The funny thing to me is I’d known him for years and I didn’t have any idea that he was actually interesting. We went to highschool together back in the late 70's in Milwaukee. Then I didn’t see him for twenty years. We didn’t really know each other back then, I just knew who he was. Our senior class graduated over 900 kids, so you can’t know everyone. I met him again when I went back to Milwaukee for my 20th class reunion. Class reunions are great. They give a person the chance to go back and see all the people who made their lives miserable for four years, and then to pretend you are interested in their stories, or lies all the while trying to come off as being more successful than you’ve been. Having been in sales for too many years, I was good at pretending interest. I don’t go to many reunions because I really don’t have anything in common with these people anymore. Well for whatever reason, I was there.
Since a lot of people travel a long way, having done anything they could to get out of Milwaukee Buffy (our class president) made it a two day event. For those who arrived early there was a cookout at a Dretska Park on Friday. I took my brand-spankin’-new V92C, and left my wife at home. She hates these things more than I do, so there was no problem with that. The guy who raped me with the price of the new bike tossed a t-shirt in, so I wouldn’t call the law and press charges. Since it was my best new t-shirt, I wore it to the cookout. I was standing with a couple of people who used to be young girls, pretending to be interested in why their marriages hadn’t worked. I had one eye on Karen while she went on, and one on the parking lot, watching for my friend Roger. Karen was still talking when Slim LeFevre interrupted to ask, “You really ride a Victory?”
Don’t think I haven’t heard a dozen times that ‘I shoulda bought a Harley.’ Riding a Victory in Wisconsin was like being Lutheran in Rome!
“Yeah.” I replied with as much pride as I could muster. Slim smiled, “Me too, it’s a cool ride.” Karen was a lot prettier than Slim, but I didn’t stick around for the rest of her tragedy. We stood in the parking lot talking about the bikes. He had the same thing as me, but his was red and black while mine was KYSO blue and black. I was sure we could tell them apart.
Before leaving Dretska, we made plans for doing a ride together. I’m not sure why I agreed, but a couple of weeks later I was riding from Green Bay to Waukesha, to meet Slim and then we rode through part of the Kettle Moraine to Lake Geneva. By the time I got back to his house I felt like I’d been on the bike for weeks. It had been a few years since I’d spent any real time on a bike, something like twenty of them. Most of my rides were to work and back home. While we sat in Lake Geneva eating lunch and watching all the hot Illinois woman strut, we got caught up, and planned a few more rides.
It turned out that Slim was a lot more mechanical than me, and really knew about the world of biking. Most weekends we would be riding somewhere. If anything went wrong with either of the bikes, he could get us back on the road. Sometimes our wives went along, sometimes they didn’t come along. Either way we had fun. We logged lots of miles.
His name wasn’t Slim, but I never heard anyone, even his wife, call him anything else. He was a big guy, ‘Slim’ might have been wishful thinking. It’s funny how things stick, my mom always called me shorty. Slim had a serious face, but a pleasant personality. All of his wives were still counted as friends, and he had a few. He didn’t say much, but his mind was always running at full throttle. When I asked him a question, he was always right. He also had a big belly that barely hid a serious appetite. His sense of adventure was almost as big as his belly. A lot of times I’d ask “Where we goin’ today?” He’d usually answer “Wherever the road goes.”
I count as some of my most pleasant memories some of the trips we took. I recall riding into the base of the Rookie Mountains and passing a lake that looked like the scene in Forrest Gump. The mountains were reflected in the crystal clear water as the sun rose behind us. A thin mist rose over the mirror of water. We got an early start that morning so we could get to the higher elevations while there was enough daylight to see the glory of the mountains. We’d ride all day for something like that. After standing speechless for a while we’d saddle up and hit the road. Slim taught me that there are some things a person experiences that talking about them takes away from the experience. Something are too big for words.
Slim was a ‘biker’ in every sense of the word, but he was a lawyer from 9 to 5, or maybe 10 to 3. Sometimes I’d forget what he did for a living because he was nothing like the lawyers I’d met. He could wrench, fight, or ride as good as anyone. He made a name for himself in a big city back east by winning ‘some stupid case’ as he described it, but he didn’t want the notoriety, which was why he came back to the Milwaukee area. Yeah he was rich, but not in a bad way!
His other favorite phrase was “We better give it a little more throttle.” He didn’t usually mean that we needed to ride faster, but further.
Rides, as you know have a way of centering you, and bringing peace back to your mind. A little more throttle is a good thing. We were riding in Maine when we got caught in a real storm. We were soaked, even with our rain gear but were enjoying what color the wind had left in the trees. The autumn sun was setting when the rain cleared. It was cold, but not as cold as it would have been in Wisconsin.
“What do you think, call it a day?” I asked
“We better give it a little more throttle...” he said with a grin.
His attitude about riding was that even the longest day was too short for a good ride, but if a person only had an hour that was enough time to ride. We were reminded a few times by the moon that it was time to turn back towards home. Even in the dark, Slim had a great sense of direction. He’d usually go out of his way to bring us home a little farther north than he needed to be, just so I wasn’t riding all the way back to Green Bay alone. I’d send him on his way with “Goodnight Slim, see ya next time!” and a wave. He’d always smile, and turn south. With that I went home, knowing one more adventure was gone forever, but the next one was that much closer.
He never cared much about biker fashion. He’d smirk at matching outfits and that kind of stuff. He smirked when I traded my V92C for a Kingpin back in 2004, as if I were making a fashion faux pax. I know he secretly liked the KP but he would never trade in his red and black cruiser.
He never said anything when I noticed his color change. He had the ugly yellow cast that comes hand in hand with sickness and death. I talked to his wife, but there was never a word from him. She confirmed my fear. We rode, shorter rides the few weekends we had left and they ended with,
“Goodnight Slim, see ya next time.” The last time he nodded, but I saw him turn away as a tear escaped from his eye.
I called his house the next Saturday, but there was no answer. There was no one home. Slim is gone now, and I can’t say anything that I might have wanted to tell him, or at least thank him for things that I don’t even understand. I’ve probably gone on too much already, the only thing I have left to say is:
“Goodnight Slim, see ya next time.”
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