“Riding a motorcycle is the most fun you can have with your clothes on!”
I’ve long since forgotten who had first imparted such wisdom to me, but I was about to put this statement to the test. You see, I was impatiently waiting at the last traffic light on the Kalanianaole Highway before biker bliss. Rumbling beneath me at the Lunalilo Home Road intersection was my bright red, silver and chrome ‘97 Suzuki VZ800 Marauder. A poor boy’s Harley Davidson. A “Hardly” Davidson if you will.
The San Fran had pulled back into port the weekend before Christmas—or 1139 days to freedom as I kept track of it—and this nice, shiny present was waiting for me. It had finally arrived from some perhaps rundown dirty terminal in dirty New Jersey, a place I would imagine is worse than rotten Groton, Connecticut. I had worried the ship might have sunk or something similarly unfortunate to have happened to my beloved bike, which would be my luck, but all that worry was now behind me. As were all the cars. May have had to go around a few of them while they were stopped to get there, but I have needs.
I signaled this by revving the engine a few times as the opposite light changed to yellow. I meant business. Here we go! This is it! The light turned green. I revved the engine and rapidly released the clutch. Blast off! Vruuuuuuuumm! Shift! Vruuuuuuuuuum! What a rush of acceleration! 10-20-30-40-50 miles per hour before the cars behind me could even clear the intersection. I shout from the excitement.
Hellllll yeah, woooooo!
My Marauder and I are now entering into a very gentle left curve, but I have to lean in a bit because of how fast I’m going. Then I’m zipping up an equally gentle hill as civilization is left behind. No more stupid houses and strip malls to pollute my youthful and impressionable eyeballs. Now I’m only taking in deep blue ocean, rugged black volcanic rock, pale green grass, big blue sky, and fluffy white clouds—albeit all at once and very rapidly. Long dormant Koko Crater reaching into the sky looms large to my left, and I spot the right-hand curve coming up as I pass the sign for Hanauma Bay.
The right-hand sweep is again gentle, but as I ascend, the ocean plays peekaboo with me. The warm sun feels so good. The sea air smells so fresh. The deep blue water looks so beautiful. The V-twin rumble sounds so satisfying. Nice long straightaway to accelerate on and take in the full view of the ocean. The engine roars deep and loud as the throttle is twisted further open.
Then there’s my first hard left. Scrub some speed. Kick it down a couple of gears and hear the engine run up and pull our speed down. Downshift! Bwaaaaaaaah! Downshift! Bwaaaaaaaah! Damn that engine braking sounds nearly as good as it does when accelerating! But quick, pay attention! Here comes the corner! Shit, gotta lean over hard now. Lean harder! This tight left is over ninety degrees of turn!
The road begins a descent closer to the sea. Now I’m aimed right at Koko Crater. It’s all I can see. As soon as I emerge from the righthand corner, I blast it. There’s another long straightaway for crying out loud! Vruuuuuuuumm! Shift! Vruuuuuuuuuum! Holy hell look at that pavement under me blur by! I’m cooking now.
I can get those two upshifts before the curve to the right and have to downshift again. Bwaaaaaah! One more gear! Bwaaaaaaah. It’s another tight ninety-degree turn, this time to the right. Lean hard! Coming out of this, the straightaway is quite a bit shorter. Maybe blast it once out of the turn, but then it’s a series of sweeps back and forth. Vruuuuum, bwaaaaah, vruuuuum, bwaaaaah…
I am ascending again, wait descending now, and the sweeps get tighter and less predictable. Hustling back and forth leaning left and right, upshifting, downshifting. The pure thrill of riding begins to eclipse the scenery. Particularly so because I’m right alongside Koko Crater and can’t even really see it. The ocean starts playing peekaboo with me again as I zip through blasted rock passages. The exhaust notes reverberating off that rock heighten the pleasure. And I think I just blew by that whole Halona blowhole bologna. Maybe. I’m not sure. Didn’t have time for a peek. Everything’s happening so quickly.
Once clear of Koko Crater, the highway straightens out and the descent to sea level is complete. The waves are crashing hard against the immaculate and not so cleverly named Sandy Beach. There’s quite the long straightway here, but there are far too many cars going into and coming out of the beach parking lot to gun it as hard as I really want to gun it. Yet the painted lines are broken, giving me permission to pass.
Okay, now we gun it!
Another thrill! I blast by a few cars at a time going way, way faster than the speed limit while trying not to get into a head on collision with the many slow moving, surfboard-filled compact pickup trucks and Volkswagen Type 2 Microbuses, all with highly faded paint from years in the Hawaiian sun.
Halfway into this flat and straight stretch, there’s a light. Not to worry. It’s green since it’s just a three-way intersection at Kealahou Street, and I’m on the main drag. After the second half of that long straightaway, the highway begins to ascend again, sweep to the left and then to the right. I’m getting closer and closer to the peaks that were not too long ago far away in the distance.
Well into the sweeps, I lose sight of the ocean; now those peaks are on both sides of me. I’m still ascending, so I can’t see what awaits me. The blue “scenic point ahead” sign I just passed hints that more is to come. I emerge from the ridges of Makapu’u Point to a gentle descending left hand sweep with another breathtaking view of the ocean to my right, complete with two small islands within view. I almost want to park the bike, dive into the ocean and swim to them. Almost. That shimmering blue water would be so refreshing right about now, but I gotta ride on. This side of the island is different and needs to be explored!
The most striking change here on the windward side is the cloud cover. It was sunny and warm on the leeward side of the island. Here, the tall ridges are collecting the clouds, and the misty wind is much cooler. After a few sweeps, I have descended back to sea level. The highway itself is no longer exciting, but that’s fine because the scenery is simply not letting up. Near vertical dark green mountains on the left, aqua blue shallow water on the right. The excitement eventually does subside as civilization encroaches. At the first light I catch, I think of what I just experienced and exclaim my thoughts to no one in particular.
“Wow, that was a ride!!!”
Yes, one of the best Oahu has to offer. Holy hell. That Kalanianaole Highway was pure, concentrated paradise! I am telling you, that long forgotten guy was right. Riding a motorcycle is definitely the most fun you can have with your clothes on! Yes! I stand by that statement, especially when riding through the twisties. Hell, even accelerating in straight line on a motorbike is more fun than ninety-nine percent of any other things you could do while wearing your skivvies and pantaloons. No. Make that ninety-nine point nine-nine percent.
Just squirt that throttle and feel that machine try to blast off from underneath you. Yet inexplicably it doesn’t part with you on account of squeezing the bike tight with your knees and holding on to the handlebars for dear life. Because it sure feels like you are being flung forward from a giant sling shot! I must have super-human strength. How else could I possibly still be attached? I’m telling you, when you experience this for the first time, tell me you don’t instantly shout, “How the hell is this even legal!?!”
Then you will burst out into maniacal laughter because surely you must be getting away with breaking some sort of law. Like those pesky murder laws perhaps. Yeah, it’s kind of like when the cops question you as to why you have blood splattered all over yourself, and you say, “Cut myself shaving.” They nod their heads and then state that you are free to go. That’s what each twist of the throttle and hard lean into a corner feels like. Getting away with all sorts of murder.
Of course, all good things come to an end, as had this stretch of concentrated paradise. There was no more getting away with twisted (throttle) murder where I now found myself. This was another suburban hell as it was just before the start of the Kalanianaole Highway. The particular neighborhood was called Kaneohe, home of a big Marine Corps base known as “K-Bay”. Lots of strip malls, traffic, and red lights. Pure hell!
