*note: in preparation for NaNoWriMo, I’m dusting off some old stories that need work and writing some of the new ones that have been itching to get out. I need to practice if I’m going to attempt to write 50,000 words in one month.
Jack picks me up after 9. He’s running an hour late, which is better than his usual 90 minutes. The irritation in my throat rises, but I swallow it down and grin widely. It’s not a night for arguments.
Summer in the Carolinas is humidity-fueled heat by day, cooler breezes and pollen at night. My hands have been shaking all night because I haven’t eaten. I’m in a state where a glass of wine could calm me, but my county is dry and I don’t feel like driving 20 minutes to Mecklenburg. Jack blows into my house smelling like pine, smoke and wood. I’m already dressed as appropriately as I can for where we’re going. Even though it’s still a balmy 82 degrees out, I’m wearing my heaviest pair of jeans, socks and boots, and a leather jacket from college. It barely fits. I’ve pinned my unkempt hair with a tiny barrette to keep it off my face. I’m wearing no makeup and I suddenly feel incredibly exposed, even with the layers of clothing making me sweat and squirm.
Jack does his usual, which includes a quick hug that feels more like he’s strangling me and the jovial, brotherly slap on the back. He doesn’t know his own strength and usually ends up delivering a bruise or two before our evenings conclude.
“Sorry I’m late,” he huffs, and I just nod. I feel my eyes begin to roll, but I command them to pay attention and stay focused straight ahead. He pulls a helmet from a pack and lobs it through the air at me. Normally graceless, I am lucky and manage to catch it before it hits the tiled floor. “So what’s up?” he says as I struggle to put the helmet on.
“Not much,” I respond, muffled by the visor. He grows impatient, watching me fumble with the straps. He slaps my hands away and deftly tightens them under my chin. He bumps the back of my helmet with this palm, as if to say, “Let’s go”. I shake more vigorously. “Ready,” I say, and move toward the front door.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jack entered my life much like he did everything else: loudly, expectantly, and somewhat rudely. I was climbing a new route on King’s Mountain and having trouble getting a foothold in the slippery rock. Jack was with a group of loud boys, but despite their volume, they were much better climbers than me or my friends. Jack stood right next to my belayer and began shouting orders to me. “No, not that place. Look to your left. If you put both your toes on that lip, you’ll reach that ledge up there. See?” Admittedly he had some good advice, but my legs were already shaking and no amount of chalk could keep the sweat from my fingers. A spider darted out from behind a loose rock and that was it for me. “Falling,” I yelled, and my belayer quickly picked up the slack in the rope so I hung like an overstuffed piñata 10 feet above their heads.
I heard Jack’s barking laugh and felt the heat in my cheeks that either signifies embarrassment or anger. I slowly dropped to the ground and kicked off my climbing shoes, and shot him a glare.
“No, I wasn’t laughing at you. But the look on your face when you let go - well, it was just funny,” he cackled.
‘It was a damn spider, and I don’t like them.” I spat. “By the way, who ARE you?”
Introductions were made. He was climbing with three friends, me with four. We all came from various areas around Charlotte. He’d been climbing for 3 years - me, just finishing my first. He asked if I minded him taking a shot at my route, and I made some comment along the lines of, “I don’t own the mountain. Go for it, Mr. Mountain Master.”
Climb he did. He made everything look effortless, like he could be smoking a cigarette with one hand, reading a book with the other, and telling a joke. He climbed like he talked - cocky, self-deprecating, and beautiful. He blew past my sticking point and made it to the top, then jumped back into his harness to be lowered down. “That part was a bit dicey,” he said, but I knew he was just trying to make me feel better.
Later, after I’d finally conquered the route and one of my friends had twisted an ankle hiking to the next climb, we sat down together in a group and shared beers and trail mix. 7 pairs of climbing shoes sat precariously close to the edge, getting a perfect view of the valley. We sat in the sun and smoked, talked about the climbing gyms in Charlotte, where we worked, and what kind of music makes the best background for a solo climb. Jack stared at me unapologetically. When I met his eyes, I was nervous and agitated. He annoyed me. But he was whip-smart, so I kept talking to him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Of course, Jack drives an old pickup truck. It’s dented and rusted, and the inside smells like 10 wet dogs and something else, like a camping trip or rainwater. A hint of his soap hangs in the torn fabric. I ride around with him that summer, mostly quiet, listening to his soundtrack and trying to figure out what it says about him. He’s intense and asks me lots of questions. Sometimes I feel like I am a bone, buried deep in the ground, and he is a frantic dog, digging and digging until he roots me out. Rapid-fire questions about childhood, men, my friends, my intellect, my fear of spiders and my love of rocks. He reads heady, intellectual stuff, a lot of it about Buddhism. He tries to explain it to me but I often grow bored and start spinning my own stories in my head. He sometimes notices that I’ve tuned out, but it just makes him try harder. “Seriously. You have to listen to this. It’s amazing.” I nod my head and try again. He makes me feel smart, but follows it up by reminding me I’m actually quite stupid in his brash way. “I can’t believe you haven’t read this already. Where have you been?” Chastised, I look out the open window at a meadow full of flowers and bees, and tell myself to be more disciplined.
Jack’s truck is a way to get places when it rains or sleets. Any other time, he’s on his bike. It’s a nice bike, primarily because he constantly works on it. We’ve been riding it whenever the weather permits or he gets the inclination, which is frequently. The first time I rode, he asked me if I wanted to go to South Carolina with him. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I said yes because it was Friday, warm, and I had nothing better to do than to try to read Buddhist literature I didn’t understand.
