“This thing is amazing,” Lynette yelled at me.
I had just passed everything at a shade under 200km/h and the Rocket was burbling and grumbling its way back down to about the speed limit.
I love how it does that. When you’re on the gas it makes this deep, earthy “GGRRRRAAAAARRRGG” noise, like the shifting of tectonic plates. When you back off it kinda burbles and grumbles its way back down the rev-range. As if it’s disappointed.
We…well, she had decided she wished to eat seafood, and it’s been a few months since we’d been to Nelson Bay, and one thing led to another and we were on the road by nine.
“Is that a new jacket you have on?” I asked as we idled through Singleton.
“Yes. It’s a Belstaff. I got it for half-price. It’s cut for girls, so I don’t feel like I’m wearing a mail-bag.”
“I’m concerned you’re out buying your own motorcycle gear.”
“Don’t be a sexist thunderclump. I’m perfectly capable of buying my own stuff without input from you. Jesus!”
The blasphemy came when I opened the throttle so the talking would stop.
I thought I had lost Lynette a few times. The Rocket is indifferent to pillions. And she sits back from me, so I can’t actually feel her there. It’s why I keep reaching back and touching her.
“Why do you keep touching me?” she yelled at one point.
“I like how you feel, but also to make sure you’ve not fallen off.”
“I can’t fall off. That thing is there.”
“The sissy bar.”
“Yes, you had one on that horrible Harley back when we met. It used to dig holes in my spine. I hated that fucken bike.”
“This one is better, yes?”
“This is great. Seriously. It’s comfy, the suspension is good. I feel safe – like I’m not going to fall off even when you’re being an idiot.”
“Can you see the speedo?”
“Not really.”
“Good.”
“Jesus!” she blasphemed again as I aimed for the horizon.
About two hours later we pulled into Tea Gardens.
“This is not Nelson Bay,” she observed.
“No, it’s Tea Gardens.”
“Why are we here? I see no expensive seafood restaurants.”
“John Howard used to come here for his summer holidays.”
“Was it the only place he could go where people wouldn’t spit on him?”
“I also came here with the club about 35 years ago. It was a great and terrible weekend.”
“What did you idiots do? Chase grannies around their holiday homes? Seems a bit short on oily surf bitches for your tastes.”
“It’s a long story. I wrote about it my first book.”
“Ride on, fool.”
An hour or so later we were in Nelson Bay at the seafood joint we can both tolerate. The view’s nice unless they’re loading semi-trailers in front of it. Today they were loading semi-trailers.
Our meals arrived and she lost her mind.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Crab.”
“If one drop of that catastrophe touches me, you’re riding home on your own.”
“Relax. I got this.”
But no-one has ever quite “got” crab. It’s a messy dish to eat. Halfway through my meal, Lynette had finished hers, shifted her chair back, and was looking at me like I was a soiled diaper.
“You’re lucky this is not our first date,” she said. “Look at you. You have become one with the crab. And stop making that sucking sound. You sound like a nightclub toilet. Never order that again.”
“Look, I reckon I’m doing OK. So far it’s just on me, the chair, the table, and the floor. There is none on you.”
“Surely you’re finished. How many fucken legs does that thing have?”
“Seems to have a few more than I thought it would.”
A few minutes later I was done. The crab had run out of legs.
“Go away somewhere and come back when you are no longer of the crab.”
I spent a few minutes in the toilets and emerged smelling of detergent with a vague hint of crab.
“Better?” I asked.
“No. The memory will stay with me for weeks. Don’t touch me. Is there anywhere near her we can get canoli?”
“Sure. I know a place in Leichhardt. If I push it, we can be there in under three hours.”
“I am not spending the next three hours gagging on your crab-stench. Take me home. And if you touch me with your crab-hands you will not wake up tomorrow.”
She blasphemed all the way home.
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