Babette, she's a bad-ass bitch.
Fast as the wind and rides like a witch
I take risks.
I fell in love with motorcycles at some point and I can’t remember when, which befuddles me1.
I took a motorcycle course at the VA hospital in Los Angeles, in 2014. Mainly to learn. Partly to not have to take the driving test at the DMV. (How do you get a motorcycle license without a motorcycle, anyway?)
Then I bought a 1986 Honda Rebel one morning before work. It was still mostly red. Took ‘er for a spin around the block, first time on a real road, and was smitten. Hooked.
Sometimes I found myself singing,
“Babette2, she’s a bad-ass bitch. Fast as the wind and rides like a witch.”
A dark sedan hit me as it took an illegal left turn, oncoming, that first night I drove home from work. Hit and run. I fell on my right side and slid to the corner. Sexy firemen checked me out, deemed me a.o.k. and I rode home. Got a tune-up that week, no biggie, hopped right back on. I don’t remember being scared, nervous, trepidatious. Learned a lesson. Filed it away. Made future plans.
I rode every day in LA. Up and down the PCH. I lane-split on the 10, the 405, the 101.
July 19th (2024) I got into the very same accident. This time I saw it coming, slowed down, honked. But I still froze and didn’t veer, swerve, dodge, whatever. I did fall really well, though. A controlled fall, I’m told. Onto my left. Slid into wildly soft grass (recent rain softened the earth but didn’t dampen me) only to meet the remains of another accident. Pieces of vehicle. What strange litter to neglect.
Landed on my left. No concussion. Lots of pain after the adrenaline wore off. They cut my pants off in the ambulance. It wasn’t as sexy as I’d hoped. I sat in the ER for many, many hours. I saw a lot of worry turned into dejected boredom, a giving up of hope for, at least, a quick answer, a system that worked.
They moved me from a chair, where I cried and snotted allover myself because I couldn’t walk to the bathroom, to a bed in the hallway. I heard a strange clanking. Like… chains? It was two officers escorting a man in an orange jumpsuit. Wrists chained together. Ankles changed together. Out for a stroll, these two dark-suited men, with a reticent puppy who’d been kicked. Repeatedly.
A friend’s friend came to keep me company. She tried to carry me to the toilet. I thought I was going to break her sweet, birdy bones. We laughed more than was right. She sang a a Little Mermaid song to me. Never had I ever seen a more beautifully compassionate unconditional kind empathetic human than this brief angel encounter.
A hot doctor poked at me. I got an x-ray from an interesting dad. I got a script for strong ibuprofen (thanks for nothing). Then back to the waiting room, then to a bench outside in the midnight summer air, by the door with armed guards, to wait for the original friend to rescue me in his big white truck. He carried me to bed and tucked me in. The next day I began photographing my marks. Left leg.
Total shit-show trying to find the impound lot, the online paper(less) work, the numbers needed for insurance cases with people I never laid eyes on and had to interpret through tight emails and brief calls with one compassionate voice (the helper) and one terrifying voice (the tightfister). Never have I ever spoken to (been spoken to by) someone so fast they overwhelmed me with questions and information, laying a trap I would have stepped in gladly just to be over with the process. I was sad for her life to have such a job as to unhelp people.
Bike got fixed. Mechanics were tremendously kind. I would live and learn to work at that shop if I could. Alas, I chose a different trajectory, nearly antithetical, surrounded by people and obligations and no solitude.
Got back on. Rode home weary. Let the bike sit. Neglected, frankly. Shame born of undefined fear. Puttered around one evening. Didn’t ride much until spring (2025). Stalled. Overheated. Asked the mechanics for help again. Pretty sure I’ve been riding wrong this entire time and I’m embarrassed. More shame. To a degree where I’m surprised I didn’t learn more in all these years, didn’t seek out information3.
Anyhow, the bike, my “lil’ Honda Rebel,” is in great shape! I’m ready to ride. I’m going to have to (re)learn a lot. Pretty sure I’m ready.
Yeah. Definitely ready to take risks again.
Usually my memories are much sharper. I remember my first booze, my first weed. First flight and first fistfight. First kiss and first sex. First cartwheel, first time I colored in the lines, and first time I realized that sunlight was warm, coming in the window of my rose-wallpapered bedroom at 602.
I refuse to actually name my motorcycle. This is as close as I’ve come. I also can’t fully embrace referring to it a “her.” My first car, people asked what I’d named it. I hadn’t. The hubcaps rattled, so I went with “Tapdancer,” still no gender.
The last time I felt this was was when I moved to Madrid (2004) without knowing much Spanish. I was great at languages, yet too scared to speak, afraid to be wrong, thus never getting right.