Something To Say

The last day of 2008.

This has been the worst year of my life. So far. Sitting here listening to Massenet probably makes it a little more achingly awful, but maybe that’s the way it’s always been and I’ve just been pretending.

I think about all I lost this year. Less than some, more than others. That glittering promise of fulfillment in someone else because I am too weak to be enough by myself. The Warrior Poet. Friends and loved ones. Time. Almost losing my foot and my life.

I’m praying the end of this year is the last piece of my losing streak. That somehow when the cards are turned over and I’ll break even and walk away.

But somehow nestled inside all of that awful are the tiniest broken bits of happiness. And something else; Hope isn’t the right word, but it’s the first one that comes to mind. There were moments this year that made me sing, out of tune and off key, but sing I did in those strangled hours between the misaligned days of this disastrous calendar.

So, tonight, alone in a silent house I am putting all these bits and pieces in a battered cardboard box labeled only “2008″ in black sharpie scrawled across a patch of dirty tape and placing it on the highest shelf behind a crashed helmet and old sheets where I won’t accidentally open it up again. Hoping this will forever be the lost year.

The brightest flames burn quickest, they say. Earlier this year, I saw how awful this statement can be. For Christmas, I’m glad this isn’t an unbreakable rule.

My Uncle Mel is a Marine. He has the crew cut and the anchor tattooed down his forearm to prove it. He was the first man in my family I met with a tattoo since my family frowned on it. He raised kids and grandkids and even me, the erstwhile prodigal son, at some points of his life. Even after his children had all grown up and moved away, he kept his basement stocked with toys and spare beds for visiting rugrats. His basement was a treasure trove and his yard was a wild landscape filled with all the mad imaginings of a child’s mind.

He had the first piano I ever remember playing in his basement. It was an electric organ of sorts and had this distinct sound when you switched it on when the fan motor switched on. All that air slowly being pushed into the pipes concealed in the wooden body. Vague hints at Eighty-Eight notes whispering at you to become Bach, or Mozart or some demented child in a frenzied cacophony of jubilant notes. I don’t know how that old piano held up to the beating we subjected it to, but it did and kept making music as sweet as any of we kids could pull out of it. I suppose that piano was a lot like my uncle in that respect. He just never stopped.

My Aunt Esther was his sweetheart from Day One. She stuck with him through all the craziness that is a military life and they cranked out some awesome memories and enriched the lives of all around them. She was the warm glow that filled their house with knick-nacks, apple pie, and loving discipline because my Uncle loved kids too much to ever be stern. She has been sick for over 12 years now and my amazing uncle has been her lifeline, protector and caretaker. But my Uncle can’t be that anymore.

He’s dying. He’s bought maybe another week of time with blood transfusions from when they found him unconscious on the kitchen floor. My Aunt probably can’t even remember a life without him. Everyone is expecting her to follow him. There’s a bit of romance in that thought, I suppose.

The hearts that they touched with their generosity and love, mine included, are near bursting today. Their Granddaughter Holly was married today, a week after they expected my uncle to be dead. He got to see them after the fact, since hospitals aren’t really the most chipper setting for the lighting of a new candle; reserved rather for the extinguishing of those soon to be lightless wax statues.This renewal taking place so close to the impending close of these amazing peoples time here offers some small amount of anesthetic, I assume, to those involved. But to those of us so far away, it seems just a detail. I’ll be within a couple hours of them for Christmas, so I’m renting a car to drive up there and visit my aunt and uncle, or maybe just a headstone, I don’t know yet.

Death hits me hard this year. Harder than perhaps it should, but I don’t think there is any measure of what is right and wrong to feel here. So here at the end of all this, I look around and I see what they did with their lives, what they did as those flames burned steadily away melting the candle of their lives together. What they created with all that lost wax. And I am amazed at all they have done, and ashamed…

I still can’t move when the ringing starts. I can’t find any reason to stop them when hands start going through my pockets. The ringing stops and Bree is probably a little confused when it is not my voice that she hears. Instead she is greeted with the gravel road baritone of a man I will never see.

“Hello? Dave? No, this isn’t Dave.” He pauses. “I think he’s on the ground.”

I’m pretty sure that isn’t what she wanted to hear.

“Yeah, he crashed.”

