I had foolishly agreed to take a work colleague to a Harley rally. He had bored me to death with tales of life aboard a CB350K4, a ridiculously popular motorcycle in the seventies in the States, and I had finally given in. Brief excursions between low dives and my apartment with women of dubious profession on the back had revealed the Pink Elephant as being unperturbed by the various contortions of its passengers, so I was not too worried about its ability to do the 200 mile run.
Things started to go wrong when I turned up in suburbia. I had spent the morning rolling about in mud and tearing holes in my leather jacket and denim jeans to get them in a state that would be acceptable to the lads from hell. My companion (I use that word in the loosest sense) turned out of his palatial residence in dark pink two-piece leathers that were obviously brand new. Only the presence of his wife and three kids gave me reassurance as I tried to escape the attentions of a Dobberman in heat. I mean...
The Harley grumbled into life and I left the neighbourhood in a hurry. I had gotten used to the way the machine needed to be muscled into action and after spending too many hours watching cop shows had almost perfected the art of using the back brake to turn the bike through 180 degrees. I was less sure about bouncing the back end of the Harley into offending cars but anything was worth a try.
Traffic, for New York, was light, so I soon had the bastard up to an indicated 90mph, rolling along the gap between two rows of cars, occasionally using the pair of air horns I'd fitted to clear autos out of my path. I figured the only way to get my passenger some credibility was to make him shit himself; at least then the smell would be in order. Thus did the first 30 miles pass pleasantly enough.
I pulled over to fill up the tank and to assess the mental condition of my companion. He seemed happy enough, unfortunately, and muttered something about forgetting how much fun motorcycling could be. There wasn't even a light layer of dust over his shining leathers. The exit to the petrol station was blocked by lumbering station wagons so I took the Harley through some dirt and a huge puddle, ducking down so he'd get a face full of muck. The HD slid all over the surface and I wasn't impressed by it trail riding capabilities. I gave it enough stick in second to get the rear wheel round and then backed off. I did this trick a couple more times before we hit tarmac and I really opened her up.
Harley power delivery tends to be torque rather than rpm dictated and it sort of hits you gently in the stomach rather than trying to tear arms out of sockets. It's not as nice as a well set up Commando which does both at the same time, at least until the engine blow up on you, but it kind of grows on you and it's possible to understand why people like such antiquated motorcycles.
At the petrol station I'd bought a pint of whisky and had taken a few slugs to get myself in the mood. My passenger was a Mormon and had looked on disapprovingly but had held his tongue, much to my disappointment.
Away from New York the scenery had become disturbing, the heat hot and my passenger a little edgy. Perhaps it was just the way I kept digging out the bottle of whisky to take another slug every few miles. I occasionally took both hands off the bars and patted his knees reassuringly.
The Harley vibrated away, the mileometer clicked off the distance and I did battle with all manner of automobiles, taking great delight in cutting up huge artics that would swallow up and spit out the mere forty footers that wreck so much havoc on UK roads.
At the next petrol stop I had a problem with one of these truckers. This guy must have weighed at least 250lbs and he had loads of trouble getting himself out from behind the wheel of his hundred footer and waddling down the steps. He was out of breath by the time he grabbed hold of my jacket and pulled me clear of the bike, throwing me into one of the huge wheels of his vehicle.
Charmed by this quaint colonial method of greeting, I quickly reassured him that the blast on the air horns had merely been accidental and he could take as long as he liked to remove his vehicle from my path.
By the time he had got back into his cab I had removed a screwdriver and hammer from my toolroll and whacked the screwdriver into one of his tyres. I laughed hysterically as we roared away on the Harley, having dumped the toolroll into the lap of my passenger, whose expression had gone from that of astonishment to deep concern. Things were looking up.
Out on the freeway I let rip. See what the old girl could do. Not much, with 115mph on the clock she was all over the place, the tank was doing a good impression of coming unwelded and all my muscles were fit to collapse under the strain. Be a real man, I told myself, so held her open for the next sixty miles, when the bike went on to reserve again and I had to pull off to refuel. Fuel consumption was working out at about 35mpg!
The Mormon cleaved himself off the sparse seat and tried to stand upright. His eyes were bloodshot, his hands shaking and his voice was garbled. I handed him the bottle of whisky and he took a quick swallow. Things were improving, the pink leathers were even a little dimmed by some dust they'd picked up. As well as petrol I bought another pint bottle of whisky so that he could finish off the quarter full old one.
The next fifty miles were a real buzz. The road was deserted enough to really enjoy and I was just the right side of intoxication, where I was still, more or less, in control but did not have a worry in the world. Even a light rain storm did not perturb me, the more dirt and grime that descended upon us the better.
If riding around the Big Apple on an outrageously hued motorcycle had been a ball, doing the same amidst righteous brothers might not be such a piece of cake, the more obscured was the bike then the less likely was I to have my body stomped upon.
A terrible grating noise appeared from nowhere. At first I thought it was my passenger having some kind of fit but no such luck. I pulled over and it went away. Further examination revealed that the drive chain was shot, as in having lost half its rollers and being loose enough to pull free of the wheel sprocket. No one told me that you were supposed to carry a spare chain when you went out on a Harley outing. There was also a light spattering of oil over the engine and my boots.
I kicked the back tyre just to let it know who was in charge and left my companion with the whisky bottles and the machine whilst I hiked off to the nearest town, a mile or so distant, wrecked chain swinging before me in case someone tried to mug me and as a means of making sure I got the right length and size.
The whole place appeared to be populated by mentally deficient gorillas in human disguise, but I was eventually led to the back room of an auto repair shop where a length of chain was procured. The owner fingered the chain as if he couldn't decide whether or not to whip me with it, but in the end ownership of a Harley rather than some Jap crap saved the day; I forgot to mention its colour.
Back at the Harley, after much aggro threading the chain back on, it dawned on me that my companion had disappeared and that there were new tyre tracks left that looked like they belonged to some hundred ton monster truck like the one I'd rammed a screwdriver in. Full of visions of death and destruction I edged back on to the highway, scanning the ditches for a bloodied body. No such luck. Ten miles later the chain started graunching again, I had evidently been sold some lightweight rubbish that would barely manage to get me to my destination.
A field full of Harleys, stock, customized, wildly raked, lowered and sprayed, mostly running on open pipes and ridden by The Great Unwashed whose idea of fun appeared to be gang banging anything that showed signs of life until it didn't anymore.....more ganja than in a Laotian border field and these huge Mad Max types sniffing, snorting and smoking away like the end of the world was nigh and the police weren't wandering around with loaded shotguns.
Looked pretty good fun to me, anyway. Until my ersthwhile companion turned up. He was drunk out of his mind, supported by two dumpy blonds whose dress sense could've been called revealing if they hadn't been forty pounds overweight in all the wrong places. At least he'd had the decency to fall down in the local cesspit, if the smell was anything to go by.
I later learnt that he'd hitched a lift with a trucker rather than been beaten up. The last I saw of him that weekend he was being ushered into the bushes by the two blondes. By the end of the following week he had acquired his own Harley and some proper cut-offs and his wife refused to speak to me ever again.
Johnny Malone