Raw Story
My rain gear failed about an hour after the rain started. I winced and groaned as the first cold wetness ran an icy cold finger up the back of my scrotum. I turned my head as the wheels of the semi turned a standing puddle into a bow wave that nearly sent me and the bike into the jersey barrier. Nothing to do about it but hunch my shoulders against the punishment and trust my instinct and the bike to get me home. I had broken the 4 digit barrier yesterday and was about to tear the last gauzy film away and enter the final hundred miles. The bike and my hind brain had caught the scent and were on the short course for home.
Home. I had been away a long time. I had ridden my bike to the farthest corners I could reach in the past months. Living on the pavement, sleeping under bridges and camping in civilization's negative spaces. I wasn't sure I wanted to go home. All I knew was that my pockets were empty and I needed a dry spot to rest. I wasn't even sure I could really call it home. Home Port might be a better title. Just a cinder block one car garage I rented from the old man whose house it squatted in front of. I only went there when the money in my pockets dried up and winter started closing in. Just a place to recoup my traveling money through whatever jobs I could pick up. But it was a dry spot for me and the bike tonight.
All I could do at this moment was to keep knocking miles off the odometer. Rack the miles closer to home port. I knew I was getting closer when the trucks started turning off to various places and the cars. minivans and SUVs became more heavily represented. I was no longer surfing on the bow waves of semis and instead weaving through the schools of hissing passenger vehicles. Occasionally a driver or a passenger will look at me like some escaped zoo creature. Just a brief look. Never eye contact. Just the look and then a quick reach to set the heat a notch higher. Mostly they just ignored me or I simply didn't register at all. I wouldn't show up on their radar unless I became a threat to paint or latte.
I'm not allowed such luxury. Because they don't see or care, I have to watch them. I have to evaluate each vehicle, each driver. In order to survive for long any rider must develop the side scanning radar that takes in the driver and vehicle environment and evaluate the threat level. Those that don't end up being nothing more than a foot note in the police blotter and a round of beers at the local bar.
Finally I reach the offramp I needed. I glide to a stop at the bottom like a boat beaching, the water I dragged with me cascading ahead like surf. A mile later I was rolling to a stop in front of the garage.
I slowly dragged my wet body off the bike. Muscles and wet gear resisting the sudden motion. I unlocked the side door and stepped inside. I looked at the inviting cot and sighed. “Mount before meat” is the Gypsy rule. I tossed my helmet on the bench and rolled up the main door to drag the bike inside. The bike motor hissed and clicked, settling into itself in its home berth. I lit up the camp stove and put on water for coffee. I didn't bother with the heater. I was going to be out cold before the heat would do any damage to the damp cold. I peeled off the wet gear and hung it on bungee cords from hooks in the rafters. Shivering in the cold, I scrubbed myself dry with a towel swiped from a hotel where the manager had been a pain in my ass. I stuffed my red clammy body into a felt lined coverall and poured a cup of coffee. I sat on the cot.
Then I felt it. The heady thrum of the road still singing in my nerves. Muscles still twitching from the road. The clarity of vision from a sniper's focus on the road. Like a crank head on a week long binge; I was brain dead and body wired.
I sipped the hot coffee, the steam wreathing my face as my thoughts drifted over the last months. Every time I did the cycle of work, ride, return it became harder to do the last part. I was glad for the warm safe harbor, but not pleased to be back. I was afraid one day I would just go and be lost forever. I felt like I was looking for something but had long forgotten what I was looking for and now the act of searching was all I had left.
This had been my cycle for some time now. Since that last time I left the Brain Bucket. I had not been back. I did feel the pull of the bucket. But I resisted, orbiting outward trying to weaken the signal.
But the Bucket isn't the only gypsy place. The Gypsies, that far flung group of wanderers were everywhere. And like an optical illusion that once it becomes clear you cant go back to not seeing it, the Gypsies appeared everywhere I went.
I had learned their spread culture. How they lived below the sight of society; a cancer some would call it. There were Gypsy folk who lived in the deep mountains and deserts, criss crossing the terrain on forest service roads and logging trails. At the other end were the Gypsies who lived in the negative spaces of the civilization radar-grid; living in the forgotten places in the cities. I had learned their signs. like the train hobos, gypsies used a system of symbols found in various hidden pots to give a fellow traveler the low-down on the local lay of the land. A symbol scrawled amongst the graffiti in a gas station might let the rider know about speed traps to the south or even point to a log book hidden behind the towels dispenser. But most importantly I had learned to spot Gypsies by their manner and gear. once I learned to see that, Gypsy gear and behavior stood out amongst the local weekend warriors and even the one percent bike clubs like a skunk in church. Or a wolf in a dog pack. It's nothing most others would notice. But they can sense it.