Hell, I didn’t even want to hear that. And having just gone through it, I am quite aware of the fact.

Lying face down in the dirt, I’m starting to notice things. One of my arms is bent around almost behind me. I still have my glasses on under my helmet. My breathing is slow but it’s still fogging my face shield. One of my ankles feels funny; stiff.

“Dave?”

Hi.

Not exactly a monumental statement. But I figured simple was best given the circumstances.

“Can you move, man?”

Can you? You’re standing on my hand.

“Oh, sorry.”

Not everything you would want in a savior, but ,face down, in the middle of Nowheresville, North Carolina, I’ll take what I can get.

Within moments another man and his wife have arrived on the scene. I take my time rolling over, then sitting up; again, quite proud of myself. The four of us chat for a while, but I never raise my eyes from the ground. It’s like my gaze is being held down by the weight of the situation that I don’t understand yet. Of the four of us, my three passerbys and I, we all ride motorcycles. I assume this is no coincidence because anyone in a car would just have driven past. The first guy on the scene is a Harley rider who had been following me when he saw the beam from my headlamp swing wildly into the air and across the terrain in a way that spelled trouble. The next couple are a sheriff and his wife; the wife promptly exclaiming how they are going right down to the store the following day and buying full face helmets after seeing what is left of the one I am wearing and wondering what her face would look like if she did a similar tumbling routine.

It’s starting to look like a beach party when my roommate Bree arrives with Tara the Barbarian in tow. Bree crouches down next to me, hugging me with abandon in the way that old friends do, mindless of the fact that i may have injuries that wouldn’t agree with the bear hug she hands out. She starts talking to me and once assured that I am not going to die, her words paint this mental picture…

Bree was sitting in the kitchen of the farewell party I should be at when she decided to call and see where I was on my journey. Ringing is eventually interrupted by a gruff voice informing her that I was no longer on my way, my bike, or possibly even this planet.

Still clutching the handset of the house phone, she screams, jumps up and runs out of the house to the driveway. On her way out, Tara asks her where she is going to which Bree replies, “I gotta go get Dave!” Once Bree gets to the driveway, she stops. Her shoulders slump and the frenzied look in her eyes is replaced by helpless tears as she says to no one in particular, “I don’t know where Dave is!”

Luckily other people at the party were familiar with the area and could give her directions; hence her prompt arrival at the scene.

Now that Bree is here, it’s possible to start considering my current circumstances and the most direct route out of them. ‘Can I stand?’ is the question I feel most compelled to answer in an expedient fashion. The blinding lights caused by Satan’s black maw chomping down on my lower right extremity answers that question when I attempt to put weight on my foot. So, unable to ambulate on my own, what next?

The white plantation style home who’s lawn I have been deposited on starts to show signs of life. A porch light turns on and a solitary figure emerges from the house to sit at the edge of the railed porch and take in the sights. I believe he must have been drawn out by the hues of red and blue that now paint the side of his house with the arrival of the ambulance and a state trooper.

The first Medic hones in on me. Concern on a face too young to have developed clinical detachment.

I can see the lights, red, blue, then devilish red again reflecting in the depths of the kids eyes. He can’t be older than 19, but here he is, asking me these questions that no child should have to.

His pupils are wide in the black night, unaffected by the flaring bulbs around us. He says, “You’re lucky to be alive.”

How is my bike?

The same question I’ve asked just about everyone since I ‘landed.’ He gives me the same answer.

“Don’t worry about that right now.”

It’s gotta be bad.

Word is that a motorcyclist died on this corner, maybe on this lawn, about three weeks prior. the fact that I am asking about my bike is probably a bit more than this kid had expected since they were probably batting clean up last time they were here.

Being braced and boarded for an ambulance trip is pretty much the same every time it happens. Since I started my career as a stuntman at a very young age, I know the drill. Lay down. Don’t move. Don’t look around. We’re going to lift your head now. lift on 3. one. two. up.

I’m 15 years old. My head hurts. My knee hurts. The steering wheel has indentations where my fingers were as i pry them off the bent leather bound circle to see why the left half of my vision is going red. The car is smoking and my dad says we need to get out of here.

But that’s another story.

