Motorcycle

leonotron

THE MOTORCYCLE LAY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POND; this was fact and this was legend. How it came to be there was open to speculation, for neither the motorcycle nor the pond was property of anyone remembered.

The pond, sinister, leech-mucky, and bottomless with sludge, beckoned with dragonflies, jumping fish, and a weeping willow. It sung, it sang, it lived a whole life; things fell beneath its surface, and if they returned, they were changed.

Some days after school, Dale Roberts took his little brother, Davey, to the pond. Davey had a sack of things he brought each time: salt for the leeches that he and his friends enjoyed watching shrivel and die, a jar for caught frogs, the head of a hammer, some string, baseball cards, and an amount of money never totaling more than seventy-five cents. Davey was eight.

Dale was seventeen, and he carried less and carried more. Mostly what he brought to the pond was a book and an itch. He had grown suddenly, and he studied his hands and feet, surprised they were his. He stood loose-limbed, lackluster, his sight black from thinking too hard. Sometimes some thought about his potential would catch in his throat, and he'd feel in his gut and his groin that the right thing could lift him up, could carry him skimming high above the surface of things, far closer to the fluid ceiling of sky than the drab, stained ground beneath his shoes. These thoughts left him giddy and got him nowhere. He knew he had the power within himself to make things happen, but no one around him, except maybe Davey, believed the same. And Davey didn't know anything. Dale told his dad about his wish for a motorcycle so he could ride really fast. His dad said the only place he was going fast was juvey hall if he didn't straighten up and fly right.

Davey's friends liked Dale, even when he called them little ****s and threatened to mess with their plots and master plans. Occasionally he was affable and could be talked into helping, allowing the boys to order him around, dragging logs for improbable structures, retrieving balls from cattails at the water's edge, boosting them into trees and then getting them down. Sometimes he was sullen and uncooperative, resentful of his role as baby-sitter and sick to death of everything, especially the crowing and bragging of a bunch of little boys. On those days, he ignored them, flipping through the Guide to British Motorcycles that he'd lifted from the Train Hill Public Library, imagining which model was at the bottom of the pond.

His dad had a bike, a tricked-out Kawasaki Dale wasn't allowed to touch. His mother drove a station wagon, and his stepfather had a **** American compact he drove to work. Dale wanted the motorcycle from the bottom of the pond more than he wanted a girl or a dog or money to spend. He wanted it because no one else wanted it, and when he had it, he was sure his life would be different. Increasingly, he sensed there was something for which he needed to be prepared, as if the razor buzz of the insects and the high-pitched calls of the younger boys were warnings of impending doom. He only had to get it out, retrieve the motorcycle from the pond, and he was sure to be transformed and protected.

There was a girl, but his occasional encounters with her left him feeling as though he'd been to a foreign movie. He'd been to one once, walking out of the theater imagining he could speak French, only he could not. Her name was Hart. Her name was really something else, but she had changed it. Sometimes she followed Dale and Davey to the pond, toting a large brocade bag that held her world of cosmetics, cheat sheets, gum, and phone numbers. Their relationship amounted to long kisses lying in the grass until one of them got up and walked away feeling disoriented or until Davey and his friends interrupted, howling their disgust. Hart was given to saying mysterious things like "if I live that long" or "in a past life." She pointed out graveyards and high places to fall from. She cut the front of her hair short, left the back long. She liked to talk about sexy things--not sex, but things that "got her."

She described for Dale a television show on which a man and a woman who didn't know each other well were having a conversation and, out of nowhere, the man put his hand under the belt of the woman's dress and pulled her toward him for a kiss that ended in lovemaking. Dale thought because she told him this story several times, that perhaps she wanted him to do this, but she never wore dresses. Her clothes were baggy, shapeless, much like his own. Finally, when she referred to the story yet again, he asked if this was what she wanted, and she said, "That's kind of the point." Then she blushed so hard they both looked away.

But Hart was just a distraction, a confusion, and Dale left her out of things when she wasn't around. He didn't add her into his plans, his plan.

One day he walked into the pond while Hart and the boys watched. A gauzy net of green covered the pond's surface and moved as he moved. The water was warm and then it was cold. He waded as far as he could, then dove. It was too dense to see through. He came up and dove again. The pond wasn't deep. With effort, he was able to touch the bottom, except that the bottom moved, slipped from him, was not solid. He dove again, this time brushing against something three-dimensional--in fact, banging his shin against a sharpness as he pushed for the surface.

