The Perfect Day

Monday, March 11, 2013 started as a beautiful day. A perfect day! A wonderful day! A day to be outside.
I found that I needed to get out and ride the 30 or so miles from my home in Culver City to The Valley. THE Valley. The one that’s on the other side of the hill so many people cross in a single day through the Sepulveda Pass. In cars. And for us lucky ones, on motorcycles.
It was a beautiful day.

I cruised up the 405 in my normal fashion on my Honda Shadow ACE as I had done so many times before when I worked in The Valley. The road was clear, the pavement smooth. The perfect ride as I held the throttle at the perfect speed, aware of my surroundings and the coolness of the wind through the vents of my helmet.
I effortlessly rode through the pass, never once needing to squeeze the brakes, then smoothly slid into the high speed lane, the car pool lane, when I made it into The Valley. The left hand lane where the road was free and clear.
I gently turned a bend and noticed the red glare of tail lights began to flare in front of me. I had plenty of room so I knew it was for something else. I saw the blue lights of police cars on the other side of the waist-high divider, noticing the black and white cars were not blocked by tow trucks, fire trucks, and the emergency vehicles that litter the road when an accident has occurred.  The cars to my right were slowing down to crane their necks, to see the accident, to pause for a moment but I had no one in front of me to slow me down.
And then I saw it. The sheet on the pavement. The white sheet. The outline of a crumpled body that lay beneath the white sheet. The white sheet.
And then the helmet near the sheet. A black and white full face helmet. By itself. Sitting there. Belonging to no one that was on a motorcycle. Belonging to the white sheet. Belonging to the one who wore it just moments before. The one lying still as the world continued on both sides of the divider. The one that could have been me.
My heart sank. My eyes swelled with sadness. It could have been me.
Who was this person under The White Sheet. Who? Who’s fault was it? Were they riding too fast? Were they splitting lanes? Were they wearing a t shirt and sneakers? Was it a man? Was it a woman? Were they riding a sportbike? A cruiser? A Harley? Were they a new rider? Had they been riding since they were a kid? Did they have children? Were they speeding? Did they get hit? Did they have on leathers? Did they see anything before their life ended so suddenly, so tragically? Did they have an ICE number on their phone? Did they have a will? Were they going to meet a friend and the friend is now nervous because their friend hadn’t shown up yet and they’re thinking the worst because they know their friend always rides their motorcycle everywhere? Do they know?
Monday, March 11, 2013 was a perfect day.
I rode back along the same stretch of road many hours later wondering how the hiccup in the road just moments earlier would be memorialized. I rode in the car pool lane, the exact same lane that my fellow rider rode earlier in the day. On that perfect day. Today.
There were no marks, no skid marks that I could tell would be still so fresh they would leak the scent of rubber. I couldn’t tell where the sheet had been. Where the body laid. Where it happened. Nothing to mark the place where the throttle was twisted, the brakes applied, the life taken. My gut felt like lead. My tears flowed only to be pushed aside by the warm wind that surrounded my face shield.
A shiny glimpse of glass caught my eye on the left shoulder. Perhaps it was a reflection of the life that had ended on the pavement of the 405. Maybe it was the rider telling me to be careful out there because they did not expect to die on the freeway that day.
On that day. Monday, March 11, 2013.
The perfect day.