Day 2

Day 2

Day two of motorcycle school started out much like day one: my confidence was on the lam, even though the instructors, major Paul (who was in charge), small Paul (who was the other instructor named Paul), and Gene, kept exhorting us to have fun.  I dreaded each new exercise that we practiced and the inevitable sense of incompetency that came with trying each new maneuver.  Many of my classmates had already been driving their motorcycles on public roads and were taking the course to avoid the $600+ penalty that comes from riding in Arizona without an endorsement.  In other words, they knew what they were doing.  I did not, and I realized with sudden surety that I had arrived at the age where most people stick with doing only what they're good at.  I was good at scanning poetry and encouraging novice writers to use their imaginations.  I was not good at this.  I kept wondering how it was that the instructors weren't sending me home.

Four women, including me, and seven men comprised our class.  One woman was there to learn to ride a scooter.  She wasn't having any of the clutching and shifting.  She zoomed around in her silver scooter and big, matching helmet looking like something out of the Jetsons.

By the end of the first day, one female student had been asked to leave, and another female student left on her own volition because she'd received a phone call during a break that had upset her.  Her concentration fell apart, and she could no longer steer; she could no longer brake.  She departed.  That left the scooter woman and me.  I was the only female left going for a motorcycle endorsement.  I admit that I suddenly felt more determined to finish.

At our 2:30 break on the second day, I had a talk with myself in the bathroom.  We had been doing figure eights in these boxes that were painted into the pavement in blue.  Fear was ruling my ability to inscribe an 8, and my eights looked like preschooler's scrawling of clouds.  My eight was wider and wavier than Lake Michigan. I trembled through the curves.  I was not having fun, and my anxiety at the thought of ever conducting a motorcycle safely and correctly on a public thoroughfare was accelerating.  For two afternoons, I had been waiting for that moment when everything would click, and I would be able to pull the clutch, toe the shift, work the throttle, and balance and steer all at the same time.  But that moment eluded me.  In the restroom, I told myself that enough was enough, and it was time to stop thinking and to simply become one with the machine.

I returned to the course determined.

Luckily, we were done with practicing curves and were instead going to practice swerving.  Unlike making curves, which takes incredibly complicated geometrical calculations, swerving only involves the hips.  Small Paul said, "It's like dancing!" I smiled.  Dancing? I could do this.

And I did.  I instantly became an adroit weaver.  Suddenly, my ability to simultaneously release the clutch and turn the throttle appeared, and I drove between cones with enthusiasm.  My moment to shine had arrived.  An instructor stood at the end of each exercise waiting to coach us before we toddled to the back of the line. I finished my machine-guided version of the samba and pulled up to major Paul, peering through my helmet at him waiting for the praise.  He said, "Kimmy, that was terrible.  You're thinking too much.  When you stop thinking is when you start having fun."  I sighed and turned the bike toward the end of the practice line.  Still, I knew something that major Paul didn't know:  I was finally improving. 

Toward late afternoon, the lessons were winding up, and we were rocketing towards the final test.  When my husband, Virgil  took his motorcycle endorsement class three years prior, we were living in New Mexico.  The instructors of his course were motorcycle cops for the city we lived in, and as the students prepared for the final test, they were given a practice run. Virgil told me that the instructors really encouraged their students through this practice and kept saying, "Come on, so-and-so, we need to see that you can do this right, so you'll do well on the test."  In the end, the instructors had duped their students, and the practice run was the test.  Everybody passed without the pressure of having to perform in the moment.  I figured if two cops could trick their students this way, then maybe three regular men could, too.

Of course, I was wrong.  The sun began to set, and rain began to patter down on our helmets, making the weather in Phoenix a paltry 52 degrees, and Paul, Paul, and Gene insisted we show them what we had learned. We had four major skills we had to demonstrate:  getting up to fifteen miles an hour and then stopping safely in a short distance, swerving, curving in a wide 185 degree turn, and, Lord have mercy, the figure 8 curve box.  Much like with various Olympic sports, we would be assigned points for mistakes:  putting a foot down was three points, guiding both tires out of the blue box was five, and so on.  We were allowed an undisclosed amount of points before failing the test, although "lying the bike down" and doing anything "unsafe" would count as instant failure.  My fellow student, Mike, who had apparently been riding for years and who was attending the Motorcycle Maintenance Institute to get his mechanics certificate, led us off.  I was eighth in line and grateful not to be first.  Mike eased through his figure eight like a professional ice skater.  The students following him followed suit with varying degrees of success.  My turn was drawing nigh.

Rather than fretting, however, suddenly I felt very peaceful; I was narrating myself: "Look at me, I'm next. I'm about to perform a figure eight with a motorcycle while everybody watches."  I was relieved to get the figure eight requirement out of the way first. I drove into the box in second gear and immediately felt like I was wrestling a bear.  I turned and twisted, and the machine between my legs resisted and growled.  It bested me quickly, and I put my foot down on the first U. Then, the bike died right under me.  Somehow, I started it right back up, and after that, the worst that could happen already had, and I completed the second U with grace and even aplomb and went zooming across the parking lot to perform the swerve.  With steely nerves, I waited until the last minute to yank the Honda to the right, and I was sure I hit a cone, which, of course, would add points to my score.  I stopped on command and even remembered to shift back into first before ceasing completely.  One of the Pauls waved me on, and I filed back into line fretting over the cone I'd hit.

We performed the last two points of testing, stopping and curving, and I felt I'd done a passing job.  In fact, I felt confident in my sudden stop.  I had used all four limbs simultaneously and made them do what they were supposed to do to bring the Honda safely to a halt. At this point, the sun had dropped completely, and we put away our helmets and gloves in darkness.  Major Paul called us over to him one at a time to give us our scores.

When I heard my name called, I walked over to major Paul.  He said, "You put your foot down in the box and stalled the bike in the first U, so you lost three points there.  But you did the perfect swerve.  Not a good stop, though.  You stopped four feet too far.  You need to practice stopping more before getting out on the streets."  I nodded in agreement.  "And you decelerated on the curve.  You got a 17, and you needed 20 to fail.  You passed."

I walked away elated but I wondered if he had seen me at all.  Didn't he see that I made the perfect stop but hit the cone on the swerve? Clearly, my experience did not match theirs.  While confused, I decided I could live with it.

That evening I felt like I'd been hit by a car.  Muscles that I never even felt a minor twinge in before screamed out their existence.  I was cold from the inside out, and my neck ached where it met my head.  And, at some point in the afternoon, someone had shoved a switchblade in between my shoulder blades. Still, I had done it.  Not well and not with aplomb.  I didn't look great doing it, and after it was done, I felt like a wreck. But I had succeeded where just hours prior I was certain I'd fail. For me, it was the ultimate success, which was funny because I'd barely passed.