He let out a whoop and swam to where he could walk. "It's down there," he shouted. "Goddamn, it's down there." He examined his leg, but there wasn't any proof of his contact. "I felt it," he said. And then with less confidence, "****, how am I going to get it out?" The little boys jumped up and down, arguing over who got the first ride. Dale was elated that what he coveted had substance, that it was palpable, that it felt like something. He grinned.

Bud, one of Davey's friends, had a father with an old pickup truck, and Dale and Davey walked Bud home that night and stood in the kitchen, where Dale asked to borrow the truck, the exhilaration he had felt at the pond suddenly leaving him as he stared at the brick-tile floor, mumbling his request.

Bud's mother invited them to sit and eat supper. Dale didn't want to. He couldn't tell if he was getting the truck or not, and he wasn't sure what was polite to say, because all he wanted was an answer to his question. He remained standing in the middle of the kitchen. Davey, already seated at the table, looked at Bud's plate, then shook his head.

"Say, 'No, thank you,'" Dale admonished his brother, adding, "Sorry, I'm pretty damp. I think we'll just go home." He shifted in his clothes, which grew stiff and cold. "Sorry we bothered you," he said after a minute in which no one had spoken.

"Well, now," said the father, "if that thing's really down there, you know it's a complete piece of junk." He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes as he spoke.

"It's down there," Dale said. "I saw it."

"You didn't see it," Bud said.

"Yes, he did," Davey said and elbowed his friend.

Dale told Davey to hush. But Davey ignored him, continuing to argue with Bud. Dale took a step forward and yanked Davey up from the table. "Be quiet," he said and held him by the arm.

Davey pulled away and straightened his clothes, frowning at his brother but not saying anything.

"I know it's there," Dale said. It was hard for him, but he looked right at the man as he spoke. He was now standing inches from the table, and Bud's mother lifted a plate of crescent rolls toward him. He shook his head, annoyed at the distraction.

"Say, 'No, thank you,' Dale," Davey said from behind him.

The man smiled, saying, "People been saying there's a motorcycle in that pond since I was your age." Examining the slightly bent tine of his fork, he added, "Goddamn Loch Ness monster's what it is."

"Dad," said Bud. "Dad, did you see it?"

"See what, Bud?"

"Did you see the monster?" The younger boys were wide-eyed.

Dale stared at the man. He felt as if he were putting his shoulder to some large object, a refrigerator or a piano. "The motorcycle's down there," he said again.

The man swept a roll through the gravy on his plate. Davey and Bud laughed, making noises like monsters.

"Thanks anyways," Dale said, turning to leave.

"You come by on Saturday and you can have that truck," said the father, tossing his napkin on the plate and leaning back in his chair. "You run into trouble, son, and you're responsible, whatever that means. You understand?"

"Yes, sir, I do," Dale said. He ran his hand through his hair, trying hard to seem trustworthy. "I'll take good care of it. I promise." He had a feeling in him that was half crazy, half scared, and it was hard to contain. He felt that if he didn't get out of the kitchen quick, the glassware might start breaking.

"Since when don't you like meat loaf?" he asked his brother walking home.

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"Did you see it?" said Davey, zigzagging as he walked. "It had green things in it."

The week went slow. Dale dreamed he was riding the bike at high speed. He kept bending down to read the make and model, but he couldn't make sense of the words. Davey had a cold and wasn't allowed to go out, so Dale didn't even go to the pond and instead spent his afternoons lying on his bed, holding the telephone receiver while Hart talked on the other end.

Saturday morning Dale woke up not with the anticipation he'd expected but with worry and a dark heart. He'd dreamed that he was diving to the motorcycle, only it was Hart. Her clothes floated in the water. "Pull them off," she said through air bubbles, but when he did, she laughed and disappeared.

Davey wandered into his room to ask if this was finally the day, and Dale snapped at him, saying he wasn't allowed to go along.

Davey positioned himself carefully on the edge of Dale's bed. "You said I could. I'm going to help. I'm not sick anymore. And my friend Jesse's got a chain."

"He does?" Dale sat up on his elbows. "What kind of a chain?" Davey smelled like maple syrup, and Dale thought of the pancake races he used to have with his dad, trying to finish their stacks before his mom put the next pile on the plate. Anymore he didn't eat breakfast.

"From an anchor." Davey inched a little farther onto the bed, his feet no longer touching the floor.

"An anchor--what does that mean? What kind of an anchor?"

"I don't know," Davey said. "It's really heavy, and he's bringing it in a wagon."

"Oh, great." Dale fell back in the bed and gave his brother a shove with his feet. "A ****ing parade."

"You're not supposed to swear." Davey got off the bed and stood looking over Dale. "It's bad," he said.

