Why I Don't Like Motorcycle Passengers

While living aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Jarvis in the early '80s, I got the great idea to buy a motorcycle I could not afford to purchase. A chief working at the Marine Safety office agreed to sell me his barely running bike, which I could not afford to maintain or insure, so I was off.

With a bill of sale literally written on a fast-food napkin, I took off on my new motorcycle equipped with a complimentary helmet. Passing down the strip in Waikiki, I felt like I was doing pretty well until a rather attractive apparently Samoan young lady with hair down to her knees jumped out in traffic squealing that she loves motorcycles and she wanted to ride on mine. What is any sailor going to do? I hit the brakes, jumped the curb into pedestrian traffic and handed my helmet to one of her friends for safe keeping (I couldn't be the only one with a helmet). She hopped on the back of the bike and wrapped her arms around me in such a friendly way that I immediately had visions of Rogers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific" and wanted to break out into song. Lacking any sense of rythm and being pretty much tone-deaf, that would not have ended well.

Just about the time I went back over the curb into the congested traffic of the strip, she started waving both her arms and her legs in traffic. (Shifting cargo causes the entire motorcycle to waver and generally attracts attention I didn't want.) Aside from the movement, she was screaming about how much fun she was having and how much motorcycles turned her on. I was about to ask her not to fall off, when she seemed to get a bit dizzy and in that same squeaky, loud voice, she declared: "Ooooh, I'm on acid!” [giggle][giggle]. I swear I have not heard a voice that squeaky since Yoko Ono.

Now, back in those years, the Coast Guard had a pretty clear policy. Any drug or alcohol related contact with police results in a general discharge. Somehow we had made it all the way around the very short block while she continued to wave body parts and scream and giggle. I pulled the bike onto a side street just in time to meet two Honolulu Police officers wanting to talk to me.

They wanted me to know that the bags of spare parts strapped on the back of the motorcycle were obscuring the view of my license plate which is illegal and by the way, your license plate is several years out of date. While explaining to me that they really don't like military people in the islands, the two officers also noticed that what was left of the inspection sticker was way out of date as well.

Keep in mind that from the moment I got the bike parked and this mad woman hopped off, she was screaming in a non-stop tirade something to the effect: "You bastard! You son of a bitch! You cannot give my best friend in the whole world a ticket!" She continued this rant the entire time I stood there being told by Honolulu's finest that I should be grateful the death penalty was not available to prosecutors in Hawaii. The only time she wasn't screaming those phrases was when she would pause with an amused look on her face and say "Ooooh, I'm on acid! [giggle][giggle]" Then she would see the officer's face inches from hers and re-launch the rhetoric at full volume. The officer she was screaming in the face of was the one waving my military ID card and telling anyone who would listen that the military is not welcome around there.

The officer with my driver license and the dreaded clipboard continued down the line of problems with the motorcycle. The signal lights didn't work on the bike. The brake light only worked now and then. The headlight was tilted at a crazy angle and they had noticed it winked off and on when I had left the curb a few minutes earlier. The one remaining rear-view mirror was spinning freely on the handlebars. I had no registration papers and no proof of insurance. I just had that bill of sale on a bit of napkin with holes where the ball point pen tore through.

Karma can be a good thing though. Once the officer finished noting all the things wrong with the bike, she pointed to the woman screaming at her partner. "Is she really a friend of yours?"

I told her that I had just met the woman and as soon as I found my helmet, I would go back to the base where I belong. She took one more look at her partner and the lunatic who showed no signs of running out of steam. Looking back at me, "I actually feel kind of sorry for you. I gotta write you up because I've already put your information on this ticket. I tell you what, I'm just going to write you for carrying a passenger who isn't wearing eye protection." With that, I was off, trailing blue smoke.

By the time I got to the base, the bike was barely running and it would only run at very high revs, so I came through the base in first gear, the rusted out spark arrester had fallen out of the tail pipe, so there was no muffler. Parking at the ship, I got off and revved the engine several times looking at the bike as if I would magically understand how engines work. This all resulted in charges of drunken and disorderly conduct from the OOD of the ship who insisted that I had been circling the parking lot with the engine screaming. I got off the charges because the QMOW backed my story that the bike had been stationary while I revved it up.

I didn't take care of the ticket and six months went by. A court clerk contacted me by telephone and told me I needed to appear in four days time for a hearing on my unpaid ticket. That would have been bad enough since I really didn't have much money, but Jarvis was getting underway a few hours after my court date. I asked if I could come by and pay the ticket right now, and the clerk said the time for that was long past and I would have to be in court. Not being the sharpest bulb on the tree, I told him that the Captain of our ship had cancelled liberty for that day, so I really needed to come immediately and take care of things. The clerk was cheerful enough and told me not to worry about it that he would see what he could do for me.

After the call, I was left wondering what the fine would be. In Fort Worth, I had gotten a ticket before enlisting and it was a $40 fine. I wouldnt have that much until payday about two weeks from the day of the ticket and in Texas you generally have ten days to respond. On day eleven, I came home from work to find a business card on my door saying "Sorry we missed you. We'll catch up with you tomorrow at your work" It was from a police officer and referenced the ticket. Needless to say, I was first in line to pay my fine now up to $120 because of the late charge. I was still wondering what a six month late charge would look like when the 1MC came alive "Now Petty Officer Clark, Lay to the Cabin".

I wondered what that could be about, but there is no getting out of those calls so I made tracks. Our CO was a pretty nice guy, but when I got up there, he wanted me to explain to him why there was a bench warrant with his name on it being issued.

Oops! After I explained (leaving out the part about the screaming banshee, he told me to calm down and that there were four other crewmen due to be in court at the same time. Since I was the one who had arranged it, the Captain gave me a big wad of cash from the morale fund and told me to make sure that everyone got back to the ship before cast off.

On the day of reconning, I went downtown and sat through all my shipmates hearings. "So you were driving erratically and when pulled over, you punched the officer and later kicked one of the jailers? Explain yourself young man." Things were not going well as each of the other crewmen had done such horrible (and funny) things, I was having trouble thinking of what I was going to say about my ticket and why I had not paid promptly. My turn came up last and I was down to around $25 total with most of that being my own money. The judge read my crime "Carrying a passenger who was not wearing eye protection. That will be seven dollars young man, plus ten dollars court costs."

Did I mention that Karma has been my friend? It turns out that my Father's words of wisdom when I bought my very first motorcycle were true. "Son, riding motorcycle will shorten your life." I know this particular bike took years off my life.

I gave the bike to one of the snipe chiefs before the next patrol. He dismantled the bike one night in the parking lot and carried it aboard piece by piece and during our next AlPat (Alaska Patrol), he completely rebuilt it into a real bike.