She Rode a Harley

by Mary Jane Black

  The door swishes open. Dr. Jensen comes into the room with a flutter of his white coat. He carries a thick red file folder under one arm. He sits down in a green vinyl chair against the wall. He flips through the file while Pat weighs Dwayne and takes his blood pressure.

  Dr. Jensen closes the file. Pat hands him a yellow legal pad. He motions to a chair for me by the table. I sit down and shove it near Dwayne. I lay an elbow on his knee. We both sit and wait for the doctor to speak.

  The doctor pushes his glasses to the top of his head. “I am going to write what we talk about on my paper. Then you guys can look at it later to remember what medical decisions we make. I find that a lot of people are so stressed by the cancer they forget what the doctor said.”

  We nod. We sit in silence as he describes the diagnosis for pancreatic cancer patients. He pauses. “Only two percent of the patients are alive in five years. I am not trying to scare you. I just want you to know the truth of the disease as you make your decision about treatment.”

  I curl my fingers over the edge of the chair, digging them into soft vinyl. I stare at a picture of a vineyard with rows of orderly vines behind the doctor until it blurs in my gaze. Beside me I feel Dwayne stiffen.

  Dr. Jensen pushes up his glasses and pulls a piece of paper from the folder. He hands it to me. I stretch across the narrow space and take it. I look at the word gemcitabine in bold print in the first paragraph. I scan through the words, trying to understand what it is and how it will work. I start to hand the paper to Dwayne, since he is the one who will make the ultimate decision about treatment.

  He pushes the paper back at me. “Baby, you keep it. I know I can trust you to understand what it means.”

  Dr. Jensen explains that gemcitabine, known as Gemzar, will be Dwayne’s initial chemotherapy. He wants him to start in two days, and we nod numbly in agreement.

  We all stand and shake hands. Dwayne and I walk out of the office. We climb down the stairs side by side without talking and find our car in the parking garage. I swing into the driver’s seat. Both hands grab the steering wheel, and my knuckles whiten with my tight grip. Dwayne settles himself in the passenger seat and leans his head against the backrest.

  We turn and stare at each other. At the same moment we grab each other across the gear shift. Our hearts drum against each other. We moan in unison, and I watch the tears run down his cheeks.

  Dwayne breaks our embrace first. He wipes my face with the sleeve of his fleece jacket. “That’s the last time we’re going to cry. You hear me? Now let’s get busy kicking cancer’s ass.”

  I nod numbly and promise to stay calm. “We’ll celebrate with a Harley road trip when you’re better.” I start the car, and we drive home.

  We can’t sleep the night before his first treatment. We sit on our deck at dawn and watch the Russian River churn and splash over the rocks. I watch Dwayne’s hand tremble when he sips his coffee. His jacket billows over his now sunken stomach.

  The time comes to leave for the doctor’s office, and we drive there in silence. Pat gets us from the waiting room. She takes us to what she calls the infusion room. Dwayne hands me his jacket. I fold it against my chest as he sits down in the recliner. Pat pulls a lever on the side. The footrest pops up. He leans back with his feet in his clunky engineer boots raised. Pat gently takes his arm with one hand and inserts a needle with the other. The needle is attached to a tube leading to a bag on an IV pole.

  Pat begins to turn on the bag with the drugs for his first chemotherapy. Dwayne asks her to wait, and we both look at him.

  With his unattached hand he pulls a photo out of his shirt pocket. It is a picture of him on his Harley. He hands it to Pat. “Put that up on the doctor’s bulletin board I saw in his office. The one with his successful patients. This will remind him of what I want to get back to.”

  Over the next few weeks Dwayne goes weekly to Dr. Jensen’s infusion room for his chemo. In the beginning I go with him. Eventually he gets stronger, and he decides he can drive himself. He assures me he is feeling much stronger. I start to argue but know he wants to be more independent.

  On a warm April afternoon I come home on a chemo day to find him in the garage. I stand in the doorway and watch him working. He squats on the stained concrete beside the truck he’s building. He welds a strip of metal below the open door. For the first time, I see his face in the bright sun from the window. His skin now shines brown in the glow rather than the pale white of the last few months. As I watch, he stands with ease and flips back his helmet visor.