"Oh, my God," Dale said crossly. "Go watch cartoons."

Davey left, but halfway down the stairs he yelled back up, "Dale?"

"What?" He was staring at his alarm clock, watching the numbers flip.

"Tell me when we're going, okay?"

"Okay," Dale replied, pulling the covers over his shoulders and closing his eyes.

The weather was clear that afternoon. He and Davey got the truck, and Davey and Bud huddled in the back, pretending to be snipers shooting at passing vehicles as they trundled toward the pond, first on blacktop, then gravel, dirt, and finally the weedy, whorly grass of the pond's perimeter. Davey's friend Jesse arrived on foot, dragging the ship's chain in a wagon. Hart appeared in sunglasses, accompanied by a girlfriend with a black scarf around her throat.

Dale had brought some rope he'd purchased and two different padlocks, although he wasn't sure what for. Hart had the pink, dimpled comforter off her bed. She sat with her friend, looking at a dream dictionary she'd talked Dale into buying for her one night at the grocery store. Her friend picked at a scab. Davey, Bud, and Jesse admired the chain and then began wrestling. Dale stood squinting at the pond.

He had no idea what to do. He didn't want to swim in carrying the chain, and he wasn't completely sure how he was going to hook it to the bike or the truck. Looking around, he wished that all these people weren't included, and he dove into the water as much to get away from them as to get the bike.

He tried to calculate where it was in the pond that he had encountered the motorcycle, but when he dove he found nothing. The first few times he surfaced, his audience stood attentively at the edge of the pond, the young boys at the ready to attack the leeches. Eventually they began to lose interest. Bud and Jesse went to climb a tree; the girls went back to the comforter and lay in the sun laughing. Only Davey remained, standing just at the edge of the water, watching Dale dive and surface.

"I can't ****ing see," Dale yelled, flailing toward the shore, his shirt and hair clinging to his skin as if in last resort. "I can't see for ****."

Davey's friends came running. "I have to be home by four o'clock," Jesse said. "I'm going to my grandma's."

"Okay," Dale said, wiping his face on his arm.

"I have to take the chain with me," Jesse added.

"Okay," Dale said again, staring at the pond. Hart and her girlfriend were folding up the comforter.

"I have to know when it's almost four o'clock. I can't be late."

"Then get a ****ing watch," Dale hissed.

The younger boy looked surprised but stood his ground. "You're supposed to know."

"What?" Dale said, water flying from him as he turned back toward the boy. "What am I supposed to know? I'm supposed to know your schedule? I'm supposed to be interested in your little **** life? You want me to tell you when to go home? I'd say you better get going. If I were you, I'd start running."

"Lighten up, Dale," Hart shouted, stuffing things into her bag.

Dale looked at her fiercely, thinking that the bike was somewhere in the pond and that if he found it, he didn't need a chain to pull it out, and he definitely didn't need a pink comforter,

either. He waded back into the water, waving over his shoulder as Hart announced that she and her friend were leaving.

"Call me?" she yelled at him. And again when he didn't respond, "Call me, Dale?"

"I'll call you," he said and dove.

He tried for the rest of the afternoon. Davey sat, offering nothing in the way of conversation, until Dale emerged, breathing heavily and coughing. In fact, he was crying, but only a little, and passed off the tears as water from the pond.

"****," he said, flopping to the ground. "I can't find it."

"I can draw a map and mark off the places it's not." Davey dumped the contents of his sack in the grass as he spoke. He held up a yellow pencil. "See?"

"Let's just go home," Dale said.

Dale drove the truck back to Bud's dad, offering little other than that he had not been successful. Davey asked twice when Dale thought he'd get the motorcycle, but Dale didn't answer.

Then the brothers walked home. Davey talked the whole way about something at school called maps and globes. How with a ruler you could figure how far it was from their town to anywhere else, say, Washington, D. C. How if you had only a piece of string you could still do it. Dale paid little attention, although he envied the way Davey assumed that things were as he perceived them. The houses on the street, for example, all looked similar, but things inside were completely different. If Davey noticed these differences, he didn't know that they meant something, and he was lucky, because having that kind of information didn't get you anywhere. You didn't gain by knowing one house was warm and smelled of wood soap and the other stunk like cat piss and beer. It didn't make you any better or smarter. It was just something you had to carry around.

Davey wanted him to guess distances, which Dale did halfheartedly until they began arguing about how far it was from one end of town to the other. Davey insisted it was at least fifty miles, and Dale finally acquiesced, telling his brother to quit talking.