Nevermind the fact that I’ve been sitting up and talking for the last 15 minutes, suddenly I’m at risk and need a c-spine collar. As they are strapping me to the board, I look up for the first time in too long. The stars are magic tonight; fighting their way a million miles to earth to combat even the lights from the ambulance and police cars. I think there are ways I’d much rather be looking at these stars. Laying in the back of my truck piled under blankets, pressed against a beautiful body for warmth and searching for purpose and constellations. But there is no warm body here, and in place of blankets I have straps pinning my body down to this serving tray I’m surfing on my back.

On the ride to the hospital, the kid sits to my left and the grizzled EMT sits at the head of the torture board I am strapped to in hopes of preventing me from causing myself further harm. A sound principle, since most of us are the cause of all our problems, but less applicable in this case, since I’ve done about as much as I plan to for the night.

I’m listening to the EMT tell the kid to take my pulse while I’m texting away on my phone to the world outside my antiseptic moving crash victim storage container. He doesn’t have a watch. No second hand. No Pulse.

Briefly I consider giving him the watch on my wrist. Then I remember that I like this watch and it doesn’t have a waterproof band on it. I know this to be a requirement for them. I know this from experience. Blood doesn’t wash off easily.

I’ll buy one when i get back on my feet and send it to the station he works out of.

The EMT takes my pulse with the practiced ease of a man who has had to do this far more times than any man would want to. He tells me I’m doing fine and rattles off my pulse to the kid who asks him how he can do it so accurately with no watch, no second hand, just a couple fingers and a few brief moments. Too much practice in situations I would rather not know about.

Johnston Memorial Hospital is basically the same as every hospital I have ever seen. Or rather, the ceiling is the same, since that is all I can really see; being wheeled in on my back as I am. Before long I am sequestered away in one of those curtained areas that are supposed to be private, but really don’t mask the labored breathing of the fattened Holstein-faced replica of humanity slowly dying a Twinkie and Marlboro laden death nearby while soaking up Medicare dollars like sun at the beach. Waiting for the doctor to grace me with his presence I am allowed the decided privilege of listening to the human flotsam in the next partitioned cage over from me describe her welfare sponsored trailer park woes to numerous persons wandering in and out of the area.

Waiting for the doctor feeling a slow increase in the level of discomfort in my foot, I’m not surprised by the entrance of a police office. I AM surprised at the way his jaw is so squared off as to make him look like he was hit in the face with one of those old square shovels, complete with a cleft chin. The officers biceps are roughly the size of a Jersey Turnpike and his chest would be large even for a whiskey barrel. Intimidation would be a small word.

“You know why I’m here, son?”

I won the lottery.

“Don’t be foolish.”

Ok. I assume you are actually here to apologize to me for the sorry state of what passes for signage on these backwoods roads.

The slow, almost imperceptible straightening of his spine tells me that he is less amused by my antics than the nurse hiding her face up to her sparkling eyes with the charts she is pretending to read behind the County Mounty.

“I’m Officer Stern,” (no shit) “of the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office. I’m sure it’s not news to you that you were involved in a single vehicle accident that resulted in the destruction of a fence, your vehicle and probably your foot too from seeing the size of that thing.”

This is the first time in a while I have looked at my foot. It’s seems to be growing more alarming by the minute; in size and color. In an attempt to downplay the situation I try to wiggle my toes.

When my vision returns, I make a silent promise to myself to not try that again. Ever.

County Mounty must have seen it on my face because he is smiling that “license and registration” smile and staring straight into the back of my skull through my eyes. Moments like these make me wish it were socially acceptable to leave my helmet on; Visor Down.

“Normally given your injury and the information I gathered at the crash site, I would site your for speeding at least. Normally. Did you know you had a witness?”

Sure. Probably the Harley guy following me.

“He says you were operating under the speed limit. He stated he was driving 55 and gaining on you. So, since I can’t cite you for speeding, I’m giving you a ticket for driving faster than reasonable and prudent.”

What?! Where was the goddamn sign? Didn’t someone DIE there a few weeks ago? Isn’t proper signage part of the agreement between drivers and lawmen?

“Watch your mouth, son,” rolls off his stiff chin like a bomb threat.

Weighing my options, I sit back in the chair and ask Nurse Ratchet for some ibuprofen and water. Discretion and Valor and all that.

