Ride Like Hell and You'll Get There

by Paul Carter

  The next morning Diego and I met at Pentagon Freight, put our bikes into the crates and booked our flights to Adelaide. He was arriving a few hours ahead of me, so he would go to the freight yard and run the bikes over to our motel. I would arrive and meet with the uni team to go over the plan for getting to Corowa. Everything was set.

  I drove home from Pentagon feeling like there was a good viable plan in place to counter the loss of everything so far—Speed Week 1, Jocko, my Ural, all of it. The plan covered a lot of distance and was on a ridiculous timeframe with no room for error. Our bikes would arrive in Adelaide the day before Diego and I, we’d get them fuelled up and ready to go, then get the salt-lake bike ready for an early departure from Ed’s workshop. It was a ten-hour ride to Corowa, then at 6 a.m. on Monday we’d set up the bike at the runway, break a world record between 8 and 9 a.m. and by lunchtime Diego and I would be on the freeway headed for Melbourne. We would have to skip getting drunk with Clayton to catch the 4 p.m. ferry to Tassie. Easy.

  Friday night my phone rang. It was Mick, one of the blokes from Pentagon Freight. ‘Hi Paul, I’ve got some bad news,’ he said.

  I was walking out of my local deli with a carton of milk and a bottle of tomato sauce. I froze mid-stride; I didn’t want to ask but I had to. ‘What sort of bad news?’

  ‘Yeah, well, you see, somehow your bikes were loaded onto the wrong truck and are on their way to Karratha.’

  ‘FUUUUUUCCCKKKK!’ I dropped the milk. ‘WHADYA FUCKIN’ MEAN KARRATHA?’

  There was a brief silence while Mick regained his hearing. ‘Don’t worry, we’re on top of it,’ he hurriedly explained. ‘We’ve got the Karratha truck pulled over and the Adelaide truck pulled over, we’re mobilising up a long tray ute with a pallet jack to pick up your bikes then we’ll hotshot them over to the Adelaide truck. They’ll get there, but about twelve hours late.’

  Which meant the bikes would arrive in Adelaide just a few hours before we did. That would still work. I thanked Mick, asked him to keep in touch, picked up my carton of milk, smiled sweetly at the other customers who avoided eye contact with me, and went home to spend time with my family.

  KEYS

  THAT AFTERNOON I jumped on the flight to Adelaide. Start the clock.

  Diego had been on the phone as soon as he landed. The bikes had arrived at exactly the same time he did and he had already ridden his bike over to the motel and was heading back on mine, via Ed’s workshop to take a gander at the BDM-SLS. I told him to leave my bike there as we were all heading off from the workshop in the morning; he could double me on his bike from the hotel.

  Ed’s workshop is cool. He lives there with two of his mates, Simon and Tristan, all recently graduated from the University of Adelaide. Casual but not chaotic, in fact rather polished and well-engineered, it’s the ultimate man cave. All three of the guys had been involved with the BDM-SLS from its inception and in many ways their careers have evolved like the bike, now out in the world looking to make a mark.

  Diego and I finally met up outside the motel; I had just dumped my gear in my room and he was walking towards me, grinning the way only he can. ‘Heello, my friend,’ he said, beaming just like the cat from Shrek.

  ‘Good work, mate,’ I said, squeezing him in a blokey hug. Our motel was at the busy end of Hindley Street, Adelaide’s epicentre of nightlife. It was 6 p.m. on Saturday, 17 March and the sun was about to depart, leaving the neon and noise to take over, and already the street was awash with pissed idiots in various shades of green clothing and drinking green beer.

  ‘What ees going on, Pol?’ Diego gesticulated, palms up and confused face, at the green-clad drunks.

  ‘It’s St Patrick’s Day, mate,’ I replied. Right on cue a particularly hammered guy in green coveralls staggered out of a bar and walked straight into a lamppost and face-planted on the street.

  ‘Who ees this saint? Why ees everybody drunk?’

  I paused. How do I start to explain our lust for any excuse to have a day off work and hit the piss? Diego doesn’t get our sports, our humour or the sometimes blatantly racist things we say without thinking. ‘You hungry?’ I ask him.

  ‘No,’ he answered, still scanning the street in amazement.

