Part III
"Not quite. In that moment, I had the vaguest glimpse of what life could be. For that brief moment my soul was free, but I didn't understand what it was. I looked at the world around me, ticking away like clockwork, everyone accepting it as it was, just falling into their place whether it made them happy or sad or mad. The only way a man to act out was to be a hypocrite, little woman at home, little woman on the side. Standing in front of the vicar saying his prayers the morning after he drank or gambled or whored his paycheck away. Or worse, the ones that did not act out. Wound so tight you could practically hear the gears spring if you rubbed 'em the wrong way, challenged their little preconceived notions."
I'm getting a speech, well prepared and probably performed numerous times, but his voice has taken on a biting edge, an honest anger and bitterness.
"Went for months thinking I was crazy." He continues, "The only one who was really seeing things for what they were, until I found other riders, others that had touched that dark dangerous moment and loved it as I did. And then a mate of shoved this beat up copy of "On The Road" into my hand."
"No going back then…"
He shakes his head as he tamps out the smoke, "Never, never. I was never much of a reader. No one ever expected it did they? Working class kid like me. But I finished that book in two days and just took off. Got on that old Enfield and rode, just rode, trying to wrap my head around it, the fullness of those intense moments. What it said life could be, should be. I was riding for three days before I actually picked my head up from the road and realized I had no idea where I was."
"And you realized that was o.k."
"Yes!" He leans forward eagerly, "Because I knew *who* I was. As long as you know that, where you are and more importantly, what people say you are doesn't matter. Sure I got a shyte job at the knackers. "Never get ahead in the world doing that, Ricky." the mundane plods say. But my mind is my own. I'm free to think every moment of the day as them, in their starched suits and mortgages, sitting at their desks from 8 to 6 shuffling papers to and fro, never will be."
"But in "On The Road" in the end Dean caves in and Sal bemoans growing old."
"You've read it?"
"I have to confess I have not, but several of my friends have, so I'm somewhat familiar with it."
"You have got to read that book."
"I will take that under advisement."
He sits back again, amused at my clear deflection of his authority. He's used to people doing what he says, but is not threatened by someone who does not. What refreshing moment that is, to encounter a man who is not put off by an independent woman and a person who actually practices what they preach.
"So what your story then?" he asks.
"Not much to tell really."
"Woman on her own, on a bike, an ocean way from home. I'd say there is something to tell."
"Home." I echo. "I'm not even sure what that means."
"They say it's where your heart is." he says flippantly.
"My heart is right here." I tap my chest, "Which means home is right here I guess. Still it would be nice to find someplace that felt…right."
"Oh, don't disappoint me, pet. You aren't looking for a house and yard and a pack of spoiled kids?"
I wave my hand up and down my boots, jeans, and flannel, no cosmetics, my hair yanked back into a braid, and ask incredulously, "Do I look like I'm cruising for a Mr.?"
He holds his hands up to fend me off, but I'm on a bit of a roll. "You sit there and bemoan the fate of men being locked down in society, what about women who've been raised to believe that the only worth they have to contribute is their husbands and their kids? You want to talk about trapped, just look at some of the women in those mortgaged houses. Can't even get a job without the neighbors looking at them cross eyed, "Dear me, Mrs. Smith is going to work. They must be in serious financial trouble!" Couldn't possibly be the Mrs. Smith just wanted a little bit of her own life."
"But isn't motherhood, finding a man to provide for you and give you kids, isn't that they way women are built?"
The old "Women are constructed to be traps" argument. Jesus.
"If women are all predestined to be mothers," I reply, "…then that would mean men are all predestined to be fathers. If we are to be limited by our genetic programming, then you have to have tons of kids all over the place and provide for *all* of them. Preferably by hunting mammoths. On foot. If you want freedom from the roles ordained by society for you, you have to give women the same freedoms."
He rolls that one around for a moment. "Alright. I apologize. I take it back."
"Hrm." say I, blatantly enjoying the shift in dominance in the conversation. "Just this once, I'll allow it."
The amused smirk is back. He's not giving an inch, but he's looking at me a little more seriously. I'm not just an audience anymore. I've given him something to think about and he actually likes it.
Very refreshing.
His friends are ready to leave and a couple of them come over to ask if he's coming.
"Go on. I'll catch up with you lot tomorrow. What?" he replies to the boy's "sophisticated knowing glance" in my direction. "I have nursemaid you every second of the day? Shove off!" But the smile is open and the banter friendly until the last one is out the door.
"They're young." I observe quietly.
"Yeah, kids mostly. Coming out of school with nothing to look forward to but barely scratching a living out of a dead end jobs, or landing in jail."
"And you give them a place to belong?"
He shrugs, "They need to know someone understands where they're coming from, that they don't have to take the bullshit the world says they have to. Encourage them to think for themselves."
I smile a bit as I consider just how much "thinking for themselves" they are doing under his dominating personality. There something more he's not telling, something else that makes his angry rejection of society so personal. Maybe he sees the question in my eyes when he turns the conversation back on me.
"So" He waves the empty cup at the proprietor. "You say you have no home, can you at least tell me where you are from?"
I tell him about the trees and rocks, rivers and ocean of Maine. I watch his eyes light up eagerly when I talk about the long open roads of the South West where the highway stretches out straight as an arrow for miles and miles and there is nothing but you and the bike and the road. I talk about the curving roads and gorgeous overlooks of the Blue Ridge mountains, rolling seas of green trees fading away into smoky blues. He counters with what he has seen riding up and down Britain, working odd jobs here and there, earning enough to get him to the next village or city. From the green fields of Kent to the rocky shores of his home.
"So in the end you came back."
"I was born here. It's in my blood and my bones and the grit in my nails. When I crossed back into the moors and it was like being purified, washed free of the muck I'd picked up along the way. It's as much a part of me as the bike is. It's open, like what you described in Arizona, but the road also has enough curves and tricks to keep you on your toes. You never get bored riding up here. You can master the road, but you can never be sure of it. But…" He sets his second cup of coffee down empty and stands "…if you like a view, you should come with me."