A Gun, a Motorcycle, and the Road Back to Life
When I bought the revolver, a compact Smith & Wesson .38, I didn’t fully understand the gravity of what I was doing—or maybe I did. It was a moment suspended in both fear and indifference, as though the act of owning the gun would provide clarity or finality. Practicality won out, and I enrolled in a gun safety course at The Firing Line, an indoor range in Burbank, CA. My instructor, Red, was a no-nonsense Marine vet with a booming voice and an undeniable presence. He wasn’t just a firearms expert—Red also taught motorcycle safety. Life, it seemed, was giving me more than one avenue to confront my fear of endings and beginnings.
Motorcycles had been a quiet obsession since 1982, when I met Paul Sloper during college in Santa Barbara. Paul, a mischievous sprite with unruly black curls, exuded a confidence that made him magnetic. He rode an old BSA, a bike as rebellious as he was, and it embodied everything I thought was cool. I wanted that aura, that freedom. Naturally, I dreamed of a Ducati—not because I knew much about motorcycles, but because it was Italian, sleek, and symbolic of something grander than myself.
But life has a dark sense of humor. Signing up for Red’s motorcycle safety class was a logical next step. If I was toying with the idea of ending my life, I figured I might as well check "learning to ride a motorcycle" off the list first. The irony was not lost on me when I discovered how truly awful I was at it. I dropped the bike during drills. I stalled at intersections. I lacked that natural ease Paul had displayed so effortlessly. Yet, I had already invested $2,000 in safety gear, and leaving it to collect dust felt like another failure I couldn’t stomach.
Buying the motorcycle—against all rational judgment—felt like the last act in a comedy of errors. The bike terrified me. I stared at it in my driveway with a mix of dread and longing. It seemed ridiculous: if I couldn’t muster the courage to ride this machine, what business did I have contemplating more permanent actions? Still, when a fellow rider mocked me for letting it sit idle, something clicked. Whether out of shame or defiance, I decided to stop avoiding my fear. I threw myself into it. Slowly, hesitantly, I started riding. Everywhere. Grocery runs, late-night rides to clear my head, spontaneous trips to nowhere—I practically lived on that bike.
And then, through a string of random events and chance encounters, I met my future wife. In a way I hadn’t expected, the bike became a catalyst for a life I didn’t realize I was building. She gave me another reason to stay, to see what could happen next.
The gun? It stayed in its case, unused. I don’t know why. Maybe I wasn’t as serious about ending it all as I thought, or maybe I simply dodged that split-second decision that claims so many lives. Russ, my friend, didn’t dodge it. He jumped off a bridge onto the freeway, leaving the rest of us to wonder what turned his thoughts from despair to finality in that moment. Was it a fleeting impulse he couldn’t suppress, or a carefully planned escape? I’ll never know.
What I do know is that life keeps surprising us, throwing out lifelines in the form of friends, obsessions, or even misplaced investments in motorcycle gear. It turns out you don’t need to be fearless to survive. You just need to keep showing up, even if it’s to prove someone else wrong—or to see what’s around the next corner. Sometimes, that’s enough.
