The road was wet and the sky was gray, but the ride was exhilarating. The rain on my motorcycle goggles just a minor irritant. I’d bought a new motorcycle in November. Not a great time to ride in the Pacific Northwest, but occasionally there is a decent riding day in the worst part of winter. So when my husband’s best motocross buddy called to tell us he’d finally bought a Harley, I looked up and imagined a decent sky. Then I pulled out all the stops, making it clear that nothing could make me happier in the entire world than riding to meet Jay and his new motorcycle at a breakfast place forty miles north. Dreams of rocking out on my brand-new deep black impossibly shiny two-wheeled Darth Vader–looking iPod accessory were obscuring my vision.
Ray has never honestly been as passionate about riding street as I have. When we met he’d been without any kind of motorcycle for fifteen years. I’d been without a husband for ten but was in the second season of my first very own Harley. That Harley had changed my life. It filled a gap that a combination of every kind of abandonment had left. Because of the joy, companionship, and thrills it brought me I wasn’t thinking about a man. Then of course, as cliché as it sounds, that’s when one came along. We met in the fall, and somewhere near spring I mentioned that when summer came we probably weren’t going to see much of each other. He bought a bike the next week.
Ray wasn’t new to bikes. His passion had been motocross. As a kid he gathered a modicum of success and several girls at a dirt track. He competed against and occasionally beat boys who became men that are now icons in the sport. A broken back ended the party. At the time we started dating he’d given up street bikes at the behest of a now ex-wife. It was time to raise kids and be safe she said. So he did.
For near a decade our free time has been filled with some kind of motorcycle riding. We had our wedding at a small resort off a scenic highway and the next day packed up our bikes and rode across country to the Sturgis Rally in South Dakota. We’ve torn up the highway in multiple states and two countries in every kind of weather. At the end of the day we shower, talk, drink wine with a screw top; make love, laugh, and sleep. The road has been ours. We’ve not needed a marriage counselor, sex therapist, date night, or articles on how to reconnect in a marriage because we had the road. Our wedding pictures include his Big Dog chopper and my Dyna Low Rider as part of the family. In Sturgis we took pictures that make our honeymoon album at least R-rated. If you include the woman with the whip, maybe X. There are lots of boobs, butts, and one cherished picture of Ray arm wrestling a famous WWF wrestler. Ray’s hat is on backward, his face is sunburned, and he has a giant shit-eating grin. I can’t remember the celebrity’s name, but my husband looks g.o.o.d.
