[UberGoober]

There were rumors that Kenny had become involved with a woman and he had been sent home in disgrace. Of course as soon as his ex-girlfriend showed back up, he started the full court press and Tina found herself conflicted. Did she want Kenny? Despite his downfall and my encouragement over the phone to listen to her head rather than her heart, Kenny had been the guy that Tina had always envisioned herself with and years of memories and dreaming trumped three nice dates over a two week period with some guy who was now just a voice on the end of a long distance phone call. There was a day or two of wavering on Tina’s part, but eventually I got dumped.

The new year brought a new quarter at school and since I had already paid my tuition, I decided that I would soldier on at college in the face of my personal tragedy. I felt like I had my guts torn out. It had taken a lot of nerve for me to even ask her out in the first place and it seemed like I had just found the promised land when the gates had been slammed shut in my face. I was angry and bitter and to make matters worse, my car was running strange too.

Engineering I knew. The water in my radiator was emptying itself somewhere, but there was no sign of it under the car, no feather of steam from the radiator and no stinky wet feeling from the heater core either. I figured it had to be the head gasket and at least the water wasn’t showing up in the oil pan. It had to be weeping into the cylinder and, sure enough, when I looked there was the tell tale wisp of white smoke coming from the exhaust pipe. I decided I would tear into it myself.

Of course, I still had to get around and I found myself turning to my GS850 to get me where I had to go. The GS was a cold blooded machine, however, and it was damn near impossible to get started on cold January mornings. Despite cranking and cranking, the engine would often fail to fire and I found myself grateful that the engineers had sought fit to leave the auxiliary kick start on this particular model. One morning, just a little late for school, I rolled the bike from the garage and cranked until the battery would crank no more. Then, as usual, I started kicking. I kicked and kicked, and after several futile minutes I decided to bump start the bike by rolling it down the driveway.

Fully dressed in my winter riding gear, a full set of insulated overalls over a flannel shirt, jeans and thermal underwear, a heavy jacket, two pairs of gloves and even a scarf I found myself quickly overheating as I ran beside the bike periodically dumping the clutch. The driveway wasn’t long enough so I rolled the bike into the street in front of my house and repeated the process again and again until I found myself sweaty and exhausted atop my non-running bike at the bottom of the small hill that ran in front of my house. It just would not start.

All my frustration came together at once. Tina, Kenny, cars, bikes, lonliness, school, the fact I had given up a great job - in a rage I struck the carefully shaped crown of my gas tank with my double gloved fist. The tank crumpled at the first blow but I struck it again and again, not feeling any pain until the entire top of the tank was nothing but one giant convex dent. Physically and emotionally exhausted, I pushed the bike back up the hill and into the garage and parked it.

In the following weeks I fixed my Dodge. The head gasket was not the most challenging mechanical work I had ever done and I did it on my own in my garage with hand tools while listening to Queensryche and living in my own hate filled trance. The job required patience and attention to detail, however, and at the very least it took my attention away from my brooding. By the time I had finished the car, a lot of my rage had melted away and I had ceased to be the wounded animal I had been.

With my car up and running, I turned my attention to what was left of my once prized Suzuki. I tracked down a tank at a wrecking yard, albeit in much worse condition, and did my best to sand and paint it. Black proved too difficult to match and after several failed attempts I decided to change the bike’s color, opting for a neon yellow with black pin stripes. The overall effect was not as nice as black had been, the darker color had been more regal and stately, but the new color was brasher and suited my evolving mood. It wasn’t perfect, I decided, but it was good enough for who it was for.

Tina decided that she did not want to live in California anymore and returned to the Everett area. Of course Kenny followed her and I hear he eventually started going to school himself. Although I ran into Tina on campus a few times in the months that followed, I eventually lost touch with her altogether as I forged new relationships with other women.

I never found out if Tina and Kenny got married and lived out their dreams or not. The best, most generous part of me hopes they did find happiness and are living a wonderful life together today – but that other part of me, that darker part that smashed in my bike’s gas tank and that part that lingers below the surface in most people, still hopes they didn’t.