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Jack, Forrest�s obsessive-compulsive border collie sat in my shadow, his tongue lolling, anticipating the moment that I would reach for the stick he�d been watching patiently for forty minutes. I realized, in the type of clear moment you sometimes get when beauty stares you straight in the eye, I was exactly where I wanted to be. It made me sad to think I wasn�t going to stay there.
I�d been thinking about Kate non-stop since I last saw her. Some people just get under your skin right away. We�d only hung out three times together alone. The last time I picked her up at the art supply store where she worked and drove the motorcycle from Cambridge, MA, where I was living, to Revere Beach. I skipped stones and she modeled green strips of seaweed. It rained on us on the way back. We had a few beers and Kate said she wanted ride the bike with me to Chicago. The trip across the country was supposed to be my soul search and I knew I should do it alone. But I was going all the way to Oregon so I figured what the hell. I don�t like to be lonely, and I thought Kate and I might fall in love. I told her she could come. Kate had a boyfriend, so she said she had to check with him. They were in an open relationship, though, so she didn�t think there was any problem taking a motorcycle ride together.
I know what you�re thinking. Stay the hell away from her. But I couldn�t and if I knew why I�d tell you. I guess my logic wasn�t all that complicated. Any girl who wants to go on a motorcycle trip with you doesn�t love the guy she�s with. It�s the second part of the logic that�s so fucked up, the part that told me it was a good idea to get tangled up with her. To answer that, I have to get to the bottom of a lot of stuff.
Like with Gretchen, the woman I broke up with over the winter: one day I told her I didn�t love her anymore, that we�d never overcome the baggage we brought into the relationship as a result of the way it started, and I walked away. The way it started was we were working on a farm together. She had a boyfriend. She ditched him for me and we left the farm together. I guess I should just admit up front that the reason I wanted to get the hell out of Boston after graduation was that I still couldn�t shake the ghost of my break-up with Gretchen. The dead baby. When I walked the streets, I saw it everywhere. I didn�t break up with her because of the fucked up way we started. I broke up with her because I was never really in love with her and when I got her pregnant I realized that real clear. Afterwards I started to hate her for loving me, because she was reminding me what a fucking asshole I was.
I looked over at my bike� a 1983 Honda Nighthawk 750cc motorcycle, black with a dual overhead cam, 4-cylinder engine. The side panels were off of it so you could see the battery and there were tools scattered haphazardly on the grass. I�d wanted to change the oil before I took it across country. Bill from Trinity Auto in Whitinsville, MA, had sold it to me in good shape for $1600 but I wanted to know how to change the oil anyway. I figured I should know my way around the bike before I got on it and rode it to Oregon, just in case anything happened along the way. After Forrest and I took the side panels off, we couldn�t figure out how to remove the seat. I thought we had to take the seat off to change the oil because the bike manual I had said to work on the bike you had to take the seat off. It also said I needed four quarts to change the oil and I only had two. When we discovered that we quit and left the tools on the grass. It was Monday morning, the 4th of July, 2005. I was supposed to pick Kate up at noon. She had a ten o�clock bus from Boston to Springfield. I got up from the hammock and walked over to the bike, slid the side panels back on and was about to gather up the tools when Forrest�s dad, Henry, came over.
�You finished?� he asked.
Henry had been the town doctor in Colrain and is now an apple farmer and a maker of hard cider . He�s got hands like a rancher, large and horny, and he can fix anything that doesn�t break under their touch.
�I don�t have the right size wrench,� I said.
�What size do you need?�
�12mm I think. I could only find the ten and the fourteen.�
He looked down at the tools on the ground and then his cool grey eyes passed over the bike.
�Hmmmm,� he said. �Maintenance deferred.�
He cooed the simple sentence like Snagglepuss, a sly smile on his face, and it echoed in my ears.
�I guess,� I said.
�What about the spark plugs?� he asked. �You could change those.�
�They�re probably alright,� I said. �I think they�re under the seat anyway and we can�t get it off.�
�The spark plugs are under the seat?�
�I think so.�
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