December 30, 2004
I woke up not long ago to a dark and damp morning. The fog that has rested just above the still lit lamp poles resembles my first morning in Amsterdam so much so that, while I was wandering around my living room and brushing my teeth, I could just feel the cobble stone streets beneath my sneakers (do they still use the word 'sneakers?'). I could see the short, curved bridges sloping gently over the slow river and taste the fog that dulled my first cigarette of the morning as we made our way to the Ann Frank House. It's nearly shocking, how often I am whisked away, and how close I feel to that place so many miles from my home.Yet today holds a promise of being so real. So right here that I am equally overwhelmed in my present location. The anticipation of it all has rendered my sleep broken and brief and I am currently wrestling with the weight of all that is to come of the day.
It is something that I have done a million times before - something that has started out so much in the same way - that I know I shall be all of reminiscent before I even exit my car after the short drive. My destination is to the Warehouse of Lake Country Powersports.
I shall struggle to find a parking spot on the road just outside of the old, gray building that houses new and used motorcycles, ATV's and dirt bikes of every assorted flavor. Some of them still crated and waiting to be built, some still waiting to be diagnosed and fixed and others just being stored for the winter months. I shall see his green Nissan sitting outside with the large white print of Yamaha across the back window, the white van the belongs to another technician and a few of the old cars waited to be painted from the folks that own the space next to the Warehouse.
I'll sit in my car, briefly gathering my things - a can of Diet Coke, a pack of cigarettes to nervously puff away on and the title to my 1983 Honda CB650 Nighthawk which has found its home in that Warehouse for over four years now. With these things in tote, I shall pace myself to the door of the Warehouse, pulling the metal square open with one shaking hand and letting it fall closed with a dull thud behind me. I shall creep up the cold, grey stairs and breathe in the musty odor of that senescent building to another door that must be pushed open against the carpet inside. I'll pause there, just inside the door of the break room where the refridgerator filled with Miller Light sits along with the myriad of technician's manuals, waiting to catch my breath.
I'll hear the familiar sounds of Lazer 103 blaring from the stereo that he purchased on sale not even a year ago, the buzz of power tools spinning obnoxiously as someone replaces the wheel on an ATV, the hollow echo of laughter as someone cracks a joke about the memory of a well spent New Year's passed and the hearty response of his voice if the comment is worth replying to. I'll take one deep breath, as I've done a million times before, and step through the door of the break room with my head held high.
I shall smile. I shall smile with my mouth and with the green of my eyes. I shall mask the protesting angst within my heart and I shall well cover the sadness welling inside my soul. I'll not even glance in his direction before stopping at every single project laid out on every single bay, uttering cheeful and sincere hellos to everyone I've not seen in months.
"Hello, Ben! Oh hi Scott! How are you ladies doing on this fine, damp afternoon?"
"Hey, Laura! Long time no see!"
The usual patterns of the usual greetings that I've bellowed a million times before.
Perhaps I'll stop upon the familiarity of my old CB650, pulled out and ready to be purchased after its long repose here in the Warehouse. But it won't be long in waiting that my eyes will finally seek out the last bay in the left hand corner, where he stations his tools and his very own lift. It makes me shiver, now, and my stomach turn just to think of it.
He will be standing there, unaffected and unassuming, hardly capable of bearing a smile upon his encumbered visage, leaning against a bench with one hand and releasing an exhale of smoke from his lips and nose. He will wave the hand that holds cigarette at me and I will saunter towards him as though all were well and right with the world. I'll speak slowly, when I say hello, but I know that he will detect the shake of my voice. I will ask him how he is doing and he will reply with a familiar retort that I have heard a million times before.
"Same old shit."
I shall comment that it is good to see him, though perhaps I should keep that to myself, I will not be able to help it. It will be, though, so entirely good to see him. Perhaps, he shall just nod in response and I'll do my best to look away, without lingering and without sensation. But even in that brief moment, I will notice everything and not for a second, desire to really look away.
His neatly fixed, dirty blonde hair, barely disrupted from the morning's tasks, his eyes still dark and tired from an unsatisfying night's sleep and his wide, inviting lips still exhaling the smoke of the cigarette he lit upon my entrance. The black pair of Sketcher's on his feet; they must be new and the pair of blue jeans he is wearing; they have not the usual marks of grease and oil that I have seen a million times before.
He will twist the cigarette within his fingers, letting the cherry fall to floor and rubbing it out with the toe of his shoe, tossing the crumpled Marlboro into the garbage before making his way to my CB650. He will look it over with me and inquire as to whether or not I've brought the title and a hand typed bill of sale. I'll smile and laugh and remove my heart from wanting to engulf him in my arms and, as we look over the bike, I'll shut my senses away from inhaling the sweet aroma of his skin which would consume me as it has done a million times before.
And there I will be, scolding myself for hoping that he inquires over anything that pertains to my life, each of us feigning the laughter that once rang so true as Merle looks over the purchase he is about to make. There he will be, looking over the signing of the title and explaining this and that about the bike that he once helped me to fix years and years ago. There we will be, awkward and stiff, seperate with our thoughts and together for one last turn as we have both been, in that very same room, a million times before...