Via Con Dios, Veronica

Who She's Named After

Veronica, my long-suffering 20+ year-old Victory motorcycle, has finally crossed that threshold wherein keeping her alive is more expensive than letting her go.

There’s probably some sort of societal commentary in that one-sentence summary.

But on a personal level, she is where I expect to be someday (probably sooner than not) when it’s simply not worth spending the bazillion dollars that it would take to keep her/me “heroically” cranking along as a spit-wire-and-duct-tape basket-case in an ICU for another week or month or year. It’s her time, as it will eventually be mine.

People keep saying you can’t put a price on a life. This is the most blatant kumbaya bullshit, the Big Lie invented by a damaged society pathologically terrified of death. We’re all gonna take the Big Bite sooner or later. We necessarily put a price on WHEN it will happen all the time in a really literal sense. Anyone who doesn’t understand that is simply not competent to make decisions in any sphere of public discourse, are barely competent, in fact, to run their OWN lives.

To that point, I have a bullet-proof, legal “DNR” (Do Not Resuscitate) order filed with every medical facility I’m likely to wind up in as well as one I carry with me essentially 24/7. Death, as I’ve noted before in this blog, does not frighten me. Never has. That slowly winding down on the ICU/”Care Facility” veggie-farm hell-ride DOES. “Fuck that,” is my vote. Pull the pin and move on.

Or, as I explained to The Beneficiary, if she overrides my DNR, she better HOPE I don’t come back.

All this is where I am with Veronica.

Every year, she’s another tick closer to killing me, another pile of bills needed to keep her together. And we’ve moved past the line where that’s sustainable.

She’s hugged me to her and dragged my fat ass all over the country and was a steadier companion than all but a small handful of actual sentient beings. And she had a personality, I don’t give a shit what you say.

For all our hours alone, parties, closeness, sharing miles, pleasure, misery, and tough times, she was… well, she was wild, selfish, self-centered, and, while generally well-disposed toward me, utterly incapable of more than a simulation of real intimacy. Every time I forgot that, she’d nearly kill me again somehow without so much as a hint of an apology.

She was a Veronica.

And she was one of the best bikes I’ve ever had, and the connection was more real than with most people. But it’s time to move on.

I’ll miss her.

I was looking at finding Veronica’s replacement which, since I’m rapidly slipping into dotage, will very likely be the last bike I ever own.

With that in mind, last week I bought a 2009 Harley Electra-Glide Classic. This is what they refer to as a “heavy touring bike”, as it is 1/2 ton of machinery designed to ride ENORMOUS distances on cushioned seats, air-shocks, and with a reasonably heavy load of passenger and gear. 

What My New Bike Looks Like (Stock Photo)

An old friend of mine who had his personal version that he built himself and has since ridden it thousands of miles with an outlaw club, called them “Geezer Glides”. In fact he named his bike “Geezer”. He has, as have I, ridden everything from dirt bikes and tote-goats up through and including hard-tail choppers and heavy sport-cruisers. But then one afternoon we got old. He always told me I should leave Veronica for a Geezer Glide.

“Man, lay back in that seat, running about 90 in a pack of 30 or 40 headed three days cross country to a meet, feet up on the running pegs — shit dude, if I had a remote control and a beer, I could be in a recliner back at the house,” he’d say. “Wish I’d done it 25 years ago.”

Which was the rankest bullshit, of course — outlaw distance riding, rain, sun, snow, or shitstorm, will break most normal humans, and I don’t care how comfy the bike is. But in the end he was right, at least in the broad outline.

I’m getting my “new” Harley from another old friend who’s a biker wrench (mechanic) who has a fetish for keeping his bikes in near-showroom condition. He’s the only prior owner. His wife stopped riding (she’s a biker girl from WAY back in the day) when a friend of hers was killed on a run out in the Utah desert and she just couldn’t get over it. And these days, he won’t ride without her. Huh. I remember a time when he’d have walked away from her in a heartbeat if she came between him and The Life. But we all grow up, don’t we?

Anyhow, between them, they had these two huge bikes just sitting in the garage. He wanted to sell me both of them for a helluva deal, but I’ve only got use for the one, so he sold it to me at a slightly less-appealing helluva deal. Gotta go get it in the next week or two. Literally my first ride on it will be nearly 850 miles just to get it home.

Looking forward to it.

Vaya Con Dios, Veronica — I’ll miss ya’ babe.

Veronica And Me In Happier Times