A Bad Motorcycle
Makes You Just Like James Dean!

All it took was a few movies by Marlon Brando and James Dean to create the bad boy mystique about motorcycles.  Unfortunately, our parents didn't share our desire .. no, our need .. to be bad-ass motorcycle rebels.  How could they not hear that testosterone-driven pulse beating in every adolescent heart?  The rush of the wind, the one-ness with the Road, the surge of unbridled power throbbing beneath newly-awakened loins?  There was no mistaking the urge .. it was sexual and powerful.  No, of course, that was not something you could explain to parents.  We'd just have to experience it on our own. It may have started when Norman Nishihira's father went all the way to Hong Kong to pick up a coal-black Triumph to bring back to Tokyo, since the prices for U.K. products were much lower there.

"Covert" Carl and I watched with great envy as the nubile young damsels fell over themselves to be the one to straddle Norman's hog.  The Freudian connotations were overwhelming, and often kept us awake at night, wondering what lustful acts were consummated on that motorcycle.  Nothing was unimaginable.

The fuse had been lit, and there was no unlighting it.  We began thinking of how to accomplish the impossible, since neither of us had drivers' licenses, and there was no talking our parents into getting one.  Ever try talking a military father into something that he thinks is of no use?  Why would I need a driver's license if I didn't have a car?  And he was certainly not going to let me drive on the left side of the road with the family car.  I could wait until I got back to the States, like everybody else.

Then, "Covert" Carl lived up to his nickname, in spades.  He managed to finagle a military driver's license, with the name "James A. Heddy," but without a photo on it.  But, here was the coup de grace .. not one, but TWO licenses, absolutely identical.  My initial excitement quickly drooped into melancholy, knowing that two with the same name was just looking for trouble. "Nahhhh," Carl said, "we can bamboozle 'em."  We were slick-talking, after all, if inexperienced in the ways of pro con men.  We were con artists, all right, just young ones.

Armed with our new-found booty, we took the bus to Camp Drake, where there was a motorcycle rental shop off base that would rent to anyone with a pulse.  Projecting a supreme air of self-confidence .. and copious amounts of perspiration .. we approached the rental manger and plopped down our duplicate drivers' licenses.  The silence was deafening.  We waited for him to pick up the phone and call the APs.  "Brothers?" he asked.  "Yes, brothers," we blurted simultaneously.  How could he NOT see what was on those two pieces of paper?  "Honda Dream .. I have two," he said, and pointed out the window.  There, parked on the side, were OUR dreams.  Two cherry-red, identical 500 cc Hondas, to match our twin licenses.  We signed the papers, gave him some cash as quickly as we could produce it .. and were suddenly on our bad motorcycles and off the rental lot.

Driving on the left side of the road is exactly like driving on the right, except it's ..  different.  It takes some getting used to.  Not the side of the road, but the people on them.  The notorious Japanese 60-yen taxi drivers weren't called kamikazes for nothing.  They zipped in and out of traffic with their tiny cars, scaring me to death.  Let's go a little slower until I get the hang of this.  Where are we going?  Since we're on the road, how about a road trip?  Yokohama is a couple hours south.  That sounds like a plan.  After a while, it gets easier and I get confident.  After all, this is the first time I've driven anything .. except for the time back in the States when I snuck our 2nd car out of the garage for a quick spin .. and got caught immediately.  But, I'm getting the hang of it.  It's not that hard once you get the feel of it.

Then, without warning, a hundred feet ahead, a car pulled out of a side alley and he was looking in the opposite direction.  I was heading right for him!  He still didn't look!  I may have beeped my tiny little horn, but I knew I was gonna hit him .. hard!  So, I laid the bike down.  I just pulled in the opposite direction and hit the ground.  The momentum carried me and the bike forward fifty feet .. on gravel.  The gravel ripped through my pants and into my knees as I watched the car pull out into traffic, still never looking in my direction.  As I came to a stop, I looked down at the damage .. to the bike.  "Oh, no!" I cried, "look at this bike!"  The gas tank and the fenders had been scraped and banged into a mess.  Carl noted, "Your knees aren't so great, either."  I looked down and saw the blood covering my pants.  The agony was .. new.  I'd never felt anything like that before.  There, like sprinkles covering a donut, were hundreds of little pieces of gravel imbedded in my knees.  Oh, pain!

Right across the street was a Japanese pharmacy.  Lucky.  My poor command of Japanese was not a hindrance at this point; all I had to do was point to my knees, and the pharmacist knew what to give me .. including a pair of tweezers to pick out the gravel.  We sat by the side of the road for the next hour, picking out what felt like boulders from my tortured limbs and applying a liquid that must have been one of the Marquis de Sade's favorite potions.  The bandages only served to keep the hellish fluid trapped where it hurt the most.

Now what?  Obviously, not on to Yokohama.  I cautiously uprighted the bike and pushed the button .. it started!  Back from whence we came .. slowly, very slowly.  Upon arrival at the rental shop, the manager had a cow!  Understandably.  "How much to fix it?" I asked.  I did NOT want my parents to find out about this.  "¥50,000," he said, and I almost croaked.  That was about $150 ($500 in 1998 money), but I did have it on me, having scored big in a poker game that week.  Every yen I had in my pocket came out.  We beat a hasty retreat, and made it back to the base in time to go by the BX and buy another pair of pants to go home in.  I walked like Frankenstein's monster into the house.  "What happened?" my parents queried.  "Oh, just a football game, I got tackled on the gravel, I'm OK."  I never played football.  But they believed it.  I never told them .. ever.

I never rode a motorcycle again, but Carl did, since he had come away unscathed and unbeknownst to his parents.  We had learned our lesson .. as my dad loved to say about a number of life's onerous instructions .. the hard way.  There remained a half dozen various sized indentations in my knees to prompt me, if ever .. EVER .. I got the urge again to be like James Dean.