February 5, 2005

• Short Story: “A Dark and Stormy Night”

  

  

  
  written by Michael F. Nyiri
  Feb. 29th, 2004 7:25am

  They say it never rains in Southern California. But when it pours, man, it pours.

  One evening, after locking up the store, and hoping for a break in the weather, I began to realize that the dark clouds were not ready to leave the party so soon, and I would have to travel the 30 miles from Culver City to Lomita in the rain, laughing in droplets of hurried slickness, using the wind to great advantage, moving complete automobiles with ease sideways across the highways.
  Trouble is, the 650CC Thumper sitting out in the parking lot dripping profusely from the handlbars, seat, and tank was not an automobile. It’s seat sat merely 24 inches from the ground and the tires were merely 2 inches thick.

  Usually, inclement weather wasn’t too much of a problem, since I rode not only with my leathers and boots, but my bright yellow slickersuit. This evening, however, the storm had been one of those sudden “whoppers” which hadn’t really been predicted, and I hadn’t ridden to work with the full gearset for rain, which by this time didn’t want to end.

  “Are you going to be alright in this weather?”, one of my fellow duty managers asked as the last of the shelf stockers left the store, covering their heads with newspapers and the top parts of their coat collars.

  “Heck,” I proclaimed, I’m sure I can come up with something.

  I went to the back of the store to the paint department, and unrolled one of those heavy spools of clear plastic tarp. By cutting strips of the tarp, and duct-taping it to my leather jacket and my pantlegs, I was able to “simulate” the slicker suit. I marked down the merchandise I used, and followed my fellow manager out into the parking lot. As I fastened my helmet strap tightly under my neck, I bade the other guy goodnight, and straddled my machine, glinting ominously in the now dimming lights of the parking lot. A quick turn of the key, and a press of the starter switch. and the machine roared to life. Well, I thought, at least it started.

  I seldom pray, it seems, unless I “want something”, but said a short prayer before heading off into the black night. If you have ever ridden a motorcycle in the rain, especially a chopper where the front forks impede short turning radiuses, and especially in a storm, you must know that it is not the “easiest” exercise one can accomplish. Riding is far different from driving even in the most serene and safe circumstances. Riding in the Rain is not really recommended, but as I said, the storm had come quickly, and in California, where it seldom rains, the vast amount of auto and truck drivers, and bike riders are not “used” to inclement weather, and tend to operate their vehicles as if there is nothing to “worry” about.

  I always feel I pay attention to the dangers inherent in driving. I’ve driven in weather patterns as hot as the desert and as icy as the snow covered Sierra Nevada in the winter, so maneuvering my little two wheeled wonder through the sheets of ever increasing water pouring on the freeway like icy, slippery needles didn’t essentially cause me any worry.
  The drive down the “110″ was relatively uneventful. I couldn’t really see much through the visor, and had it positioned about halfway down the face opening in the helmet. I’d recently changed to a “full face” helmet after nearly breaking my jaw in an open faced helmet in an early mishap when I slid through an oil slick on my other bike and my head hit the ground, leaving a nasty gash in my chin. The opening in my present helmet was just enough to allow me to “see” clearly, when sheets of water weren’t coming through like so much drainage through a sluice gate. 

  My heart was in my throat as the exit finally came up. In earlier days, immersed in the “Kar Kulture” of Southern Cal, my friends and I talleyd our car wrecks as badges of courage, and the “telling of the tale” of one’s highway horrors was a high point of just about any party or gathering at Bob’s Big Boy restaurant after a “cruise night”. By the time I was riding, however, I pretty much rode “safe” but knew that Death’s Door could open at any moment.

  It was a dark and stormy night, and as the bike slid noisily off the freeway ramp, and into traffic on Pacific Coast Highway, I breathed a little easier. I was within five blocks of home. And although the rain still pelted the hastily made slicker suit like marbles on piece of tin, I wasn’t particularly “afraid” or “concerned”. I was almost home.

  Most traffic accidents occur within five blocks of home.
       
  As is usual on the streets of Southern Cal after a quick hard rain, I encountered one of these traffic accidents at PCH and Vermont, just a block from the freeway offramp. A pickup, bumper smashed partway, had stopped at the southwest corner. It’s adversary, a large Lincoln sat, spent and dripping, in the middle of the intersection. I was in the middle lane of a three lane highway, heading west, waiting my turn, behind a string of three cars each. The traffic light for the southbound traffic was red when I approached the intersection. The police hadn’t arrived, the wreck wasn’t that bad, but of course the existing traffic in the intersection was trying to “circle” round the smashed Lincoln, with varying degrees of success.