Right in the middle of town, I saw a sign for Route 63. I remembered my Hawaiian pronunciation lesson that Maya from the Hideaway gave me on my third day in Oahu. Route 63 was the Likelike Highway. If you recall, that was “lee’kay-lee’kay” and not two English language “likes” in a row. The Likelike cut through the Ko’olau Mountains, the mountains I had just ridden around on the Kalanianaole Highway. I distinctly remembered that the map had some dotted lines for the Likelike Highway when crossing the Ko’olau Mountains, indicating a tunnel.
I remembered that for sure, because on a bike, you don’t want to miss an opportunity to ride through a tunnel. Why is that? The strong magnetic pull of a tunnel to a biker such as myself is the glorious, pulsating, low rumbling sound of a V-twin engine and the resultant echoing of said sound inside the tile-clad tube. And oh man, can you just imagine that sound if you kick it down a gear and twist that throttle even more!?! So much murder to get away with! Yes, the Likelike was my escape route from the sweaty-helmet-head, stop-and-go traffic of this suburban hellscape.
Upon the approach to the tunnel, I eased off the throttle to make room between my bike and the car ahead of me. Once I penetrated the tunnel entrance, I let ‘er rip. That sound was indeed glorious! Every bit as amazing as I remembered it from tunnels of Manhattan. Once up to the bumper of the car in front of me, I kicked it down a gear and let the engine braking make more room for another blast off. The bwaaaaaaaah the bike belched was simply so satisfying.
As the car behind me closed in, I punched it once more. This time in a lower gear, my Marauder’s cacophony was pure insanity. When you get the right speed and gear combination, you can feel the engine thumping in your chest. It’s like your eardrums are so full that your body needs to utilize other organs to take it all in without wasting a single soundwave. This was more pure biker bliss, and I was once again a giddy little schoolboy half my age. I simply could not stop laughing! I was still laughing after the penetration was complete and the bright sunlight nearly blinded me. We were back on the cloudless leeward side of the island on approach to western Honolulu.
I contemplated making a U-turn somewhere to ride through the tunnels a couple more times. Holy hell, that sound! Yes, I had an addiction. I don’t know what it is about a low rumble, but I couldn’t get enough of sounds like that. Big V-twin motorcycles. Even bigger V8 muscle cars. Absolutely gigantic V12 and V16 diesel locomotives idling near my childhood home that my father and I used to sneak onto. And do not forget the relentless strumming of detuned guitars of my favorite heavy metal bands! Filling up my eardrums with any of those various low-pitched rhythmic chugging sounds is a massage for my brain. One might describe it as crack cocaine for the contents of my cranium.
Yet I didn’t make a U-turn for more of that cranium crack. As I had just experienced Route 63, it dawned to me that I could ride over to the Hideaway to see if Maya was working. I only saw her that one time my first week in town. Maya made me kama’aina. (If you recall, that means a local—or more literally, “child of the land” in Hawaiian). And now I could report to this beautiful and bubbly tiki bar bartender how much I liked the Likelike and its titillating tiled tunnel tubes.
With the new destination, drinking would obviously be involved. Not to worry, however. According to my Navy-issued Blood Alcohol Content card in my wallet, my scrawny little ass could have three drinks in one hour, no sweat. No DUI’s either. So, the plan was to get a couple of Mayan Mai Tais over the course of an hour and then be on my merry way back to base. But if Maya wasn’t there, the plan could still possibly work. There would undoubtedly be another friendly and pretty Hawaiian bartender at that outside tiki bar. If so, I would tell her not to sweat it; we could chit chat without worry because I’m already kama’aina. Maya said so. She should buy it. I thought this was a solid plan. A foolproof plan even.
Turns out I am a fool, and this was proof. I parked the motorbike and tried to walk by the banyan trees and into the Hideaway only to discover that it was closed. And I don’t mean closed until later in the day like they had changed their operating hours or something. No, I mean closed-closed, as in forever. Yes, the Hideaway shutdown for good while I was out to sea on that silly San Francisco submarine!
How could this be possible!?!
You’d think that Loraine would have tipped me off the last time I was there!!! Maybe she did, but I was perhaps already in the blackout zone? That was plausible. Or maybe she didn’t tell me at all because this was a sudden development. I dunno. What if it was all those one-dollar Murphy’s of mine during Power Hour that did the place in!?! This could have been all my fault! Now they didn’t have enough money to stay open!
The situation was terribly disconcerting. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much I would miss that joint. The Hideaway was the very first place I was ever a regular anywhere on the entire friggen planet. Plus, it was the only place I knew where to get a freshly poured Irish stout in Hawaii. I could go to the Red Lion or the Irish Rose for a pint poured out one of those widget cans, but not once did I ever get to lemon baby a lady from a can with a widget within. Lemon baby ladies were strictly a Hideaway happenstance. And now they were to be no more.
The Hideaway was also the only bar I knew of that had at least one female bartender each night of the week. In fact, most of the other bars I had been to, such as the aforementioned Red Lion and Irish Rose, had not a one bartender of the female gender. At least that I ever saw. Déjà Vu did have the one with Loraine, but if she wasn’t there, it was just a stupid dude in her place. Who wants to look at a stupid dude!?!
Like, how do you willingly go from an all-male tended submarine during the day to an all-male tended bar during the night? I suppose I could take some solace knowing that at least there were pretty waitresses at Déjà Vu like Tia, and of course there’s all the naked ladies too, but I couldn’t spend all my time drinking there. I’d be broke in no time, and I’d never meet a single single lady. As in, meet not one untaken one.
Yet even thinking about drawbacks of going to a nudie bar, the very first place that ran through my mind to go to at this exact moment was Hooters. I had been to one in East Meadow, NY once while I was on leave just before flying out to Hawaii. It wasn’t too far from my father’s house out on Long Island. A beautiful Italian-American waitress—who wasn’t actually my designated waitress—infiltrated the section I was seated in to chit-chat with me, and she even gave me her number. The Italian told me she had a thing for redheads and for guys with motorcycles. I fit the bill. I called her once, but then moved to Hawaii a few days later. (Also, she confessed over the phone that she kind of had a boyfriend at the time, so…)
So, Hooters Honolulu popped into my head as I struggled to process the Hideaway’s hasty demise. I recalled hearing some of the dudes in the Engine Room mention a Hooters by Aloha Tower, down by the water where the cruise ships dock. That should be easy enough to find. Perhaps there would be another Hooter girl with a thing for redheads and motorcycles in this paradise. Maybe not an Italian-American type, common on Long Island, but maybe a Japanese-American type that should be more common on this tropical island? Yes, but would they too have a thing for red heads? It was time to find out. I hopped back onto the Marauder, made my way out of Waikiki, cruised over to shimmering skyscraper filled downtown Honolulu in search of that Aloha Tower.
It wasn’t hard to find. Completed in 1926, Aloha Tower is this gorgeous 184-foot-tall dual-purpose clock tower and light house. It is quite lovely looking, supposedly built in a “Gothic Revival” or “Hawaiian Gothic” style, but if you ask me, it just screams Art Deco. It is a sleek, slim, smooth-stucco-surfaced white tower—the Art Deco portion—with a lancet shaped dark green main roof and four tourelles at each corner, also lancet shaped—clearly the Gothic Revival portion.
This stunning tower really gets your attention. It is approached by walking up a particularly pleasant palm tree lined promenade. As you take in the tall tower on your approach, you immediately notice one of the four 12-foot diameter bronze clock faces on each side, and the big bold “ALOHA” lettering above the entrance and on each balcony above all those giant 7-ton clocks.