I set the coffee aside and let my jangling nerves take me on a back track of my just completed ride. I was somewhere back in Montana when I passed out. I think.
Home. I had been away a long time. I had ridden my bike to the farthest corners I could reach in the past months. Living on the pavement, sleeping under bridges and camping in civilization's negative spaces. I wasn't sure I wanted to go home. All I knew was that my pockets were empty and I needed a dry spot to rest. I wasn't even sure I could really call it home. Home Port might be a better title. Just a cinder block one car garage I rented from the old man whose house it squatted in front of. I only went there when the money in my pockets dried up and winter started closing in. Just a place to recoup my traveling money through whatever jobs I could pick up. But it was a dry spot for me and the bike tonight.
All I could do at this moment was to keep knocking miles off the odometer. Rack the miles closer to home port. I knew I was getting closer when the trucks started turning off to various places and the cars. minivans and SUVs became more heavily represented. I was no longer surfing on the bow waves of semis and instead weaving through the schools of hissing passenger vehicles. Occasionally a driver or a passenger will look at me like some escaped zoo creature. Just a brief look. Never eye contact. Just the look and then a quick reach to set the heat a notch higher. Mostly they just ignored me or I simply didn't register at all. I wouldn't show up on their radar unless I became a threat to paint or latte.
I'm not allowed such luxury. Because they don't see or care, I have to watch them. I have to evaluate each vehicle, each driver. In order to survive for long any rider must develop the side scanning radar that takes in the driver and vehicle environment and evaluate the threat level. Those that don't end up being nothing more than a foot note in the police blotter and a round of beers at the local bar.
Finally I reach the offramp I needed. I glide to a stop at the bottom like a boat beaching, the water I dragged with me cascading ahead like surf. A mile later I was rolling to a stop in front of the garage.
I slowly dragged my wet body off the bike. Muscles and wet gear resisting the sudden motion. I unlocked the side door and stepped inside. I looked at the inviting cot and sighed. “Mount before meat” is the Gypsy rule. I tossed my helmet on the bench and rolled up the main door to drag the bike inside. The bike motor hissed and clicked, settling into itself in its home berth. I lit up the camp stove and put on water for coffee. I didn't bother with the heater. I was going to be out cold before the heat would do any damage to the damp cold. I peeled off the wet gear and hung it on bungee cords from hooks in the rafters. Shivering in the cold, I scrubbed myself dry with a towel swiped from a hotel where the manager had been a pain in my ass. I stuffed my red clammy body into a felt lined coverall and poured a cup of coffee. I sat on the cot.
Then I felt it. The heady thrum of the road still singing in my nerves. Muscles still twitching from the road. The clarity of vision from a sniper's focus on the road. Like a crank head on a week long binge; I was brain dead and body wired.
I sipped the hot coffee, the steam wreathing my face as my thoughts drifted over the last months. Every time I did the cycle of work, ride, return it became harder to do the last part. I was glad for the warm safe harbor, but not pleased to be back. I was afraid one day I would just go and be lost forever. I felt like I was looking for something but had long forgotten what I was looking for and now the act of searching was all I had left.
This had been my cycle for some time now. Since that last time I left the Brain Bucket. I had not been back. I did feel the pull of the bucket. But I resisted, orbiting outward trying to weaken the signal.
But the Bucket isn't the only gypsy place. The Gypsies, that far flung group of wanderers were everywhere. And like an optical illusion that once it becomes clear you cant go back to not seeing it, the Gypsies appeared everywhere I went.
I had learned their spread culture. How they lived below the sight of society; a cancer some would call it. There were Gypsy folk who lived in the deep mountains and deserts, criss crossing the terrain on forest service roads and logging trails. At the other end were the Gypsies who lived in the negative spaces of the civilization radar-grid; living in the forgotten places in the cities. I had learned their signs. like the train hobos, gypsies used a system of symbols found in various hidden pots to give a fellow traveler the low-down on the local lay of the land. A symbol scrawled amongst the graffiti in a gas station might let the rider know about speed traps to the south or even point to a log book hidden behind the towels dispenser. But most importantly I had learned to spot Gypsies by their manner and gear. once I learned to see that, Gypsy gear and behavior stood out amongst the local weekend warriors and even the one percent bike clubs like a skunk in church. Or a wolf in a dog pack. It's nothing most others would notice. But they can sense it.
I set the coffee aside and let my jangling nerves take me on a back track of my just completed ride. I was somewhere back in Montana when I passed out. I think.
posted by Z at
11:40 PM
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