Cornering
It is July in New York and the air is thick and humid. I have been out of the UK for two weeks — a few days in New York City, a few days in Montreal, back to NYC again— and I am finding my feet. Surprisingly, travelling agrees with me, and I appreciate the American warmth.
This morning I am taking the Amtrak from Penn Station to Hudson, a little way upstate, to visit a friend I haven’t seen for 14 years, since I was a teenager. I spend the journey alternately enjoying the view of the Hudson valley and wondering how it will be, how I will be received now that I am expected to be an adult woman, now that I can’t rely on the excuse of youth to allow for being awkward and ignorant.
It was less than a year ago but my entire two months in the US distils into a few short vignettes. I remember, if I try, that we went for pizza first. We took a walk in the woods and took pictures of ourselves in front of a waterfall. It must have been cooler that day, because I was wearing jeans — perhaps the only time that whole trip I needed to wear trousers or sleeves, aside from on the frigid transport.
Her husband cooked us a lovely meal. I think it was chicken and rice. They had a dog and a typical American house with a summer shed in the garden he’d built for his daughter, who was away at ballet camp. On the wall is a picture of the husband with Spike Lee, dressed as a soldier on the set of one of his films. I learn that he used to be a regular on Days of Their Lives. He is tanned and muscular and good-looking in a quintessentially North American way, teeth whiter than white. Their life is a little like something I might see on television. A lot of America is like that.
I made a pledge to myself, on the plane, that I would say yes to everything. Expand my comfort zones. Make the most of it. Push myself. It bore out well, actually. I found a whole area of me I didn’t know could exist: me under optimum circumstances; me happy and relaxed; me free from anxiety. I don’t know where she’s gone now.
We look around the garden, play with the dog, say hi to husband who is tinkering.
‘Nice motorbike.’
‘I’m gonna go get some gas, wanna ride?’
I have never been on a motorbike.
Say yes to everything.
I say I haven’t ridden before. He can tell I’m curious, and he can tell I’m afraid.
‘We’ll go around the block, and if you feel ok we’ll ride out to the gas station.’
‘He’s very safe,’ my friend chips in.
It is dusky. I am given yellow-tinted goggles that make the world look both happy and apocalyptic. I put on the spare helmet. He starts the bike and I get on behind him.
‘Put your arms tight around my waist, and follow me. Do what I do.’
It’s loud and the driveway is on a downward slope. As we ease out onto the road proper I realise what a tremendous act of trust this is and wonder if I have ever been so aware of putting my life directly in someone else’s hands. I had an operation once, but I was unconscious. It wasn’t quite the same.
We take a slow loop around the local houses. I smell my first skunk, dead on a verge. The air gets cold quickly. The rumble of the bike and the rush of wind is visceral and audible. We pause.
‘You ok?’
I don’t recognise where we are and say yes, I’m ok. Passing the house, I realise I have consented to a trip to the gas station and feel suddenly panicky, like I am testing my luck, that maybe a trip around the block was enough for me to be able to say I went to Hudson and rode on the back of a motorbike whilst clinging to a glowing-toothed soap actor.
Too late.
We are on a real road now, with a regular speed limit, with those trademark yellow lines, with corners. I am more aware of my fragile, permeable body than I have ever been. H&M jeans, plimsols, and a floaty pink jersey do not seem equal to asphalt and rubber. I can’t stop imagining us skidding out, my skin streaking across the tarmac, my breakable bones and tearable flesh strewn like roadkill along the hard shoulder.
We pull into the gas station. The thought of riding back to the house evokes a tendril of panic. How far was it? Could I walk? I don’t fear death, I think, but my mind replays my body cascading over the highway and I bet you that would hurt.
‘You’re doing ok,’ he says whilst the pump churns, ‘but you’re doing what everyone does to begin with — you’re compensating. I can handle that, because I’m experienced, but it’s better if you follow me. Lean in to the bends. It makes the ride smoother.’
‘Ok,’ I say, ‘I’ll try. I was aware I was doing it, but it feels so unnatural.’
The bike smells of petrol now. I find it strangely comforting. And off we roar again, faster this time. God. This is fucking terrifying. Why did I agree to this. When will it be over.
We hit the first corner. The bike leans at an improbable angle, defying all the laws of physics. Overcoming every instinct, I follow his weight into the bend, the ground closer to my face than I would ordinarily be comfortable with. This unlikely act of balance seems to last longer than it reasonably could; I am suspended in being alive, concentrated by my possible impending death. And then we pull back upright and speed on towards the next curve: the next crisis. It gets easier with practice.
Too soon, now, the house is ahead of us. At the top of the drive I get off the bike and I’m trembling. Euphoric. It isn’t just the speed, the adrenaline, the fear, it’s that I did it at all. Me. I rode a fucking motorbike. I went to another country, and I travelled alone, and I rode a motorbike.
I quite like this woman, I think. The one I am here, in the heat and the foreignness. She isn’t bad. She says yes to things. She rides motorbikes. She does it all, even though she’s afraid.
And then I think, well there’s a piece of advice for this trip. No, there’s something to take home. A piece of advice for life:
Lean in to the bends. It makes the ride smoother.
