Upkeep

March 16, 2008

I have no idea how tomorrow's hand operation will affect my riding ability, or for how long. It could be weeks. And since, like me, a motorcycle can't be expected to run very well if it's left sitting too long, I met with Jason yesterday and spent the afternoon tooling around Brooklyn on our aging classics.

I arrived early to our arranged meeting spot, under the Brooklyn Bridge, parked my bike, and killed time by wandering around the waterfront, taking pictures of people taking pictures.

I was interrupted by an older European couple. I suppose it should go without saying that they were well-dressed, but more than simply well-dressed, they were elegant and distinguished, like a modern-day Marcello Mastroianni and Anouk Aimée strolling along the piazza, living La Dolce Vita. The man asked me for directions. "Scusa me, can a you tell me where is dee uh —dee uh River—River—" The man pulled a map from his breast pocket and pointed to a star marking The River Cafe. "Ah, Café, Café. Dee uh River Café."

The River Cafe is well known for its view of the East River and the Manhattan skyline, so I knew it must be along the water somewhere, but I've never been there. "I'm not sure," I said, and gave them my best guess, which turned out to be completely wrong. I realized too late, when I noticed the restaurant's entrance less than 50 feet from where we'd been standing when they asked. For a guy who has lived in New York City as long as I have, that kind of thing happens a lot.

Jason rolled up on his Honda CB550, and after taking a minute to stretch and regroup, I kicked my own bike back to life and followed him to Red Hook, carving through the desolate industrial backroads, dodging pot holes and debris, standing on our foot-pegs while rolling over deeply scarred and sloppily patched asphalt. I couldn't decide if I was doing my quirky, 40-year-old bike any good, or if I was simply running it into the ground, but it handled well, and I convinced myself that it was enjoying the ride as much as I was.

Jason told me that the construction on one of Red Hook's beat-up main drags was way behind schedule and that many of the shops and restaurants that had opened along the strip, expecting it to boom like so many other parts of Brooklyn, were now struggling to stay in business. We decided to do our small part and stopped for lunch.

The place we chose appeared to be a tiny hole-in-the-wall, with only three or four tables, a short counter with a coffee machine behind it, and a warming case filled with Australian-style pies off to the side. However, it was actually quite large, with most of its space devoted to a huge kitchen in the back. I watched as a single, flour-dusted cook ran around carrying trays filled with pies — chicken pies, beef pies, Tex-Mex chili pies, vegetarian curry pies, and so on — way more pies than they could ever hope to sell in the front café. The cashier explained that the kitchen also supplies them to a new, second location in Park Slope. If the customers won't come to the pies, bring the pies to the customers.

Jason and I each had a vegetarian curry pie and a coffee and sat by the window, shooting the shit. Jason asked how the stress test I took the other day went. "Fine," I said, adding what the technician had said, "for my age."

I told him that I felt a lot better since taking the test, though. After learning that my blood vessels have started to calcify, I was half expecting to have a stroke or a heart attack at any minute. "Just like my motorcycle's oil lines," I said, "it only takes a little piece of crud to fuck up the works. The stress test did a lot for my peace of mind."

"I'll bet," he said. "I need to take one of those."

The pies were small, and eating one only made me hungry for another. "Fresh ones will be out in ten minutes," the cashier said. We waited twenty, filled up on a second pie each, and then headed to Greenpoint to see if our pal Rosko was in his shop prepping his Formula CB racer for a WERA race in Virginia next weekend.

Rosko's garage is located right next to the Greenpoint Terminal Market — an old, warehouse building destroyed in a massive fire two years ago. The wind's fickle direction is the only thing that spared Rosko's garage from being consumed in the blaze. "If the wind had been blowing the other way," the firefighter told Rosko, "everything in here, your bikes, your tools, everything would've melted."

We parked the bikes and entered the alley leading to the garage space, hidden away like a secret club. The Clash was blasting through the brick wall— "We're a garage band—ahh ahh ohh, we come from garageland —ahh ahh ohh—" You could hear echoes of skateboard wheels carving loops in and out of a wooden skatebowl, decks smacking hard against the lip. Jason explained that the immense space was subsidized by an indoor skateboard bowl that charges skaters a monthly access fee, like a gym membership for skate rats and teenage runaways.

In addition to the bowl itself, there is a set of bleachers for spectators. A sign that said, "Guests Five Dollars," was taped to the stairs leading up to the seats. We climbed up and watched the skaters for a minute. A video crew was there, set up on a platform, videotaping the skaters. One of them called over to us to ask who we were and what we wanted. "We're looking for Rosko," said Jason.

"Oh," the guy nodded. "He's not here."

We went outside, into the alley, and Jason tried calling Rosko on the phone. "No, I'm at work," said Rosko, who works at a Brooklyn Machine Works, a machine shop in yet another part of Brooklyn. "Come on by."

When we arrived, there were a couple of other motorcycles parked out front, and inside, it was a regular clubhouse. Friends of Rosko's, kicking tires, talking about various projects and rides, and teasing Rosko about the nice, rideable weather he was missing.

Rosko's race bike was on a stand, against a wall of unpainted bicycle frames. The machine shop produces a lot of things, but its bread and butter is high-end bicycles. "Take one for a spin around the block," Rosko offered to anyone interested, as he wheeled out a couple of the most tricked-out models, complete with gas shocks and disc brakes. "I bet the suspension is more luxe than on your motorcycles."

In my case, I was sure he was right. But in the case of the guy with a one-year-old Ducati Sport Classic 1000, I had my doubts. Until I learned that the bicycles sold for as much as 7,000 dollars, that is. Roughly two-thirds of the price of the Ducati. I didn't get a chance to try one out, but by all reports, Rosko wasn't fooling.

After riding all day over Brooklyn's patchy, debris-strewn industrial side streets, my scrambler held up nicely, handling everything I asked of it with no complaints. My body, on the other hand, didn't fare as well. My hand, the one to be operated on tomorrow, was aching, and my middle finger curled inward, locking up whenever I made a fist.

My Triumph looks good and, like me, runs well "for its age" but not without a lot of care and maintenance. But I enjoy the maintenance almost as much as the riding, and it occurred to me that if I can learn to do the same for my own uniquely dysfunctional, diabetic body — that is, learn to enjoy the upkeep — that things just might be okay.

I'll try.

Either way, surgery tomorrow, five a.m.

Report to follow.