Yes, Aloha Tower screams for your attention. At one point, it did literally. If you couldn’t see the large clock faces, not to worry. The tower had a loud siren that went off three times a day. 7am, 12 noon and 4pm. Then I guess everyone bought wrist watches and complained about the racket, so the tower no longer literally screams for your attention. The sirens were silenced.
And as far as I know, it no longer guides ships into Honolulu Harbor as a lighthouse either, which is fine because to me it does not look one iota like a lighthouse. It’s not even round! Its base is square for crying out loud! That can’t be a lighthouse! But before these newfangled jet aeroplanes flew all of us impatient assholes in, all visitors arrived by ship, and those poor people needed a lighthouse to guide their way. Aloha Tower’s strobes would grab ships’ crews’ attention from fifteen miles away to bring the passengers and supplies into paradise safely.
With those attention-grabbing functions no longer vital to modern Oahu’s daily operations, I suppose it was only natural to build a shopping center around it—Aloha Tower Marketplace—and grab your attention by sticking a Hooters in it near the base of the tower for one its many eateries. Those Hooter ladies are definitely attention grabbers. Good fit. I parked the bike, stuffed my gear in my helmet, and walked in with it to silently announce to the waitresses that I had a motorbike.
The attention-grabbing greeter girl at the Hooters entrance pulpit asked me if I wanted a table-for-one or to sit at the bar. A quick scan of the bar with its stupid dude bartender had me not-so-silently exclaim, “TABLE!” It was the only communication I had with the greeter girl, and my voice was certainly a few decibels too loud for the peaceful waterfront open air and breezy restaurant with nary another customer. I may have startled some birds into flight, and you could just see this disapproval in the greeter’s face. “Weirdo,” I bet was her thought. She took me to a table without any flirty chit chat, simply some silent seating situation.
Once silently situated, the exchange over my drink order with my very pretty blonde non-Japanese-American white girl waitress was equally or perhaps even more awkward. I mean, I needed stout, stat! Thus, I immediately pounced on the beer selection in an excited rapid-fire fashion.
“Do you have Guinness?”
“No, we don’t.”
“Murphy’s?”
“No—”
“Beamish?”
“I’m sorr—”
“Red Hook Double Black Stout?”
“No, we don’t. Do you wan—”
“Do you have any stouts at all?”
“No. Do you want to see—?”
“How about Kona Long Board lager?”
“No, you should look at—”
“What about Heineken?”
“Yes. In the bottle.”
“Are they cold?”
“Of course.”
“Cold Heinies are nice. I’ll grab one of those then.”
I really mowed her down. I realized that upon reflection. I had to tone down my excitement lest I perturb her. In fact, it was obvious I did perturb her. It was too early for that eager-beaver shit for sure. At this moment, there was no way she would sit with me, flirt, and give me her number as I found was customary at Hooters the first and only time I ever made a visit to one.
Okay, so I had to be cool with the waitress from this point on to turn this situation around. I needed her number. As I was thinking this in a few flashes of a second, the waitress hadn’t yet departed for my beer order, and had something to follow up with. A development! Maybe it was to flirt and give me her number. Had to be. It’s like they have to. Restaurant policy, right? She started with her name. Nice and simple.
“Heidi.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Brendan.”
“Heidi?”
“Right, very nice to meet you, Heidi.”
“My name’s not Heidi.”
“It’s not Heidi?”
“No.”
“Ah okay, it just… it really sounded like you said ‘Heidi’ just then. What did you say actually?”
“I didn’t say ‘Heidi’, I said, ‘Ayeeee… Deeee’.”
“Wait. Are you asking for my—”
“Yes, your I.D.”
“Oh damn. Yeah, that totally sounds like ‘Heidi’ right?”
“A little maybe, yeah.”
“That’s kind of funny. Sorry about that. It’s like, well… this is actually the first time I’ve had to show my I.D. in Hawaii ‘cause you know, I’m kama’aina and all, so… I guess I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Well they’re supposed to check your I.D. if they’re serving you alcohol. It’s required by law.”
“Gotta lotta lawbreakers around here then.”
Not-Heidi didn’t respond and hovered silently while I pulled out my wallet. I showed her my military I.D., she scanned it, handed it back to me, and then walked off without saying anything else. My icy cold waitress returned with my icy cold bottle of Heineken. I ordered some hot wings. Mild hot wings. I was very white at the time, as white as my decidedly not Japanese-American waitress, so we probably had that inability to eat spicy food in common. Not that not-Heidi would ever know we were a match.
Even with the marked improvement in my not-so-hot ordering skills of my not-so-hot wings—no bombardment of stupid questions or misunderstandings whatsoever this time—the damage was done. Not-Heidi walked off again after I ordered, and despite the lack of customers, she didn’t return until my mild wings were ready. I ordered another ice-cold beer and again she walked off, returned with the beer, and walked off again with absolutely no interest in my existence. Not-Heidi was no Italian-American or Japanese-American Hooter lady with a thing for redheads and motorcycles, that’s for sure. And this place was no substitute for the Hideaway either. I sped back to base in defeat.
The thing about riding back to base, in defeat on account of some Hooters ordering irregularities or not, is that the ride itself is a humiliating experience. In the Aloha Tower Marketplace parking lot, I had to put on this stupid bright orange plasticy vest with big, huge reflector strips—and with even bigger resentment attached to it. The damn thing was even more attention grabbing than Aloha Tower with lights and sirens going off and a bunch of Hooter ladies bouncing around on all the balconies.
Why did I have to put on this stupid bright orange dork vest? Them’s the rules. You see, the Navy just loves making rules. And these rules they made included a whole slew of things one needs to wear in order to be allowed back onto the base: a helmet, a pair of goggles, ankle high boots, long sleeve pants, a long sleeve shirt, gloves, and of course that stupid looking orange dork vest. In the hot Hawaiian sun, all this gear made me sweat profusely.
I mean, when that long-ago forgotten guy said riding a motorcycle was the most fun you can have with your clothes on, I don’t think he mean to keep adding layers of clothing for even more fun. I bet there were these pencil necks pricks with power making such rules, and I bet they had never even ridden a motorcycle. Yeah, motorcycles probably scared the crap out of those pathetic rule prescribing pansies. And in my mind, these stupid rules weren’t even about safety while riding. No way. These rules were about behavioral modification under the guise of “safety” for an excuse to make riding a motorcycle such a hassle that you simply wouldn’t.
And the pencil neck pricks in power didn’t stop making riding rules at just trying to suit you up like an astronaut. They even mandated that you take a stupid motorcycle safety course. If you didn’t have the course, you couldn’t get a silly little base sticker to put on your motorbike’s left fork tube. This sticker afforded you a nice little no-stop wave-in from the gate guard to come right onto the base. Unfortunately, I did not yet have one of those sought-after stickers.
As I said, to get a silly sticker, you first must have taken the motorcycle safety course. But in order to take the motorcycle safety course, you first need to have a motorcycle license. And that was the biggest of a series of obstacles for me. I didn’t have a motorcycle license; I merely had a New York State motorcycle permit. But in order to obtain an actual NYS motorcycle license, one has to hop through all these asinine hoops.