  I was in desperate need of a shower so Diego and I arranged to meet back at the motel; he said he’d take half an hour to check out some sunglasses he’d seen in a shop (if I spent more than half a minute choosing sunglasses I might have some style, too).

  Showered up and happy, I was back out the front of the motel, just checking out the scene while I waited for Diego—it was party time now and the street was packed with punters. Then I saw him running towards me like someone just stole the family empanada recipe. ‘Pol, Pol . . . I can’t believe eet . . . Eet cannot be possible . . .’ he gasped. He was really agitated, and frantically going through his jacket pockets.

  ‘What the fuck is it, mate?’

  His dark Argentinean eyes fixed on me, his expression bewildered and gutted. ‘I have lost the keys to both our motorcycles.’

  ‘Fuuuucccckkkk!’ was my immediate reaction before I calmed down and fired all the standard questions at him, you know, when did have them last, have you retraced your steps, gone back to the shop and asked the staff, would you like me to kill you slowly or just hurt you badly. But they were gone, properly gone, lost on Hindley Street. And of course Diego had checked everywhere already.

  We went to the police station, ironically directly across the street, and gave our details to the cop behind the counter in case someone handed the keys in. He smiled and reached under the counter to produce a bucket full of keys. ‘No worries. If they end up here, we’ll let you know.’

  The problem solidified in my head like a cement tumour as I sat down on the kerb next to Diego’s bike. He dropped down next to me like he was bearing the weight of the known universe on his shoulders. ‘Pol, wat are we going to do now?’

  It was 7 p.m. on a Saturday night, St Patrick’s Day, we had no keys for our bikes and we were due out of there in eleven hours for our one and only shot at the land-speed record. There were spare keys at both our homes in Perth, but no time to get them to us. ‘I need a drink.’

  ‘Good idea, Pol.’ Diego sprang to his feet and disappeared into the bar while I sat on the kerb staring at the road, oblivious to the rambling hordes all around me, not really focusing on anything but searching blankly through the options. I could smell the whiskey before I realised it was under my chin; Diego was back on the kerb with two large glasses.

  We slammed down our drinks and my brain kicked into gear. Okay, I thought, so Diego’s bike is here right next to me, it’s not alarmed and the steering lock isn’t engaged; my bike’s in Ed’s workshop, it is alarmed but the alarm control is cable-tied to the handlebars so the movement of the transport truck wouldn’t set it off, it also has an un-engaged steering lock . . . so our only problem was replacing the ignition keys. All I had to do was find a locksmith on a Saturday night who wasn’t drunk (that discounted the Irish ones) with the right blank keys to fit a Harley Sportster and a new BMW GS and convince him to stop whatever he was doing and fix our problem. Easy.

  Diego searched for locksmiths on his phone and, faking a smile, left me with a list while he went to get more drinks. The first two didn’t answer, the third was already smashed, the fourth and fifth sent me on one of those daisy-chain circles where the phone is answered by a machine that directs you to call another number that directs you to another machine that rings a mobile for you, so you can listen to another machine asking you to leave a message or tell you about their normal office hours, or the best one, getting diverted back to the first machine that kicks off the whole process again. The sixth number just took me to a recorded message by some twat about his pissy-ass weekend fishing trip and he wouldn’t be back to fix fuck all until Monday. One guy nearly gave in: he was obviously out at the pub and close to starting his third or fourth beer, he paused to reflect after I tripled his asking price. ‘Nah, mat
e, can’t help ya, sorry.’

  Staring despondently at Diego, a light bulb went off. ‘You’re an educated man, Diego, you have a masters degree in mechanical engineering from one of the best universities in Argentina.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he said proudly.

  ‘Can you hotwire a bike?’ The solution was so simple, so obvious, so desperate.

  His brow furrowed like a cat who’s caught a sniff of something. ‘I weel try, let us go to the shed of Ed and I weel get some toolings.’

  My phone rang as we finished off our third whiskeys and were leaving to steal our own bikes. ‘Is that Paul?’ said the voice on the other end. ‘It’s Ben from Australian Locksmiths here.’

  ‘Hi Ben, are you out and/or on the piss and calling to tell me that you can fix my problem on Monday?’

  There was a pause. ‘No, sir, I’m calling you back to see what can we do for you tonight.’