The road they walked was the only way to their house, and it seemed to Dale that he'd walked it every day of his life. In fourth grade he used to walk home with Jimmy Carlisle, until Jimmy went away. One afternoon the front door of Jimmy's house had burst open as Dale and Jimmy stood talking at the end of the driveway. Jimmy's mother appeared, clutching his little sister, both of them crying. "Get in the car, baby," she shouted to Jimmy, who began to protest. "Get in the car now," she said, shoving the little girl into a car seat. Her voice cracked, and her open purse slid heavily off her shoulder to her wrist. Jimmy did as he was told. Dale turned from the

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departing car to see Jimmy's father in a T-shirt and underpants, sitting on the front stoop, holding his head in his hands, behind him the noise of a television. Dale ran home, where later he put his head between his hands to see how it would feel.

Life became mysterious. It didn't start that way--it started with tools and measurable distances, but that wasn't enough. Things occurred that couldn't be explained with a ruler or a piece of string. Then you were forty-five years old, holding your head like a melon as your family drove away.

At home Dale shivered and was cold. He stood in the shower, watching the water race down his body. The pond clung to him like an invisible film, like a second skin.

Later in the evening he met Hart and some other people in the parking lot of a fast-food place. Car lights flashed on and off, horns and music blared as cars drove by, and the boys kept their hoarse voices low while the girls squealed and huddled in little vibrating clusters. There was the couple that hung on each other, the couple that was fighting, the girl that liked the boy, and the boy who didn't know.

One girl in the group Dale didn't recognize. She was someone's older sister. She had a car and a job and an apartment. She didn't seem to need the support of the other girls, and she approached Dale wanting a light. She seemed to already know who he was and asked a lot of questions about the motorcycle and the pond. He didn't want to answer her, but she kept asking, and she smiled when she spoke. When he walked around the back of the building to toss his ice cream cup in the trash, she followed him. They stood awkwardly for a moment. Then she kissed him so hard that for long seconds his mind was empty and his body warm.

"Want a ride home?" She grinned and left him standing by the trash can sweet with ice cream and buzzing with flies.

He'd meant to bring Davey home a milk shake; in fact, he'd sort of promised. He knew that his brother had been hoping for the motorcycle, too, even if Davey didn't know why. He also knew that sooner or later Davey would learn what he already had: Even when you're with other people, even when you're with a girl, you're still alone. And after a while you might as well stay alone, because people always end up being a disappointment; they forget stuff, they change their minds.

So standing by the trash, he resolved to be a disappointment to Davey. He could do that--he could do that and still love him. It happened that way all the time: People loved you, but they let you down. It almost seemed like it was his job, like it was what he was supposed to do.

He followed the girl. Hart stood in the parking lot, gripping her bike handles, looking surprised. Dale slumped into the front seat of the car. Looking straight ahead, he said, "Let's get the hell out of here."

Letting the car idle in front of her apartment, the girl leaned toward him. "You want to come over?" she asked. The darkness made her features indistinct, but he could feel her smiling.

She kissed him again, and the feeling was almost the same. "I want to show you something first," he said, thinking that someone who could generate the feeling of her kiss might understand.

At first she refused. "I don't want to go to the pond. It's dark. It'll be buggy." She put a hand on his thigh.

But he pulled himself away and made himself large, leaning back against the door of the car. "It's important," he said. She agreed but complained on the way to the pond that sometimes there were grubby things in her dreams, and she hated that ****.

Dale stared at the water. "See," he said, pointing out toward the middle of the pond. "There's no motorcycle in there." He said this as though he were speaking to a small child. "It isn't there. You could drain that sucker and you wouldn't find a goddamn thing." He shoved his fists in the front pockets of his jeans. The pond was so still it might have been solid. There was no splash of fish, no slurp of amphibian, no water bugs gliding on its surface. There was nothing. It might have been a table or a floor.

"Everybody knows that," the girl said and rustled the reeds impatiently. "Let's go." She kissed his neck. Her high floral scent was distinctly different from the pond. It floated above the stink and suck of the mud, the woodiness of the cattails, but Dale stared at the water, dark and dead. He forgot about the girl standing next to him. He forgot about the evening and the afternoon. He forgot about the past weeks.

Then he turned to the girl and he started pulling, dragging her in the direction of the water. "Let's do it here in the pond. Let's **** in the water." He jerked her arm, splashing in backward. He had thought these kinds of words would sound powerful when said aloud, but the silence that followed them was awkward and stupid.

"What are you talking about?" The girl pulled away forcefully, a look of panic on her face.

Earlier, in the car, he had thought she had a shimmering quality, something like the colors in a pool of motor oil, but it was gone. There was gray around her eyes and red along her lips, but that was all.

