Several weeks ago while up at our home in Sukhothai I casually mentioned to Meow that her small motorbike might need replacing someday soon. Things like dependable breaks seem important to me. The small motorbike is a great way to get around – we have one both in Bangkok and Sukhothai. It's the transportation staple of Thailand. That same weekend we were at our friend Eddie's restaurant Chopper – and as you would guess he has a nice big chopper and a group of friends that ride their bikes together. Coming out of Chopper that night I admired the five or six big bikes parked outside, chrome glistening under the multi-colored kaleidoscope of lighting on the main drag of Sukhothai. These two comments, dropped without a thought, mere idle chatter with Meow were it turns out seeds that took root in her impulsive nature and sprang forth on my next visit.
The morning after we arrived she took me around the side of the house; under the lean-to garage, next to the old yellow motorbike, was another motorcycle under an worn sheet. While hidden I could see the tire – too large and fat for the putt-around around motorbikes we have. Off the sheet comes and there in polished black and chrome is a chopper. Maybe a chopper-lite would be a more accurate description. None the less looking at this apparition, the last thing I expected to see, a surge of emotions came over me. The first was the fiscal irresponsibility – something Meow is doing better at but this seemed a serious bit of backsliding, but as I turned to her and tried to summon up a stern lecture from deep inside my adult-self I was met with that devilish smile and a look of utter satisfaction with what she had done. Defeated in the blink of an eye I turned back and looked again, trying to adjust my self-image to this change in circumstance.
Meow dashed off to school and later that morning I hop on my new toy and head out of town. Feeling ever more confident I open the throttle and watch the flooded rice fields and small homes sail by as I fly down the road, wide open on top of the low rumble turned to roar, cheating instant death in the present moment of today. I am free.
My mid-life crises now in full bloom we meet up at Eddie's Chopper Bar that night and now as part of the biker brotherhood we were seated with his friends who it turns out are meeting before a ride to a biker event later that evening. Eddie gives me an official black t-shirt of the club, we drink a little, eat some and then with about six or seven of us we crank them up and take off in a pack. A few kilometers out of town we come to a park were several hundred bikers have assembled, there are vintage bike clubs, moped clubs, small scoter clubs and the big, big hog clubs. We eat and drink a little more (with caution thinking about the drive home). It's a fun group – some with little kids, all having fun and welcoming me. There is a live band – I think we will have something like this at our wedding.
Of course this is a dangerous thing – figuratively and literally. One doesn't have to be much of a material man to see that the other bikes are bigger than mine. To admire the power, to wonder what it is like to have a real chopper, to imagine rolling across the countryside with a pack of others – deafening roar reverberating against my heart. Meow thinks she should keep the small one and I should get a full on big one. I guess that is something to consider – along with a tattoo. The possibilities are endless.
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