A PIECE OF ASH

The best thing about riding bitch on a bike is the powerlessness. Whipping through California mountain roads, a kick of the leg from the edge of a cliff, arms wrapped tightly around my driver’s waist, body pressed into the back of his leather jacket. If he loses the plot for even a millisecond I’m toast. Who cares? I’m alive right now. So alive. Every now and then I look into the rearview mirror and catch a glimpse of his face, or the part I can see at least, what with the helmet and the sunglasses and all. It’s a face I’ve been staring at on the back of album covers and in pictures on screens since I was a teenager; and I can hardly believe I am in such close proximity to it. I could touch it if I wanted to, but of course I won’t. That would be weird, practically sacrilege. You don’t touch the face of Daniel Ash, unless you’re his mother or his girlfriend or a makeup artist, and I am none of these things. I’m just his biggest fan.