I Could Hear His Harley From My Room.
Bonnie and I did not miss a beat when we got back to McMaster Hall. We continued drinking every night, partying like wild women on weekends, and sleeping through classes much of the time. We continued to drink before every party, go home with our men d’jour, and buck authority at every opportunity.
But Mount Union College was no longer the beautiful experience I’d had during my first three years. Classes were getting in the way of my partying. I no longer got an “allowance” from my parents. And having a live-in boyfriend changed nothing about my moral compass so I found myself doing the same things I’d always done – but with the added component of guilt on the side.
I wish I could say that calling Larry’s apartment “home” had some impact on my behavior, but it never occurred to me to be faithful to the man. If anything, I felt a little more daring than I had been the previous year because I knew I’d be riding into the sunset on the back of a Harley Davidson at the end of college.
So Bonnie and I – and anyone who wandered near – partied with abandon at every given opportunity. When there were no opportunities given, we made our own. Sometimes Thursday morning was reason enough to drink. More often than not, we drank in the dorm, then went to a party, then went to the bar until it closed. If there were no parties happening, we just skipped that step.
Sometimes Larry would ride the two hours to campus on Fridays to take me home for the weekend. He’d show up mid-afternoon right there in the campus center parking lot where parents had dropped off their babies and deemed it “safe.” He’d let his motor BRRM-BA-DUMM-BRM BRRM-BA-DUMM-BRM until he’d woken every napping student within a five-mile radius.
Larry wore the same black leather jacket every day, chaps for long trips like this, and always those beastly black boots. He’d get off the bike slowly, amidst the Greek-clad upperclassmen steering carefully away from him, wide-eyed and unsmiling, trying to safely reach the campus center. Oblivious, Larry’s cheap metal rings sparkled in the sun as his calloused fingers scraped through his distressed hair.
Since I couldn’t see him from my dorm window my friends would stare momentarily, then rush to let me know he was out there. I could hear his Harley from my room so I’d already be pulling on my boots and leather jacket.
By the time I reached Larry, he’d be smoking a cigarette and leaning in all that leather against the equally black leather saddle, his long legs crossed at the ankles. Upon noticing me, he’d break into that crooked-tooth smile that I’d begun to love.
“Hey Baby,” he’d say, sometimes lifting me into the air and spinning me around, other times planting a hard kiss on my lips, owning me for all the world to see. Then Larry would flick his cigarette into the campus center parking lot while I lit one for the ride, and off we’d ride.
At the Pennsylvania state line, which wasn’t marked on the back roads, Larry would pull over. We’d both get off the bike while he opened the saddle bags and removed the helmets. Pennsylvania had a helmet law; Ohio did not. Freedom ended at that line: we had to wear our “brain buckets” the rest of the way.
And on our way back to Mount Union, we’d stop at that same line to free ourselves again. But I rarely felt free knowing what was ahead.