Huh, Shovelhead.
One of the first things I learned about Larry was actually about his motorcycle: Larry drove a black 1970 Electra Glide. It was a shovelhead.
What this meant is that everywhere we went, people nodded at Larry and said, “Nice bike.” This happened everywhere: gas stations, parking lots, inside and outside of bars, convenience stores, grocery stores, beer stores and at stoplights.
Sometimes people would roll down their windows at the stoplight and yell, over the roar of the engine, “What year?”
And Larry would say, cigarette hanging from his mouth and with the lowest possible growl, “Seventy.” But it sounded like “seb-endy” because of the cigarette, and that was always okay with Larry. It was also okay with the person who asked the question.
Nobody held long conversations at the stoplight.
Having a 1970 Electra Glide shovelhead meant that people walked around the bike slowly wherever it was parked, staring at it. Sometimes they would mumble, “huh, shovelhead,” as if this explained everything.
In the world of Harley Davidsons, Larry’s bike was some kind of royalty. And that, of course, meant that Larry was royalty, too. There was a respect given – completely unearned – simply because he rode around on this particular motorcycle.
At that point in my life, motorcycles all looked the same to me.
Because his bike was 15 years old, it was “classic.” It was unique and special and wonderful to every single pair of eyes that noticed it.
To me, it was just old. It was very, very loud. And it was also very uncomfortable.
The bike had one long seat, like a widened version of my banana seat bicycle, and I had to squeeze onto the back of that one long seat. It wasn’t comfortable having two people on a banana seat, either.
Not only that, but once I got situated, it was very hard for me to stay on the seat – meaning, I was in constant danger of falling off the back. There was no backrest. So there was no way for me to continue moving forward with the motorcycle as it roared down the highway unless I had my arms wrapped tightly around Larry’s waist.
This seemed fine with Larry. I felt wobbly and loose, like dice rolling around in a can.
But this seemed to be a small price to pay for having an incredibly fun mode of transportation.
The Harley leaked oil – so I assumed all Harleys did – and Larry did all his own work on the motorcycle. He spent a couple of days working on the oil leak without much success, all the while driving me back and forth to various bars for burgers and beers.
One day, Larry came home with a new Harley.
“I got it for you!” he smiled. “See the backrest?”
It was the tiniest backrest I had ever seen – but it kept me from falling off backwards. I no longer had to hold my arms around Larry’s waist, which meant I could wave my arms around in the wind, fix my hair when it slapped me in the face, and light cigarettes (a story for another day) while I rode.
“Cool,” I said about the new bike, which looked like all the other bikes I’d ever seen. But I had learned from listening diligently that you can’t just say “cool” and not ask any questions. So I asked, “What is it?”
“Eighty FLH,” he said. “Shovelhead.”
Well, I thought. Thank God for that.