  Waiting at the light, I was stopped for the first time since beginning the trip home. By now, some of the tape had worked itself loose, and my slickersuit was partially hanging from my chest. Soon this would be over, and I would be in my heated apartment, having a much needed Michelob relating the tale of the dark and stormy night to my roommate. My storm gave me a calm, and the light for me turned green.

  There was a station wagon in front of me. A full line of autos on my right. Each one to pass the stalled Lincoln had to “swerve” to the right about four to eight feet, nearly touching the bumpers of the southbound traffic on Vermont. The tableau moved as if in slow motion, and nobody wanted to “cause” any more twisted metal, so as the cars in front of me circled the slain behemoth in the center of the intersection, a mood of cautious calamity filled the air. After rounding the danger, the drivers gunned for the highway as usual, swearing danger aside. About ten or twenty feet on the other side of the intersection, in full accelleration, traffic resumed as normal as it can get in a rainstorm, which hadn’t let up for over two hours now. There were cars on my left. Cars on my right, and a station wagon in front of me. I travel a good distance from the car in front, but this was a point of accelleration from an intersection, and there wasn’t a lot of space in front of me as the guy in the station wagon decided to be a good samaritan, and try to “hang a huey”, or manuever a U-turn to the left to return and see if he could help the guy in the Lincoln. 

  It took me only a few seconds to realize my poor bike had nowhere to go. I was in third gear by then, traveling about 30-35 mph when the station wagon made for a break in the cars to his left. He easily blocked the left two lanes, as there was traffic coming the other way, which he probably didn’t see when starting his turn because of the poor vision inherent in a rainstorm on a dark night.

  I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t move to the right of left, into the doors of the cars on either side of me. I could only hit the back end of the station wagon. My front tire caught the space between his bumper and the back end of his car as he stopped, but he had then accellerated out toward the other side of the road, completing his U-turn. He probably felt the impact “in passing”. I, on the other hand, felt it “head on”, and as my front fork telescoped back into the tank, I was sent somersaulting over the handlebars, where I landed on my back about twenty yards from the impact. The tarp taped to my leathers acted as a reverse slip and slide when I hit the puddles on the pavement, and I slid for what seemed like forever. I can remember the impact and the effect of flying through the air as if being shot from a cannon at the circus. It didn’t “hurt” but rather felt like a roller coaster ride from hell. After reorganizing my thoughts, lying in the middle of the street, with cars now circling me like I was some dead bird or dog dropped there, I looked back to where my twisted transportation had stopped, on it’s side, engine still running, front wheel spinning like a crooked wheel of misfortune. By now the guy in the station wagon had realized what had happened, and had stopped by the other side of the road.

  I hastily stood up, and must have looked like something out of a Mad Max movie, dressed completely in black, with the glint of the streelights shining off of my now shredded jury-rigged “slickersuit”. I directed my gaze to the driver of the station wagon, probably thanking his lucky stars he hadn’t caused my untimely end with his attempt at good nature. He had wanted to help the guy in the Lincoln, who had two tons of metal around him, and didn’t see the guy on the bike behind him.

  “I hope you know you have to drive me home”, I screamed at him through the dounpour.

  I still shudder when driving through the same intersection every night, which I called the “Blah blah Memorial Intersection” for years in the guys memory. He did follow as I “rode” the bike, with it’s crooked fork, to the bike shop which miraculously was right up the street. Then he drove me home, and his insurance paid for the damage to the bike. Thankfully, I didn’t break anything. I thank the rain, the slick, streets, and my prescience at having “wrapped myself in plastic” before attempting to ride in the rain. In sunny weather, I probably would have died.

  (NOTE: I found this while searching through all the prose text files I have on my computer and thought it might make an interesting post seeing as we just had all that rain. The event described happened in 1989 when I still rode motorcycles. The composite image is a graphic from the Suziki Savage catalog, with various rain effects gained from clip art, and overlaid or underlaid on the image of the bike in the Pictrure Publisher. I “lost” the image once prior to saving, and had to “recreate” it, but it makes a nice graphic for the story, don’t ya think. MFN)

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