New York State also had their own pathetic pencil neck pricks with power making absurdly intricate rules. Unlike their automobile license road test, which was given several times a week, the motorcycle license road test was held only once a month. There was of course a waiting list involved, so your test date could actually be months out. And then for the day of your road test, if you ever get one, you had to bring a number of items:
-your automobile driver’s license
-your motorcycle learner’s permit
-a helmet
-a motorcycle
-an automobile
-a friend
-your friend’s NYS driver’s license
-your friend’s NYS motorcycle license
-fully filled out forms from the fucking DMV
With all that crap collected, here’s what had to be done: You drive your car to the test site, your friend drives your motorcycle there, you switch vehicles, the joyless evaluator asshole gets into your car with your friend, and then they follow you on the bike using the horn to direct you.
One honk for turn left, two honks for turn right, and three honks to stop. (I might have the left and right honk count mixed up, but you get the idea.) Once you get your three honks, which would be at the end of a dead-end street, you then have to do three tight circles in one direction, three tight circles in the other direction, and then three tight figure eights. If you put your foot down, you fail. Or at least that’s what I was told. Never got the opportunity to see if that was true.
I didn’t have any friends or family in New York with a motorcycle license, and even if I had, it wasn’t like the road test dates would line up with my Navy leave dates anyway. I flew off to Oahu frustrated about the ridiculous road test rules but figured it would be a lot easier to get a Hawaiian motorcycle license. Unless of course they too had ex-Navy pencil neck pricks with power working for the state making motorcycle licensing rules. What if they made one about throwing virgins into a volcano? You should never underestimate the pathetic pencil neck pricks in power.
But seriously, how could it not be easier than that preposterous process in New York? The guys back on base in rotten Groton never heard of such insanity. Not only with the motorcycle license road test, but with the rules for riding with a motorcycle permit. Other states weren’t so absurd. I was no stranger to breaking those absurd laws that were specific to New York State or even just New York City—don’t get me started on them—so the riding rules with a motorcycle permit were no exception. These were clearly in need of some breaking. Smashing, really.
In 1997, under a NYS motorcycle learner’s permit, I could only ride in daylight hours with a fully licensed motorcyclist “supervising” me. This supervisor had to ride within a quarter of a mile of the permit holder and in line of sight. Supervise me from a quarter mile away? What the fuck could another rider possibly do for me a quarter of a mile away!?! It’s like going to the top of the Empire State Building and then supervising a guy down on the street eating a hotdog.
“No, no, no! For the love of god, do NOT put ketchup on that hotdog!!! You hear me!?! NO KETCHUP!!! Oh Jesus Christ, you sick fuck!!! What have you done!?!”
Just like you can’t stop a dude down on the street from putting ketchup on his hotdog while on top of a skyscraper, there’s no way a “motorcycle supervisor” can stop you from accidently twisting the throttle wide open after hitting a big pothole and shooting off like a rocket, or making a mistake with balancing the front and rear brakes on a turn that gets unexpectedly tight and sliding right off the road, or forgetting to counter-steer in a sudden obstacle avoidance maneuver causing the bike to skid straight into it. These are things you have to know intuitively when riding, and some dude behind you won’t be able to keep you from splattering yourself into a mushy road pulp upon discovery of such major mistakes.
I read about those permit riding rules, thought they were ridiculous, and bought a motorbike anyway knowing I wouldn’t have anyone to supervise me legally. I mean, how would the cops know I didn’t have a license anyway? As long as I didn’t do anything stupid and give them probable cause to pull me over, I was in no danger of being caught without a license (or without a licensed hotdog loving supervisor riding way back behind me).
And my conscience was clear over breaking these laws. I knew those laws, like the dork vest rules, weren’t for direct, practical results. They were obviously for indirect, behavior modification reasons. But I would just burn with anger thinking about that. I thought they have no right to control my life! Fucking pathetic pencil neck rule making pricks! Go die in a fire already!!! (I really hate those guys.)
With my purity of thoughts and clear conscience, I learned how to ride the motorcycle on my own, unsupervised. Yes, I simply bought the bike and figured it out, trial-by-fire style. I knew how to work the clutch pedal and accelerator when shifting gears in a car, so it was merely a matter of transferring that theory and the coordination from my feet to my hands. I also understood I had to lean with the bike, not against it. That was no sweat. (Counter-steering took a few rides to figure out however…) But overall, learning to ride was very, very easy, and only following all the ridiculous rules made by those pencil necks pricks with power proved to be problematic.
Yet the thing about all these onerous rules is that reasonable people create unwritten work-arounds which eventually become the somewhat tolerated new norm. (Dystopias are made in such ways.) I found out that I really didn’t need a silly sticker to get onto a base if I flashed my military Heidi. Excuse me, I said military I.D. thank you very much. Now why did this work-around exist? I dunno, perhaps some Captain had his mid-life crisis, bought a motorcycle and then found out he couldn’t ride onto base until he got a license and completed the safety course many weeks or months later. Upon discovery of this, he probably took his day out on the poor, lowly little Seaman gate guard. And maybe just like that, an unwritten work-around became acceptable.
Uh, yes sir! Of course you can flash your military I.D. while you are, uh, “working on” getting your license and completing the safety course, sir! Come right on in, sir!
That line of reasoning is pure speculation, but the base sticker work-around was an entirely real phenomenon. That’s how I got through the Makalapa Gate onto the sub base without a silly sticker during the night of the Ninja. I wasn’t even a powerful Captain in a midlife crisis, yet those guards at the gate waved me—a lowly Petty Officer barely old enough for a quarter-life crisis—right on in to ride on in.
I didn’t know much about the gate community, but it turns out they—the Makalapans—are a tolerant people. So tolerant that it dawned on me that I didn’t really need a license or a safety course—ever. The idea of being an outlaw biker appealed to me. But while technically I could get onto base as an outlaw with this unwritten work-around rule for the duration of my naval career, there were two big advantages if I did follow the rules.
The first one is that if I had that silly little sticker on my fork tube, I could simply roll into the gate and be waved in while I had both hands on the handlebars. The workaround meant I had to come to a complete stop, put the bike’s transmission in neutral, pull out my wallet, pull out my I.D., flash it to the guard, get the wave-in gesture, put the I.D. back in my wallet, put the wallet back in my pocket, pull in the clutch, kick it down into first, finagle the throttle and clutch, and then ride off. That’s so terribly inefficient!
Too inefficient for my tastes, so I had to streamline it a bit. I mean, I was not okay with coming to a complete cumbersome and time-consuming stop. No way. Time is money, and I didn’t have much of either. So, without the silly little sticker or desire to stop, I had to keep my I.D. in a jacket pocket accessible to my right hand, ride in with enough speed to coast through the gate, pull in the clutch with my left hand, fish for the I.D. with my right hand, hold it out over my left arm, and hope I had enough speed to not flop over onto the pavement as I coasted through.
If hope was lost as I lost momentum, at first, I would still have to put my feet down to maintain balance, but I’d still be slowly rolling as I quickly stuffed the I.D. into my pocket, grab a little fistful of throttle to regain the minimum momentum, and then pull the I.D. out once more to flash it. I hated when I had to do that. I hated putting my feet down. It was a pride thing. It was like failing the NYS licensing test I never took. I’m better than that!
So, as I gained experience riding, I wouldn’t put my feet down or stuff the I.D. into a pocket. I’d instead roll the card that was between my thumb and pointer under the pointer, pinch the I.D. now with my pointer and middle, squeeze and turn the throttle with my ring, pinky and thumb for a quick little rev, then roll the I.D. back to between my thumb and pointer as I whipped the I.D. back over my left arm for the guard to see while slowly rolling on by. Do note that holding a slick little I.D. with sense-of-touch reducing gloves made this Vulcan finger separation method a bit tricky. Over time, I mastered the balance of the bike and multitasking while riding through the Makalapa Gate. Still, it would be very nice to have that damn stupid sticker!
