When I caught a ride with my sister Pam to attend Debbie Greer’s funeral, I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. After the service we went to her house. Her husband, an Army artillery major, was rightly distraught as was my sister-in-law and her family and friends and CIA co-workers. Her boss, the CIA director suffered from the same disease and there were already rumors that their illness had been caused by radio waves aimed at CIA headquarters by the Russians. The CIA agents huddled in groups and spoke secretively amongst themselves. I avoided any contact. They all looked like squares and I couldn’t imagine these Ivy Leaguers skilled at anything other than pushing cocaine to finance the Contra War in Central America, ordering assassinations if Muslim militant leaders, and the torture of those damned to know something about nothing. We left before the arrival of President George Bush, for whom Debbie has also worked as secretary. She was a good soul.

Her mother Zsa Zsa thanked me for coming and I said my goodbyes.

It rained all the way back to New York.

My sister dropped my at the George Washington Bridge and I caught the downtown A train.

Arriving at my East 10th Street apartment I checked my answering machine and heard calls from Rick Temerian and our Tante Jane asking me to call them. I thought that maybe Jane’s step-mother had passed in Maine, but a phone call to Rick told more tragic news.

Dmitri Turin had ODed and already been waked and buried up in New Hampshire across the Connecticut River from his famed stepfather’s residence.

“Dead?”

I had thought that Dmitri like myself were immortal, despite our self-destructive behavior. His was a demon on a bike. The Russian born son of a KGB colonel had survived numerous motorcycle accidents and had been clean for months. Dmitri was cut out of a 1960s biker movie, but never sought to join a gang, although he was friendly with the Hells Angels and every other biker in New York and Beyond. The English bike enthusiast even let me ride along with his Scottish partner Hugh on my Yamaha XS 650. He was a benevolent soul.

I met him through my East End friend Nickie Banks, a true Cockney lad, when the East Street crowd was forming across from the burnt out blocks below 6th Street. My stripped down to the bones dependable Yamaha was a English bike wannabe. We called it the Road Warrior. Its top speed was 86 MPH on the after midnight ride from my place of employ, the Milk Bar, down the Westside Highway around Battery Park and north up the FDR with the East River on my left. I was free.

Inspired by Dmitri’s long rides to Deadwood and bike rallies, I solo drove up to Maine on several occasions, keeping off the highways. We were all bike Buddhas, although none more than Dmitri, whose faithful canine bitch, Wilbur, rode atop his Triumph’s tank.

One night the bike crew arrived at the Milk Bar minus Dmitri. Several minutes later Wilber showed up in a state of distress. Hugh jumped on his Norton and roared off to retraced their path to find Dmitri and his bike sprawled on a nearby street. He was uninjured, except for a few scraps, and blinked himself into awareness. Everyone laughed at Hugh’s recounting the story, especially about his asking about Wilbur. They were inseparable.

I retreated down into the bar and drank myself into a drunken state. I drove back to the East Village the short way, right across 10th Street. I wasn’t taking any chances. Indestructible or not.

In the winter of 1989 I left the faithful Road Warrior in Florida and sold my Triumph to Rick to pay my rent for a junkie subleasee during an extended stay in France. I regularly saw Dmitri and Hugh, but I was strictly a pedestrian.

The bike shop on East 6th Street flourished under the two partners. Everyone loved them for their laissez-faire professionalism. Dmitri started shipping Harley-Davidsons to Russian millionaires and was known for his writing in IRON HORSE. Everything seemed to be going his way.

Loving wife, two kids, a famous stepfather, travels to Russia, his famous stepfather’s return to Rodina, but things were never what they seem on the surface.

In 1990 I traveled the world, riding bikes in Indonesia and Thailand.

I saw Dmitri the Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A.

Above the bar a huge mural portrayed the Sixth Street bikers. Dmitri was immortalized for the moment. We fantasized about international sagas. London to Singapore. Across Africa from Nairobi to Dakar. East from Moscow to Kamchatka. These dreams were easy to believe on drugs. It was the 1990s and I was still in my 30s.

Every year i took off around the world. Bikes were part of the thrill. In 1994 I went to the shop with a friend looking for Triumph. Something was different. The place was more popular than ever, but the crowd was disheveled and hollow eyed. Heroin. Everyone was jacked on dope, except for Dmitri. He was proud to have been clean for months. He looked tanned and healthy for the first time in years. I had done some pink in Penang with two rickshaw drivers, but nothing since. I was almost straight after six months in the orient, although still a drunk.

Randy bought a Thunderbird 500 cc. I bid Dimi goodbye without saying that I was going up to Boston to drive my older brother’s two children to their aunt’s funeral in DC. That sad affair had me dreaming of the mosques of Samarkand. Dmitri needed to hit the road. So did I.

Tante Jane told me about Dmitri being found in the bathroom by his wife. OD. I was pissed that I hadn’t been at the funeral and vowed to visit his grave.

I drove up to Maine the long way with Ms. Carolina, my married mistress, in her Lexus. Up along the Housatonic River along the Berkshires across lower Vermont to his grave. It was quiet. Grass covered the place of his internment. Putney VT lay across the river. His mother lived there with his famous stepfather. The land of his exile childhood. Funny Claremont NH had a Russian cemetery. Ms. Carolina cried. She had never met Dmitri. I shook my head. This fate awaited us all and I poured vodka to say to Dmitri I was bound for the road. destination unknown.