Night
by Titus Gee
At night the pavement seems a little harder, cooled into a new shape after the long hot melt of afternoon. It feels a little stiffer under the Nighthawk’s tires and stretches out from curve to curve, empty of the day’s traffic. At night the world empties out and the broad Los Angeles boulevards change from cage-choked, stroke-inducing madness to a wide, clear biker playground banked for speed. Sometimes I take the long way home just to revel in it, crossing three lanes to hit the pinnacle of a curve, then sliding wide again.
By 2 a.m., the traffic on Sunset Blvd or Sierra Highway has dwindled to a small fraternity of night travelers who cruise the winding lanes in packs, huddling almost, in the clean, well-lit streets, turning off into long driveways or up cul-de-sacs. By 3 a.m., I am all alone. I zip the vents in my winter jacket, sit back and breathe in the chill.
The world seems better by moonlight – quieter, simpler.
Maybe better simply because there are fewer people in it. A more manageable number of people.
I grow self-conscious in the glare of a million indifferent judges shouldering past in traffic, or running their eyes down my leather uniform. Old guys in cargo shorts and hundred-dollar haircuts saying “that’s an old bike” or telling me my pipes are blowing smoke. I feel more myself in this dark solitude than in the sweaty, clattery, smog-pumping L.A. days.
I am a son of the city, not this city but The City, a cosmopolitan raised in art museums and Jersey suburbs. And yet some part of me, some deep shadow-self remembers pacing the back forty on my grandfather’s farm up state, discovering the moldering remains of stonewalls and ancient farm equipment rusting back into the earth. Some corner of my mind always thinks it’s standing on some mountain peak and staring down at a lonely valley of virgin forest. I am in The City, but not of it.
Except at night. In the deep, cold hours, the city is mine again.
And I am not alone. The night has its own citizens, its own denizens maybe, my stranger kin. Others venture out into the emptiness while the many sleep. On the freeways I pass hand-painted vans stuffed with guitars and drum kits, bodies draped and tangled across the bench seats in back.
I stop for gas and find myself lingering in the mini-mart, chatting with the attendant, saluting the guy pumping gas into those huge underground tanks that keep us all rolling. In the deep, quiet hours we nod to one another, wordlessly honoring our kinship. We are no longer lost in the crush of humanity. We are the few.
When I am not riding, I write into the wee hours, also.
I hole up at an all-night café next to truckers who sit with their coffee cups and their quiet eyes pointed at the infomercials playing on a wall-mounted television turned down low. At night the words flow easier. My thoughts come smoother and stronger, the lanes of my brain cleared of traffic like the roads.
My muse has a jealous streak, maybe, and doesn’t like sharing attention. Or maybe it is something about the stillness. I can feel the night stretching out around me, its people given over to unconsciousness. The darkness and emptiness lie like a weight, holding them down, muffling the distractions. My mind lights up to fill the void, uses the extra space to sort out pieces of The Puzzle, sees the patterns that get smeared in the daylight bustle. I rush it all down onto the page in bursts, punctuated by long, regenerating pauses.
A stoic waitress fills my coffee cup a dozens times and all the city cops on late duty file in to use the bathroom and then gather in a booth to burn some of the boring shift with pancakes and gossip. Guess the bad guys are asleep or something.
At 4:30 a.m. I start to feel the imminence of dawn. The Muse begins to yawn, and the pauses get longer between bursts of inspiration. I pay the bill and bundle up.
Out in the parking lot, the Nighthawk starts sluggishly, impatient to be resting again. Or maybe that’s me. I hurry across town, dodging early risers driving with one hand and sipping out of paper cups with plastic lids. The others are rising to take away my city. The sun will not be far behind. I retreat.
Let them have the daylight hours with their horns and their shiny cages. Let them sweat and worry and shout. Let them think they own reality and truth.
We will bide our time.
We will return to rule again.
The streets, the city will by ours again.
Tomorrow night.
