If Rock and Roll Were a Machine Read Free Page A

he should have a Japanese bike. Get a good used Honda for five hundred bucks, change the oil once a year, adjust the valves every decade, and you’ll be riding it the rest of your life.”
    He steps up to the Sportster. “The old bikes don’t go as fast or stop as fast,” he says. He points to the front wheel. “No disk brakes.” He points to the forks. “Inferior suspension.” He raps the gas tank. “Worse fuel economy.” He moves his fingers over the leather seat. “Not as comfortable.” He points with his left hand to the little headlight and to the taillight with his right. “Inferior lighting. These weren’t made to run the lights all the time, which is the law now. And you can’t just push a button to start ’em.”
    The glow begins to fade from Bert’s face.
    Shepard walks past the bike to the corner of the room, grabs an aluminum loading ramp and returns. “You do, however, get the pleasure and the challenge of kick-starting these.”
    He places one end of the ramp on the edge of the platform where the bike sits and the other end on the floor, then he steps up onto the platform. “And there’s no sound I know of in the world of machines that’s as sweet as the exhaust note of a Harley-Davidson V-twin,” he says.
    Shepard rolls the Sportster forward, then lifts the back wheel and sets it square with the ramp. “What’s your name?” he asks.
    â€œBert Bowden,” Bert says.
    â€œWell, Bert, I’ll let this thing down as easy as I can,and you keep it from rolling across the floor and busting up the place,” Shepard says. “I’m Scotty.”
    Bert holds the rear fender brace and steps backward, pushing against the rolling weight. In a second the bike is flat on the floor. He holds the door as Shepard pushes the Sportster out onto the asphalt. The big man has a limp, and Bert wonders if he got it falling off a motorcycle. Bert watches him more closely and sees that both his legs are bad. Shepard lets the bike settle onto its sidestand. “Throw a leg over,” he says.
    Bert climbs on, tips the bike off the stand, and keeps it steady with his legs. It’s heavy, and it sits high. But it’s really neat. It’s like a chunk of condensed power there beneath him.
    â€œCan you still get parts for these?” Bert asks. He knows his dad would ask that. He wishes he hadn’t thought of his dad. His dad hates motorcycles even more than his mom does. Bert’s father is an insurance man.
    â€œNo problem on spares,” Shepard replies. “What you can’t get as original equipment is being remanufactured.” He takes a step closer. “Now you’re going to light this thing up,” he says.
    Light it up? Bert thinks.
    They turn on the fuel tap and retard the spark by adjusting the magneto. Bert looks around for the key, but Shepard tells him there is no key. “Not many people know how to start one of these,” he says. “But you’re gonna know.”
    Shepard reaches down and pivots the kick pedal outward on the lever. He tells Bert to kick it through easy a couple times to prime the carb. Bert feels the big pistons move. They gulp air through the carburetor with a thirsty sound.
    â€œOkay,” Shepard says, “we got the gas on, spark set, carb primed, biker expression on face. Time to give ’er a manly kick , as the British say.”
    Bert rests his weight on his left leg. Then he rears up, shifts his weight to his right, and comes down hard on the pedal.
    The sound of the engine is deep and mellow. Bert feels the pulse rise through him slow and measured like a heartbeat. “Okay,” Shepard says, “blip the throttle.”
    Bert turns the throttle and the Sportster roars. The sound rises like a fist punching a hole in the world. And when Bert backs off, the exhaust makes a hard, barking sound like nasty laughter.
    Shepard