Carl Van Marcus: The motorcyclist_s wife

The air hung heavy over the flat Kansas prairie, dense and feverishly heated as a sick person's breath. As the afternoon progressed, ominous black clouds encroached on the Western skyline, and violent gusts of wind – like the wracking coughs of an invalid – stirred but failed to cool the crowd below.

"Smith! Smith! Where the fuck are you? Your act's supposed to begin now!" a darkly handsome man in his late twenties emerged from the shack that served as an equipment shed on this makeshift motorcycle stunt circus track, shouting to make himself heard over the roar of the large crowd. Spotting his star stunt rider standing beside the concession stand with a buxom peroxide blonde clinging to his muscular arm, the irritated show manager strode in that direction.

"What the fuck's holding you up?" the dark-haired man snapped. "We've got a show going here, remember? It's past time for your act, and the crowd's waiting for you."

"Don't make him do it, Larry!" the girl pleaded, throwing her arms around the well-built stunt rider. "The wind's too bad! The radio said there's gusts up to 30 miles per hour!"

Larry Johnson, the manager, stared down at the girl, his face reflecting the contempt and dislike he felt for her. Though she was still in high school, her face and hair were already coarsened by overuse of cosmetics and dyes, and her large breasts, bulging conspicuously under her tight CYCLE CIRCUS T-shirt, would be sagging by the time she reached the age of twenty. Still, she was a good lay – he ought to know, for he'd tried her out before passing her on to his star stunt rider. And, more important, she was the daughter of the man who owned the most popular radio station who'd given their two-week Kansas tour so much free publicity. Anyway, she was probably just what Verne Smith needed, what with that beautiful but frigid wife of his back home. There was so much tension involved in this sort of dare-devil stunt riding that it wasn't a good idea for the guys to be sexually frustrated as well.

"What's the matter, Verne?" Larry asked, staring hard at his top bike rider. "You turn chicken over a little wind?"

Verne Smith laughed, looking embarrassed as he glanced at the teenager hugging him. He'd never quite learned to handle these precocious cycle groupies, nor quite managed to overcome his innate guilt about cheating on his wife.

"I ain't scared of no wind," he said to Larry, "you know me better than that. But I was just trying to calm down Sherry here."

"Just go on and get that act moving. I'll handle Sherry."

Verne moved out onto the track and mounted his powerful black cycle to the accompaniment of the crowd's loud yells. Though he was only twenty-five, he was already famous among cycle enthusiasts around the country for his fearless skill.

"Don't do it, Verne! Don't do it!" he heard Sherry's shrill adolescent voice calling and turned to smile and wave reassuringly before gunning his bike and tearing across the field to the first hurdle.

Suddenly, so quickly that the watching crowd hardly saw what happened, a particularly violent gust of wind caught the speeding, climbing cycle at an angle that sent it hurtling back down the hill. Verne Smith's black leather clad body flew through the air to land not far from the spectators with a sickening thud, then lay as still as a crushed insect. Beyond him, the accelerating bike's powerful engine immediately burst into crimson flames that shot high into the darkening sky.

Larry Johnson rushed toward his friend's twisted body, the terrified screams of the crowd and the wail of the fire siren echoing in his ears.

"Verne! Verne!" he shouted, kneeling beside the sprawled out body. But the stunt rider was unconscious, and in the next minute his inert body was being lifted into a shrieking ambulance which raced toward the nearest hospital.

Dusk had just fallen, and in the last crimson-gold rays of the setting sun, the row of identical pastel ranch houses which jutted up from the flat Indiana prairie seemed to be bursting into flames. In spite of the rosy glow, the air grew chill, almost forbidding, as the thin September sun sank beyond the horizon. High above the level plain a clamorous flock of blackbirds hovered for an instant in the darkening sky, then suddenly turned and vanished toward the south.

"Winter's coming at last…" the slender blonde girl murmured to herself, shivering and drawing her lightweight red cardigan tightly around her scantily clad body as a chill breeze rustled through the meadow. With a dispirited sigh, she turned away from the bubbling creek and started trudging back toward the subdivision houses silhouetted against the evening skyline.

Indian Summer had stretched on for so long that Sandi Smith had almost dared to hope that the cold and snow would never really arrive. This would be the first time the Florida born and raised young wife had ever spent in the north, and although she'd not let her husband know how she felt, she'd been dreading the winter ever since he'd told her they were settling permanently in the Midwest.

I know Verne says that northern Indiana's the only place in the country where his darned old Cycle Circus can really get off the ground, she thought rebelliously, but what does he expect me to do all winter long while he's away on his stupid tours? I just wish he'd let me come with him like I used to or get a normal job where he wouldn't have to leave me by myself all the time…

Kicking angrily at a pebble as she stepped from the overgrown field onto the concrete sidewalk of the brand new subdivision which bore the optimistic name of Lakeview Estates, the long-legged blonde tried to prevent herself from falling into a state of morbid depression. More and more often in these past few months, she'd been plagued by uncontrollable moods of frustration and uncertainty. Sometimes, she wondered what had happened to the starry-eyed optimist who'd been foolish enough to believe that marriage to a handsome motorcycle stunt rider meant living happily ever after, just like in the fairy tales and romance novels. It grew more and more difficult to recall the joyous sense of freedom she'd felt less than a year ago when, after the marriage ceremony in her father's Florida parish, she and Verne had set off on his big motorcycle for his home in Indiana.

As the shapely honey-blonde rounded the corner to Lemon Lane where the Smiths' two-bedroom house was located, her dismal thoughts were momentarily diverted by a group of junior high school boys racing by on their bicycles. The moment the youngsters spotted the attractive nineteen year old in her skimpy white shorts and tight red sweater, they squealed to a halt and circled around to stare after Sandi's tautly rounded buttocks wriggling in unintentional invitation and at her long, classically-sculpted legs. One of the youths, braver than the others, let out a loud wolf whistle which brought a bright red flush of embarrassment to the young housewife's face.

Quickening her pace – an action which had the unfortunate result of making her rounded hips undulate even more provocatively than before – Sandi hurried down Lemon Lane and into her own front yard. Instead of making a careful inspection of the wealth of flowers and bushes which transformed the Smith's quarter acre into a little oasis of color among the barren plots of crabgrass which were the general rule in Lakeview Estates, the red-faced blonde hastened into her white frame house.

Although the air was really quite cool now that night had fallen, the svelte young wife did not close the open living room windows. The blush which had begun on her cheeks seemed to have spread throughout her entire body, making her feel unaccountably warm.