All About Maintenance

I took the Ural slowly over the pass to Hopland and Ukiah in the nearly 100-degree heat, letting off the throttle on downhills. Traffic passed impatiently in this no-man's-land of dry grass and twisted oaks, and caution signs warned of elk crossing and rocks falling.

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© 1995-2007 Carla King | All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

The swimming hole was deep and wide, and in one place the current flowed so strongly that I could swim in place. Another spot was so calm that I could float on my back without the current taking me downstream. After my swim I sat on the rocky banks of the Eel River and contemplated the dark, wet line that separated the ecosystem of the water's edge, with its wild buzzings and green dripping plant life, from the ecosystem of the dry rock above, with its parched grasses and lizard droppings, where birds eyed the crevices for a quick snack between flights.

The sound of water, after the sound of a motorcycle engine, was calming. But even so, I detected a Mack truck engine in the distance. There are few true escapes. The Eel River is clear and blue. Fish nibble at leaves and drowning insects. It is life and death in my swimming hole.

I found this place on a previous trip. There are cheap dorm beds, cabins, and bed-and-breakfast cottages among the redwoods in the forest in Leggett, California. There is a small hot tub and steam room near the river. And by the dorm a common living room and kitchen provide a meeting place for hostelers of all nationalities and ages. The owners sometimes even serve free food in the pub next door.

It had been sweltering since Healdsburg, where I stopped at Taqueria Guadalajara, a place so authentically Mexican that they had trouble with my English. It was a great burrito, and then I drove north in the hot summer sun. Reflections of overhanging tree branches and the occasional cloud rolled over the black shine of the sidecar wheelwell. I had a temporary panic over a yellow flicker reflected on the inside of the fairing, but it was only the yellow dotted line in the middle of the road, striking metal parts and black paint as we passed.

The country road I traveled sometimes paralleled Highway 101, where truckers floated along, cushioned from bumps by hydraulic shocks and insulated in their own microclimate, an icy cabin.

Already I was beginning to slip into deep-thought mode. I've never quite been able to meditate, and I think the closest I get to it is when I'm riding on country roads. My active mind is busy with the details of bumps, curves, and engine noise. But somewhere underneath is a smooth track of thought that works itself deeper and deeper into a groove, a downward spiral onto a higher plane.

And then the front tire slipped on rabbit guts.

At least I think it was a rabbit; I didn't go back to see. Just before I hit it, my brain assimilated the scattered parts in a frantic effort to put together an image of the animal it once was.

I remember, as a child in rural North Carolina, the careful contemplation of roadkill. They were possums mostly, and skunks, and the occasional fox, cat, or dog. If they'd been split open by the impact, their unraveled entrails sizzled on the tar road. Intact bodies bloated, swollen tongues and eyes protruded. We'd throw rocks at ballooned stomachs in morbid curiosity, cruel child's play. We'd stand by the road and motion cars to flatten it. Sometimes someone obliged. Guts would fly. We'd be delighted.

It is a child's fascination, suppressed in adults until we see an accident in the roadway or watch the nightly news. It is impossible to deny the attraction to blood, gore, death. In the American West, bulls and grizzly bears used to be chained together in a ring to provide this kind of entertainment. California cops are frequently busting up cockfighting and dogfighting rings. Many cultures allow for the satisfaction of this need to view blood and death by providing these events. Each year in Spain, someone is gored by the running of the bulls in Pamplona.

Is it somehow necessary to view such spectacles in order to confirm that we are alive? The adrenalin rush, the horror, the despair, the elation? What other events allow us to experience such an intensity of emotion, other than death?

Birth, love, sex, death. Fear, perhaps, of birth, love, sex, and death. The whole cycle of life giving and taking away.

A little while after my encounter with the rabbit, the engine began to ping, a tinny, musical sound from the metal block. I looked for a shady place and saw nothing but flat earth covered in grapevines only two feet tall. No trees, no buildings, only the freeway underpass ahead, the last exit to Cloverdale before being forced onto the mountaintop and down into the valley on the other side.

I pulled into the shade of the underpass, really more of a tunnel, and stopped. The pinging was louder without the engine running. Tires roared nasally on the grooved pavement of the concrete highway above me, echoing in the darkness of the underpass. The Ural was a black lump in the dark. It took a while for my eyes to adjust.

An air-cooled engine can't be all that cool in 100-degree heat. I opened the trunk and took out my toolkit, though I didn't know exactly what to do, except give it a rest.

A woman shouted at me from the driver's seat of a battered Corolla, "Are you broke down? Do you need a ride?"