  Hope rising, I was almost too scared to say the next bit. ‘Ben, can you cut a key for a 2011 Harley Davidson Sportster and a 2011 BMW 650 GS before six tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m on the corner of Gilbert Place and Hindley Street outside the pub.’

  ‘Yeah, I know the place,’ said Ben. ‘Just hang on while I check our stock.’

  Diego was gesticulating madly doing his Argentinean pantomime of ‘What the fuck’s going on’ while I pointed at the phone and pantomimed back.

  ‘Paul,’ Ben’s voice returned and both Diego and I froze mid-mime. ‘We have plenty of blanks to fit your Sportster and just one blank left that will fit the BMW. I could be there in thirty minutes if you like.’

  ‘Shit hot, Ben!’ I thanked him, we exchanged a few details and I put my phone in my pocket. ‘We’re good, mate,’ I said to Diego, who was bouncing around so happily I thought he was going to have a seizure. ‘He’s on the way.’

  ‘This ees wonderful, Pol.’ Diego’s grin had returned. ‘I will get us some green beer,’ he said and rushed off to the bar again.

  Ben was there, right on time; he had a van with a kind of mini lathe thing in the back and basically in one fell swoop destroyed my faith in the lock and key. He looked over Diego’s bike then stuck what looked like a magic wand with a flashlight on it into the slot where the key goes. Diego was fascinated, ‘Ben, wat dos dis thing do?’

  Ben was very polite and explained he was taking measurements so he could build up a picture of what the key should look like. ‘Oh, I have a photo of my bike key on my phone,’ Diego said. ‘Would that help?’

  Diego had grown up riding bikes with his mates all over his father’s property. The bikes they had were old and in a perpetual near-death state held together with hope and gaffer tape. As a kid he never dreamt he would one day walk into a BMW dealership and purchase outright a new bike off the showroom floor. Diego was so excited at the prospect of having a bike that started with the use of a key and electronic ignition, instead of a lot of kicking and praying, that he took a photo of the key to show his pals back home.

  Ben looked at the photo, said ‘Perfect,’ and disappeared into his van, emerging about fifteen minutes later with a key that slid into Diego’s ignition and turned the bike over on the first try.

  ‘Amazing,’ said Diego over his green beer. ‘Ben, can you defeat any lock?’

  ‘So far,’ said Ben.

  ‘Sheet hot,’ said Diego.

  Then I jumped on the back of Diego’s bike and we rode the few k’s over to Ed’s workshop with Ben following in his magic van. Ed was there with Simon and Tristan and they all laughed hard at our situation. While Ben went to work on my ignition with his magic wand, I moaned to Simon about the fact that along with my bike key I had also lost the padlock key which secured my saddlebags to the bike. While nodding and listening Simon casually pulled a small leather ziplock case from his backpack, wandered over and glanced at my bike, opened his leather case, selected two steel lock picks from within, and 30 seconds later both of the so-called unpickable padlocks were off.

  ‘Where did you learn how to do that?’ I was stumped.

  Ben acknowledged Simon’s effort with a nod.

  ‘Sheet hot,’ said Diego.

  Ben was done within the hour, and not only could I start my bike but I had two extra keys in case history repeated on me, so I later stitched one into the top of my riding boot and put the other on a string around my neck. It was almost 10 p.m. by the time our superhero locksmith left, with me calling out, ‘I love you, Ben.’ Diego was not feeling the love; he was paying the $1400 bill that Ben just handed him.

  Ed ordered a pizza and produced a six-pack of beer; by midnight everyone was full and happy, and every bike was ready for clutch-in at 6 a.m., destination Corowa some ten hours and 900 kilometres away. Diego and I grabbed a cab back to the motel. Hindley Street looked like a big-production zombie movie was being made, the premise of which involved a storyline based on the entire population of Adelaide being infected and turning into green-beer-swilling shuffling corpses for which the cure was apparently Hungry Jacks.

  JACK

  THE

  DANCER

  IT WAS STILL dark outside at 5.30 that morning. I sat on my backpack at the corner where the alleyway that housed our motel met Hindley Street and surveyed the St Patrick’s Day carnage through the clouds of fog my breath billowed into the darkness. The odd zombie still staggered about in the middle distance looking for food.