The second major advantage of adhering to the licensing rules is that unlike in New York State, Hawaii did not require licensed adult motorcyclists to wear helmets. If I had a license, I would for sure take full advantage of that (lack of) law. It’s one thing to be racing a sport bike or flying high on a dirt bike. You might just need that helmet! But c’mon, simply slowly cruising by the beach in Waikiki? No need for a helmet!
I’d see all those guys on Harley’s rumbling down Kalakaua without helmets and be jealous of their freedom. Their freedom to return home from a full day of riding in the hot Hawaiian sun without their heads smelling like a stinky sock. I wanted that fresh-smelling freedom too! No, I needed that fresh freedom! Therefore, I had to give up on the outlaw biker fantasy and get my hands on a Hawaiian motorcycle license as soon as possible. The plan was to go to the DMV right after work on Tuesday, as I had duty on Monday. Yeah, that was the plan I had in mind while rolling through the Makalapa Gate.
I parked the Marauder behind Paquet Hall. Unlike the front of the resort-like building where there were palm trees, a nicely maintained bright green lawn and a big crisp, clear blue swimming pool, the rear looked like I was behind a supermarket on the side of Sunrise Highway somewhere out on Long Island. Worn and cracked beige paint, faded grey black top that was attempting to return back into gravel, a bunch of dumpsters, ugly resilient weeds but not one manicured blade of grass, and absolutely, positively no shade.
I mean, there should be people in white aprons with meat stains and paper hats smoking out back here on a break. But out in front of Paquet Hall, I could picture 1940’s movie stars with loafers, fedoras, pencil-thin mustaches and casual wear much nicer than my nicest duds, playing croquet on the lawn and making some real shady real estate deals. Such a contrast when walking the covered hallway from the rear to the front.
I grabbed a can of Royal Mills cappuccino and took a breather in my room while contemplating this night’s plans. I had a dilemma. Saturday night. Loraine should be working at Déjà Vu. And I had to have some of that sweet, sweet Double Black Stout! Okay, so absolutely no dilemma in deciding the destination, but what about the transportation situation? Should I take the bus or the bike?
With the bus, I could drink as much of that silky-smooth Double Black Stout as my little single black heart desired. With the bike, I’d have to throttle back on the booze and follow that little BAC card in my wallet. Honestly, it was an easy decision to make. I needed thrills! And of course, you know that riding a motorbike is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. This was a no-brainer. I’m taking the motorbike!
I figured I could ride to Déjà Vu and drink responsibly by adhering to the BAC card. I would stay there for two hours, have four stouts, drink a glass of water between those stouts, and if I needed more time between drinks, I’d get a lap dance. Those take time. Like three or four minutes each. That’s five to seven percent of an hour. Every little bit helps. This was doable.
Once night fell, I cruised on over to Kuhio Avenue. Right in between the International Market Place and the Waikiki Town Center was an alleyway marked with parking signs. I pulled into it despite remembering the geography didn’t appear to support any sort of parking lot. Just sort of seemed like a short, narrow dead-end street. What I hadn’t noticed before while grabbing a slice of Market Place pizza in the past was that there was this really compact parking garage on the side of the Town Center.
As I rolled up to the entrance of the garage, I saw that this facility was very mechanical. Cars were loaded onto an elevator that slid in the vertical and the horizontal planes. Kind of looked like a giant automobile vending machine. Then I noticed right on the front of this curious creation was a sign stating, “cars only.” Figures. But you know what? I wouldn’t trust that mechanized monstrosity with my motorbike anyway. I let out the clutch and slowly rolled on to find an area to more easily turn around.
Further up this alleyway, I instead found this perfect little special spot to park my Marauder. All the way down at the end of the road, right across from the New York style pizza place, tucked in an enclosed loading well, there was this little sliver of a space that the bike fit into like a glove. It wasn’t blocking anything, and the area was brightly lit with a good amount of pedestrian traffic walking between the Waikiki Town Center and the food court of the International Market Place. This seemed like a safe spot to leave the bike for a bit.
I opened the shiny metal mirror doors, entered the cold, loud, dark and fake smokey Déjà Vu, gave the lady in front a little white business card, and then parked my ass right at the bar. Loraine called me sugar, rubbed my fluffy red high and tight hairdo, and served me my first Double Black Stout without me even having to ask for it. I’m telling you, it’s important to be a regular somewhere. I did have to shout my stout in moderation drinking plan to her when she brought over the first one. She seemed pleased.
Tia, in her working white lingeries and carrying her tray with a few drinks on it, put the tray down onto the bar, came over to give me a sweet, gentle kiss on the cheek, shouted that she liked my jacket, and pinched my arm. Charlie shortly afterwards, wearing a sheer skin tight and neon bright minidress, greeted me with beaming eyes and a gigantic smile—seemingly holding back a burst of laughter from no doubt remembering something stupid I said a few weeks earlier—and topped it off with a nice big hug. Felt nice to feel a female!
Charlie immediately followed up her hug with asking me if I wanted to have some fun while her mouth was still close to my ear. I pulled back and of course responded with the reflexive “not yet—I just got here” schtick, and then countered with an offer of some charlatan champagne. She accepted my terms and sat down on the stool next to me. Almost immediately I discovered a fatal flaw in the night’s plan.
I hadn’t factored in the fact that while sober, I am super self-conscious and very nervous around hot chicks, protecting myself by simply dwelling silently within my head. If I’m quiet and still, maybe they won’t notice me. This is a state of mind of mine perhaps best described as, “just thirsty.” And as per plan, this is the state I’d be all night long! Charlie wasn’t fond of this state and spoke up after a bit of awkward silence and smiles, and a few sips of champagne.
“Is this your first drink?”
“Yeah, haven’t been anywhere else.”
“You need to loosen up.”
“I know, totally.”
“Wanna sneak some shots?”
“I definitely do, but definitely can’t.”
“Why not? You run out of money?”
“No. It’s that I took my motorcycle here tonight.”
“You have a bike?”
“Yeah.”
“Crotch rocket?”
“No.”
“Harley?”
“Hmm… it’s like a Harley, but it’s not actually one.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I call it my ‘Hardly-Davidson’.”
“Clever.”
“I stole that from someone else.”
“You stole your Hardly-Davidson?”
“No, I meant I stole the name.”
“I know. I’m fucking with you.”
“Oh! You got me.”
“You need to loosen up.”
“I know. I know.”
“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t take your bike here anymore anyway.”
“Why, because it’s not a real Harley?”
“No, I don’t care about that. I just like you better when you drink.”
“Really?”
“Yeah! Oh my god, you’re just so funny when you’re shitfaced! Last time you were asking me about the difference betw—”
“Shh! I know! You don’t have to shout it!”
“Okay, okay!”
“Hey, how about I sneak you some shots instead? Maybe I’ll still seem funny to you when you’re the one that’s shitfaced.”
“Nah, I gotta hustle tonight. I’ll stick with this fake champagne shit for now. But then let’s go upstairs when I finish it.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Yeah. Maybe. I dunno.”
“What, are you just thirsty tonight?”
“Well I can’t be too thirsty tonight.”
“So, let’s go upstairs after I finish this one. I’m dying to ask you something.”
“Dying?”
“Yes!”
“Well in that case… sure, we can go up there when you finish; have to space out my—”
She downed her glass of sugar water champagne like a shot.
