Sitting in the waning sunlight of a late summer’s day the old man listened to the sounds around him. The man knew deafness was coming by degree. Still, there were sounds that still stirred emotions in him.
At some distance from where he sat, let us say about a mile, someone on a broad boulevard opened up the throttle of a motorcycle. He knew it was probably a Harley from the visceral and guttural sound it made. The old man remembered his youth and hanging with people who owned motorcycles. He spent hours with his friends as they worked on their bikes. The smell of the oil and the gasoline had never left his senses. His mind was filled with sensation echoes, the feel of grease on his fingers and the intoxicating smell of burnt exhaust fumes. Those people were dead now. Gone too soon. Gone too soon.
Listening intently the old man strained to separate out the sound of crickets from the ever present tinnitus in his ears. He could tell the chirping of different birds. He could hear the wind in the trees. But the quieter sounds were gone. Someone in the distance was using a circular saw. The old man hoped they were wearing ear protection.
In the distance the old man heard a train whistle blow. It blew again and again. The old man thought about the rules for warning whistles on the big diesels these days. Things were a bit different when he was young. He knew what some of the signals were back then.
He remembered clearly that an almost endless whistle meant disaster. The farm town where he grew up had numerous at grade crossing, none with cross bucks. About once every year or two someone, either because of inexperience or drunkenness, would try and outrun a train. He had seen what happened when the burst of speed from an old Chevy ended badly. When the unceasing whistle blew the whole town seemed to be called out to the scene. The old man scrunched his forehead wrinkles, he wouldn’t open that box in his brain tonight. Hidden in his grey matter’s engrams were scenes of carnage that would never be erased; they were beyond awful.
The old man starting humming an old Jackson Browne tune, Song for Adam. When he thought back on the days of motorcycles and Hoppin’ Gator and weed the lyrics of that song would often cross his mind. With warmth tinged with sadness he would think of a friend who he last saw riding off on his bike out over the causeway through the swamp. He wasn’t a suicide like Adam in the song but his candle did not burn long.
Ah the bugs were getting bad and he had not put on bug spray. The old man made a mental note to come to his memories, these particular memories tomorrow.
He was dressed in a leather jacket, leather boots, jeans and a black Bell helmet. 38 cents put a gallon in the tank of his BMW R50/5. A buck and a quarter filled it up. With an average 99 mpg and a top speed of about 90 mph he could ride a long way into the heart of America. Pulling his wallet out he was ready to take that ride.
The young leather clad man had lived in the same town his entire life. Right now, his heart told him he needed to go, an ache in his soul made it clear to the man he really wanted out. Thing was everyone with any spark in this small town wanted out. Every one under the age of thirty was tired of being judged from behind partially closed curtained. Bland bitter people with chained dreams tried to tell anyone who would listen how to live. Every single teenager and twenty something was sick of being told, cut your hair and go get a factory job.
19 with a high draft number and a ramblin’ urge, he wasn’t planning on going back for his second year of college. His spinster aunt who had always like him-it paid to say please and thank you- left him $3,000. Her gift had paid off the bike easily and gave him enough money to go.
The old woman had hated the wagging tongues of the little town. The things they had said because she didn’t marry. ‘To hell with them’ she had thought as she drafted her will, ‘I am going to free that boy’. As the pump boy finished topping off his tank, the young man had a map in his pocket and enough “fuck you Smallsville” money from his aunt to take on America, pulled two ones from his wallet and handed it over. He waited for his change, change that would surely smell like gasoline.
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