Laughing Sunny Day

Sunny ran out to the barn and flung the big door open. There it sat, a 1998 Indian Chief, tricked out and ready to roll. Sunny ripped off the dust cover and threw it on the haybales. The two dogs looked at him with that sideways, cocked head dog look but they new what he was doing. They ran outside barking and running in circles, stirring up the barnyard dust. The dust sworled up and got picked up by the heat of the day, turning into a Kansas dust devil, picking up leaves and pieces of paper and carrying them off toward the hay meadow before it petered out at the edge of the pond.
In Kansas, dust was a part of life. Sunny often wondered as he half-joked about whether or not a brass water ladle that hung on the kitchen wall in his old farmhouse would completely fill up with dust someday. But then, dust was everywhere. It clung to figurines from the Great Depression era. It settled onto the furniture and you could dust it off and an hour later it would be dusty again. It covered the fresh-mopped hardwood floors. There was no use in washing your car or wiping the dust off of the dashboard. It would just settle right down again. Sunny had to wipe off the plastic speedometer cover in his ‘84 Chevy pickup when it got too dusty to see how fast he was going. The dust caused the CD player to skip and the radio clock to refuse to be changed on daylight savings time weekend. You slapped dust out of your blue jeans and you brushed it out of your hair with your hands. You learned the country way of blowing dust out of your nose by leaning over, pinching off one nostril and then the other as you blew the dust and snot back onto the Kansas earth. You didn’t blow your nose on a handkerchief like city folks did, it just turned it brown. You used a bandanna to cover your mouth and nose when the dust got too heavy. The dust turned to mud in the sweat on your brow and when you wiped the sweat off your forehead, you left marks in the muddy film that came from the dust. You ate dust with your meal, you ate dust when you worked, and you ate dust when you were asleep, and you could always while away the time by watching the dust play in the sunshine that came through the dusty screens and windows. Dust was just a Kansas fact of life. And then there were the dust devils. Sunny knew why they were called devils. Or he at least thought he knew. They towered above you and came at you with a vengeance, or they outran you if you tried to catch them. Sunny told the story about when he was a kid he jumped into a big one and it took him up in the air about ten feet. While he was up there inside the dust devil, he claimed the Devil appeared to him as an old cowboy, spitting tobacco juice and laughing at him and hooting like a screech owl, nearly scaring him to death. Then it dropped him down into the hog lot and spun off hooting and howling. Nobody believed him but he knew it was true. He had told the story long enough that he believed it. Sunny knew dust devils and dust and accepted them as part of his being. No use in trying to get rid of the ubiquitous. That was like swatting flies on the front porch. You swat one and another takes its place. You brush off the dust to make room for more dust. But one thing Sunny did was keep the dust off of his Indian.
At 54 years old, Sunny was a little stove up as he jumped onto the Indian, but he was in pretty good shape. He was a little self conscious about how he looked when he rode hoping that he didn’t look like “them Harley geezers” in Johnson County who never rode a bike in their life until they sold their business or got their Sprint buyout and had more money than they knew what to do with. Then they’d go out and buy a brand new Harley and get together with two or more of their ilk and off they’d go through Mission Hills with that “look at me” Johnson County attitude. “Johnson County assholes,” he thought to himself. In the old days they would never have made it. His grandpa had given him his first Indian, a 1942 Chief that he had bought from Army Surplus, brand new and still in the crate, covered with cosmoline, for $100.00. Back then you had to know the matchbook rules on how to keep your Indian running. You couldn’t just call the dealer on your cell phone and bitch because they couldn’t immediately pick up your bike. You had to know how to improvise and fix things or you went for a long walk. Sunny had gotten plenty of mechanical experience back in the 60’s when he rode from Kansas out to LA to pick up weed and acid. His bike had never failed him but there was always a situation or two where you were broke down out in Nowhere Land and had to rely on your wits to get going again. He laughed as he thought about when he used to drop a hit of window pane in each eye and take off riding non-stop through Kansas and on west to California. Laughing Sunny Day, they used to call him, but those days were long gone. He had other priorities now and it was high time he got on the road.
The Indian started on the second kick and Sunny was off, making his way North to I-70 and then East to Kansas City. The fringe on the silver trimmed, black saddlebags flapped and popped and the sun rode on the candy apple red gas tank. Sunny felt good being on the road as he cranked the handlebar accelerator up a notch. His Indian motorcycle boots were tucked into the side of the motorcycle. He never rode with his legs all splayed out like some guys did. Strictly ‘50’s. Just like a plate of food in a good restaurant, presentation was everything to Sunny. He even slicked his black hair back with Brylcreem into a ducktail so he would be more in a 1950-ish style. Sunny and the Indian settled into the ride, leaving the dogs and the dust devils behind.