“—drinks anyway.”
“Okay! Let’s go upstairs.”
“So much for spacing them out.”
I downed mine, letting out a little mini lemon baby post chug cough, ineffectively wiped my mouth off with one of my leather-clad arms, and followed her upstairs. It was much quieter up there. We dropped into one of the big black mushy couches far away from anyone else. Instead of wanting to get right down to the dances, she wanted a story from me that she was very much anticipating hearing, but I hadn’t anticipating telling anyone at all ever.
“So?”
“So…”
“Yeah… so?”
“Is this what you were dying to ask me? ‘So?’”
“Yeah… so?”
“Sew… buttons?”
“No, so how was it?”
“How was what?”
“C’mon!”
“What?”
“Seriously. Did you get your cherry popped or what?”
“Well yeah… I did.”
“You did?”
“Yes. Fully popped.”
“For real?”
“Yeah for real.”
“Congratulations!”
“Thanks.”
“Wow! I can’t believe you actually listened to me! You were so drunk! I thought you might stumble out of here and pass out in a bush!”
“Yeah, I almost passed out in her bush.”
“Really!?!”
“Nah, not really. She didn’t have a bush. Besides, I was on point. I listened to your orders and carried out the mission. Like a machine.”
“Must have been pretty hungry that night!”
“Must have.”
“You get a working girl?”
“Pretty much my only option.”
“Yeah, figured.”
“I found one right around the corner there on Seaside—down by the beach. Nice lady named Treasure.”
“Treasure?”
“Yup. That’s who popped that cherry! She was a real Treasure alright. Do you know of her?”
“Can’t say I know anyone named Treasure.”
“Yeah I didn’t think so. She didn’t know of you either.”
“How do you know that?”
“I asked her.”
Charlie burst out laughing. She had giggled quite a bit after most of those replies, and she giggled and shook and laughed out loud quite a bit more as I filled her in with the rest of the details. This was solid entertainment for her. At least now I knew why it looked like she was holding back laughter when she first spotted me at the bar. It wasn’t anything I said that was lingering. She was clearly picturing my first timer awkwardness. Oh man. I felt awkward all over again!
A new song started and the sleek and sexy Charlie got up and then got down to business dancing. With her bright red lipstick and slicked back blonde hair, moving her hips and shoulders around seductively, she clearly should have been in a Robert Palmer music video. Simply irresistible. I took all of her in as she swayed her head side to side with the music, hands in the air, eyes closed. Her cute little nose was just as adorable to me now as it was the time I first spied her. She’s so fine, there’s no telling where the money went. Charlie was captivating to watch, yet I slowly began to stare beyond her.
My god, Charlie is so beautiful and fun to talk to. Why couldn’t my first time be with someone like her? Why couldn’t it have actually been with her? My first experience was rather transactional. But Charlie totally looks forward to seeing me. I make her laugh. I mean, Charlie actually cares about my existence, for real, not because I pay her. Oh man! Could you imagine being with her!
Then I remembered her reaction. That laugh. I’ll never forget the laugh I received in response to my “with you?” inquiry that last virgin night. It pierced right through the drunken haze like a laser and scored a direct hit upon me. Ooh! That hurts! But being basically indestructible, I shrugged it off of course. Of course I did. Of course I didn’t mean with her. Pfft. Like with her? Really? C’mon. I mean, I was joking too. Right?
Yeah, I was joking. I wasn’t worried about it. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m smart, decent looking and in pretty damn good shape. And I can run like a mother fucker. You should see my times. Wait. I digress. Okay, I’m maybe a little short and pasty, but nothing a wicked sense of humor couldn’t make up for, right? Nothing wrong with me. No. I think what it came down to is that, in her eyes, I’m basically just a child. A very naïve and very inexperienced-in-life child. That’s my problem! I knew this.
It wasn’t just her who felt that way. I met a number of girls who felt similarly, starting with Linda, the church-bait girl I fruitlessly pursued from the last half of my junior year of high school until the last school of the Peepahleenay. This was confirmed when I was nineteen years old on leave early in a September, sitting across from Linda in an outdoor café somewhere on the upper east side of Manhattan. She casually mentioned to me between sips of her cappuccino that she only dated guys ten years older than her. We were both teenagers at the time. This seemed insane to me for her sake, but also an insurmountable obstacle to me for my sake.
Ten years? Linda wanted no less than fifty percent more of my entire life’s experience within some random other guy? (That’s not even taking into account that one doesn’t even remember anything from the first few years of existence. I might not technically even be able to count that as experience for my calculations.) I had many thoughts about the sneaky little admission she let out. She had moved on to another topic, but I had to return to her little post sip slip.
“Wai-wai-wai-wait. Hold on a sec. Did you just say you only date guys ten years older than you?”
“Yeah.”
“Ten years? Ten!?!”
“Yeah. Ten. Duh.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. You’re not even twenty yet. Why are you dating like, thirty-year old’s?”
“Because men don’t mature until much later in life than women.”
“I’m mature!”
“I don’t mean it that way. Yeah, you’re mature; you’re in the Navy and all. I get it. But it’s like, you haven’t really been anywhere or done anything yet. You’re barely out of high school. It’s not your fault though; you just haven’t experienced life yet.”
“And this somehow makes me less mature than you?”
“Yeah.”
“You?”
“Yeah. Kind of.”
“You know you’re only four months older than me. Like, not even, actually.”
“Brendan, you dork, I graduated a whole year ahead of you. Seriously.”
“Okay right, but then how does one year becomes ten?”
It was no use debating. I felt this age discrimination was entirely unjust, yet there was simply no form of protest that would convince Linda to see it my way. She wanted what she wanted. A mature suitor with an abundance of life experience. I wasn’t even a blip on her radar. I hadn’t even reached escape velocity from the parents’ basement. She had a point about our comparative experience though, albeit somewhat exaggerated.
Despite a mere 3.8-month age gap, she did have a bit more experience in life than me when you think about it. Linda already had a year of college in Boston under her belt, compared to my no years of any college anywhere, and at the time of the conversation, she was living in a Manhattan apartment far away from her parents’ place, compared to my dorm room style Navy barracks where we weren’t even allowed to have guests over. Indeed, I was still a little teenager in her eyes.
I was thinking that the way that Charlie dismissed me felt awfully familiar. Not even a blip on her radar. Damn it! How am I supposed to deal with this blatant age discrimination? I mean, doing the math here, we’re looking at me having to date eleven-year-olds. Well, I do suppose the knowledge I had amassed in my two and a half years beyond high school would impress the hell out of those little ladies.
“Here, let me explain to you how nuclear fission works…”
Okay, I get it. It’s all about life experience. So now what? Was I supposed to go to the playground and pick one out for later?
“Brendan.”
I’d just sit there on a bench with a bag of honey roasted peanuts, observing. I’ll see you in a few years. Is that how this works now?
“Brendan!”
No, of course that’s not how it works. That’s creepy. I shouldn’t even be joking about this shit.
“BRENDAN!!!”
“Wha!?! Huh!?!”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Oh! Uh… nothing. Wasn’t thinking about anything!”
“Liar! You weren’t even looking at me!”
“Okay, well…”
“Well… what?”
“Well… I forgot to ask Treasure about the g-spot.”
Charlie clapped her hands together, shook her head, and attempted to suppress her laughter. Clearly, I couldn’t tell her about this whole playground plan, so I figured that would satisfy her. She recovered.
“Do you want another dance?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Don’t zone out on me.”
“Will you tell me about your g-spot?”
