Two Brothers and a Motorcycle Michael Quinn

 Two Brothers and a Motorcycle

     I hated the ‘60s family photos taken with my younger brother Gary.  Only two years apart in age, Gary and I were forced by our parents to wear identical shirts and flash the same goofy, toothy smile.  OK, maybe we were responsible for the smiles, but our parents bought the clothes.  They desperately wanted us to be close, and the same picture taken every few years and then displayed somewhere in the house reflected that desire.  Gary and I had other ideas.

     We wanted to be ourselves.  Individuals.  And by the time we were both in high school, our parallel projects of individuation were well underway.  I wanted to be a scholar, a sixteen-year-old philosopher in the making.  A true descendant of Athens.  Gary was to be a Spartan athlete.  As far as we were concerned, those silly tandem photos could gather dust on our parents’ shelves.  We were each seeking a separate path to freedom.

     At sixteen, of course, the main path to freedom is paved with asphalt.  The open road.  I scraped up enough money to buy a cheap knockoff brand to the popular Honda motorcycle.  (There are many ways to date oneself once you get past a certain age, but one surefire method is to tell a young person that you can remember a time when “Honda” only meant motorcycles.)  I would ride my bike everywhere, sans helmet, sans leather jacket, sans goggles…sans any speck of common sense.  It was exhilarating.

     When I left for college, the now sixteen-year-old Gary inherited my precious bike.  But he put his own stamp on the riding experience.  Gary always wore a helmet, a thick leather jacket, and goggles.  As he was doing on that October day half a century ago when, at 6:00 in the morning on his way to water polo practice, he drove north on Sunkist Street in Anaheim and entered the intersection with Lincoln Avenue. 

     Gary doesn’t talk much about what happened then, but he did spill forth to that other guy in those photos wearing the same stupid shirt.  I remember the details as if I were there.  Gary entered the intersection on a green light, his motorcycle lights on to account for the pre-dawn semi-darkness.  That intersection today is developed, with setback apartment buildings on the corners, but 50 years ago there were still trees blocking his view to the east.

     Coming from the east, driving westbound on Lincoln Avenue, was a mother (a soon-to-be victim of a different, psychological trauma).  She was a nurse, dropping off her young daughter before going to work.  She was a good person and, in most respects, a good driver.  But she had one terrible driving flaw.  Whenever she chatted with her daughter, as she was doing as she approached Sunkist Street, she would turn to look at her.  It was the little girl who noticed the light changing from green to yellow to red and who screamed when she saw the little motorcycle enter the intersection from the left.  Her mother barely touched the brakes before the impact occurred.

     Gary doesn’t remember the impact.  He thinks it comes back to him sometimes in nightmares, but he’s not really sure.  His doctors said that, at the maximum point of contact, the metal of the car came close to touching the metal of the motorcycle, crushing and almost severing Gary’s right leg.  The perpendicular motions of the car and motorcycle threw him diagonally across the intersection, shredding his leather jacket as he shot along the asphalt on his chest.  He was abruptly stopped by the curb on the northwest corner, which cracked his helmet all along the top.  I believe Gary still keeps that helmet in his master closet.  I’m sure he always will.

     I remember receiving the call from our father.  There was none of the usual warmth and humor in his voice.  It sounded more like fear, which I found interesting because I had never heard that before.  I know “interesting” is a terrible adjective to use in this context, but it is accurate.  Eighteen-year-olds may be at the apex of their physical development, but they are usually embryos when it comes to empathy and sensitivity to pathos.  I certainly was.  

     I had to see Gary, mashed up and covered from head to foot, to begin to comprehend what had happened.  It took me years to understand, fully, how devastating was his rehabilitation, which meant the end of his in-person high school experience and all of his athletic hopes.  It took me even more years, and my own life experiences, to appreciate his resilience and his undying sense of gratitude toward the doctors who miraculously pieced his leg together, binding chips of bone that were in some cases smaller than a finger.

     One thing I have never done is spend even one second wondering what would have happened to me had I been on the bike that day.  Given what a dope I was, the answer is clear.  Gary would be writing today about the older brother who passed away so tragically, fifty years ago.  We are both lucky, me that I avoided such a bleak alternative, and Gary that he grew and learned from his terrible experience to become the wonderful husband, father, and man that he is.  

     He says the accident, or rather his recovery from the accident, directed him to find a purpose in life.  A good purpose he found, ministering to people as a Catholic deacon.  He also ended up becoming a dual citizen of both Athens and Sparta, pursuing interests in religious studies and always taking on such physical challenges as he can muster.

     

     There is perhaps one other byproduct of that October day.  We are still individuals, Gary and I, but we each keep one of those silly tandem photos in our own homes now.  I think we’re both OK with our parents finally getting their wish.