County Mounty hands me papers to sign and gives me dollar amounts and contact information for the gentleman whose fence my bike so rudely removed from service. Stuffing some more useless leaflets in my hands, his head tilts back so he is staring down his granite boulder nose at me.

“Drive Carefully,” he mocks and saunters out in the way Frankensteins monster might have were he bolted together just a little more securely.

The Doctor rolls in and asks me the standard questions; usually suspect… etc. X-rays are the order of the day and despite my best attempts the sizable woman running the death ray machine is in no mood to laugh. She demonstrates this to me with my foot.

*Crank*

“Hold your foot there.” I can’t shake the feeling I’ve seen her before in a Christmas Special.

Um, Ow?

“DON’T! MOVE!” she says. You can hear the punctuation.

Jesus.

30 minutes or so of torture and another Nurse, this one rather diminutive, comes in to talk with the Heatmiser behind the lead wall and the next ten minutes are filled with evil laughter, shouted “Don’t Moves” and buzzes from the X-ray machine. I think the Heatmiser is just pounding away on the X-ray button for fun. using the lead apron as a shield I huddle down behind it in a vain attempt to protect my brains and balls from the onslaught.

It is in this near fetal position of surrender that the Doctor finds me when he finally comes looking for the one that got away. A new Buzz from the machine signals the latest blast from the Heatmiser and her midget.

“Hey!” Doc yells. “Watch it!”

A flurry of apologies follows the Doc and I as he wheels me out the door and back to the comparative safety of my little curtained room. I think maybe it’s time I call Bree and see about getting out of here. The doctor materializes a couple of large Percocet and a shot of water, and things are looking up.

“Hello?” Bree answers her phone with a question riding sounds of party song and drink.

Bree? Where are you at right now?

“Oh we’re at the party! Are you coming over?”

Not exactly. My foot appears to be broken. Think you could swing by the Hospital and pick me up when you get finished over there?

I can hear the blood drain out of Bree’s face as she remembers. “Of course, we’ll be right there.”

I don’t bother to ask who constitutes ‘We.’ I couldn’t care less at this point, I’m ready to leave and I need to eat before the percocet I just swallowed hits my blood stream. I’ve made that mistake before.

A cute little Spanish nurse peeks in from the hallway followed promptly by Bree. I’m beginning to wonder if this is the ‘we’ Bree spoke off when the nurse disappears again. Bree’s face shifts back and forth from badly concealed amusement to authentic concern until i have to smile and laugh at my Delivering Angel letting her know it’s ok to laugh at the whole situation. Doc comes back and i perform the introductions. He hands me a scrip and a bunch of papers that I can’t be bothered to look at, along with verbal instructions to fill the prescription I’m clutching like the Word of God and go to a specialist for more x-rays and MRIs. Nurse Ratchet brings me some crutches. Tara has been sitting out in the waiting room.

Eschewing the offered wheelchair ride, i decide to put my new metal extremities to work and take it on the lam. Tara still has my Polaroid camera around her neck. The whirring clunk the camera makes when she points it at me is the first thing that tells me there may be a problem. The guilty looks on both their faces is the second.

On the scale of importance for the moment, a Polaroid camera is somewhere below anything measurable.

1. Food

2. Painkillers

3. Sleep

If through tactics svelte, barbaric, or illegal I can satisfy this short list of necessities I will be completely happy and justified in those actions. Given this recipe, I can wait, thusly fortified, until the real gravity of my situation hits me.

“So, What happened?”

I dread these words. When the last thing you want to do is talk about a disaster, it seems like these are the only words that others are capable of uttering; propelled by some automaton reaction to an occurrence they weren’t privy to with their own ocular organs. As if somehow, the whole ordeal will never be real until they hear it described to them in all its awful glory.

I’m not even sure. I ran off the road.

“Well, duh! Then what?”

I suppose I should get used to this line of questioning. It’s probably all I’m going to be able to speak of for the next few weeks.

Let’s get some food before I die and I’ll tell you what I remember.

There is a silent majesty that is bestowed on food after the midnight hour. Often this is ushered in by drink or chemicals, but it is simply the protracted waking hours wearing away the pickciness our brains might have about certain foods and/or textures simply allowing us to rejoice in the most lovely of rituals; sustenance.

