Motorcycle Memories

A couple of days ago, Tuesday, to be precise, as I walked down 186th with my dog, flashes of an old memory hit me so hard I nearly fell over. In the five or so minutes it took to get to Broadway, I found myself reliving a long-packed away memory of my sister and her long-gone motorcycle. It was a Honda, as I know someone will ask. Beyond that, my friends, it was silver, and I don't know anything of the makes, models, and snazz of bikes. Yet, I went to see my sister in the summer of 2000 when she first showed me her bikes. Well, they belonged to her and her then-girlfriend.  

As sisters will do, the older one convinces the younger to go for a quick ride. Honestly, that wasn't hard. What she didn't realize, and was floored to learn, it was not my first time as a passenger. Though, for me, it was a complete shock that she rode bikes. Look, you all, my sister loved her truck, but she was never the type to devote an intense amount of energy to the road. She loved her speed, but she wasn't about to check mirrors. Okay, okay . . . in hindsight, I do see the fault of my logic. So, she lived on Mercury Boulevard in VA Beach back then, and she and I went for subs that day.  

A ride of about two miles in either direction, give or take a few. 

As we got on the bike, Sheila took a picture, and I had on jeans with wide, frayed cuffs and ribbon trim. A classic hippie style I'm still known to don. I wore a white peasant top with red, yellow, and blue embroidery. I still love the memory of that shirt. She had on a red polo and jeans, as was her go-to. At one time, I think she owned every style of red polo made. We giggled. She said, "make sure you hold on tight there, little girl." Me being me, said, "alright bitch." Hey, everyone knows don't fucking call me a little girl: in the early aughts or now. 

Helmets on. We went down the road, around the neighborhood, over a couple of through-traffic streets, and finally up to a sub place. We got two; she got a meatball with absolutely no vegetables except an unholy amount of banana peppers, and mine was turkey with the standard vegetables. Clear as day, I can still smell the mayonnaise on that fresh-baked, gooey bread. Wrapped in foil, she tucked them into the carrier, and then down the fucking road we went. She sped, she leaned, she cackled. SHE CACKLED. Dude. Again, being related to her at all, I shouldn't have been surprised. We made it back to her house, and we sat in the carport eating them with beers. That night there would be people over for a barbeque in the backyard.

Sheila proposed to Vinnita that night, and it was done so I would be there. Sheila made a deal to tell me that later in the weekend. I had appletini liquor that night, the better part of a bottle, and Vinnita was drinking vodka in her Mountain Dew. That was one of the last times I drank cocktails not involving Bourbon, fun fact. Not-so-fun-fact, vodka was her go-to drink (to hide it) for most of her adult life. Another hindsight reminds me of how often she was loaded while driving.  

The next day Sheila draped her frame on one bike, and Vinnita and I got on another. By the way, did I tell you we were riding a bike with me in fucking Birkenstocks? My toes were painted maroon, a fact I distinctly remember from the second ride. I did so well on day one they decided to have a real ride. That sister of mine took me on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel on that Honda.  

As we revved up to get to the tunnel, her cackles grew louder. Seriously, for a woman newly engaged and as pickled as we were, she sure had energy. If you have ever been in that tunnel, you will know the next part is fucking amazeballs insane. Zipping between cars, she got that damned thing to 85 as we zoomed through a packed tunnel. At some point, I closed my eyes in self-defense before starring at my toes, thinking the color would match the impending blood to come, and when the "ride" subsided back in her driveway, I cried a little. I was 24 that summer, and there are some things that I worked hard to keep corralled away in dusty boxes of memory. Neatly tucked away like packages of fruitcakes under the Christmas tree.  

Vinnita found herself very funny. She was never so proud of herself as she was that day. Though, that night there was a full-blown party for that engagement. Her friends pondered how they could convince me to play for the home team, with a slew of lines about "I won't put you on a motorcycle, and I've got a corvette/mustang/etc."

The weekend ended, and I drove two hours inland to my parents' house. I was likely still far past the legal intoxicated amount, as my blood was nothing more than appletini liquor and kool-aide vodka shots. Our brother came down a weekend or so later. He was eager to know about my stay at Vinnita's, as family dynamics were always a complicated web of things better left unsaid. When I told him and Jimmy (his boyfriend) about the motorcycle, Andy Jr. decided to avoid a trip with Vinnita. Though, he was straight up flabbergasted that she had one. Jimmy, though, flat out quipped it's a right of passage when you get out of the military to get a fast car or a motorcycle. I would have bet a more significant amount of money on a DUI, but that is a debate for another day.  

