Riddle

Riddle
My friend wore a rabbit’s foot on a ball-link chain strung through his side belt loop. He squeezed it in his sweaty palm and flipped down the smoky visor, making his face a formless shadow. From the neck up he looked robotish—like a rock’m sock’m boxer.

He sat astride a monstrous bike, a 650 cc Triumph Tiger, 300 feet from the base of a thirty degree incline leading to the wooden floor of the Riddle Bridge. His knuckles went white as he choked and twisted the throttle—2,000 RPMs—then flung open his left hand as if violently baptizing the air with water from his finger tips, letting loose his death grip on the clutch. The die was cast. In an instant he was at the point of no return.

The back wheel found traction after a dozen rotations and the front wheel levitated six inches, then more. The Triumph sped along at that precise angle which keeps the front wheel clawing the air, the rider having found a neutral sliver of space between ground’s attraction and backward momentum…and here he rode an acrobatic, barely in control, ride that looks so cool—a perfectly executed wheelie feels almost supernatural. For 200 feet he scooted along on the back wheel before the front one again found purchase and the journey began in earnest. He was a blur when he reached the top of the incline.

In moments…a moment…a snap…he would shake gravity and be airborne. At the point where the road angled down to merge with the bridge floor he had lift-off. The rider stayed on a straight line path into the sky, cutting through it like a dagger sent sailing by a giant cartoon magnet. The rear wheel spun frantically; knobby tires finding no resistance, only empty air. The high winy sound of the two-stroke engine screamed. His hand, as if transformed into an immovable metal cast, held the throttle open wide.

He had flung his bike off the ramp’s end and was climbing through space toward the overhead cross-beam of a rusted metal arbor arching above Riddle Bridge—that now ancient and creaking blend of rusted metal spanning the Gasconade River. The Riddle was old style, comprising scores of steel beams and thick cables, all woven together in a spider web of triangles—a brilliantly functional and artistic design not seen so much anymore. Today, the cunning and intricate steel montage has been replaced by a grey featureless concrete slab.

My friend and his too powerful (for this maneuver) motorcycle were riding through the empty haze of blue sky at a terrifying speed. His helmeted head was an onyx orb sparkling in the bright summer sun, his leather gloved hands’ defiant fists jabbing the air as they squeezed the bar grips in a futile attempt to guide the missile. Incredibly, he was on target…his trajectory looked perfect. “His goal?” you ask: it was to raise high enough to slap the steel beam at the apex of his flight path…very tricky, this move. He had to release his grip on the handlebar—both hands was the rule—raise his arms touchdown style, and make clear and unmistakable contact with the metal beam. Slap it—make it audible—then, lightning fast, find the handlebar grips again, straighten the front fork and prepare for a teeth jarring arrival on the bridge floor.

We watched without breathing. The bike with the black-stone headed rider was a comet. Contact...smack! We heard it; he hit the cross beam. He hit it hard and dead center…with his head. And it came off—his head…all of it. The bike and Ichabod Crane completed the flight, skidding and tumbling across the bridge’s rough wooden plank floor, coming to rest in the thickets along the road ditch at the far end of the bridge. The body, in repose with the bike, quivered.

But we gave scant notice to the bike and body. We were watching, catatonic, as the helmet—the head’s casket—bounced and rolled toward the edge of the bridge. It was going over. No. We could not let that happen. I snapped to reality (if you can call an urge to chase down a rolling head reality) and dove for the helmet. My fingertips barely brushed the smooth hard plastic before it left the bridge and fell like a cannon ball to its dark-water grave.

My hand flailed in the air as I reached to the limits of my grasp. I brought back—oh God—a hand covered with blood.

The three of us—four had begun this adventure—bowed, as if in prayer, across the cable railings as far as we could and watched in horror as the helmet turned over in the water, its dark, shiny face cover reflecting the sun. The sun’s revealing rays penetrated the visor’s cloudy tint to give us a last image of our friend’s eyes, opened as big as half-dollars. They looked alive still, pleading, as the gentle current of the eddy sucked them under.
♦ ♦ ♦

Epilog…what really happened
The helmet I had chased and dove for was quite empty.

The blood on my hands was a scratch from the jagged boards of the bridge’s floor.

The empty eyes were starbursts glinting on the helmet’s reflective surface…our mind’s eyes obligingly giving us the macabre image we were expecting.

The quivering body…which eventually attracted our attention…still had a head, firmly attached.

Our friend was stunned and rattled, but smiling.

It was the best motorcycle jump I have ever seen, before or since.