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I rode Rt. 112S to Rt. 2E to I-91S to Springfield. It was the first time I’d ever ridden on an Interstate Highway. Coming off the on-ramp and merging into traffic took my breath away. Something about the symmetry of the turn, the high speed, and the feeling of entering a stream of rattling metal. I curled up the ramp, revved way up, and clicked into high gear. I was probably going eighty when I hit the traffic. The trucks whirred and shuddered next to me and I could see their thick chains dancing lightly in the wind. The faster you go on a motorcycle the cleaner your line feels, but the less reaction time you have. You ride a laser beam. I discovered I was most comfortable moving at about 80 in the left side of the middle lane, so I could go either way if I had to. There was no windscreen on my bike and so I had to lean forward to keep from being blown off the back. I had no face shield on my helmet either. I was like a World War II fighter pilot: helmet, goggles, jacket, and gloves. It felt like assisted breathing having all that air funneling through my nose into my lungs. I laughed out loud and the air filled my cheeks.
I arrived in Springfield with a few minutes to spare, all jazzed up with the anticipation of seeing Kate and the adrenaline of my first highway ride. I filled the bike up with gas and took a turn through the scrappy little downtown there. People think of Massachusetts as rich and liberal, the true Blue state. Western Mass is different. It’s a Red state, full of old mill towns on rivers where the mills have been shut down, declining quality of life, and conservatizing values. Factories have been closing since the 60s. Finally even the plastics got out-sourced. The towns are depressed. Lowell, Worcester, Springfield, Pittsfield. They were mostly depressing towns anyway, but in a proud working-class kind of way. Now the white working class is poorer, working harder, and seeing the American dream slip away. Meanwhile the downtowns are filling up with Dominicans, Vietnamese, Brazilians, and Arabs and the crusty Yankee working class is getting real nervous. The cities are bankrupt. The real estate value is gone. And everyone’s living in cheap suburbs close to the interstate, working at Wal-marts and mini-marts and all that shit. Anyone who drops out ends up on drugs, crystal meth these days. The drug community at its most low-down level might be the most racially integrated social grouping in America. Talk about universal values.
I pulled right up behind the cabstand at the station. Bus stations create the shadiest part of town, cause nobody but poor people and immigrants ride them anymore. The park across the street was full of addicts and squatters. The sidewalk around me wasn’t much better. A white meth head who looked like a pimpled skeleton scratched his left cheek by reaching over his head with his right hand as he jabbered at a woman who’d already turned away. Two toothless dudes with red faces sat on milk crates drinking out of paper bags. A black dude in tight tropical shorts, a mesh tank top, and cheap sunglasses walked past me listening to a fifteen year old walkman. He looked like a time traveler from 1988.
I got off the bike, sat down on the curb, and pulled out the map to plot our course. I was so nervous my hands were shaking. I kept staring back over my shoulder every time I heard the hinges of the bus station’s front doors whine. I couldn’t wait to see Kate. I’d pictured our rendezvous over and over. My mind’s eye had our reunion taking place at the Springfield train station, which I’d been to before to pick up Forrest. It’s left over from a time when the city was prosperous. There’s a long dramatic set of stone steps and she would have had to walk down them smiling coyly as I gazed up at her, standing in front of the bike with my arms crossed and a warm glow in my face. The bus station was different. Just a dirty sidewalk and a crowd of broke down people.
The first time Kate said she wanted to come with me to Chicago on the bike I thought it was just talk. But a week later at my goodbye party she was standing in the middle of my kitchen with a joint burning between her fingers, talking loudly about my bike trip and waving her hands as the rest of the party gathered around the table and waited for her to pass the joint on.
“It will be so romantical,” she said.
I don’t know why she adds that ending to romantic. It’s her most noticeable affectation so it must mean something. She’s a middle class suburban girl who escaped into an urban artist’s life without really doing art. She’s art-sy, as they say. We were having a private conversation in public.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said. “I could fall in love with you.”
“You could fall in love with me in four days?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.
“Just smoke it and pass it Kate,” Noah said.
She took another deep drag and passed the joint. As she exhaled she cut her eyes at me. I hadn’t stopped looking at her. She was looking at me like a guy who wanted to fuck me. She nodded for me to follow her and we walked out of the kitchen into the hallway.
“I’ll come with you,” she said. “If you promise there’s no expectations.”
“Come if you want to Kate. But I’m not making any promises to anybody right now.”
She bit her lip.
“I’m coming then.”
“Good.”
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