Recollections of a Harmless Dirtbag At one time Flip Wilson did a comedy skit in which he parked his car in a municipal lot then realized he had no change for the meter. He approached a middle class white man and asked for change The man put his hands over his head and said, “Take my money; but please don’t kill me.” Unfortunately, stereotyping is not always humorous. I should know. For several years I was one of those notoriously black hearted and dirty finger nailed makers of noise and obscene gestures known as a biker. I wore heavy boots, tattered blue jeans and a thick beard. My transportation was a chopped down 1,200 cc Harley Davidson with a hand shifter and a suicide clutch. I was a biker, but I was still me. And the difference between me and my image produced some interesting results. Here are a few examples: I was really dirty. The skin behind my sunglasses was four shade slighter than the rest of my face. My blue jeans were greasy and there were pieces of grass still stuck in my beard from the night before. I looked like one of the great unwashed. Actually, I was basically mediocre and temporarily unclean. My Harley was speckled liberally with the broken corpses of unfortunate insects whose exoskeletons had proved less than a match for my chrome plated “springer” front end. Ahead of me, alongside the sunlit turnpike, I could see a shiny white Lincoln Continental on the grassy shoulder. Two people were kneeling behind it; an elderly man and a woman. As I rode past I realized they were struggling to loosen a set of lug nuts that undoubtedly had been tightened by some gasoline station gorilla with arms like Lou Ferrigno and a mind like a Rhode Island Red. I thought about my own parents, alone on a deserted stretch of roadway with an unchangeable flat tire in the absence of a son that is never around when they need him. I was a hundred yards past the Lincoln by the time I stopped. The end of the kick stand sunk into the soft earth causing the 650 pound machine to lean over more than I would have liked, but I wanted to get back there before the old guy gave himself a heart attack. I trusted my luck and left the bike to fend for itself. They appeared to be a well dressed couple, probably in their late60s, watching fearfully as I approached. My heavy leather boots crunching ominously in the dry leaves didn’t help, I’m sure. As I came close, I’m certain it was the sight of the Smith and Wesson folding knife protruding from its case on my hip that finally caused them to act. The old man spoke to his wife then they both got into the Lincoln and locked the doors. My first impulse was to start shouting at them through the closed windows   something to the effect that I had only stopped to help and that if they thought I was such an animal they could damn well change their own flat tire. I didn’t. I began to realize that their reaction was not only understandable, but probably the wisest thing to do under the circumstances. For all they knew I was just what I looked like   trouble. The lug nuts felt like they had been welded on. I bent their lug wrench and used up a week’s supply of grunts and groans before I got them all loose. I had the new tire on and was in the process of jacking the Continental back to earth when they finally got out. Their embarrassment and apologies made me extremely uncomfortable. I smiled and told them to keep their money, then crunched my way back to the Harley. I’m sure that the positive experience they had with me caused them to form new and equally baseless generalizations about grubby motorcyclists. In reality bikers are like snow flakes. No two are alike, but they all get dirty when they fall down. Any generalizations I may have developed about spiffy sexagenarians in luxury cars being terrified of motorcycle hippies were only temporary. I may have looked dangerous to some people, but to one older couple I merely looked thirsty. In Florida, there is a road called Alligator Alley stretching straight across the state through the middle of the Everglades. It is a deserted stretch of highway with a couple of small rest stops where native reptiles dine on visiting French Poodles. The locals call them Foo Foo burgers. Huge, uncontrolled brush fires were raging on both sides of the roadway. The old Harley and I were headed west toward Naples on the Gulf Coast through the summer heat and clouds of sickening smoke. Roughly halfway across I pulled into a rest area to make an adjustment on my primary drive chain. There were no restrooms, no Coke machines and no water fountains; only me and a new green Cadillac occupied by a couple of classy looking senior citizens doting over a potential Foo Foo burger. Every time I glanced toward them they were staring at me. I tried my best to ignore it and not to make any quick moves. I didn’t want them to scurry off into the swamp screaming, where some animated handbag would surely break his fast on their curly haired ankle biter. I finished the repair and was strapping my tool bag on the sissy bar when someone spoke behind me. It was the poodle’s mother. She was smiling and holding out a one gallon plastic jug containing about a pint of clear spring water. She said that I must be thirsty and that they had plenty more in the car. She had the air of a woman who would ask King Kong if he had washed behind his ears. I must have thanked that lady fifty time before I rode away. I’m sure she didn’t realize that what I really appreciated was her casual assumption that, underneath the leather and the whiskers, I was just a regular schmo. I made such a fuss over a little water, she probably thought I was a brook trout disguised as a Hell’s Angel. Summer in Connecticut is beautiful. The winter snow and spring mud inevitably give in to green trees and new mowed lawns. So it was something more than coincidence when as if by magic, the old Harley and I surfaced in the Nutmeg State for a few months of apple blossoms and small town beer fests. I was living amidst the modest accommodations of a bar turned rooming house at the center of Colchester. The atmosphere was that of a cut rate funeral home, with only the occasional interruption of a dying wino trying desperately to drown a coughing fit. I had obtained employment as a rod man; a combination laborer and whipping boy on a survey crew. The only requirements for the job were symptoms of acute masochism and a lasting affinity for mud and briars. One morning on my way to work, I parked my bike outside a drug store lunch counter on Main Street and went in to have breakfast. It was a little place that catered mostly to the local merchants, who stared at me nervously as I walked in. I moved to the very end of the counter and sat on the only stool that was vacant. The waitress regarded me with a disdainful gaze as she took my order for ham and eggs. Maybe I should have asked for pancakes or a bagel with cream cheese. The red plastic stools were placed very close together. I kept my elbows tucked in to my sides as I ate and wished my neighbor would do the same. He was a small man of at least 70 years who seemed to be conducting his breakfast like some mealtime maestro. Every time his arm bumped into mine he would turn and glare at me as though it were my fault. I moved my plate to the left, and tried to ignore him. It didn’t work. He continued to bump and glare and mutter obscenities into his lox. My already sour disposition was undergoing rapid fermentation. Finally the small man could no longer endure my passive resistance to the spastic movements of his elbow. He stood up and, gesturing wildly, snapped, “Why don't you go away?” He caught me in the midst of buttering a piece of dry toast. I rose from my seat with a slice of whole wheat in one hand a stainless steel butter spreader in the other “Why don’t you go to hell?” I growled, waving the shiny utensil for emphasis. “Lookout,” someone shouted, “he’s got a knife.” In almost perfect unison lO or 11 well dressed and well fed merchants and business persons popped up from the counter and charged out the only door into the street. The old man and I stood facing each other in the empty restaurant.” You,” he said angrily waving his finger and spitting pieces of bagel onto the front of my shirt, “you should be ashamed of yourself." No one waved good bye as I left. My changeable existence has altered greatly since those days of heavy metal and light responsibility. Some days I wonder what