(P.S.: No thanks to my guy friends, "Ace" and "Gary", who were present during the BETAing and kept saying 'A story narrated by a motorcycle? How stupid! You should read my story about God dropping acid!')
Hello. My name is--well, actually, I have no name. You see, I am not truly one being, all on my own. I am an extension. An extra arm, almost, even though I am not biological.
I am a machine. I few pieces of metal, put together by one man, created out of love.
By that I do not mean I am a rat bike, one of the mismatched, ugly Harleys whose owners decided to simply put together any cheap parts that bit, no matter how unappealing to the eye. Jamie, my Jamie, would never create something like that (an eyesore so horrible many Harley riders wince at the sight) even though he does ride a dirt bike, a whiny, annoying creation barely better than any common rat.
I, however, as I have been told, am a beauty, a classic. It makes me happy when someone says that, not because I am proud of my own looks, but because when someone compliments me, it makes Jamie happy, makes him feel like all the hard work he put into me, searching for my parts, polishing me, and so on, went to good use. I am happy when he is, and he when I. You see, I have a bit of his soul. Or he has a bit of mine. I am not sure. All I know is that together, we make one being. Not a man and his motorcycle, oh no. We are one wild, free spirit, forged out love for the open road and a quest for curves (even though I long for the curves of a mountain road, while he for the curves of a woman. Roads and women are not all that different, I suppose. Both bring the promise of new adventure, both make one feel more alive).
It saddens me when he must go to work and ride in that huge truck with it's four wheels, and it's giant doors looking like a creature of a nightmare, wanting to gobble you up and never let you see the light of day again, never let you hear the song of the road, never to let you sing along with it. I do not understand how Jamie can stand it, or how he can stand the other EMTs.
They do not share Jamie's road-lore. They are cold and impersonal, never appreciating the feel of a purring motor, my motor, as they always keep it locked up under a hood. They are like the cold seats of a car, cooled by a faulty air-conditioner, never offering the ride a bit of warmth or comfort. They care only that they get to their destination, and never stop to love the road and it's journey. Instead, it is more that she is not a
Caitie is a different story. She seems to be an extenstion of Jamie, too, though not in the same shared-soul sense as I. Instead, it is more that she is not a not-Jamie, like the EMTs, but rather a like-Jamie, and so, I am bonded to her happiness and her sorrow, I am thrilled when she strokes my metal skeleton.
Caitie loves the human half of my soul. I know this because when she rides on me, she is not content to lean back and relax, but rather holds on to Jamie, putting less pressure on me than she does by her smaller hands putting pressure on every bit of Jamie she can. And Jamie loves her, as well. This I am sure of, for when she is riding with us, even through downtown traffic or through school slow zones, his touch is as light and full of glee as it is when we are winding free down country side roads.
I am not jealous of Caitie, for I am part of both of them. I thrive on the love born between the two. The only time I have not been glad for Jamie was when she was dating Bobby. She displeased me. I never trusted her to begin with, for she never consented to ride my soft leather seat, instead perferring to ride her own lifeless Kawasaki. I have nothing against the women he dates riding motorcycles, but when she prefers a bike manufactured in a factory halfway across the world over a completly restored (a 5 year project, I might add) 1957 Sportster, now that's just unacceptable. Even if Jamie hadn't spent so much time on me, I'm still a Harley. And a Harley always beats a Kawasaki, no matter what.
Besides that, she deeply hurt Jamie. One time he rode me to meet her. When he left her house, he rode in my seat heavily, depressed and melancholy.
Even so, I know he never truly loved her, not the way Jamie loves Caitie. The size of the smile when he's around her is a dead giveaway.
Jamie and I together are one, and Caitie is our companion, closer than the wind is to rain, or the plant is to Earth. With Caitie, Jamie soars. We are the Masters of Road, never content, never stopping, and above all, never looking back, for we always are looking for the next adventerous path.