First Kiss: Motorbike Marcy

Back in 1979, Raleigh RAMPAR dirt bikes were all the rage. I asked Santa for a brand new, golden-yellow with red rims Rampar for Christmas, being the little dyko that I was. I woke up early on Christmas morning, expecting to find a huge box under the tree: no such luck. There were boxes of clothes, underwear, socks, a few albums, and some work boots (for my horse riding lessons), but no dirt bike. I was a bit sullen, to say the least.

After everyone finished opening his or her gifts, my dad went outside under the pretense of getting some more firewood out of the garage. He screamed—“O man! There’s another present out here for someone! Come on, everyone,” he yelled from the kitchen door, “Let’s see who it’s for!”

I envisioned my brand new bike, chrome shining in the sunlight. I pictured myself placing playing cards between the spokes to make a cool sound while I rode. I ran outside, and there it was-- my new bike! Both of my brothers were rather perturbed when they saw that their names were not on the tag. I ran over to the handlebars and read aloud: To Marcy, Love Santa. O, I was in my glory. I hopped on the bike and rode in circles on the driveway until it was time to go to Grandma Shirley’s for dinner.

Tommy stood on the front lawn in envy. He watched as I traced imaginary figure eights on the pavement. He knitted his eyebrows in anger when I began to pretend I was pumping the throttle on the handlebars and began making motorcycle noises with my voice.

“Motorbike Marcy,” he mumbled.

“What?” I smiled. “I didn’t hear you, Tommy Eddie.” I pulled up right beside him and raised my eyebrows in anticipation of learning what he had just mumbled.

“I said everyone in school is going to make fun of me because my little SISTER got a dirt bike before I did!”

“That’s not what you said! What’d you say?” We stood staring at each other with our eyebrows knitted.

“I said you look really good on that ugly thing, Motorbike Marcy!”

O SHIT! I thought. Another darn nickname to contend with—as if Lunchbox Head wasn’t bad enough!

Riding a dirt bike wasn’t the wisest thing to do in 5th grade. Not only were the boys losing interest in playing with me—because they were discovering the girlie girls—but many of my female acquaintances found my latest dirt bike transgression to be the final straw.

“It’s one thing to be obsessed with the Bionic Woman and to play with Stretch Armstrong and all, but ride a dirt bike? I don’t think so!” These words were etched into the girls faces as they watched me chain lock my bike to the rack on the first day back to school after Christmas break.

By the end of the day, my Lunchbox Head nickname was replaced with Motorbike Marcy. Tommy was in high heaven as he witnessed his friend Dwight looking at my bike while I unchained it after school.

“Motorbike Marcy…nice looking bike. What—they didn’t have any girl bikes left at the store?” He overconfidently smirked as he walked away and gave my brother a high five.

Not all of Tommy’s friends made fun of me. He did have one friend that thought it was rather neat that I had a golden yellow Rampar with red rims. His name was Billy, and he had a red Rampar with golden yellow rims. We had never conversed outside of the context of Little League, when, one day, Billy walked up to me in the hallway at school and asked if I would like to go dirt bike riding on the following Saturday.

I’m not sure if my jaw hit the ground before or after I replied, “Yes.” Was this a date? I wondered.

As planned, Billy picked me up around noon on Saturday. We rode all around town, and then finally made our way to the park behind my grandmother’s house. We rode up and down the hills; wove around the trees; and even jumped the little mound of grass that covered a large drainpipe.

At one point, all tuckered out, Billy and I rode our bikes up to the bank of the brook directly behind my grandmother’s house. We both watched the water rippling as we caught our breath. After some time, we looked into each other’s eyes, smiled, leaned in towards each other, and kissed: a little peck on the lips. It was beautiful.

Without saying a word, we put our feet to the peddles and began jumping moguls and seeing who could ride the fastest down the steepest hill in the park.

Soon after the 'first kiss incident', the Motorbike Marcy moniker was too much to bear and I sold the dirt bike to one of my older brother Jerry’s friends.

Things settled down after a few weeks: the boys began to allow me to play touch football with them again, and Tommy and his friends reverted to calling me Lunchbox Head. Never a dull moment in this bent life of mine.

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

©2006 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.