Every Dad Needs a Motorcycle
As I get older, I think a lot about what it’s like to be a dad, what it really means. I think about what you have to do and be and give up to raise your kids, and how glad I am that I made the choice to go ahead and spawn some little rugrats of my own. But I know that it’s not always easy, and sometimes it can be a little overwhelming even for us that are old hands at this parenting thing. And that’s why every dad needs a motorcycle.
Who’s a Dad
You’ll note I didn’t say that every guy, or even every guy with a wife or kid, needs a motorcycle. That’s because I’m not talking about teenaged jerkweeds or baby daddies with more spooge than sense. I’m talking about the responsible guy who gets up every morning, goes to work (or telecommutes from home, because goddamn it, that is TOO work, thankyouverymuch), pays the bills, and kisses his kids on the forehead before telling them to get to bed.
This guy, this solid motherfucker, he’s doing the right thing. He probably drives a sensible car, he uses it to take the family places, he uses it to get the groceries, or bring home lumber for some crazy-assed deck he thinks he’s going to build. This guy, he might even drive a piece of shit minivan, because it has enough seats for the kids with enough space leftover to stow backpacks, or band instruments, or bigass bags of snacks for the occasional, ill-advised family road trip. He doesn’t like it, and a little piece of him dies every time he gets behind the wheel, but he drives it because it’s the right thing to do.
His job, the one he drives the minivan to? It’s probably not a lot of fun. At one point, it might have been fun. He might have enjoyed punching in the code or balancing the spreadsheets or installing electrical lines, or whatever the fuck it is that he does that no one in his house understands.
But unless you really are living the dream, at some point, that job is going to make you hate it. It’ll get all up in your face like a girlfriend you kept around too long. It’ll start calling you names, insinuating that maybe you aren’t getting what you want because maybe you aren’t doing whatever it is that you do the way you did it five years ago. Or ten years ago. Or even twenty years ago.
That doesn’t stop this guy I’m talking about, though. He bites his tongue and grits his teeth and he puts up with the bullshit. He gets past the boss who doesn’t know shit, and he gets his job done even when the cocksuckers are trying to shut him down. He does it because it’s the right thing to do. Not because he loves it, not because he has to (honestly, you don’t ever have to do this shit – lots of guys do not, but that’s another, uglier story), but because it’s right.
This guy probably has a house. It might not be the biggest house on the block, but it’s his. It’s the house that he paid for with the sweat of his brow, and, to be fair, with the help of his significant other because it’s goddamned near impossible to buy a house on one income these days, fuck you very much Mr. Bush.
This house, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep it, because this is the place he puts his family. This is where you make those memories that you want to have, those Christmas mornings when the kids gather around your goddamned hearth, toasting in the warmth of the fire while they rip open their gifts. This guy, he wants his home to be the one place where everyone he’s responsible for will feel safe and tucked in just so, because this is the Normal Rockwell painting that he’s making with his own blood and sweat.
Sometimes, that means that this guy will have to make some choices he doesn’t like. Maybe he’s got to work extra hours to tote the note some months. Maybe he has to get a second job so that his partner can help run that house and wrangle those two-point-five kids so they don’t grow up to be mongoloid thugs like the neighbors’. Whatever, this guy will do it.
Just to add insult to injury, a lot of these guys, they don’t have the time or the energy to do the things they should for themselves. They might not get the gym, or they might have to skip those bike rides they used to like so much. Hell, they might not have time to do much but sit at their desk and grind themselves down to a nub while they try to figure out what it is they’re going to do for their lives. So they get a little thick in the middle, and that’s certainly no goddamned fun.
Now, none of these dads are going to talk about this. These guys, they see each other in the mall sometimes and they’ll do The Nod. The one that’s a little top-heavy, a little slow to come up after the chin dips, and their eyes will spark just a little. It’s the look that says, “We’re on the same team, even if no one knows it. We’re the good guys, even when it sucks.”
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