(dedicated to old friends: Dale Boomgaarden and Ronnie Vocht)
When I was still in high school – and still being forced by my mother to wear corduroy pants – there was a boy in our small town on the Snake River named Lester Curtis. Lester was small, almost dwarfish, and had long ago dropped out of school. He worked as a laborer in a big grain elevator that loomed over that bleak, wind-swept town like a huge metal watchtower. He had no parents that we knew of, no siblings, very few friends... and he moved among us wearing greasy jeans and a padded welder’s cap that he jammed down backwards on his oversized head. He lived alone in a battered house trailer with weeds and packed earth surrounding it, and every son's mother's lips grew tight when Lester was near....
There was little reported crime in that miserable village, but when one was, within moments old Deputy Gray would park his war surplus jeep with the red spotlight at Lester’s trailer, and remain inside for hours, doing what and saying what we could only imagine. Of course, we were all banned by our parents from associating with Lester.
One summer afternoon, in 1959, little Ritchie Campbell came running into my back yard.
“Holy Shit,” yelled Ritchie. “Lester’s went and done got him a Harley! Come see!”
We both then ran to the only service station in town... and there sat Lester on a glaring red and chrome Harley-Davidson Sportster... the first any of us had ever seen. Lester was actually smiling, grinning, his strong teeth yellow, as a crowd of hot and excited teenagers milled around begging him for rides. I stood thunderstruck, unable to speak. I can remember to this day how the hot metal of the bike smelled, and how it ticked and popped like something alive when it cooled.. I couldn’t imagine how he’d gotten enough money. He must have starved and saved for years.
Suddenly, I was overcome with the most bitter sense of envy I've ever experienced...ever.
For a time, Lester’s life was cream. Suddenly popular, he wore his motorcycle jacket like a Roman Legionaire's tunic. It was not uncommon to see Lester roaring through town, a gasping teenage girl clinging to his back like a spider monkey, her pony tail flying, her voluminous skirts hiked above her knees. But the responsible adults were less than charmed, and storm clouds gathered ... and peaked in the fall when Lester and his date were refused entry into the high school’s Homecoming Dance. “Undesirable Element” was the only explanation offered to us. In a fantastic scene, Lester in his leather jacket and our Principal in his usual three piece suit – with the polished elk tooth on the gold watch chain dangling -- actually locked arms and scuffled in the doorway of the gym, knocking over floral and crepe paper displays. African elephants wandering free and unattended in the streets of our town would have generated less excitement, less delicious drama. Our teenage hearts were on fire.
The Monday following the dance scene, sitting in Algebra class, I heard a gathering roar outside and ran to a classroom window, as did everyone else in school. There, on the gravel street fronting the school building, Lester Curtis roared back and forth on his straight pipe Harley. Occasionally he would brake to a sliding stop, ferociously gunning his well-tuned engine and saluting us all with an outstretched left hand, middle finger held high and proud. Once, twice, maybe five times Lester made his run. On his final trip, he flawlessly executed the first motorcycle wheelie I’d ever seen! I was mad with excitement and joy. The roar of that engine... my fellow students screaming like demons... the Principal shouting through his phone to Officer Gray... it was the most memorable moment of my life up to then.
Lester Curtis left us that day, never to return. I know he’s not...but I like to think he’s out there yet, his engine roaring, his exhausts spitting fire, his middle finger up and proud! There’s a place in the human story for leather-faced Harley riders... the real ones. They remind us how invincible we are and how free we could be, and how we can always have some effect on the things around us--even against crushing odds – if only we can summon the courage.