“No, I most certainly will not.”
“I might zone out then.”
“I might need that shot of tequila you offered then.”
“Deal.”
Once I tapped out on dances due to monetary reasons, I returned to the bar. It was a busy and loud Saturday night, so I didn’t really get to shoot the breeze with Loraine. Tia was quite busy as well. I’d get a little touch or pinch as she walked by here and there, but that was it.
After Charlie bled me dry with dances and extracted all my virgin tales, she too had little use for me as there were plenty of dudes inside the establishment ready to part ways with their hard-earned cash. Not that I blamed Charlie for such behavior. This was her job, and she was on the clock. She had even told me she had to hustle this night. Without all the money-flush fresh meat, I’m sure she would have returned to chit-chat with me and have that shot of tequila even if I still hadn’t loosened up.
Sitting by my lonesome at the bar, rebuffing most dancers looking for some fun coming around by claiming Charlie already got me good, I had mostly followed the plan that night as the two-hour time limit approached. Except I wasn’t following each and every stout with a full glass of water. But I mean, the water was mostly just a placebo. Kind of like giving a lollipop to a smoker. Distracting and time killing. It’s not like water sobers you up. Might lessen the hangover though.
I was nursing a glass of water and had a whole half an hour to go before the BAC card stipulated that I could hop on the bike. This part of the night was terribly rough. Like eating your vegetables as a child so that you can go chase the ice cream truck jingling down the block after dinner. Man did I want another Double Black. The tasteless boring glass of water was dissolving the fun right out of me, and I began to bargain with myself over having a fifth stout.
I was thinking that nothing is one hundred percent accurate. How could this BAC card be? Think about speed limits. People get a little leniency from the law due to error in your car’s speedometer and error in the radar gun. These instrument errors are due to an acceptable tolerance, because precision costs a lot of money. Good enough is close enough for government work.
So, it is possible that your speedometer might show a lower indicated speed than actual speed, and the radar gun might show a higher indicated speed than actual speed. When the errors line up that way, this lineup may incriminate an innocent person. As per Sir Billy Blackstone:
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
Therefore, you can get away with driving a certain percentage above the speed limit because instrument error could introduce reasonable doubt into a court. At least that’s what I was bouncing around in my head. Now applying the Blackstone to my BAC, I wondered about these tolerances. It’s not like at 0.079 you’re okay and then suddenly at 0.08, you’re off the rails. And the card doesn’t say anything about consistency of your pace.
Does having one drink every thirty minutes, four times, result in the same BAC as slamming four shots all at once and waiting two hours? I doubted that it was linear like that, like there’s some sort of positive displacement pump inside you that takes the same amount of alcohol away for processing. Maybe a huge influx of this poison overwhelms your system and it takes longer to process. Or, what if triggers a larger response from your body and it actually speeds up the process? I didn’t know. It’s not like we had little computers in our pockets to figure everything out back then.
I was thinking about those things, yet I figured that it would be a bad idea for “one more.” That would be the fifth drink of the night. I mean, right after that additional one, who’s to say that I wouldn’t begin the in-head bargaining for another? Who knows exactly which drink it is that makes you think,
Gee, I’d like to wake up far away from this place with no knowledge of my journey there.
But I did know each drink reduces inhibitions, and I didn’t think it wise to figure out which one reduces it so much that it makes absolutely everything seem like a good idea at the time. No, I had to finish the water and definitely not have another Double Black Stout.
“Hey sugar, is it time yet? Ready for another drink?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
I still had another fifteen minutes or so before my BAC card said I could leave after my four drinks, and here I was ordering a fifth. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. What was I thinking? Loraine brought me my Double Black Stout and said she was proud of me for being responsible, drinking water and watching the time as I slowly sipped my stouts. Her pride in me was obviously undeserved. I still figured I’d be okay though. This BAC stuff is like the speed limits, right?
I’d better leave right after this one so I don’t end up too weak to resist a sixth.
No more water or waiting. Just finished my stout and left. I have to say, down in the loading well firing up the bike and putting on all my gear, I felt fine. More than fine actually. I knew I couldn’t drink anymore anywhere else, and despite not wanting to back to base, I knew I had to. The night was over, and this was the end. I roared out of the brightly lit loading well into the dark alley and then onto the sparkling street. Man did I feel alive as I cruised down Kuhio Avenue. City lights, freedom, excitement, thrills! Stopped at an intersection, I immediately recalled some AC/DC lyrics:
“It was one of those nights when you turned out the lights and everything comes into view.”
Yes, everything did! Absolutely perfect description. That’s exactly how I felt. Got the green. Rapidly released the clutch and twisted the throttle. Left everyone in the dust. Haha suckers! Holy hell did I have the need for speed! Yet it wasn’t fast enough. Each light I caught, I did my best launch, and it was never fast enough to satisfy my needs. Light after light, launch after launch, it simply wasn’t enough for me!
I came to the conclusion that I had caught up the Marauder’s capabilities and needed to modify the engine. I had read that it was only 49 horsepower from an 805cc engine. 805cc’s works out to 49 cubic inches, so at 49 horsepower, we’re talking 1960’s muscle car specific output. One horsepower per cubic inch. That was amazing thirty years prior to this Suzuki’s existence, but not now. The high-performance standard in the 1990’s was 100 horsepower per liter, which translated to about 1.6 horsepower per cubic inch.
The Marauder was clearly lacking, but it’s not like Suzuki couldn’t do better. For example, the 1997 Suzuki GSX-R750 sport bike that the San Fran’s Engineer owned made 128 horsepower from 46 cubic inches. That’s an incredible 2.8 horsepower per cubic inch. Suzuki clearly knew how to make power. So maybe I could extract more power from my Suzuki with upgrades to the camshafts, carburetors, intake and exhaust. I would have to find a Suzuki motorcycle dealer pronto to get those parts—and maybe pick up a little skid lid helmet too to reduce the stinky sock head smell. That’s what I was thinking at each disappointing green light launch.
Just wait ‘til I get those parts!
Yeah, getting those parts was a great idea. Then I had another even better idea dawn on me. That phrase “dump the clutch.” I’ve heard it all throughout my life. It was always used in stories about speed, and I clearly needed more speed. Okay, yes, this was the night to try that trick. But how exactly do you do it? I surmised that since no one had ever specifically told me how to do it, it must be simple. Self-explanatory in fact. Yeah, you rev the engine to the moon, and then you let the clutch lever just sort of flick out from underneath your fingers. Yeah, totally, that must be how you do it. I could do that.
I mean, I’ve simultaneously rapidly revved and released the clutch, kind of in a coordinated fashion, but I’ve never revved then dumped the clutch. I figured the main danger after dumping would be to the need to hold on for dear life. Should surely take off like a rocket and satiate my need for speed! Okay, well I was running out of lights left before the base. It was time. It was time to give it a shot as I was about three mere miles away from the Makalapa Gate.
I caught the light at Puuloa Road while in the center lane of Nimitz Highway. It was perfect because I was now under Interstate-grade freeway. Just think of the cacophony I’d produce under that overpass! Perfect! I was right in front with no one behind me, but there were, however, two cars on either side of me also waiting for the light. Just those two but no one else around.
I figured since there was no one behind me, once the light turned green, I’d wait for the cars on either side to drive off a bit before I did my dumping. After that little wait for safety’s sake, I’d dump that clutch! Then those two drivers would see me scream right between them a few seconds later. These people would no doubt be envious of me and my freedom. They were driving cars. What were they thinking!?! I’ll show them what they could have been riding instead of driving, and how much fun they could been having. The most! The most fun you can have! You’d have to take your pants off to have more of it!