  He notices me standing there. “Hey, baby. Let’s go out to eat tonight.” He hasn’t felt hungry for months now.

  We meet in the middle of the garage and hug each other. “I’m glad to see you got your appetite back.”

  Dwayne laughs. “Hell, I had a Big Mac on the way home today.”

  I shake my head and laugh. Dwayne points to our Harleys in the corner. We haven’t ridden since his diagnosis and surgery five months earlier. “Let’s ride to dinner?”

  I look at him in surprise. I worry about him riding again but keep quiet. I quickly change into jeans and boots. Then we ride side by side to the restaurant. After a few minutes my body remembers how to lean and to balance the heavy Harley. My left hand and foot remember clutching and stepping through the gears. Beside me I hear the echoing rumble of Dwayne’s motorcycle. I smile for the first time in months.

  That ride to dinner becomes a regular event over the next few weeks. We ride to the convenience store, where he buys his lottery ticket, and the owner shakes his hand to congratulate him on being back on the Harley. We ride to a casino in the next town and to the coast to watch the sun over the ocean.

  Only the Thursday chemotherapy and the Friday nausea and dizziness remind us that this is not our normal life in the days before cancer.

  Over dinner one night Dwayne tells me Dr. Jensen on his next visit will have results back from blood tests and a tumor marker test that will tell us how the Gemzar is working. We will both go to hear the news. I lie beside him in bed that night and listen to his breathing. In the dark room, a small glow of hope burns in me.

  A few days later, we sit beside each other facing Dr. Jensen. He sits behind a neat desk with only a dark green desk pad on it. Handwritten notes of words and numbers haphazardly cover it. Now the doctor reads the notes in the familiar red folder containing Dwayne’s medical history. He opens it and thumbs through the sections to find the test results. Over his left shoulder, I see the picture of Dwayne on his Harley—in the center, just as Pat promised.

  Dwayne shifts in his chair. “Well, Doc, what’s the news? I know I’m feeling a whole hell of a lot better. Still can’t eat much.” The words trickle to a stop. I take his hand and hold it in mine.

  Dr. Jensen takes off his glasses and lays them on top of the folder. He smiles at us. “The tumor has shrunk, and the blood tests show an elevated level of healthy cells. I still can’t make any promises for the future, but you’ve made a good start at beating the cancer.” He tells us he’ll write down the results in a more readable form for us.

  Then he stands up and reaches across the desk. He sticks out his hand.

  Dwayne jumps to his feet and shakes the doctor’s hand. He blinks back tears as he drops Dr. Jensen’s hand.

  In a daze, we stagger out of the office and down the stairs to our car. I start to go to the driver’s side, but Dwayne takes the keys from my hand. “I’m going to drive my wife home.”

  I open the passenger door and get into my seat. The golden hills and emerald green grape vines move past the windshield as we drive home. An old Willie Nelson song plays on the radio. I lay my head against the backrest, and I watch him driving for the first time since his surgery.

  He turns to look at me for a minute. “I know where I want to go on our trip. Santa Cruz. That little hotel next to the beach and the tattoo shop where you and Jess got yours. We’ll even ride the roller coaster on the boardwalk.”

  I sit up in
my seat. “Are you sure you’re up to that? That’s over a hundred miles. We’ve just been doing short rides.”

  Dwayne takes my hand. “I want to spend time with my wife. My lover. My friend. Not my nurse. Okay?”

  I lace my fingers through his. “I would love to be all of those things again.”

  We leave for Santa Cruz on a sunny Friday morning. Our Harleys rumble in the cool air. I zip up my black leather coat. I tamp down my helmet onto my head and snap the strap closed under my chin. I swing my right leg over the seat. I lean against my tour pack and take it off the kickstand. I balance myself in the gravel on the driveway.

  Dwayne rolls his motorcycle up to stop beside me. He lifts his head to motion me to leave. He gives me a thumbs-up with his left hand. “Lead on, baby!”

  I roll the throttle and leave in a hail of small rocks. Behind me I hear Dwayne follow me as we pull out of the driveway.

