

On a spring morning in 1974 I bungeed a sleeping bag over the rear fender of my R60/2 and packed my saddle bags. A toothbrush, an extra pair of jeans, two hits of acid, and enough hand tools to meet almost any mechanical need. I was bound for Alaska, to work on the pipeline. 

It was the impulse of Ishmael for water, of Dean Moriarity for asphalt. The communion of the highway: this is my engine, this is my oil. The harmony of twin unbaffled exhaust pipes. The living, galloping creature between my legs. The meditative anonymity of the interstate.

No, that’s all a lie. I was lonely.

The details of the journey are tangled with other cross country ramblings.  A few crystalize through the fog of the decades. The turbulence from a car hauling trailer that knocked me halfway across my lane. A brief stop on Bourbon Street, where the offering of sensual pleasures promptly delivered me back to the saddle. Deep into that deep black night, the blacktop string line from Lafayette to Lake Charles. Nothing distinguishable except the white line along the shoulder, and the illusion of continuously descending for 60 miles. Manic rush hour traffic between Dallas and Ft Worth. Most of all, the shimmering of Santa Fe, coming into view, as night fell while rounding the toe of the Sangre de Cristos. Where I stopped for a visit, and stayed 6 years.

SHAME

I REMEMBER THE GIDDY DELIGHT at hearing the news that Nixon had resigned. It was with some friends--new friends--for I was new to New Mexico. Mostly guys from Boddy’s Honda, where I went to work the day after landing in Santa Fe. Nixon had given us the claim of Peace With Honor, which gave Vietnam no peace, and gave America no honor. It took 30 more years, and the nearly 60,000 names carved in black granite, to at least honor those who struggled and died in Vietnam.

August of 1974 was a good time for me, in good company, and in a good place, to celebrate. Santa Fe, bustling and growing--but still human in scale. And human in character. To walk any street--or to drive on any two-lane--was to make eye contact and wave to the ones you crossed paths with. On a walk after sun-set, when the air instantly chills, you could feel the adobe walls radiate back the sunshine they had absorbed through the afternoon. There was camaraderie in the bike shop.

And the city's setting--like God on the eighth day had scooped a great bench out of the west slope of the Sangre de Cristos--so that He could sprawl on it, languidly, and meditate on the sunset beyond the Jemez.

Tonight, however, there is no giddy delight for me, not after officialdom’s (but not its chief official's) acknowledgment of the end of this shameful administration. I am among friends even if not in their physical presence, in a community that is warm, if not human scale. The great majority of the community is pleased at this outcome. But then I think of so many communities where the majorities and minorities are reversed, where this news brings them sadness.

My delight is tempered by shame, that our country could do this to itself. Like the shame of Peace With Honor, the rancor that Make America Great Again generated fills me with shame. Like the Vietnam Wall, it will take us a generation for the rancor to dissipate.

That day in August of ‘74 was a happy day, in a happy time. On the run--from a wife and child, a family, the law--but mostly from myself. I had nothing but a competent tool chest, a strong motorcycle, and a loyal girlfriend. Shame had not caught up yet. Today, I stop at every stop sign. There is nothing material that I lack or long for. I live with my soulmate. But my country is sick--and I feel sick for my country's sake.

Secret Wishes

 

IF YOU COULD PROWL the forest, so stealthy,
that you would not arouse a browsing doe—
or linger by slow waters, to gaze upon Diana bathing,
yet not stir her wary hounds—
and if only you could stand so silent, that you could hear the clouds collide—
if only wings would sprout, from where your arms are swinging,
then you could leave your cares along the path
and with the eagles fly. 

ALL IN A DAY Chapter Two: The Butterfly Wings Of Fate

Dirty Ed, my best buddy at Autoville, had sold me his R50/2. It was a decision that molded the next ten years. The frame of the Beemer was black, and the tank was rattle can blue. Eddie called it The Bruise. And bruised I was, after wrecking it. And after rebuilding it, and then blowing the engine, and rebuilding it again, I quit VW’s and went to work for Cycle City, a BMW dealership.