Got the green. I waited a bit for that safety margin. Once they were clear of the intersection, I figured that was a sufficient distance. It was time to do this. I revved the engine until all you could hear was glorious under-the-freeway thunder while holding onto the clutch lever with a single finger. Then I let it loose. That clutch lever snapped forward by releasing my single pointer finger like a little catch.
What happened next happened so quickly that I’m not entirely sure I can explain it. One second, I was in a middle lane by myself revving my Marauder, and then the second I lifted my finger, there was a huge bang and I was off the bike on the pavement in the left lane. I did in fact feel this ricochet, but my brain didn’t record all the visuals. It felt instantaneous. It felt like I had been released not from a slingshot this time, but that I was shot from a cannon right into something.
I really didn’t know how I ended up in the left lane, but the little white car that pulled over now had this fresh, dark black tire mark right on the bumper. Clearly, that was from my Marauder’s front tire. I had somehow bounced off that once pure white bumper of the sedan that I thought was a considerable distance ahead of me… and in a whole other lane. It didn’t make sense.
It was so confusing. Even the sedan driver seemed confused about the situation. I think perhaps he didn’t understand what had happened and for a while may have suspected that it was somehow his fault because he was so chill. It totally wasn’t his fault other than just being in my way, but I liked that he wasn’t yelling at me. His passenger went off to find a payphone. As we waited for the cops to arrive, we inspected our vehicles.
No damage to his other than the tire mark on his bumper. I lifted the Marauder off the pavement and rolled it over to his car. To my amazement, the only damage was that I shaved down the 1950’s style Marauder badge on the left side of the fuel tank. It was cheap plastic. No other damage. That was a relief. Just had to add the badge to the list of parts to order when I found the Suzuki dealer.
The sedan owner and I pieced together what happened, and since he didn’t want the insurance companies involved, he asked if I’d mind paying him in cash to get the bumper painted. I agreed, and we exchanged numbers. The only thing I worried about after our agreement was the police. I concocted a story in my head. The cause of the accident, the lack of a license, and the drinks I had… it all had to be explained.
The cop who came by was a Hawaiian native (as opposed to one of those ex-military, island hanger-arounder white boys). The kama’aina officer was about as friendly as one could possibly hope for. He definitely had the Aloha Spirit. But he was a cop after all, and there were questions to ask. (Even paradise has paperwork.) First the cause of the accident. I told him that the clutch lever slipped out from my fingers, which was technically true, but then I added some misdirection to that statement so that it didn’t appear intentional:
“I hate these stupid gloves the Navy makes me wear to get onto base! I can’t feel anything with them on!”
That was also technically true, but it had nothing to do with the incident. Fortunately, it appeared to me that it appeared to him that I appeared sincere. No tickets issued. Not even one for not having a motorcycle license. He was perfectly okay with my NYS motorcycle learner’s permit, and I didn’t even have to try to explain that one away. Perhaps the rules for Hawaiian permit holders permitted nighttime rides without a hotdog loving supervisor around. That was fortunate.
But most fortunate was that he didn’t even ask if I had been drinking. I suppose I didn’t give him any reason to suspect alcohol was involved. No slurring or swaying. Because if he asked, I would have told him that I had in fact consumed a few beers… and who knows where that would have led?
“Yes, but I have a Navy-issued BAC card.”
“And you were following it?”
“Yes I was… <mumble quickly under my breath> …until I wasn’t.”
But he didn’t ask about the booze thankfully. I do think that had he have been behind me to witness exactly what had happened and the instantaneous violence involved in making the whole thing happen, he would have cuffed and stuffed me right into the back of his cruiser regardless of how much Aloha Spirit he had.
Yet arriving on scene much later, the only evidence available to ascertain exactly what had happened was my seemingly undamaged Marauder and the little white Toyota Corolla with a fairly thin, tire-sized black scuff mark on the corner of the bumper. No big deal really. The officer would just have to prepare some of paradise’s paperwork to offer up to the gods and move along after offering some advice.
“You should get proper set of gloves and be more careful when riding.”
“Yes sir! Will do sir!”
“Alright, you have a nice night and ride home safely.”
Yes. Ride home safely. Just going to have a nice, slow and safe ride home while contemplating what had just happened. Oh yeah, there were a lot of things to think about in that two or three mile slow and safe ride back to base. Definitely, be more careful when riding in the future. No more clutch dumping for sure! Lesson learned!
You know, maybe those pencil neck pricks back in New York were onto something with that whole motorcycle supervisor thing. One of those may have prevented me from trying this stupid experiment. Then again, knowing my peers, perhaps I would have been given some encouragement.
“Don’t be a pussy! Just rev it and dump the clutch! Do it! Do it now! Be a man! Relax, it’ll be fine. Then we’ll go grab some hotdogs.”
Okay, maybe the self-selected motorcycle supervisors wouldn’t have saved me from this incident. But maybe the pencil neck pricks of the Navy were onto something with their safety course. Maybe there was part of the class that would have let me practice launching like a lunatic safely in some parking lot.
Then again, probably not. I would be asking them to show me how to ride unsafely safely. They probably discourage riding in such a manner, so I’d still have to figure it out all on my own. Yeah, those pricks wouldn’t have prevented this incident either. Hmm… Maybe listening to my Captain would have however? I could hear him saying it:
“Nothing good comes from excessive drinking.”
Yes, of course. But was one drink beyond my Navy-issued BAC card limit excessive? Well, I think the fact that I just had a brush with the law along with the other fact that I was now on the hook for getting some random guy’s bumper repainted would indicate yes, one drink over the limit does in fact constitute excessive drinking.
I mean, I liked to ride fast and accelerate as quickly as possible, and nothing was going to change that, but holy hell, I was simply insatiable from the moment I left the bar. Just too much. I think it was the way the alcohol removes one’s inhibitions. While I had been bargaining for beer at the bar, I was actually thinking that I didn’t know which drink would be the one that makes everything seem like a good idea. This fifth beer may very well have been the one that said,
“No! It’s not a good idea to dump the clutch! It’s a GREAT idea! Do it! Do it now! Don’t be a pussy! And don’t even worry about the hotdog.”
And then BAM! I torpedo bomb a Toyota. Fucking fifth drink! You’re excessive! You’re nothing good! I didn’t know it as I was riding back to base, but once the guy called me about a week later, I’d find out that this little bumper bashing paint job would set me back three hundred dollars. Three hundred dollars for that little smudge! Could you imagine telling me that at the bar while bargaining, that one more four-dollar drink would actually cost me three hundred fucking dollars? That’s the same amount as one Treasure hour! I most definitely would NOT have had that fifth beer.
Still, I had gotten off easy when you think about it. I didn’t yet know the cost I was about to pay as I was rolling into the Makalapa Gate, so at that point, I just felt really, really stupid about the whole situation. I felt that I could no longer trust myself to limit my drinking when riding. And I felt that this night, riding a motorcycle certainly was not the most fun I could have had with my clothes on. No way! But when you consider me hitting that car and picking myself off the pavement, it actually could have been much, much worse.
I mean, could you just imagine if I had been naked?
_________________________________________________________________________
COPYRIGHT © 2023 FULLOFSEAMEN.COM
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
(THIS INCLUDES THE RIGHT TO POST NAKED PHOTOS OF YOU ON THE INTERNET IF YOU USE MY MATERIAL WITHOUT PERMISSION.)