  For the next two hours we ride down Highway 101 to San Jose before swinging over the mountains to Santa Cruz. We decide not to take the more scenic route down Highway 1. The curves and narrow road seem to be a more challenging route for our first long ride. We stop for coffee and pie at a restaurant in San Jose where we used to go when we lived near there. I watch Dwayne in my mirror as we ride south. He rides steadily on my right.

  Finally, we pull into the parking lot of the motel in Santa Cruz. I turn off my Harley. I look at the colorful shops and cafés crowding the street leading to the wharf. Down a side street I can see the sign for the tattoo shop where I got my tattoo. The Ferris wheel rises from the boardwalk.

  Time seems to shift beneath my wheels. It is not 2010. It is ten years earlier. We can ride over those purple mountains behind Santa Cruz and be home in Morgan Hill again. Dwayne will be healthy and strong. I will be a teacher again. We will be newlyweds beginning our lives together in a new place.

  “Hey, baby! I’m ready to get my ass off this seat and get a cup of coffee.” Dwayne slides off his motorcycle. He stretches and rubs his rear end.

  I push myself off my seat and back to reality. We walk into the narrow, dim lobby. The large man behind the counter welcomes us. Within minutes we have a room key. We park in front of our room. We pull our bags out of the tour packs.

  Dwayne opens the door. The king-sized bed dominates the small room. We throw our bags on the floor by it. From the blue walls to the pictures of shells and fish, the garish beach theme surrounds us.

  We begin to laugh. Dwayne wraps his arm around my shoulder. “It ain’t the Hilton, but we’ve stayed in worse rooms. Remember that one in Galveston? Even roaches wouldn’t live there.”

  We lie side by side on the bed. I say, “Remember that time we rode through the Mojave in 105-degree weather? That room we found felt like heaven. I feel that way about this one. Being with you again in a motel.”

  We go to dinner at a seafood restaurant on the pier. On the walk back to the motel, we stop and lean against the low wall separating the beach from the sidewalk. The orange-and-yellow sun hangs on the edge of the blue Pacific. A soft, warm wind ruffles my hair. Gulls squawk above our heads.

  Dwayne pulls me in front of him. He rests his chin on top of my head. He wraps his arms around me. He holds me tightly, and I can feel his heart beating against my back. We stand quietly until the sun disappears behind the horizon.

  In the dim light of twilight, Dwayne begins to talk. His breath tickles my ear just the way it did on that night we met when we two-stepped across the dance floor. “You have been an amazing wife. The love of my life. I promised I’d love you until the day I died.” He stops, and I feel his chest rise with his deep breath. “Remember I kept that promise. It’s just the day is going to come a lot sooner than I expected.”

  I start to turn around, but Dwayne pulls me closer, my back pressed against his chest. There in the dimming light of the coming night, he spins a web of memories of our life together. His drawl and gravelly laugh fill the air. I relax in his arms, and I look at the pulsing waves, listening to his voice telling the story of our life together.

  Without speaking, we eventually turn and walk back to our room. We undress in the dark room. The neon light outside the window glows through the thin curtains. Sinking onto the bed, we make love with the surf crashing outside. We sleep curled together in the middle of the large bed.

  Two days later we ride home, north on Highway 1 with the Pacific gleaming in the sun on our left. We swerve and curve together in harmony up the narrow road. Our motors echo off the rocks and steep hills. I rest my left hand on my vibrating gas tank. The motor breathes and rumbles beneath it. “Please let this moment last forever.”

  Dwayne roars up beside me. With only a few feet between us, we ride. Wheel by wheel. Motor by motor. I grab my throttle with my left hand and put out my right. Dwayne holds out his left. Our fingertips touch briefly in the warm rushing air. We break apart. I move forward to lead the way home.

  JOINT DECISION

  I watch as Dwayne struggles to shove his Harley backward. I sit on mine and wait for him. Our farewell party at his friend’s house can be heard from the backyard. Bursts of laughter. Throbbing bass of the rock music. An indistinguishable shout of voices. But we’ve left early after Dwayne whispered to me that he felt nauseous.

  The driveway in front of us curves steeply downhill. I plant my feet firmly on the concrete. I balance the weight of the motorcycle as I steadily push back to keep it from rolling down the slope. Now I look at Dwayne, trying to force his motorcycle up the slope.

