But nothing is fun in the morning: I was tired and sore from drinking and sitting both on the bike and hunched over the tables. On pure adrenaline, I hopped out of bed and tried to get ready. The best thing to do right then was think, so I went to take a crap but I didn't bring anything to read.
If I rode out to the dealership, I could either take a taxi back and kill time here at the hotel and then pick up my bike tomorrow morning. Or, I could try to find a casino closer to the dealership and go hang around there until the bike was ready. One thing was for sure: it wouldn't be fun to bring the bike back in the afternoon because of the heat and because I would probably have been drinking.
For the ride to the dealer, I decided to wear shorts and sandals with my helmet. There are probably only two other times when I've been so under-dressed for a ride, but it was just so damned hot here. Even now, at 730am, it must be more than 90 degrees.
Taking a shower in that kind of weather is futile, but what the hell. So I lathered up and rinsed off and repeated. With my contacts in, I went down to get my bike from the valet. The heat was manageable in the morning, now. I left the hotel and cut east, then north towards the dealership. Before leaving, I had tried to memorize the map to the dealer. I did pretty well; I ended up only a few blocks wide of my mark on my first shot.
But I was also 45 minutes early. So I stopped at a McDonald's about four blocks from the dealer. There, I bought the paper and narfed down some breakfast food. The back corner of the restraunt was overrun with a gossipy bunch of senior citizens. They were quite a hoot! They gabbed about everyone's grandsons and children, and who they thought was dating whom. It was actually quite reassuring: they seemed very chipper and quite happy. I guess the retirement life in Vegas isn't bad at all.
Since I had finished my breakfast, but I was still thirsty, I got up to get a Coke to wash down the orange-juice I had. When I returned to my table, one of the seniors had snagged my newspaper and passed out all the sections to her friends! They were really good natured about it, so I didn't get furious. But stealing a newspaper is really an annoying thing to do—they sell those things, you know, and they're really not that expensive.
People who "borrow" your newspaper are only slightly better. They ruffle up your pages and invariably take forever with your paper. Since I like to have something to read when I eat alone, or while I get started drinking, I always have a paper with me. And it never fails that someone wants to borrow it. Christ: they only cost fifty cents. Why can't you just get your own? And what a situation— since the paper is so cheap you feel even worse for putting down someone who wants to borrow it? Why does it matter so much? Such internal conflicts cause me no end of stress.
Anyway, I chatted with the folks for a few more minutes before I had to go to my service appointment. The issue of water bills came up, and I was shocked to find out that one of the gentlemen was complaining about his bill: $45 per month! That's about forty percent lower than I pay. And I don't live in the desert!
As if to underscore our conversation, a broken sprinkler head in the parking lot was spewing water out onto the sidewalk. The water had been going for quite some time, and that corner of the parking lot was nearly ankle-deep with standing water. I wondered about the rate of evaporation. I beleived that, later in the day, the pipe couldn't hope to pump the water as quickly as it would evaporate.
The time for my appointment was drawing near, so I zipped over to the dealership. I arrived about 15 minutes before they opeend. Once at there. I had a great time. Since they still had a few minutes before opening, the lot boys and a couple of the salesmen were moving bikes from the showroom out into the parking lot. The service guys were milling about before deciding to open the gate, and I was second in line.
Another fellow was waiting for service to open, as well. He, instead, was picking up his bike. He related a story of how the alternator went in the middle of the desert, and told me how he was completely stuck out there. What an unfortunate tale! I made a mental note to make sure my cell phone was working and charged before I left. Few things are more trying than riding in this baking heat. But one of the things that might take the cake would be hopelessly pushing a bike through the same environs.
He settled his tab and left. The shop was run by a couple of talkative, entertaining guys. Apparently, they had a house rule to let motorcycles cool off substantially before working on them. It's hard to blame them; the bikes are red-hot to begin with, and even a brief ride in this kind of heat makes them even hotter. I should've gotten take-away from McDonalds and waited, with the cooling bike, so they could have started working on it a little sooner.
Anyway, the service took until about 1230pm from my arrival at 9am. It was fun to chat with the guys. They asked all the intelligent questions about my trip, and were happy to hear that I loved riding my bike. I sat and sipped sodas from the vending machine.
There were no sales customers during my entire visit, so I spent a period of my wait pestering one of the guys about the jet skis. Those machines fascinate me so. They really do work like little jets, sucking in water and pushing it out at a startling rate.
