"We
have been up all night, my friends and I, beneath 12v lamps whose
halogen cupolas are bright as our souls, because like them they
were illuminated by the internal glow of 2-stroke hearts.
Our
hearts were filled with an immense pride at feeling ourselves
standing quite alone, like lighthouses or like the sentinels in
an outpost, facing the four-wheeled army of enemy stars encamped
in their celestial bivouacs.
Alone
with the Piaggio and Innocenti engineers in the infernal stokeholes
of holy Pentedera, alone with the black spirits which rage in
the belly of rogue engines, alone with the drunkards beating their
Fred Perrys against the walls. Then we were suddenly distracted
by the humming of 2-stroke motors that went leaping by, streaked
with light like the villages celebrating their festivals, and
in the rapids and eddies of a deluge, drags down to the curb.
Then the silence increased. The Swarm, or something more menacing
on our streets?
As
we listened to the last faint prayer of the old TV175 and the
curses of their riders envoking deities with "start you bastard!",
suddenly the hungry Vespas roared beneath our windows. `Come,
my friends!' I said. `Let us go!
At
last Mythology and the mystic cult of the ideal have been left
behind. We are going to be present at the birth of the centaur
and we shall soon see the first angels fly!
We
must break down the gates of life, to re-jet the carbs and to
test the bolts and the clutch plates! Let us go! Here is the very
first sunrise on earth! Nothing equals the splendor of a GS160
which starts first-kick in our millennial darkness.' We went up
to the snorting machines to caress their breasts and side panels.
I lay along mine like a corpse on its bier, but I suddenly revived
again beneath the sputtering Delorto - a guillotine knife - which
threatened my wallet at the thought of a Scoot Richmond order.
A
great sweep of madness brought us sharply back to ourselves and
drove us through the streets, steep and deep, like dried up torrents.
Here and there unhappy commuters in our Stadium mirrors taught
us to despise our mathematical eyes. `Smell,' I exclaimed, `the
smell of gaudy blue 2-stroke is good enough for wild beasts!'
And we hunted, like young lions, no reason to die unless it is
the desire to be rid of four wheels and the great weight of registration
and parking fees! We drove on, crushing beneath our burning 10"
wheels, like Ben Sherman shirt-collars under the iron, the watch
dogs on the steps of the houses. Death, tamed, went in front of
me at each corner offering me his hand nicely, and sometimes lay
on the ground with a noise of creaking jaws and slipping clutches,
giving me velvet glances from the bottom of puddles.
`Let
us leave good sense behind like a hideous husk and let us hurl
ourselves, like fruit spiced with pride, into the immense mouth
and breast of the scootering world! Let us feed the unknown, not
from despair, but simply to enrich our tanks with 98 octane, Motul
oil and the unfathomable reservoirs of the Absurd!'
As
soon as I had said these words, I turned sharply back on my tracks
with the aid of front disk brakes and the mad intoxication of
puppies biting their tails, and suddenly there were two motorists
disapproving of me and tottering in front of me like two persuasive
but contradictory reasons.
Their
stupidity got in my way. What a bore! Pouah! I stopped short,
and in disgust hurled myself - vlan! - head over heels in a ditch.
Oh, maternal ditch, half full of muddy water! A factory gutter!
I savored a mouthful of strengthening muck which recalled the
black teat of my Sudanese nurse! My Harrington stained and my
10-holes scuffed, I raised my body, mud-spattered Corazzo, I felt
the red hot poker of joy deliciously pierce my heart.
A
crowd of bogans and gouty public servants crowded terrified around
this marvel. With patient and tentative care they raised high
enormous grappling irons to fish up my scooter, like a vast shark
that had run aground. It rose slowly leaving in the ditch, like
scales, its heavy coachwork of good sense, mirrors caked with
black and its upholstery of comfort. We thought it was dead, my
good shark, but I woke it with a single caress of its powerful
kickstarter, and it was revived running as fast as it could on
its fins. Superior sputtering 2-stroke and a check of idle speed
righted me. Then with my face covered in good Australian mud,
covered with metal scratches, useless sweat and celestial grime,
amidst the complaint of staid bogans and angry public servants,
we dictated our first will and testament to all the living men
and women on earth.
We
will sing of great crowds excited by chrome, by pleasure, and
by cheap online Vietnamese bling; we will sing of multicolored
2-tone paintjobs; we will sing of the Cuppini rack, the PM Tuning
exhaust, the Pinasco cylinder, the Malossi roller kit and the
reed valve; bridges that stride Lake Burley Griffin like giant
gymnasts, flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives; adventurous
cutdowns that sniff the horizon and smell only the welds of rescued
frames and salvaged tanks; wide-bodied vintage Vespas whose 8"
wheels paw the tracks like the hooves of tiny fat steel horses
bridled by tubing; and the sleek flight of narrow Lambrettas whose
flywheels chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like
an enthusiastic crowd, until they break down.
We
affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by
a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A scooter whose hood is adorned
with chrome, whose suckhole breathes with the spitting of great
pipes, SIP, Simonini, Polini, Leo Vince, ScootRS and Sito, like
serpents of explosive breath—a roaring scooter that seems
to ride on fumes is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
We
intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness.
We sing of Italian style, of encased engines, of drunken nights
and days spent cruising eBay for wheel hubs, and nights spent
weaving between the lines of freshly-layed bitumen.
We
offer allegiance to no man, nor woman. Outside of work hours and
allowing for flex time and leave accrual, we will own our roads
7 litres at a time, allowing for smoke breaks, toilet stops and
sparkplug changes.
We
are who we are, this is what we do, we are many, we are proud,
we are The Swarm."