  Dwayne’s friend Jeff also watches him take his motorcycle off the kickstand and try to back it up. Dwayne toes up the gear lever to neutral. Jeff and I watch nervously as the bike wobbles slightly. We can’t see his face under the helmet and the large sunglasses. We can see him clench his teeth. His jaw muscles tighten and flex. He moves his feet to begin backing up. The bike doesn’t move.

  Jeff yells over the roar of our motors to ask if he needs help. Dwayne yells back no. Today is the first time I see him struggle with the routines of being a rider. We even rode to Santa Cruz a couple of months ago. However, the chemo has begun to affect him more physically. Now I worry whether his condition has gotten worse after the near miracle of his getting better.

  His arms stiffen on the handlebars, and he heaves the bike backward one more time. His booted feet skid a few inches sideways. Suddenly the heavy Harley angles sharply to the left.

  I watch as Dwayne’s legs begin to quiver from the weight. I pop down my kickstand quickly. I jump off and run to the two of them. Jeff takes two giant strides and grabs the handlebars. He straddles the front wheel and keeps the bike up.

  I quickly close the distance between us. I reach out with my boot and kick out the stand. The bike pitches onto it.

  Dwayne rips off his helmet. He flings it across the pavement. It lands with a clang. He screams, “Fuck. Fuck.”

  I take a step toward him. He puts up his hand to stop me. “I don’t want anyone’s goddamn pity,” he growls.

  Jeff and I retreat to the grassy lawn. We watch him push himself off the seat. He sways slightly as he stands up. He turns to face the Harley and wraps one hand around the handlebars. Jeff and I watch in silence as his shoulders shake with the choked-back tears and anger.

  Finally, he turns to face us. “I guess I’m going to need some help pushing it back.”

  Jeff swings his leg over the seat. He shoves it back to face the drop of the driveway. He puts it on the kickstand.

  Dwayne gets on it and quickly pushes the start button. I hear the motor snarl and the clunk of the transmission when he stomps it into gear. I rush to mine and start it. I pull up by him. He doesn’t look at me, and he glides quickly down the hill. He swerves left without stopping. I follow him.

  We roll the bikes into the garage when we get home. He stays sitting on his. But I lean against the workbench and look at the Harleys in the glare of the fluorescent lights. Their motors click and cool in the damp evening air. Frogs sing the blues on t
he banks of the Russian River. I close my eyes and listen to my heartbeat drum in my ears.

  He gets off his Harley. “Go to bed, baby, I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I stand by him. “Are you sure?”

  He nods his head to tell me it’s all right.

  I go in the house and leave him there by the Harleys.

  At breakfast Dwayne announces, “I’m selling my motorcycle.”

  I put down my fork with a clink and open my mouth to argue.

  He reaches out and lays his hand on my arm. “It’s just until we get settled and I get better again. I’ve had a lot of Harleys, and I will get another one.” He pauses and swallows hard. “I know you won’t be working in Austin. You’ll be taking care of me. We’re going to need the money.”

  I move my arm away from his hand. “I’m selling mine too, then.”

  Dwayne stands up with a jerk. His chair screeches back. “Goddamn it! You’re not selling your motorcycle!”

  “I won’t ride without you. You are the reason I ride.” I struggle with the words to explain how I feel about riding alone. I watch him through the blur of my tears.

  His face tightens into a rigid mask and his hands clench into fists on the tabletop. He reaches out and grabs his mug of coffee, flinging it across the room. It crashes into the wall. The black liquid streaks down the ivory wall.

  He slams his palm on the table. Dishes rattle. He tells me through gritted teeth that he won’t let me do it. He stomps out of the house. His truck tires sling gravel against the wall of the house as he squeals out of the driveway.

  I clean up the mess. Then I go to work as usual. I call his cell all day, but he doesn’t answer. I drive home, unsure whether he’ll be there. His truck sits in front of the garage. I crunch across the rocky driveway to the doorway.

  He’s polishing his motorcycle. The soft cotton rag rubs rhythmically across the creamy wax on the ebony gas tank. The Harley perches on the motorcycle lift as he kneels beside it. I see he has buffed the chrome engine to a gleam of stainless steel.