What Holds Us Together, series 2, no. 16. Graphite, ink, colored pencil and cotton floss on paper, 4.25x6”. 2020
1:40am.
My DR is loaded with street clothes, two lengths of cable with corresponding heavy-duty padlocks, and a bike cover sturdy enough to withstand 70mph sandstorms. I've been sleeping off-and-on all day trying to shake a mild fever. It's not so bad; my body's starved for sleep to the point that I could pass out all day without effort, racking up rest hours I'll need to ride through the night into LA.
She roars up without complaint, and my ex-cop neighbor's dogs start howling as if on cue, guaranteeing the pissing-off of Air BnB guests sleeping here and there about the desert plain in modernized luxury cabins that were once crumbling $10,000 shacks.
I've got to get to LA to catch a 6:20am flight. From sand to potholed pavement to highway to interstate to the inner city hell-scapes that inspired the movie Bladerunner. 3 hours of speeding through darkness, topography lit by red and yellow city lights, mountain silhouettes backlit by an ever-sinking harvest moon. There are no other bikes. Only trucks, themselves moving groggily in a state of half-sleep. It's as if I'm the only one out here, flying through canyon twists with no traffic, no wind, no resistance. It's fucking beautiful. My fever headache is gone.
It occurred to me somewhere along the way that this motorcycle is the only consistent thing in my life. People and places shift and change, as I change myself. The bike is my constant, my home. It's a machine, of metal and oil, gas and oxygen, with its own moving body parts. But I thank it every day anyway.
I am on my way to Houston, TX. To see new and old friends. Something pulls me back there. A longing for consistency, perhaps. For love.