Arthur Lee Brown was walking down the sidewalk on Canal Street in Natchez when I pulled up next to him on the bike and asked for directions to the Under the Hill Saloon, a bar of some notoriety.
Arthur Lee Brown
He pointed and told me where it was and where to turn and I asked him how he was doing.
He’s from Natchez, lived there all his life, family in the area, relatives, kids, no wife. He’d been in a gang and he’s done with that. He did a 12-year stretch for a piece of bad luck; one guy had a gun, another guy died and somebody had to go to jail. Today he’s looking for a job. But unemployment is high in Natchez, among the highest in the state that has the highest unemployment rate in the country. And he’s a felon.
I asked him why he didn’t leave and he replied, “And go where?”
As he talked, I could see the rage in his hands. He had beautiful hands and I asked if I could take his picture.
I ordered a beer at the Under the Hill Saloon, four well-dressed white folks sitting at the bar and a young white girl behind it. I took a sip and got back on the Revival and rode out of town.
Tonight I’m at the Colonial Inn in Greenville, Mississippi, my second motel of the evening. My first had been the Relax Inn, where I had a forty dollar room. I took the luggage off the bike, put it on the bed and the cops showed up, a couple of squad cars across the parking lot followed by a bunch of banging on doors. As the banging was going on, Lenny from next door stopped by and told me what a nice bike I had, and did I want to ‘buy something, weed, anything you need.’
I’ve known guys like Lenny; 40-some years old, still working nickel-dime hustles, still trying to score. I said “no thanks” knowing that he’d be back, knowing that he’d try to sell me something and that I’d refuse, knowing that it would escalate, knowing that I had an expensive and fragile motorcycle parked in front of my room. He went back to his room and I loaded the bike and rode down the road to the Colonial Inn and got a fifty dollar room. Cops haven’t been here yet.
I had breakfast at the Little Easy Cafe, cheesy grits, collard greens and a veggie omelet. The chef is a guy named Jay who’s spent his career in the restaurant business, and what he wants to do is write.
I wrote about Ashley the other day, her tears and fury over the SCOTUS Roe decision in the parking lot of the Edelweiss. What I’ve been thinking is that a 15 year old child made a decision to keep a fetus and continue her pregnancy and that the cost was her life. (Sure, she can still go to medical school and became an astronaut and travel the earth and write novels, but how much are we going to ask of this woman?).
It was the visceral nature of her rage that I think about. The sense that for her, the SCOTUS decision was intensely personal, that the court was denying her her choice and her sacrifice. The decision that set the course of the rest of her life had been hers, nothing abstract about it. She wasn’t expressing pride or regret, but ownership and autonomy. And now this feckless enterprise was taking that decision away from her and making it theirs.
For me, an old white guy accustomed to having the world my way and viewing oppression safely through the filter of my media, to see that rage up close and in person was frightening. And inspiring. And worth writing about.
Left to right: Cameron, Chandler, your host, fellow customer David McClellen
I stopped at Toad Suck Harley Davidson in Conway, Arkansas for a quart of oil. The service manager, Cameron, confided that he would rather ride a sport bike than a Harley (sacrilege in that part of the world, particularly for a guy who works in a Harley shop). He wants an Aprillia. The young guy washing bikes, Chandler, has a liberal girlfriend and he’s going to school to become social worker. Fellow customer, David McClellen, grunted when I told him I was a commie, but he talked to me for another 45 minutes.
The photo below, from the left, Cameron, Chandler, me and David. The t-shirt cost $43.00.
Pro tip: when possible, stay at locally owned motels instead of the chains; the money stays local, and they’re a lot more interesting.
Ashley and Desiree are sisters on a road trip from Oklahoma City to St. Louis. They were packing their minivan in the parking lot of the Edelweiss this morning as I was strapping down my gear. Ashley walked over to say that she liked the color of the Revival, that her stepdad had a Harley but that it was all black and she didn’t like it. She asked if she could take a picture.
Ashley
We were chatting as fellow travelers do, knowing that we will never meet again. I asked her if she’d heard the news this morning (regarding SCOTUS reversal of Roe). And she started to cry. Ashley was raped when she was fifteen by someone she knew and that having the baby had been a choice, her god damned choice. Her daughter is now 13 and wants to be a lawyer.
Today I rode past the Riverside Gun Shop on a curvy bit of road outside of Eureka Springs. A couple of miles later I turned the Revival around and went back. Ron, the man at the counter, talked about his 21 year old daughter, she’s been promoted to front-of-house manager at Chick-fil-A and that’s a good job. I talked about Eli and Coco (my kids). He likes art and wanted to hear about Coco’s job at MIA (Minneapolis Institute of Arts). He visits Crystal Bridges museum in Bentonville and described in detail some of his favorite paintings. He doesn’t remember the artists.
