01-Aug-2009
Mo-Ki-Yo
Frankly, it’s one of those “family” words that makes my wife gag whenever I say it, although its origins are rather sweet – the word my son first used as a toddler when he discovered motorcycles in the world. For a short time I think they fascinated him more than even fire trucks or garbage trucks.
Over the years they’ve fascinated me, too, of course, in the way mandated of all American men. Look deep inside us, down there, deep down into the soul until you see a brilliant, shimmering light. Look closely. You’ll see it’s actually two glowing words: Harley-Davidson.
My own romance with the hog was short-lived but real, though it wasn’t a hog. When I was in college I bought a Honda motorcycle – as cool as anything even though it only had a 50cc engine. Still, it was huge fun for going to classes and riding around town with my girlfriend.
I did make a small mistake one time when I told her we’d been invited to my parent’s house that night for dinner, some thirty miles away. What had been a zippy twenty-five or thirty miles an hour in town turned out to be, with two people and that small engine, a less than zippy twenty-five miles an hour out on the highway. It took us long enough to get to my parent’s that we both ended up with a pretty good sunburn.
Alas, tuition needs doomed the bike one semester (about a month after I’d made the final payment on the loan). I think the experience, though, brief as it was, kept me from having the American male’s middle-aged fantasy of hopping a hog and doing an Easy Rider* number around the country clad in leather togs and sporting an American flag helmet.
Ah, yes, the helmet, that great bane of bikers. To be honest, if laws were stars the night sky would be bright enough to blind us. So, no, I’m not in favor of laws mandating that bikers and passengers wear helmets. What does puzzle me, though, is why the “culture” of bikers seems without exception to ignore the helmet in states where it is not mandatory.
Bugs, for one. Things in the eyes, for another. And, yes, I’ve heard the argument that, “If I hit something at sixty miles an hour that helmet’s not going to do a damn thing to protect me.” True enough, sir, but do you have any idea of how much damage can be done to the head at five miles an hour, or ten or fifteen? At speeds, in other words, where the helmet might well help you keep your head (and brain) intact?
Here’s a little story and, really, I guess the source of what’s biting me on the ass right now.
I have a neighbor in the apartment next door, a lovely young woman I’ll call Vivian since I can’t get in touch with her right now to ask if I can use her name. Anyway, Vivian’s the same age as my son so I kind of know the planet she’s on. She’s a really good neighbor: a with-it, sensible, and totally charming factory worker. Sometimes, when we travel, she gets in our newspapers and mail. When she’s gone for a few days I sometimes take care of her two cats, Beyonce and Bubbles.
Vivian has a boyfriend named Fred who is in love with the internal combustion engine. He owns two cars, a Ford F-something pickup truck that’s as big as my kitchen, and a motorcycle. One time, as Vivian and Fred were about to go off on the motorcycle I busted them in a friendly way about not wearing helmets. I said, “If you have an accident and suffer head injuries I’m not coming to the benefit your friends will throw to help you pay your bills.”
We all laughed at that and they took off.
Three days ago Fred and Vivian were on the bike up in Wisconsin when an SUV pulled out in front of them. Fred rode the bike down and badly busted a leg. Vivian, however, flew over him and either into the SUV or over it and onto the ground.
As I write, Vivian is in the University of Wisconsin hospital in Madison. She’s in an induced coma and has had part of her scalp and skull removed to reduce the swelling. She has movement when they reduce the sedation, but has not yet evinced any consciousness. No prognoses, good or bad, are being offered right now. Only time will provide the answers to those questions no one wants to ask.
I wish she’d been wearing a helmet. I really do. And, yes, if her friends throw a benefit for her I’ll go. Of course I’ll go.
I’m also taking care of her cats.
*Great bike and drug movie starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. It ends badly.
G. K. Wuori © 2009
Photoillustration by the author from a photo in The Dawn of the Motorcycle, Aldo Carrer
(Libreria Zanetti, Montebelluna, 2006)