It is under this silent curtain of royal grace that Char-Grill in my eyes and hands. Normally I’m not one for fast food, but today the food can’t come fast enough. Fried chicken, ranch, lettuce, lord knows what spices land of the other side of the scales that are teetering precariously towards the awful and somehow, for that moment, things are right enough to revisit the crash. I recite what I can, interrupted often by the girls who don’t really know what I’m talking about but want to be part of the action. within half an hour the food is gone and the all night Walgreen’s has produced that sweetest of chemical nectar for which it was conscripted and sweet, sweet slumber takes me for a ride home.

Groggy from the onset of the painkillers and still emerging from the shroud of sleep, I can barely recognize the front door of the house, but can’t quite find the door handle to let myself out of the car. Tara is a saint and runs around to let me out, handing me my shiny new crutches to leverage myself to the front door.

The surest way to get me to do something is tell me that I can’t do it. I guess I’m a little like a spoiled kid in that respect. Bree discovers this when counseling me not to try to ascend the stairs with both my crutches, but rather hold them in one hand and hop up them. So far, I’ve been able to narrowly avoid death even while doing everything people thought was impossible or unhealthy for me. the stairs are no different. After the evening I have had, sheer stubborn determination is enough to get me up the stairs and into bed; no grace, no quarter. Figuring out how to get back down will have to wait until the morning.

Blanket arms circle around me and pillow kisses paint my cheek. This life I’ve been staunchly building for myself so close to the Atlantic is sitting here with me tonight, questioning the path and breathing on my neck. So many questions and second guesses… as usual, I’m not awake long enough to actually solve anything.

It’s the pain more than the sunshine that wakes me up, though there is plenty of both to be had. This broken foot is nothing next to the broken ache in my chest when I think about my bike. If someone has to ask, they would not understand. I feel like Icarus. No more wings.

In some ways, I think Icarus is better off. Hopping to the bathroom, staring at my drawn face in the mirror while I suck down elephant tranquilizers I realize that Icarus only had the fall. No pain, no recovery, no shame other than those piercing moments before he simply stopped.

Icarus’ wings melted. Mine cartwheeled across a farmers lawn, through a fence and now lie somewhere under the watchful bloodshot eyes of tow truck drivers and junk yard dogs. Stacked up around my wings are the broken dreams of a thousand families, wives, girlfriends, children, and grandparents of the previous owners of those mangled machines. All that unlived promise and potential still staining the seats or dashboard where that plummet ended.

I need to lay down. I need to breathe. My foot bumps the cabinet and I need to stop making faces like a crash victim in labor. Pushing myself backwards across the floor I make it to my crutches at the bedside. hopping was a bad choice each little jolt shakes my mostly detached foot with blindingly painful results. Leveraging myself up, I lurch mechanically towards the stairs.

It’s almost noon. Bree is gone and my phone has slightly less messages than Google has millionaires. Word travels fast… at least a lot faster than I do when I am strapped to a hospital bed half the night. I start the replies. Tommy comes back quickly and soon things are underway. He’s coming to the house to check up on me. He’s bringing food. God bless him.

Lying on the couch nursing the last beer left in the fridge is just about all I could ask of the world once the percocet starts kicking in. As the pain gradually demands less of my attention thanks to the wonderful mixture of alcohol and prescription drugs, I pick up the papers on the table in front of me and absently thumb through the written record of last nights mess.

Greater than reasonable and prudent. Those are some catastrophic words. For some reason those words seem to be what brought me here more than any other cause capable of being represented in spoken word or concentrated idea. My hopes for my life were greater than reasonable and prudent. My belief that a lost and addled little girl would be all I asked of her was greater than reasonable and prudent.

The doorbell shocks me from my downward spiral. I didn’t hear anyone pull up. I can feel my foot pressing against the bonds of the splint. hammering away at the walls with my pulse like a prisoner beating the bars of his cell till he bleeds from every inch of exposed skin. This is the foot i drop to the floor while grabbing my crutches. This engorged agonizing extremity is my handicap now. On metal wings, I slump to the door.

The die hards from last nights party I missed out on are here at the door. Tommy, Ana, and that brown little surprise package, Brenna. The hesitance is in their eyes like lead weights, bearing their cheeks down and weighing on the corners of their half hearted smiles. It’s up to me to set the pace, as usual.