For me it was the golden age of turning wrenches. I had found a home. Here’s a snapshot of my family:

Fritz, the owner. Tall and Teutonic, even with his black hair. The ultimate gearhead.
Mrs. Fritz, blonde and petite. She kept one eye on the books, and the other on Fritz.
John, the parts man. Avuncular, with a pronounced limp--a memento of an unpleasant encounter in Belgium. He had the parts book in his head.
Dan, the shop foreman. Shortest of the personnel. He stood by the dutch door of the service area, at a lecturn which held the schedule. Dan wore this weird grin when he bragged about how he could cover a football field in seconds with his twin gats, aboard his HUEY.   
Ray, mechanic. A graduate of Metropolitan Delivery Service, which operated a fleet of BMW mounted couriers. I could write another book about Cheryl, who also rode for Metro. Ray went on to become a cabinet maker. There is a pattern in that, yet to be revealed.
Pete, mechanic. A big hulking country boy, from somewhere down county. PG County, astride DC, was indeed country. George Wallace For President painted across barns, de facto segregated schools...
Kevin, a mechanic. He lived with two women, April and May. Or maybe May and June.
Jim, prep guy. With his cowboy mustache, he could have played the narrator in The Big Lebowski. The oldest guy in the shop, who uncrated and set up new bikes.
Others, including a two stroke guy, a larcenous part timer who liked wine and reds, and various helpers. In every bike shop there is some kid who works for peanuts, whose responsibilities seem to be doing burnouts and wheelies on customers’ bikes the length of the parking lot.  I hung out with some of these guys, and others I met, working on their bikes. Pete, for example. At his home one evening, he got me high and gave me a headset, and put on a new album. Linda Ronstadt, round my door, the leaves are turning. I almost wept. And Kevin. Pleasing two women is difficult, so Kevin asked me to go out with April, May and himself. We heard some music and went back to their place to get high. Kevin went to bed with April, and left some coke for May and me. She had dark hair and dark eyes. She could have been named June. I really can’t recall. It was bitter cold, and a long two wheel ride home. We snorted the coke. She asked, is there anything I can do for you? But I had not been able to find a way to talk to her, really talk. So I bundled up and left. I had an Air Force style coat with a fur collar, so the ride home was really not that bad.  

But back to the shop. While test riding bikes after tune ups, Kevin challenged me into a race. We blasted off, weaving through traffic, engines screaming. Way back we heard a siren. We flew back to the shop, and Kevin made it up the ramp and out of sight before the cruiser came around the corner. Not me. It hardly made a difference, however, because I had already racked up enough points for revocation, with several to spare. A whole nuther story.

In the shop, the radio was tuned to WHFS, where all the disc jockeys were freaks. On the late afternoon show, artists like Jesse Colin Young, Lowell George, and Leo Kottke would drop in and perform.
By that time the mechanics were usually stoned. Once I ate a fingertip sized piece of hash for lunch, which seemed to have no effect. I was assigned to overhaul the engine of some little bitty two stroke. I got the engine ready to pull. Disconnected the cables, linkage, exhaust and drive chain. Finally I removed the mounting bolts--but I had forgotten to disconnect the fuel line. As the engine swung to and fro from its little rubber hose, dribbling gasoline, it left glittering tracers in its path. That might have been the only time I was too stoned to work.

But this story is supposed to be about pain. No pain was felt after eating the hash, nor on almost any other day. But there was some pain I avoided.

There was something about Beemers that was problematic at high speeds. I think it might have been something to do with the axial rotation of the crankshaft. Anyway, as I was by that time the top mechanic, I got the new R75/5 from a highly regarded customer, who complained about a wobble above 100 mph. I checked out everything I could think of associated with stability: wheels, tires, steering bearings, alignment. Then I put on my jacket and helmet and took the bike out for a test ride.

