On Stupidity
Gavin McCall
I named my motorcycle the week after I bought it, six weeks before I would crash it. The newly-printed license plate I got at the DMV read 2OU4181, which kind of looked like LOUIE, especially with the strangely long diagonal lines of the 2 and 4. I’ve named every car I’ve ever owned, for luck, and I thought it was even more important that this vehicle, the one on which I would be risking my life as I learned to use it, have a real name too. I also liked the idea of my tiny, single-cylinder, barely highway-legal bike having one of the least aggressive or sexy names I could think of. I should have seen then what giving Louie such an ironic, casual name said about my approach to motorcycling in general.
Before I’d even begun to look for a bike, while my piece of crap car was still mostly running, I spent weeks watching videos on how to ride. From tutorials as basic as which handle controls the clutch and which pedal works the rear brake, to explanations of the physics of motorcycles, like how most of a bike’s braking power comes from the front tire since that’s where the weight goes as you slow down, to experienced riders talking about target fixation, I thought I’d covered everything I could, without actually having to take a class or ask for help from the several friends and acquaintances I had who knew how to ride. Without having to actually admit my ignorance or demonstrate my lack of experience, I went ahead and bought Louie, then began to ride, first within the square-mile confines of my block, then two miles down the main streets to the DMV to get Louie’s title, tags, and name-plate, before eventually getting the confidence to go everywhere else. I had decided to overcome the learning curve by myself, and I believed I was succeeding.
I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when an unlicensed driver in a minivan swerved into my lane without signaling (or looking, she later confessed to me). But I was surprised, and I panicked. I didn’t know what to do, so I braked too hard, too soon, and lost traction with my front wheel, dropping Louie at about 30 miles an hour. We slid for what was probably only a couple seconds but seemed like much longer. I don’t remember hitting the ground, but I can still see the minivan’s brake light glowing red just inches from my front wheel, before everything went sideways, my left leg dragging under the bike and my hands stupidly holding onto the handlebar as if still trying to steer clear of that red light.
For a month I needed a cane and a big plastic boot on my left foot to walk. It kept me from putting any weight on the ball of my foot, which was good, since that’s the part I broke, along with the big toe. The eight-sheet instruction book that came stuffed in the boot’s heel said it’s a “PROCARE® dj Ortho© NextepTM ContourTM Air Walker.” It didn’t take me long to begin to like wearing it. Without it I had to hop around on one foot, holding the other behind me and only placing it on the ground when I’d stopped moving, barely allowing the foot to support its own weight, much less half of mine. Without the boot I could barely cook, as every time I reached from the stovetop to spice cabinet I had to hop, twice. Without it I couldn’t carry coffee from the kitchen to my favorite reading chair without spilling, and if, god forbid, I’d forgotten my book on the counter because I was too busy not filling the cup too high to remember that I put it down, that meant another stomp-jumping trip, leaving me breathless and almost-sweating into my coffee by the time I return. As I adjusted my schedule to the fact that I was now a less complete person, I began to lose myself in the process of living as this new, slightly less effective creature. I allowed myself to forget what it had been like to not be injured, and I marveled instead at how I was healing and changing, growing stronger, growing better at doing all the things I used to be able to do without trying, before the crash.
Even now, a part of me is proud of my injuries and the scars they left, just as I was glad to explain about the boot anytime someone asked what happened. The fact that I wasn’t legally at fault helps of course, as did the money the driver’s insurance eventually paid me, but I believe that even if the accident had been completely my fault, a part of me would still relish telling the story, if only because in doing so I was living up to the role of the tough, risk-taking, manly man. Like my football-playing classmates in high school proudly displaying their sprained ankles and broken fingers the Monday after a game, I wore my boot and I will forever wear my scars knowing that I got them while playing a socially-approved role, and I am only sometimes able to be ashamed of this.
I don’t ride anymore, but I did, for a time. Even before I could run again, before I could stand on my bad foot for more than a few minutes, I was back on Louie, puttering through the same neighborhood where the minivan had cut me off. I bought better gear – gloves, a jacket actually designed for riding, a full-face helmet and a pair of reinforced riding boots, telling myself that this was good enough, that I was safe.
I can’t think of anything that’s more uniquely human than willful self-deception. Self-deception should sound like an oxymoron, but it’s not, because we do it every day. I did it the day I crashed, as I sat in a second urgent care office’s waiting room – the first had turned me away, bleeding, because they didn’t “do accident insurance.” I wasn’t thinking, yet, about how I’d come to be there. Sure, I was thinking about the accident and what I might have been able to do to prevent it. But it was a short-term, focused kind of prevention that I was considering – things like swerving into the other lane or recognizing earlier that since the minivan was driving so slowly maybe its driver wanted to turn left at the upcoming light even though she was in the right lane. I wasn’t considering the broader implications of what I’d done. I wasn’t thinking about how I had, despite knowing better, managed to hide from the truth: that in choosing to ride a motorcycle I had chosen fun, I had chosen a lifestyle, or at least the image of one, over safety.
It’s been ten years since I sold Louie. I did it for a move, I did it because I had to, but I also did it because I was scared. I was always scared of Louie. I know that now. If only I’d paid more attention back then, I might have been able to wake up and take my first steps this morning without limping a little. Still, it’s been a long time and I’ve managed not to buy another bike, and while I still find ways to make the occasional bad decision, they now involve moving a little more slowly. I have come to see this as progress.
© 2020 Gavin McCall
About the Author
Gavin McCall’s short stories, essays and poetry have appeared in dozens of literary magazines, including District Lit, Every Day Fiction, and Bamboo Ridge. He grew up on the Big Island of Hawai‘i and earned an MA in Honolulu, and an MFA in Fresno, but now lives and writes New Orleans. He has been awarded writing residencies in Tennessee and South Carolina, and he currently teaches writing and manages an organic farm. He’s a fan of literacy in all its forms, in all its functions.