Back in the service lounge, I was entertained by a man who had come in and was pissed as hell about the tax assessment on his bike. He went on and on about how the assessment was higher than the cost he paid for the used machine, and that it was just a ripoff. He told the service manager that he knew he could get an appraisal, and if the appraisal was in a lower amount, the state was obligated to tax him at the cheaper cost.
But the sales manager wouldn't budge. He said there's no way he'd appraise the bike—he wasn't in that kind of business. And even if he did, there was certainly no guarantee implied in the appraisal feel that the value would be lower than the state-assigned standard depreciation value.
The customer went on about how he had to replace the fairing and worked for hours polishing the chrome on the rig. The bike looked nice, certainly. But the service manager again pointed out that those repairs actually made the bike more valuable. And that couldn't possibly help him in the quest to get a cheaper apparent value to save money on his registration.
The conversation meandered in slow, casual loops for almost half an hour. I went to the bathroom, got another Coke, browsed the helmets, and came back twice. I couldn't help but laugh at the guy below my breath: he just didn't get it. On the busy day, in the oppressive heat, I couldn't find the infinite well of patience from which the manager drew. The guy wasn't really a customer, but he was treated patiently and kindly.
For nearly forty repetitive minutes.
I had a brief conversation with the owner of the shop about becoming a motorcycle mechanic. He said, indeed, that if I did well at one of the vocational schools that I would probably be hired into a shop. But he warned that I'd be the low guy on the totem-pole; I would work on neglected scooters and other miserable scraps until I earned my wings. And if the shop had to cut back, I'd be the first to get laid off. One of their wrenches was quitting that day to go work a very promising security job at one of the casinos, so the conversation wasn't as awkwardly founded as it might seem.
But finally, my service was done. They washed my bike for me, and I chomped at the bit to leave the store and go gamble and drink some more. I paid the bill, and they did a fine job with both the service and the cleaning. My shining black bike poured out into the sun with a tight chain and perfectly synchronized carburetors.
The heat didn't wait to begin smacking me around shamelessly. About five miles from the shop, about half-way to the hotel, I stopped under a covered gas station to get a bottle of water. I didn't need gas, so I parked in the shade and actually on the little sidewalk in front of the kiosk. Sweat was pouring from my face after just ten minutes in the heat.
Since the bike was so hot, and the road even hotter, I wondered about my decision to wear shorts and sandals. The warm waves of air pulled throught the bike, bounced off the hot asphalt, and bit at my feet and shins. I thought that just grazing a toe on the frame of the bike, or on the asphalt itself, would result in burns that could not be approached or understood by modern science. I got back into traffic and gigerly made my way towards the hotel.
A few blocks from the hotel, I passed a bank. I willed myself not to look, but I succumbed: 108 degrees ferenheit (42 degrees Celcius)! It was nearly one in the afternoon.
I was able to more directly navigate to the valet entrance on this, my second arrival at the hotel. I quickly parked the bike and went up to my room. I thought about gambling some more, but decided instead to take at least a small nap. There seemed to be nothing more to do in the heat: gamble, sleep.
Around 330pm I awoke. I had received that FAX from my friend at work, and now knew to meet everyone in the Battle Bar around 4pm. Good thing I had checked--otherwise, I would have waited until 7pm and never have met them on time!
It was quite awkward, initially, to see everyone. In fact, I walked by two or three times before realizing it really was my old gang of classmates. We drank like fish together, until some guys decided to get dinner. I didn't go, and stayed with the drinking contingent until the others returned.
We stayed up late, drinking and betting and ogling girls. The younger girls at the hotel were mystifying: absolutely gorgeous, but somehow quite obviously no more than 18 years old. They had to be twenty-one to be in the casino, so they must have been older. Or, the security in the casino was quite lax. Then, it hit me: this is my ten-year reunion and I must be completely old, now that a 21-year old girl looks like jail-bait to me.
Even my old adversaries, and a guy or two who must've been my sworn enemies, were amusing and calm. It was splendid that our group let age and time wash away the crap of grade school. The changes in some of the fellows was just staggering.
After a few more hands of blackjack, with my old friends and some of the older, bona-fide crumpets from Los Angeles, I went up to bed. Turning in at 3am wasn't anything that surprised—or, for once in quite a long while, bothered me in the slightest. I forgave myself a little bit more that night, and felt prepared to get on just a bit more with my life. Without so much more baggage or guilt or second-guessing. I resolved, with everything I had, to let it all go and not blame myself for being myself. Maybe, for at least a little while, I could keep this feeling of worth, lose the deprecation, and get on with it.
Posted on 4 February, 1999.