It was a moonless, late autumn evening, already dark. I got on the two lane leading into town, where I could open up the throttle. Rush hour traffic was streaming toward me, but inbound was clear. At about 125 mph, I took my hands off the bars--no wobble. At that instant, a few hundred yards ahead, an oncoming car pulled into my lane to pass, nearly blinding me. In a nanosecond I grabbed the bars and whipped over to the right. I might as well have gone blind. All I remember is slinging gravel, then slowing down and finally stopping on tall grass. Miraculously I was upright, and the bike was intact.   

It’s only after the event that you feel the residual adrenalin, your triphammering heart. The next morning I rode back to the site, and realized I had shot past between two closely spaced road signs. Like Odesseus sailing the treacherous straits, my own Athena had guided my path. My tire tracks stopped at the edge of a drainage ditch--invisible in the dark.

She has intervened several more times since that evening, allowing me to tell you these stories. 

ALL IN A DAY, Chapter One: Colors

Work saved my life. Even through the misery and loneliness of a collapsed marriage, and no matter how hung over, no matter how stoned, I showed up for work. Work got into my blood.

My first full time job was as a porter at Autoville, the local VW dealership. A regular task was putting new cars up on the rack and shooting them with undercoating. I had just dropped out of art school, and here was a pot or acid enhanced tableau of liquid sunlight pouring through the skylight, igniting the cadmium yellow drums, and highlighting the treaks of burnt sienna compound slopped on the sides of the drums.

From time to time, that lucidity was tempered by someone spraying brake drums with compressed air. The asbestos dust lingered for hours, bringing to mind Wolfflin’s Principles, and his concept of “the intervening atmosphere” that distinguished the Northern masters from the Renaissance Italians.

Nevertheless, I was promoted to be a mechanic. We were paid flat rate, and being the junior member of the team, I was fed the shit work. Oil changes, mufflers, front end alignments. The gravy jobs--brakes, overhauls, went to the old hands.

To adjust front end alignment, you used a spring loaded telescoping bar that had rulings etched where the inner tube slid by the outer tube. To read the condition you placed the bar between the front wheels, located at about 8:00, and then rolled the car forward until the bar was at about 4:00. The difference was the toe-in. To make the adjustment, you raised the car and turned a threaded coupling on one of the tie rods, in or out, depending on the condition.

It’s not necessary that you followed that; here is what is important.

Working flat rate, speed means money. To save a few seconds, I would only raise the car high enough to scoot under it on a creeper. It was not unusual for the coupling to be frozen to the rods. They needed to be busted loose with WD-40 and vise grips.

It came to pass that I was on my back, fighting a severely frozen coupling, and working the vise grips tighter and tighter. I positioned the jaws and with all my might gave a squeeze--but I caught the web between my thumb and forefinger in the vise grips.My hand was trapped up in the wheel well, firmly attached to the tie rod.   

You can imagine the agony. But the car was so low that I could not bring my other hand around to release the vise grips. I had to hollar above the cacophony of 19 other mechanics, the chuck chuck of the oil filling pumps, the revving of engines, the Merle Haggards and Bob Dylans on the respective radios.

(Peace meets Grease, as we would say. Meyers, another longhair who crashed at my apartment, was the recipient of a 30” spliff made of lawn clippings wrapped in a newspaper. The greasers gave a chorus of laughter. Meyers laughed, too. We all wore the same blue uniform.)

Finally someone heard me--mercifully, someone with a light touch on the lift valve--and provided the clearance I needed to release the grips. Another opportunity for the greasers to break into laughter.

Injury like that was the norm. Almost every day I would skin a knuckle on the sheet metal shrouding that enveloped the air cooled engines. One little slip, changing a spark plug, produced a flap of flesh and a dribble of blood through the dull grime that coated your fingers and hands. Vermillion on burnt umber. Little scalloped scars, scars on scars, scars on scars on scars.