Shush, God, I need to concentrate

(Reproduced by permission from the novel ‘11 DAYS’)

Chapter 11 — Hope Hurts

Eight am. Rain. The bikes were packed. Everything that could be was in waterproof luggage and saddlebags. Everything else was stuffed in black plastic trash sacks and tied on tight. The rain was coming down hard and there was water streaming down one side of the road past the entrance to Hampton Station. It was probably ten inches deep.

Jack was looking at that water and it didn’t look good. Dom’s big BMW and the Chief’s smaller one were both on-and-off-road machines with lots of road clearance, they had big knobbly tires and were good through mud and streams. Chuck, Bruno, Denny and Cash were on much lower-slung road bikes but all four were very confident riders. When conditions got gnarly, confidence was more important than anything else. With enough confidence, you could even get Dan’s old army Indian up the stream that the road had become.

But Jack wasn’t confident, well… not that confident anyway. He’d done his fair share of riding on loose gravel roads, including one stint of nearly two thousand miles through the Australian desert on one of his Harleys with Annie on the back. He also knew that worrying would make it worse and pretty much guarantee he’d be off before he knew it, so he focused on working up his confidence.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” he heard The Voice whisper.

“Truly?” Jack asked hopefully.

“Truly.”

“Are you sure?” Realizing it was a silly question, he apologized.

“Will you stop apologizing?”

“Well, you know, we’re supposed to apologize. Being sorry to you is a major part of the whole God thing.”

“And it’s a lie, peddled by Religion. You already know that.”

“I guess, but it’s damned hard to shake.”

“Would you want your kids apologizing to you all day?”

“Ok, no.”

“Neither do I. Religion’s ‘God’ wants you grovelling and terrified that I’ll punish you. He’s your accuser, not me. It’s him who wants you punished, so he tries to tell you that I will. He knows it’s a lie, but he enjoys threatening you with it. Here’s the thing; I don’t want to punish you and I won’t. You need to stop believing his lies.”

Cash called out to Jack, “You talking to yourself, Kincaid?” He must have seen him speaking with God under his breath.

Jack looked around and saw they were all sitting on their bikes watching him. “You ready to go?” Cash called. Jack gave the thumbs up and moved off down the drive, easing his bike through the gravel. He was lead rider this morning although he wasn’t convinced he was the right guy. As he approached the house, the front door flew open and Michelle came running down the steps under an umbrella and motioned for him to stop.

“Sorry, sorry,” she shouted over his engine and the rain. He pushed the kill switch and flipped open his visor. “Where are you heading next?” she asked.

“Over the saddle to Maruia Springs Junction.”

“Where after that, over The Lewis or out to Reefton?” She looked hopeful about something, but he couldn’t tell what.

“Reefton and then out to the coast.”

The look on her face told him his answer was what she’d been hoping for, but he was still none the wiser.

“I’m meeting some friends from church this morning in the pub at Reefton,” she said excitedly. “I’d love it if you called in and showed them how to do the God conversation thing.”

His heart fell. He didn’t like churchy stuff, but this was worse. At this time of the year motorcycle riding was sacred, eight unforgettable days on the road with some of his best mates. A ‘spiritual journey’ as Dom often quipped.

Yet here was pressure to reverse the sacred order. He was trapped. He shared kinship with Michelle because of their two sons and their cancer. He wasn’t sure he wanted to let her down.

“Text me the address,” he shouted over the rain, “but no promises.” Then he fired his bike up, headed out on to the road and turned uphill to ride through the muddy stream that was charging down toward them.

It was unnerving. He couldn’t see the road beneath the water and the current kept trying to push his front wheel left or right. He accelerated a little which fixed the problem, but it made him uneasy to speed up in conditions like this. He forced himself to relax and fixed his gaze further up the road. Funny, he thought, but looking where you wanted to go made you feel better where you were.

“Life’s like that.”

“It is?”

“You know it is. Picturing the future you hope for makes today enjoyable too.”

“I guess.”

“You know.”

“I do?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Do you have to comment on everything?” Jack asked.

“Not at all. Would you rather I didn’t?”

“No, I like it. It’s just a bit, well… I’m still getting used to it. The last thing I expected was you wanting to comment about little stuff, unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Well, unless you wanted to growl me about something. To be honest, I’m half expecting you’re going to tell me off now about something I’m doing wrong.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To correct me, help me improve?”

“I asked you before you rode out; did you do that to your kids, focus on their misdeeds?”

“Some days.”

“How did that work out for you?”

“Not so good but it was necessary, wasn’t it?” Jack protested.

“Tell me this, if you’d been less focused on their faults and more on their strengths, how do you think that would have been?”

“Better.”

“You’re not even going to argue?”

“No point. I can see it’s true.”

“Ok, good, you understand. Contrary to what you think, I’m focused on your strengths not your mistakes. Your enemy is much more interested in your faults than I am… Watch out!” The urgency in The Voice made Jack refocus. He saw a branch tumbling down the road toward him, pushed along by the stream.

The road was clear of traffic, so he pulled out of the stream and onto the wrong side to avoid it. Another hundred yards up it looked as though someone had turned the tap off. The rain stopped so abruptly it was like passing from one world to another. Suddenly the sun was shining, the native forest glistening and the mountains above them were framed by a blue sky. He glanced in his mirror and could see his mates riding out through the wall of rain and into the sunshine too.

The stream was still rushing down the road toward them though, the forest emptying itself of last night’s rain. He could see a bit further up the road where it came crashing out of the trees, crested a high bank, shot a couple of yards into the air and then smashed down onto the road and began to sluice down toward them. He pulled wide to avoid the start of it and then Dom and the faster riders blasted past him. A few corners later he came upon them pulling off onto a big wide space of shingle.

When the riders were all off their bikes and standing around, Dom began to explain what they could expect on the next part of the road. He was always eloquent and his road briefs entertaining.

“I like his road briefs too.”

“Shush, God, I need to concentrate”, Jack whispered.

“Gentlemen!” Dom announced, “this is a fantastic road and it gets even better from here on; plenty of tight corners and single lane stretches, and a bit further on there’s a ford where a stream crosses the road. In the summer it’s dry but in this rain it will probably be running fairly fast. I’ll go ahead and check it out.” With his brief finished, he pulled out a beautiful silver hip flask and passed it around with his customary “A cleansing libation, chaps?”