Riverside Gun Shop
Blackberries grow wild around his house, they’re smaller and sweeter than farm-raised but you’ve got to watch the thorns. The dogs like them, too. Rattlesnakes are becoming a problem; they’d always had water moccasins and copperheads, but the rattlers are new. He found a young one outside the house just the other day. They’ve got armadillos now, too.
Ron’s boss, the owner of the shop is an Army vet and took our picture.
I’m in room 6 at the Edelweiss Inn in Eureka Springs, Debbie and Lee are in room 4. They’re riding new BMW boxers, R1250RSs and live in Creston, Iowa. They’re retired, no kids. He’d been a civil engineer for the Federal Government, she’d been a department manager at the Walmart store for 32 years. They’ve been riding together since the ‘80s. I suggested that the country was in bad shape, to which they enthusiastically agreed. They got quiet when I told them that I was liberal commie and we went back to motorcycle stories.
(Maybe I should have let them bring the heat. But my fear is that once they’re all fired up that I won’t be able to bring them back to motorcycle stories, that we’ll argue or stop talking. Need to think about that. Lee just walked by, waved and smiled. We’re good.)
Traveling well is the time and willingness to turn around and go back. When that unplanned thing flashes past at the corner of your eye as you’re motoring by and that thing sticks in your head, you need to go back. It seems most times worthwhile.
The Revival got me into a conversation at breakfast yesterday. It started with Sandy saying “Beautiful bike.” (She introduced herself and handed me a printed invitation to a motorcycle rally several days hence.) It ended with me saying, “Willie Nelson has Minnesota politics.”
I sat at the next table and eavesdropped on Sandy’s conversation with the two guys she was sitting with, one wearing an Army veteran cap, as they smoked their cigarettes and ate their grits and bacon. They were planning a charity event, discussing entertainers to invite and how to keep the different bands from playing the same songs (I was surprised to learn that that’s a problem). They wanted Willie, but he’s “not Christian enough.” Taylor Swift came up, too, and Waylon Jennings, although I think he might be dead. (Do those people perform in Doniphan, Missouri?)
As I was leaving I stopped at their table, shared army cred with the guy in the hat, (he’d done the SE Asian tour back in the day), said what I said about Willie and shared fist bumps. A fellow vet on a nice bike. That’s all.
I stopped at a cemetery. Decorated with flags and flowers for Independence Day (I suppose) the grass was cut short, they’d even given the headstones a trim. Many of the stones included rank and branch of service. The cemetery was attached to a pretty white clapboard Baptist church.
In southern Missouri the roads are curvy and hilly and well maintained and wind through verdant forest. The waterways are blue (and cold, as I discovered when I took my clothes of and waded in). There are small farms and little businesses and towns that Rand McNally deems unworthy. It really is magical.
I stayed last night at the Twin Lakes Motel in Forsyth, owned by the mother-in-law of the (HIspanic?) woman who checked me in. She waved dismissively at a faded photo of a grey-haired woman on the wall when I asked.
A hundred and four degrees yesterday, Minneapolis to Waterloo. Geared up in helmet, jacket, gloves and boots, that’s hard riding. That’s all.
This trip I’m riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle, an Electra Glide Revival, a 2021 remake of the 1969 Electra Glide; a motorcycle as iconic to its time as Viet Nam, Woodstock, civil rights and that one small step. A limited run, the bike is number 1307 of 1500, Lucky 13.
I’m trying to decide whether to like it. It’s heavy, very heavy (at 864 pounds, it weights as much as any two of my BMWs), and handles accordingly. Despite it’s enormous displacement, 114 cubic inches (1870 cc), it’s underpowered and passing takes thought and planning. The seating position is as upright as a school desk, which is no comfort to butt, spine or teeth on bouncy rural roads. The brakes are fine but barely.
On the other hand, it has cruise control, it’s handsome and gets lots of compliments. And it has that quiet Harley burble that synchronizes with the rhythms of the heart and makes you feel happy. While it’s not as good as sex, it’s the same genus…. The guys on the loud Harleys aren’t getting it.
It’s also safe. I’m riding into the south; Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and elsewhere as whim strikes. My intention is to listen to people whose politics I disagree with, to encourage them to have their say. The Harley Davidson provides entrée, it makes me a non-threatening ambassador. My BMWs don’t do that.
Last night I stayed at the Motel 6 in Waterloo. I made a lot of money working for Motel 6 back in the day, I thought it was only fair that I give them $67.00 back. Also, they have good coffee.
Photos are Bessie Stringfield (worth a moment on Wikipedia) with her 1960s Harley Davidson and my 2021 Revival.