You going to make me balance here all day on these ridiculous metal appendages? I may be injured, but I’m not contagious. Come in, you bastards.

Suddenly, it’s safe to play again. The gut-punch that my Demon is gone is softened by the friends that are now here. The warmth they bring with them leeches away the chill left by the dirty ground and sterile hospital beds I lay on last night.

The McDonalds food in Brenna’s hands looks like a kings feast and tastes like Thanksgiving dinner. Thanks are all I can offer these soldiers at my side. No fringe benefits, no money, no support; nothing. Yet here they are without any thought of return on investment. They are here with me because, today, I am the fallen soldier. Today, I am in need of rescuing.

We trade jokes, we laugh and mourn the loss. Finally, it’s time to go. Tommy, Ana, and Brenna all get up to leave while I stay seated; uncertain of my footing. Tommy grabs my hand as a brother should. Ana kisses my cheek like the sister. Brenna stands back. They walk to the door, and Brenna pauses inside watching the glass door swing shut. She purposefully closes the front door; turning the deadbolt like an hour hand on a broken clock; slow. It clicks home with dedication and she turns to sit on the love seat across the room from me; her feet flat on the floor, knees cocked together touching while her heels splay out. Her elbows drop down to rest on her knees and her chin drops into her hands. Her mouth moves.

“So.” the word is a sentence. “Now what?”

Those of you who know me personally know that I am continually destroying phones. My latest blackberry fell out of my pocket on the freeway and is now probably shrapnel scattered down a quarter mile of freeway.

This doesn’t bother me so much as losing all the numbers that were on there, along with the 2 gig MicroSD card that was in the phone with all my pictures and music on it. And the impending downtime where noone in the world will be able to communicate with me.

Then again, maybe that’s not so bad.

So, sorry if I blew you off this weekend, but that’s just the way the berry bounces. ;p

Much Love.

I don’t remember the ride home. I remember the sense of exhaustion, and collapsing into myself when the music stopped. Like those waves of sound had propped me up like a scarecrow. Straw man. Plastic skeleton. I remember the slow march to the car. Bree chattering amiably to me while I stop to pee in the woods. Yeah, the fucking Woods. That’s about where it ends.

I don’t remember every Margarita, solitary soldiers that they were, but their marching echo in my headache reminds me that there were more than enough; a small army.

It’s late. I know this because when I wake up late, the sun streaming through the window falls on the foot of my bed and heats up my feet. The sun is already on the floor again. So much for A.M.

Growing up as a Mormon on an Air Force base my childhood was an exercise in cognitive dissonance. Watching strange men walk into the Mr. Robinson’s house while I knew Mr. Robinson was overseas. Being preached at about the importance of moral uprightness and the sanctity of marriage. I was told that the only true victory is victory over oneself while I watched men and women drill over and over outside my window in preparation for conquering others. I was told that the soul is the only thing that matters, while my mother obsessed over her make up before going to church each week. I was told that caffeine was bad for the body while coffee was in every adults hand each morning. Though I had never tasted it, coffee carried some allure to me through all my life. I had a job stocking water for the local grocery stores, and I would always walk through the coffee aisle just to pause and smell the coffee beans. When I finally did have my first drink of coffee I was shocked at how awful it tasted. For years i coaxed coffee with creamers and sugars alike, making it nearly chocolate milk or hot chocolate depending on the day. Finally, I just decided black was easiest and acclimated to the taste.

The smell of coffee and coffee beans is still something that will attract me from across a room. It’s mornings like these when coffee smells like honeysuckle. I make a beeline for the coffee machine.

Given enough caffeine, brick walls couldn’t withstand me. This morning I make a small pot, just enough to get the engines thrumming and a warm glow in my belly.

I shoot a couple emails over to the west coast in preparation for my upcoming trip to Hawaii. Spearfishing, surfing, scuba, volcano hiking; add in some good friends and hot Pacific island girls and you have a recipe for perfection. Perfection.

The day hangs lazily in the air like the film on an old shower door. I take some time to go to the gym and sweat out a little leftover alcohol. While I’m there the text messages start rolling in.

Tommy. Brenna. Tommy. Manny. Brenna. Apparently they are due for a motorcycle ride and my presence is cordially requested.