I didn’t realize he had a bike until I heard it in the driveway. I thought perhaps Jack was asking me out on a date; I wasn’t really sure where we stood. Normal dates in Charlotte consisted of freshly washed sedans, pressed khakis and various expectations. When he blew through my front door, he had a helmet on and another one in his hand. “Put it on,” he commanded, “But you won’t need it for long.” Normal dates in Charlotte did not normally involve a motorcycle, a helmet (god forbid you muss your hair!) or a guy who didn’t act chivalrous, at least on the surface.
He didn’t ask if I liked to ride or if I was nervous. He just pointed at the bike, got on it, and motioned for me to join him. The last ride I’d taken was with a hardcore Objectivist follower in college; he had tried to talk during the trip and kept looking back at me. I dug my nails into my palms and couldn’t wait to be rid of him or the Rush he constantly played - being that Rush was the only “true Objectivist band”.
I wasn’t sure what made South Carolina a motorcyclist’s version of heaven, but I found out.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Now, our motorcycle expeditions are more frequent. They are not “dates”, but they are intimate nonetheless. It’s hard not to be when you are pressed against each other, in the dark, going fast and balancing together. There is no small talk - it’s too loud for that. Our close physical proximity to one another makes it feel like marriage without an engagement. Tonight, he takes a different route. As if on cue, the clouds part and the moon spills its light on us. We’re close to South Carolina - you can almost smell the poverty and trailers near the state line.
He pulls over on the side of the road and removes his helmet. I do the same, and shove them into a bag. We don’t speak. I throw my leg up and over the bike after he gets on, and we take off. South Carolina has no helmet laws, lots of bumpy, dilapidated roads, and plenty of wide open spaces. It’s a real fantasy for the irresponsible and foolish, of which we are both.
I haven’t had a haircut in two years because I am poor and I like the way my hair feels on the back of my neck. Now, it feels like the air is going to rip my hair from the roots and toss it into the earth. Jack’s got short hair and it barely moves. I put my face between his shoulder blades and feel his bones. I turn my head so my right ear rests against him, tighten my grip around his waist, and use him as a shield against the wind. All around me, I hear insects buzzing, occasionally hitting us as we speed down another nameless country road.
We pull off again, near a pasture that has been abandoned. The weeds are burgeoning and the skeletons of rusted farm equipment look beautiful instead of scary. That is the wonder and magic of moonlight. We wander around, but I can’t help thinking about ticks and the one that crawled up my leg last summer. Suddenly Jack is right behind me, his hands on my shoulders. For once he isn’t rough, and he turns me toward him. I fully expect him to say something like, “You really need better boots if we’re going to keep doing this”, but he doesn’t. He kisses me, in a friendly, light, teasing way. He puts his palms on my collarbones and gives me a tiny shove. It’s over before I can react. He saunters back to the bike, and cocks his head to the side. He’s waiting for me, but I’m stubborn and I take my time picking the flattest route back to the still-warm bike seat. By the time I do, I have regained my aloof approximation of composure.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
My hair is whipped into the white-girl approximation of dreadlocks. I’m fairly certain there are bugs strangled by the strands, and I’ll be brushing it out for 20 minutes when I get home. At the moment, though, I don’t care. Jack is warm and I can feel him breathing against me as he goes faster. I don’t want him to stop and I realize my hands are cold, but it’s distant, like someone else’s body. I hold myself more tightly against him, and put one hand over the other to get the blood flowing again. Later, I will understand the reasons the moonlight looked so perfect, why I could literally feel the vibrations of the insects in the trees, or how the smells of that night burned themselves into my brain – the smell of peace, of contentment. In the moment, I breathe out and feel suspended. There are no cars in view, no airplanes above. Jack keeps driving south, halfway to Columbia, and I don’t care. Go farther, I urge him silently. I dig my heels into the side of the bike and squeeze with my thighs, the old memories of urging a horse faster coming back to me. The bike feels like the smoothest canter. I sniff the air like a dog and breathe deeply. I close my eyes and concentrate on leaning as Jack leans, curve after curve, burning through miles like lemonade on the hottest day.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Later, I will learn that Jack is actually kind of a jerk with a mild tendency toward alcohol-induced arguments. There will be scenes in parking lots, and a particularly memorable shouting match at the base of a mountain in Georgia. There will be a time when he becomes so frustrated with me, he will actually throw his climbing shoes at me and I will laugh hysterically until I cry and come dangerously close to wetting myself. The shoes will miss me and roll down a large hill, and he will spend the next 30 minutes cursing me and the mountain because he’s covered in briars on his retrieval mission. There will be camping trips and one “vacation”, all of them disastrous. We will spend our time together pushing every button the other has, over and over again, each time a little harder than the last. Eventually we will break each other, and not speak, just to spend hours composing angry letters that are dropped on our respective doorsteps or mailed.
In the heat of the anger and dismay and disappointment, I will go back to our dark rides and think about the tenuous connection we had with each other before we opened our mouths. I will be both saddened and amused that our most intimate and connected moments with each other happened when we couldn’t speak, or when Jack’s back was turned to me. With my hands on his waist and my hair blinding me, being smacked with lightning bugs and moths, in the bowels of South Carolina, we were more together than any other time. It was in those long silences with only the music of the engine to soothe us that we liked each other enough to be close, without armor, barbed words, or sarcastic insults. The helmets came off, and we simply rode, directionless and without intent, those evenings a study in the perfection of wind and noise.
