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The Beast was a 1980 Honda CB750 Custom, and she had ferried me and my best friend around for two months or more. We’d covered a lot of ground in those two months, thousands of miles that will forever be imprinted on my memory. We’d gotten as far as Taos in New Mexico, and had had, without doubt, the craziest trip of our lives.
Now my friend had flown back to the UK, and I was heading north, leaving San Francisco for Canada. The bike was only half mine and I didn’t have the balls to continue alone; and besides, I didn’t have a motorcycle license which had proven tricky in the several incidents when we’d been pulled over by the cops. I also knew that if I didn’t sell her then I was going to die in a motorbike accident; you can only be so lucky for so long. And her health wasn’t all that it could be, and now my mechanic was gone I didn’t have a clue.
The parking ticket I’d just received felt like a bad omen. And let’s not forget the drunken ride home from the bar with the girl I’d been seeing. It was raining and I was caning it as ever. I noticed the red light too late, slammed on the brakes and pulled a straight line skid through four lanes of traffic, missing the rear end of a car by inches. Just like a game of Frogger. It probably looked quite cool, especially as once I knew we’d made it, I kicked her down a gear and literally flew up the hill. I knew, however, that she had to go or it was all going to end in tears.
I’d put a few adverts in free papers and got a few bites. The plan was to leave her for my friend Paul to sell if I didn’t sell her before I left. On my final Saturday morning I was woken with a screaming hangover by a guy on the phone telling me he wanted to come by in half an hour. It was a hot, sunny day and as I guzzled huge glasses of water I remembered that I’d left her about four blocks away because she had died on me again. I got dressed and ran down the hill to where she still was, thankfully. She wouldn’t start so I started pushing her up the hill under the interested gazes of the crack smoking street life. Sweating like a bastard, stopping to catch my breath and stop myself from throwing up, I eventually made it.
I pulled her onto her stand and sat on the stoop, exhausted. Two guys showed up and started looking her over. I explained that she wasn’t running that well, probably only on three cylinders, and she needed some work. The potential buyer’s friend asked if he could take her for a spin. I told him if she started he was welcome. She started first time, typical of her capricious ways, and I watched the guy head off down the hill knowing that he was bound to come huffing back up in a minute telling me she had died.
Five minutes later he pulled up and turned off the engine. He told his friend that she needed some TLC but was in essence a good bike. The buyer asked me what I wanted for her and I said that the ad said four hundred bucks – which was what we’d paid for her. I would have accepted two hundred in a heartbeat, but I didn’t say that. The two men walked away a little to discuss the matter, and I distinctly heard the test ride guy, “No, it’s a good bike. Give the man four hundred.”
They turned back to me and the guy pulled out his wallet and gave me two hundred right there and returned within an hour with the rest.
I was sad to see her go. Still, I was left with the feeling that I hadn’t sold her, but that she’d left me, knowing that it had to end, that I was incapable of riding her at normal speeds, that it was our destiny to part.
The Beast was and always will be the greatest holiday romance of my life.
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