Good Vibrations Read Online Free

loss. At least, we reasoned, we should be able to sort out the insurance in the morning and still be away before the weekend.
    On our way out, we lined up the Oldsmobile behind four or five trucks at the dock gates, where the window on the security block was sited so high in order to accommodate the cabs that I couldn’t reach the sill, even by stretching up. From somewhere above came the amplified command, ‘Next!’ I clambered on to the bonnet of the car to confront a checkout lady who looked like James Bond’s ghastly adversary from Smersh, the nightmarish Rosa Klebb. She was looking for trouble, but couldn’t find any. I handed her a release form I’d been given for the car and she nodded me through reluctantly. Roz was pulling away when suddenly the barrier slammed down. A heavy-duty cop appeared from nowhere and leaned into her window. His blue shirt was covered in badges like a Boy Scout patrol leader, he had a broken nose and he smelt of yesterday’s hot dog.
    â€˜Gimme your release.’
    â€˜I think we just did,’ Roz replied.
    â€˜That one on the dashboard.’
    â€˜That’s for our motorcycle. The bike’s still in the pound. We’ll need that form tomorrow.’
    â€˜Gimme the form, lady.’
    â€˜If we do that,’ I broke in, ‘I’ll have to go back to the customs for another, and I’m not taking the bike out now. There’s only me and her and this car.’
    At this point the cop, whose face had started out ugly, turned really unpleasant. I couldn’t believe it.
    â€˜Don’t mess with me,’ he rasped, loosening the press stud over his sidearm. ‘If I say I want the form, you give me the form.’
    We gave him the form.
    He screwed it into his trouser pocket and swaggered off back to his lair in the security block, where I supposed the lovely Rosa had the kettle on for a nice cup of tea. No suggestion of a ‘Thank you’, or the hint of human courtesy. I thought about some poor sod having his motorbike spirited out of the docks unmolested by Rosa or her deputies, and hoped to God it wouldn’t be mine. There is a world of difference between asking a London Bobby the way to Mornington Crescent and arguing with a policeman weighed down with gun, ammo and night stick, sporting an extrovert pair of handcuffs at his waistband.
    The Great Insurance Stress Binge began back at Clark’s place the following morning. Four months previously, I had called Harley-Davidson Insurance in the US to see how the land lay. A comprehensive policy for two bikes had been readily promised at reasonable rates.
    â€˜No problem,’ the obliging chap had advised, exuding the brotherhood of the road. ‘Just pick up the phone when you’re ready.’
    So I did, and was answered by a computer. I punched ‘five’ for ‘new business’ from the various electronic options and Harley propaganda came booming down the line instead of piped music. I enjoy this oddball mix of image mania and marketing gobbledegook. It beats garbled Mozart, and is an even better laugh than the Handel favoured by my accountant, which sounds like a Thai Temple dancer messing about with the cuckoo from a Swiss clock. Far better the roar of ‘four 1200-cc Sportsters flat out round the Daytona race track’, or ‘the local chapter ridin’ out of town on a Saturday morning’, especially when the rumble of the bikes is back-dropped with seriously funky blues music.
    The underwriters of Carson City, Arizona, where the H-D office offers round-the-clock service, were obviously having an early hamburger, because the wait went on for a long time. I was grooving to John Lee Hooker and the obscure sound of ‘a 1340-cc Evolution engine cooling off after a fast ride’ when the line cut them dead and a young lady called Tracy came on. Idly thinking about John Lee and his wayward baby, I told her I was calling to insure my