I have been a motorcycle guy for about as long as I can remember and can honestly say I have never understood what folks get out of intentionally riding off-road. Every time I have gone off-road, I have collected scars on my body as evidence that off-road is a bad idea. One of those scars, my first Austin scar, I wear yet today on the left side of my chest right above my heart.
It was not my fault. I was relaxing on a float in my backyard swimming pool having more than a few beers on a Saturday afternoon. I was pleasantly drifting in and out of sleep. All of a sudden, a four-wheeler came zipping down the hill of the vacant lot next to my house. After doing a few donuts on the flat part of the lot, he shot over the curb into the cul-de-sac and down the street. I did not like the sudden noise, but what I really did not like was that I owned that vacant lot. Having spent the morning working on the landscaping the ATV had just destroyed, I was not happy. Needless to say, from a period of relative bliss I bypassed anger and went straight into something akin to rage.
I owned two motorcycles at that time. One was the Harley and the other was one that could get me from point A to point B very quickly. My quick bike was a Honda Magna V65. As the street version of Honda’s racing bike, it had a four-cylinder 118-hp engine that would take its ultralight frame to 100 mph in just a few seconds using only the first three gears. This left three more gears to wind before reaching a top speed of 165 mph. I loved that bike.
Without even drying off, much less thinking of putting on some jeans, I mounted that crotch rocket and went in hot pursuit of the aforementioned four-wheeler. I caught him less than a mile away, still in our neighborhood. Upon my pulling him over, he really pissed me off . . . with kindness. He apologized profusely and offered to come down and repair any damage done, and in short was disgustingly nice.
Frustrated and with nowhere to dispense my rage, I pointed the V65 back toward home and gave it full throttle. The road had two lanes with one very sharp downhill curve. This combination set me up for a critical and even sobering decision to make. I was going into a 30 mph curve at about 70. Do I lay the bike down with some hope of making the curve or do I nail the brakes, slowing down as much as possible before going “off road”? Given that I was wearing only a flimsy swimsuit, laying that bike down and allowing the asphalt to eat all my skin off did not seem appealing. I took door number 2: I nailed the brakes yet I still hit the curb fast enough to launch the bike into the air. I held on and was still upright for about twenty-five yards before the bike went down. The bike stopped suddenly, the handlebar buried in the dirt. I did not stop until quite some time thereafter. My flying body hit a number of small saplings but no large trees. I mostly just tumbled and slid in the dirt and gravel.
A very strange peace came about me when I realized that I was alive and could even get up on my own. I was not angry but almost happy, happy to be alive. I had a lot of blood on me from all the scrapes and cuts. What I did not have on me was my swimming suit. I was totally naked in broad daylight in my own neighborhood. Most of my pain was coming from my chest, where, by some weird circumstance, the clutch lever had broken off the bike and stuck. I should have left it there but like a fool I pulled it out. Blood spurted, so I had to use one hand to apply pressure. After walking almost back to the bike, I spied the rag that used to be my swimming suit. With one hand over my chest as if I was pledging allegiance to the flag and the other holding my used-to-be swimming suit over my dick, I walked home past my neighbors, who were doing Saturday afternoon things in their yards. They looked at me strangely.
Upon my arrival home, I banged on the front door. My son, Jonathan age twelve, opened the door somewhat wide-eyed. I told him to bring some towels and a fifth of Jack Daniels to the backyard. I would meet him there as I was far too bloody to go into the house.
I cleaned up pretty good, put some shorts on, and went a few doors down, where a friend’s wife was a nurse. Fortunately, they were at home. She put a butterfly bandage on the chest puncture wound and told me to get to the emergency room as soon as possible for x-rays and more attention to that puncture.
I would have done that except that I had a business event, a going-away party for a friend, that very night and really needed to be there. I would catch the emergency room routine next time I went “off road.”
As to the bike, I left it where it lay for weeks, just hoping someone would steal it. No one did, but finally a guy came by and made me an offer as is, which I took. I never laid eyes on that hot little number again!
This story’s cartoon was illustrated by Theresa McCracken.
