Another sunny morning. More swallows dipping in and out of the grass in the field next to the berm which surrounds the property.
Dot and I walk in the morning and I spend some time drinking ice water in the sunshine on our back porch. I read Tom Lake by Ann Patchett this week and I watched the Paul Newman production of Our Town. Then I started listening to the audio book of Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah. The problem experiencing good books or plays is that they can come with a rise in my own writer’s block. Nothing I write can ever measure up to some of these books.
Bur what the hell? I never claimed I was as clear as spring water as Ann Patchett or as timeless as Thorton Wilder or as funny and culturally relevant at Trevor Noah! If fear is the little death than these comparisons I’m making with other writers are killing me.
So I decided to share a section of my newest book that at the moment is in production at Soho Press. The book is called Big Breath In and is about a woman named Delphine who is based on the life of Jan Straley. In this scene Delphine rides a motorcycle through Seattle to keep her mind off of her illness.
" Delphine woke up on the couch. She had the keys to the motorcycle in her right hand. It was four in the morning. There was just a smear of light in the sky. The world was holding its breath, and she wanted to swim out into the last of the night and feel the cool air against her face.
She squeezed the keys and stood up slowly. Robert had let her drive the bike when he was on the back, but she had never ridden it up and down the hills by herself. Once, she and Robert had dumped the Sportster when they had to stop on a steep hill coming up Pike Street. She clambered off and Robert picked it up using his back and his legs. “We’re both about as weak as kittens, ain’t we? If I can’t get this up off the pegs, we might just slap a for sale sign on it and hitchhike back to the hospital.” But he got it up, turned it around, and allowed her to clamber on the back. They let it freewheel downhill until they could make a left turn, turn the engine over and come around from the south where the hills weren’t that steep.
The Sportster weighed about 530 pounds fueled up. She could probably stand it up if she had to, but she didn’t want to risk it. Her arms were thin now and her back was weak. She wore the old Bell helmet without a visor, but she put some old ski goggles on her face to protect her eyes. She had a patched and rumpled jacket that was traffic cone yellow. She tucked her tee shirt into old canvas pants, which were clown baggy now, and laced her logging boots up tight to give her enough ankle support if she did have to lift the bike.
Delphine really wanted to drive the bike. She wanted to feel its strength energize her body. She wanted to move, to accelerate with the suggestion of weightlessness. She wanted to feel one with the machine. But fear gripped her. What if she couldn’t do it? What if weakness was going to define the last portion of her life?
Outside, the shadows in the streets were like pools of water. She smelled the old pizza in the dumpsters. The streetlamps had an opaque ring around the lights because dew point was high enough that the fog would build as the morning temperatures rose. Only when the wind came up would the fog blow off.
She approached the bike and unlocked the chain with some trepidation. It felt as if she were approaching a balky colt on a cold morning. Her wrists and hands felt weak as she grabbed the padded grips, threw her leg over the saddle then sat the bike. She turned over the engine with the electric starter: a wheeze and a chugging followed by nothing. She made certain that all the fuel ports were open, she checked for fuel in the tank. She twisted the throttle and tried again and the engine caught fire with the blend of air, gas and spark. A thrill rose up into her chest and sizzled her brain.
She sat astride the seat and let the 1200 cc engine thrum. When she wrapped up the accelerator, the bike blared into the damp air. The sound bounced off the buildings and returned to her. She could feel it in her chest. She banged the shifter with her foot to make sure she was in neutral. Her hands were shaking as she gripped the clutch lever. Then, with the heavy toe of her boot, she shifted into first, disengaged the clutch let the bike freewheel downhill. Then she released the clutch and the engine lurched into life.
Delphine always went too fast on a big bike. The torque curled like a clockwork spring in her back. The engine screamed and echoed. She stopped for all the red lights as she headed south towards Boren. The air smelled of coffee brewing as she let the Sportster off its leash a little bit. An old Black woman was pushing a grocery cart downhill towards the Goodwill store. The cart was heaped high with what could have been rags or dirty baby clothes. She was jay walking in the middle of a crosswalk and Delphine blasted by her like a train.
“Fuck this,” the Black woman said aloud.
“Sorry,” Delphine said to herself as she rattled past.
The Sportster dipped down toward the international district. At first her lower back was tight, but as she warmed to the sensation of the bike’s gravity and speed, her muscles relaxed and she laughed out loud. The colorful streetlamps stuttered by and she took the bike down, past the train station and into the area around the baseball stadium. Now she was on the flats. She opened it up some more. The bike rattled between her legs. She was doing this. Further south, forklifts crossed the streets with little heed. She swerved around one to avoid a wreck, and the forklift driver gestured with a closed fist to his face.
“Hey, what the hell, lady?” His voice was hoarse.
Her back tire broke free for a moment as she sped up to keep forward momentum. “Keep upright,” she thought. The Sportster felt as if it were going to lay down. She steered into the fall and increased her speed, stood the bike up again and watched the forklift driver become smaller and smaller in her mirror.
When Delphine came to the river, she turned back to the north. She found a freeway entrance and cranked the engine up in the early morning gloom. After a short trip on the freeway, she went down Jackson and toward the international district again. She stopped at a streetlight. Her legs felt weak, and her hands shook a bit. She stood with both feet on the pavement as she idled the engine. Now that she was stopped, her head felt numb from the drugs that clogged her system. She caught her breath, weak but exhilarated. The tank was still full. She blasted down onto the industrial flats by the sports arenas and then sped across the bridge to west Seattle.
It was almost dawn by the time she reached the shore of Puget Sound. The streets of west Seattle that ran parallel to the cobbled shore were empty. She stopped at a beach, shut down the bike and took off her goggles and helmet. Gulls cried their two mournful notes in the dark. The wind felt as if it had blown down from Alaska: cold, salty and pregnant with oceanic life.
Her hands shook as she remembered her old adventures out on the water. Her yellow skiff with the hundred horse engine bucking the weather. Birds in the air. Seals in the ocean, damp wind combing her hair. “
Big Breath In is due out in November. It is a stand alone novel and is not a part of my other two series.