"I'm getting out of here," she said and shook her ring of keys as if it signaled something.

Dale faced her, up to his knees in the water. He could feel the sludge oozing, encircling his legs. "You better kiss me again," he called to her as she backed away.

"I'm getting out of here," she said angrily, from a distance. "I didn't know you were so creepy. I thought we'd just watch TV and mess around." She backed up a few steps, then turned and hurried to her car.

Dale bent his head and stood in the water. He heard the girl's car turn over and the crunch of the tires as she drove away. When she was gone, he sat on his haunches, watching the dark rings of water emanate from his body. Then he lifted his heavy legs over and over again until he was out of the water and walking home without the motorcycle or anything else he wanted.

All of a sudden he awoke in a pool of sweat, the smell of fried bacon wafted up the stairs and encircled his nostrils, it was all a dream.

Doodee

not better suitd to Creative writing forum?

leonotron

I thought so but everyone else didnt think so when I mentioned it about someone elses story about the botanic gardens so I figured I'd just place it here aswell

Karoma

i said CW last time, i'll say it again. cannae be arsed reading it properly-only comment: weak ending. very weak. Otherwise, looks ok...

Petoria

Man, that is a beautiful story. Thanks!

BobsYourAuntie

It was all a dream? IT WAS ALL A DREAM? By the gods that's an original ending! Better publish that baby right now before someone else thinks of it. Oh wait - everyone already did. When they were eight.

toods.

MojoMaker

Good story leonotron, pity about the ending which deserved more thought, but a well written piece nonetheless. Kinda surprised me actually. Definitely post more of your stuff over on CW.

FX Meister

Wow, that was really good apart from the ending!!

sidneykidney

Poor ending.

Stephen

Umm...

http://www.esquire.com/fiction/fiction/ESQ0100-JAN_FICTION_rev

Nice work, Cecilia.

judas101

Stephen wrote:

Umm...

http://www.esquire.com/fiction/fiction/ESQ0100-JAN_FICTION_rev

Nice work, Cecilia.

bahahahahaa!

turns out the only part this guy actually wrote was that awful last line; 'it was all a dream'

nice.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Absolutely terrible ending IMO.

Binomate

Too long, didn't read. Just thought you'd like to know.

Didn't like it.

Black Swan

Stephen wrote:

Umm...

http://www.esquire.com/fiction/fiction/ESQ0100-JAN_FICTION_rev

Nice work, Cecilia.

Original story called "Monster" Esquire Jan 2000?

Stephen

Yes, apparently so.

Canis Lupus

Blue_Lagoon wrote:

Original story called "Monster" Esquire Jan 2000?

Whoops... That's sorta embarrassing

Duggy747

Busted!!!

And Stephen, how the hell did you figure that out? Avid Esquire reader are we?

Fwaggle

Duggy747 wrote:

Busted!!!

I'm sure he'd care if he wasn't banned and hadn't posted it 3 years ago

Canis Lupus

Fwaggle wrote:

I'm sure he'd care if he wasn't banned and hadn't posted it 3 years ago

What? Awh man, opening old posts makes baby jesus cry

Ah, blame FX Meister for the travesty.

2012paddy2012

Xmax 400 cc I just wondered if any others had issue like this. I have had this moped from new for 12 months no incidents...few weeks ago I was on a trip got on and off a few times...the last time . near home ..it wouldn't start ...the kick stand switch seemed defective ..all other electrics worked. I tried to start it numerous times ..over a number of hours occasionally.. no luck. Towed to shop ..started first time for them. New side stand switch fitted ...no issue since.
Yesterday i had the bike parked up ..key in the room with me ..when my friend came in and said your hazard lights are flashing. Never happened before. I put key in turned ignition on and off ..then the hazard light wouldn't come on ..it seemed to have righted itself now. I'm concerned there is an electrical issue here and find it hard no to associate it with the mysterious ..kick stand issue that seemed to have come and gone ..for no apparent reason. Its serious hassle having to go in and out to city ..waiting for parts etc etc
.2 year guarantee with Yamaha ...anyone ever come across these types of issues on a Yamaha bike/ mopes before ? Any advice appreciated thks Paddy

MODS: Hi.. I did this post on my phone ..it seems not to have appeared as a new post under " motorcycle" as I wanted. I wonder could you change it for me to a new post please.

Canis Lupus

Canis Lupus wrote: »

What? Awh man, opening old posts makes baby jesus cry

Ha... I can quote myself from all those years ago.

pleas advice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGH8rnraxoE