Endo

The bike turning end over end only a few feet beside me filled my peripheral vision. The engine was roaring, and the sound flowed in waves as the bike flipped.

It had been a bleak few months. But spring had turned the sparse tree limbs full and waving in the early May morning. Tall beech trees and broad buckeyes lined the sides of the highway like a green wall separating commuters from neighborhoods surrounding the outskirts of the city.

It was Friday, and I rode to work on my metallic blue 16-year-old BMW motorcycle.

At the end of the work day, the sun was still high, and the air was warm, so I strapped my helmet to the seat behind me and started the bike. The motorcycle shook rhythmically as the horizontal pistons moved back and forth in the cylinder heads sticking out of the fiberglass fairing like two gray fists.

I stood on the left side, leaned a little over the tank, and, grabbing the throttle, gently revved the engine.

I threw my right leg over the seat and rolled the bike forward off the center stand. It retracted with a solid clank. I backed the bike out of the parking space, listening to the whirling mechanical sounds of the engine. My left foot notched the motorcycle into gear. Then, I rolled on the throttle and sped through the parking lot toward the service road that ran parallel to it.

The road made a long, sweeping left in front of a Holiday Inn, then a quicker swaying right up a slight hill to a stop sign at the end of a short straightaway. I turned onto the road and twisted the throttle, the peculiar bending torque of a BMW motorcycle flexing under me.

I sped toward the Holiday Inn, looking past its entrance to the sweeping left. I kept a tight hold on the throttle, my speed steadily increasing. Then, I looked at the entrance of the hotel. Its wide lane was separated by a small median with a curb painted yellow and a squat enter and exit sign.

I pitched forward and cartwheeled high in the air. The sky and green grass alternated like a slow strobe effect—blue, green, blue, green.

I stared at the yellow curb ahead to my right. The gravel lining the side of the road shook me awake. I snapped my head to the left and quickly leaned the bike into the turn. I tried to scrub off speed by rolling the throttle closed, and the bike stood upright. Within seconds, the front wheel slammed into the curb, pitching the front end into the air. I tightly gripped the handlebars as the impact hit me with the ferocity of an explosion. The shattered front rim screamed a metallic curse as it hit the asphalt again.

I pitched forward and cartwheeled high in the air. The sky and green grass alternated like a slow strobe effect—blue, green, blue, green. The bike turning end over end only a few feet beside me filled my peripheral vision. The engine was roaring, and the sound flowed in waves as the bike flipped. I hit the ground and bounced, moving away from the impact like a stone skipping across a pond. I struck the ground again, and a rush of air flew out of me in a tremor. The bike landed with the crunch of fiberglass and a jarring metallic rattle. It was still running in a ragged, gasping idle as it lay on its side, its neat, cared-for parts twisted and spread around. The beautifully sculpted tank was gashed from the fuel cap to the seat, and one severed fuel line leaked gasoline over the wreckage.

I spasmodically jumped to my feet, ran to the motorcycle, lifted it off its side, and pulled it onto the kickstand—a burning pain shot through my right wrist, forcing my hand to recoil. I stood looking at the shattered motorcycle and paced alongside it until cars began pulling up to ask if I was okay.

I waved them on and said I was. I stood, struggling to remember details in the numbness of the adrenaline rush. Someone who stopped called 911, and the police came to the scene.

Eventually, the bike was hoisted to the back of a tow truck and cradled in chains. I watched it swing like a twisted pendulum as the truck pulled away.

A friend, working a little late, drove up and waited patiently to take me to the emergency room.

As we drove to the nearest hospital, the pain increased but wasn’t unbearable. An aching loneliness crept over me, and I began to shiver.

During the examination and x-rays, I endured three separate lectures about the dangers of motorcycles. I thoughtlessly nodded and mumbled, “I get it,” to a nurse determined to scare me bikeless by recounting the graphic wounds caused by motorcycle accidents. I sat in a wheelchair, helpless against her barrage of visceral memories.

In the examination room, I waited uncomfortably, listening to the hum of the fluorescent ceiling lights. The hazy thinking that harassed me immediately after the accident lifted suddenly. Vivid details hung behind my eyes. Small pebbles strewn across the hotel entrance were well-defined on the mottled gray asphalt. I saw individual blades of grass waving as the motorcycle spun overtop, flipping in a curving arc before crashing. The screaming pitch of the engine revs the moment the bike and I became airborne.

I was sorry I could not hold on to the moment between the impending crash and my inauspicious impact. The details overcame me. They were beautiful and terrifying. I hung between desire and fear and longed for another wreck and to walk away more alive than before.

In the silence of a sterile hospital room, satisfaction saturated me. Like a still pond whose surface stretched taut was undisturbed by the slightest breath of air, I was, at that moment, unexpectedly and perfectly content.