  Diego would be down shortly and our adventure would kick off. I checked my phone for emails and messages; there was one missed call last night from my dad in the UK. By the time Diego arrived my world had changed. He stopped where I sat, squatting down in front of me and smiling at first as he asked what I was doing. My face was blank; I found his eyes and saw his happy expression fade away. He watched me trying to find the words, any words, and waited, hovering there in limbo while rhythmical clouds floated skyward.

  ‘My dad’s got cancer,’ I finally said. ‘It’s serious, but he’ll know more later in the week after he’s had surgery.’

  Diego sat down next to me and suddenly words poured out uncontrollably as I rambled, about my dad, about getting to the UK to be with him as soon as possible—all my plans including Corowa didn’t rate a mention anymore. I could have sat there talking about it all day but then our cab pulled up. The driver and Diego spoke briefly, my friend occasionally glancing at me still sitting on the corner. Diego threw his backpack into the boot and walked back to me.

  ‘Pol, your father would like to see you do this, eh?’ He nodded towards the cab behind him and extended his hand towards me.

  I focused on Diego’s face for a moment, his eyes unwavering. I grabbed his hand and got myself together.

  An hour later we were pulling away from Ed’s workshop in convoy. Associate Professor Colin Kestell, mechanical legend Robert Dempster and Ed were in the university vehicle, a V8 Holden, pulling the giant custom-made trailer that cocooned the bike, followed by Diego and me riding our bikes.

  I sat at the back, my head burbling along on autopilot, thinking about my father and what he must be going through. I suspected he had kept his illness from me for some time, being the type who prefers not to burden his offspring with worries, but was now forced to tell us that he was facing an abyss. When we spoke he had been as resolute as ever, but I could feel the hollow unspoken rattle of doubt over the distance, a distance my heart wanted to cross now. As we passed through the outskirts of Adelaide, I saw a sign for the airport and I had to fight the urge to just peel off and get on a plane. But I knew that if I suddenly pulled the pin and fronted up at my father’s place, he’d just call me a muppet.

  Before I knew it we had stopped in Tailem Bend and right on cue, the second I toed out my kickstand, the sky turned dark with ominous-looking clouds. We had some breakfast and talked about the journey ahead. Putting a call in to Howard and Simon revealed they had ridden into some heavy weather already as they tracked down towards Corowa from Brisbane. B
rendan, who’d been out god-knows-where near Broken Hill chasing that mythical bird, had also pulled up because of rough weather. Ed got onto his phone straightaway to check out the weather sites and confirmed we were probably going to hit a massive front making its way down the entire eastern seaboard.

  I know I’m not at all tech-savvy: the use of computers as a business tool is only seven years old to me, and I got my first mobile phone at 30, reluctantly. While several friends and colleagues swear by their smartphones, I’m embarrassed to say I struggle to use the Blackberry my business demands I carry around. But the ease with which Ed checked the weather bamboozled me.

  I am usually the first to declare how appalling technology has made our ability to retain everyday slithers of information. My generation grew up without the internet or mobile phones, and we could remember everything; I can still pull up all my friends’ numbers, their birthdays and addresses, old passport numbers, bank account details in foreign countries, the lot. But in conversation with a twenty-something, it’s all gone; a twenty-something with a Mensa digit IQ and a masters in mechanical engineering has grown up in a system that remembers everything for him. We have outsourced memory and are forgetting how to remember. We can remember lots of different ways to access information quickly and little else for everyday life. I would imagine the education system these days is based on little of what I experienced; in my time, ironically, education was all about memory, the repetitive recall of spelling, multiplication tables, capital cities, the Latin word for shit. I believe that a good old-fashioned suitably absorbent memory gives you the platform for the production of creative ideas. While I’m riding my bike, doing the dishes or sitting in interminable legal meetings, I can wander off into my thoughts and memories and circumvent the now.

  But with Ed tracking the weather by the minute and Diego looking at his iPhone, which is telling him where he is, how far he has to go, how long it will take, and who is emailing, texting, phoning and generally thinking about him in real time, I suddenly felt left out. I want to join the Steve Jobs club and face-plant my wife or let random strangers know that I don’t like peanut butter on Twatter or whatever it’s called.