I gave her the okay sign and yelled "No thanks" above the echo of an 18-wheeler overhead.

Then I pulled the plugs, checked the oil and tire pressure, tapped the fuel filters with my finger, and inspected the block for leaks, all while being serenaded by the high, tiny pings, slowing in frequency as the block cooled.

"Hey there!" someone yelled.

Cripes.

A man walked toward me holding something out. I blinked, and bright spots danced in front of my eyes, but past him I recognized the outline of a Goldwing and trailer that had passed me a few miles before. The guy was wearing white camouflage pants and a green camouflage jacket, and his helmet didn't match the Goldwing paint job.

Definitely not your typical Goldwinger.

"Here, have a soda." I took the icy cold can he held out to me. "I've been looking for a shady spot for miles... looks like you found the only one." He ran his fingers through his short brown hair. Helmet itch. "What's up?"

"Nothing, really. Just checking things. Something might be wrong. I don't know."

"Chapter 24," he said, and added, "You do have Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance with you?

I did. He nodded approvingly.

He said he'd bought the Goldwing quite recently. It had 125K on it. In the trailer was camping gear and a cooler. On top of it was a lawn chair.

He introduced himself as Forrest and told me a little about his high-tech job. He must have been about 26, just starting to get bored after 4 or 5 years of college and a couple years of routine. I could tell he's the type of guy who tries to do good work, who stays all hours on a hot project. Dependable.

"A couple hours ago I told my boss I was leaving for a week or two," he said, and grinned wryly. "You know, you buy into the system, you're making money, and one day you realize that they've really GOT you. You're captured."

He took a swig of Coke and blinked into the light at the end of the tunnel. "It's tough to escape."

He was escaping to the Lost Highway first, he said. And then he didn't know what he'd do. As he rode off, the sound of his engine and the two short beeps of his horn echoed off the concrete walls.

In Chapter 24 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig writes about stuckness. He writes about it in terms of motorcycle maintenance, and how difficult it is to solve a problem when one thinks in traditional terms. I scanned the chapter after Forrest left and found this explanation:

If you want to build a factory, or fix a motorcycle, or set a nation right without getting stuck, then classical, structured dualistic subject-object knowledge, although necessary, isn't enough. You have to have some feeling for the quality of the work. You have to have a sense of what's good. That is what carries you forward.

It had taken about 250 pages to come to that paragraph. And I understood, from having read the book several times in my life, that he was writing about anything here -- work, personal development, relationships. I wondered if Forrest was stuck, trying to decide, in a traditional environment, how to think outside tradition and get himself unstuck, or uncaptured. Sure, he's just taken off on a motorcycle, which satisfies the rebellious part of his soul. But if he goes back to work still feeling captured, he is living within that traditional dualistic way of thinking that so often separates, instead of integrating, work life and personal life.

I took the Ural slowly over the pass to Hopland and Ukiah in the nearly 100-degree heat, letting off the throttle on downhills. Traffic passed impatiently in this no-man's-land of dry grass and twisted oaks, and caution signs warned of elk crossing and rocks falling.

I've never actually seen a rock fall into a road, but I've been meeting more and more people lately who are becoming dissatisfied with the duality of work and life. The phrase "the System" is creeping into our vocabulary again, so long after the '60s era. Then there was "the System" and "the Establishment," and everyone was trying to figure out how to get out of them.

Instead of "dropping out," so popular in the '60s, some of us think we might have worked out a good compromise. A lot of Silicon Valley professionals, like me, are contractors. We work at home a lot, on a project basis for a set fee, and are free to take off between projects without having to answer to a boss. Most of us are happy with the arrangement. The companies are happy with it because they don't have to pay insurance or give us a desk and a computer, or lay us off. Some employees think we're nuts, because they can't imagine the insecurity of having to constantly be on the prowl for a job.

I thought that Forrest must be ready to become a contractor.

I passed up Hopland, a quaint Wine Country town with a great microbrewery that I'd visited before. It had air conditioning, but I zipped by. A beer in this heat would do me no good; besides, I was in a bit of a hurry to get to the redwoods. After Ukiah I stopped to look down at the Eel River. I figured I'd be in Leggett by late afternoon, and in that blue river. I just hoped that the Ural wouldn't object to the heat too much and get me stuck somewhere else.

I turned off Highway 101 as soon as the pass opened up, to ride through the redwoods. It wasn't much cooler, and as soon as I made it to the hostel I paid, peeled off my jacket and boots, and headed for the river. The sand was cool under my feet. The rocks on the banks of the river were smooth. And I was alone.

Index | Dispatch 4