The following summer, I was there again, as that wedding she had spoken of was intended for the fall at that point. The world doesn't know that she and Sheila had a commitment ceremony in the backyard the weekend I was there. There was a blowout party; we slept on the floor in piles looking like a post-Vietnam convention of vets and spouses (as 90+ percent of Vinnita and Sheila's friends were retired military, in various degrees of service). I had those same jeans on a year later. I was in a tank top as I stood by the arch in the back yard as Vinnita and Shiela promised lives and happiness in a ceremony not yet recognized by the state. There are photos sprinkled in my sister's things. Of me, looking befuddled, shocked, and moderately drunk, as I wasn't told of the ceremony beforehand among the ones of jubliation.  She kept that not-so-secret ceremony from our Dad until she passed.  

Oddly, I should note that Sheila kept her distance from me as on another visit, my sister had a bruise she blew off, and I looked at Sheila and did what sisters do. I don't fully recall the details of what I said (again, there were undoubtedly fermented beverages involved), but apparently, I did more than intimidate her. Vinnita, and some of her friends, straight up told me Sheila was afraid of me and told them all not to cross me. I will say I started the conversation by stating, "I don't know you, or like you, enough to miss you." So, if anything, that was a win. When our brother came a few months later, he told her that I was right, except he was a lot of the side of foul when he told her off. I'll leave that for your imagination. In the course of that, Vinnita got butthurt Andy wouldn't go for a ride with her. Why? 

Well . . .that brother of mine made it clear that "after what Nessa said, and with what we used to do to her if you frightened her, then I'll pass." Ha. That's all. Ha.  

In the course of things, I would see Vinnita that March, and by May of 2002, she would be gone (again). She did one of her disappearing acts, leaving me to have to resort to calling her exs and digging deep when our brother passed a year later in 2003. She had a penchant for disappearing every five or so years, always knowing I'd be the one left in the wake to sleuth for her address for Christmas and holiday cards.  She surfaced again in 2009, and it was a cycle.  Again.  Yet, in 2020 when she moved from North Carolina to Arizona, the signs were not in favor of it being life as usual. That summer, she did pass, and in the course, the pain of searching for a woman who wanted me to find her but didn't want me at the same time is eased.  

I do wish I had that photo; it's probably faded with creased corners by now. I wonder what her mother did with the boxes of photos, gifts from me, trinkets, and letters between us and the more extensive web of Vinnita's past. I wonder if she found the kinky shit. Ya know, much like the trend going around on Tik Tok about disposing of the pervy, kinky, and insane evidence from a sibling when they die, Vinnita and I had such a pact. We weren't close, mainly as her stance about me and her mental state played heavily into our makings. After Andy Jr. died, she was never the same, for sure. Yet, I guess I can say one gets what she deserves as her mother owns the box of kinks (as I call them). You're welcome on the image.  

In a long meandering way, this post is really about how the second set of holidays plays with you. The first ones riddle you with shock, and the second makes it all an apparent, enduring reality. When my brother died, I didn't know what to do with myself that first Christmas, so I painted 900 million ornaments in various stages of intricacy. Last year, for Vinnita, I was spending half my time in NYC and half in NC. I was barely alive, as my heart was frozen in time, and the antidepressants were barely giving me metaphorical air. I think my project was staying afloat. This year I have a sweater I started in Greece from yarn a friend gifted me. Maybe I'll finish that. I have a purple pickle dish quilt I might do. Perhaps my body will cooperate and let me run again, but--then again--an angry, firey spine has opinions on that subject. Maybe I'll write. The point: grief is a dirty mistress of unknown strength, secret whims, and unpredictable desires. She pushes at you. It makes life hard. It makes life stand still in time for no reason at all and every excuse under the sun.  

It's not all bad. The memory of those rides, while terrifying as fuck, is pretty damned funny two decades later. That being noted, I'll be back to my regularly scheduled questionable life decisions and bizarre things men say to me.  

Her and me, Christmas 2010.