There is a phenomenon that occurs once you own a motorcycle. There is suddenly always a reason to go somewhere. Any destination is magically closer than it was before. It takes less time to get somewhere than it ever did in a car, but it always seems to take a lot longer to return home than you had anticipated. When the invitation comes in to go for a ride, I grab my gear and head home to shower.

I know Brenna has no helmet and no jacket to ride in, so I suit up, pack my spares, and hit the road. I decided to wear my old helmet because it matches my jacket a little better and my new KBC Stealth is a little worse for wear. I put on my black steel-toed Doc Martens because, let’s face it, there’s always a reason to wear them. Nothing says ass kicking like leather, steel, and tradition.

I have about 5 seconds to think once I get to Tommy’s house since I am the last one to get to the party and everyone else is already cocked, locked, and ready to rock. Brenna puts on her gear and we’re off. We fly. FLY. Through the City and out into the forests. The world is a blur of white farmhouses, red barns, blue water, and green and green and green. This goes on for hours punctuated by brief stops for gasoline and gatorade.

In the midst of my meditation I am jerked back to the real world by the brake lights of the bikes in front of me guiding me to the side of the road. Manny dismounts and takes off his helmet. This is how you know he’s serious. This is when you can see his eyes; the fire of the ride slowly leaking out the corners, burning acid trails into his skin as it cools.

“Watch it,” Manny says over the echo of the dying engines; his voice command, concern, and admonition at once. ” this road is great for twisties, but the last turn is dangerous. It’s a decreasing radius, so once you get into the turn it changes, gets sharper… more aggressive. Jason almost dumped his bike last week on this road.”

This is real. 38 pints of blood, 8 broken ribs, 7 surgeries, and 1 crushed lung tell me this. These are the statistics from my friend Terry’s wreck last year on a similar turn. He was nearly pulped by his Goldwing. That old bastard is hard as nails though; made of tougher stuff than I.
This turn goes much more smoothly than Terry’s Tour de Pancake, even though going into the turn I can’t see the exit. I lean and lean and when the road tries to leave, I lean some more and in no time, we’re done. Time to head to Manny’s house for some much needed Air-Conditioning before we head back to town.

Manny’s house is a testament to how tight the riding community is here in North Carolina. Manny, along with Jason, lives in a house with another friend of theirs and his entire family. They have a music room; in it is a grand piano and a full DJ booth complete with Technics 1200’s and speakers too small to climb inside of… but just barely. Little girls music lessons meets retired New York DJ toys.

Everyone sips sodas and juice while I barrel through two full glasses of water. Coming from the Mohave, desert habits die hard and I know we are going back out into the elements in moments. The day is waning and it’s a little cooler than before so we just grab the freeway back into town heading straight for Tommy’s house to unload everyone and reconvene.

A lime and a corona are a beautiful ‘Welcome Home’, even if it’s not your own house; even if you aren’t Mexican. Tommy welcomes us back in style while my phone is busy reminding me that I have somewhere to be. Bree is halfway to her party when I answer the phone.

“Hey, are you coming?”

Sure. I’m about to head to the house to meet you.

“We already left. You’ll have to meet us there.”

Oh. Ok. Um, what’s the address?

“It’s in Smithfield. I’ll text it to you.”

Now, the only Smithfield I have know of is in Utah, some 2000 miles away. This new Smithfield isn’t much closer. Google says it’s about an hour drive; nearly double that if I go home to get the truck first. Tommy writes down the directions Google gives him while I stash my extra gear under his futon and start to suit up. I don’t want to drive out to Smithfield. I don’t want to ride at night. I don’t want to go to this party. I did, however, promise to be there and so some misguided sense of consistency prompts me to continue to get dressed and load out to the bike.

The mirrors on most sport bikes now are less than optimal. They don’t extend far enough for the driver to really see behind him and they leave a blind spot just big enough to hide a Buick when coupled with the limited visibility from the inside of a full face helmet. These mirrors do provide an excellent view of the riders shoulders and elbows when riding. That being said, the mirrors on the Yamaha R6 are some of the best in the sport bike class as they fold in when pressed and have impressive anti-shake capabilities so you can tell while traveling at speeds that less than 100 years ago were believed to be fast enough to kill a human, whether the lights in your rear view are another bike, a cop, or a UFO.

It is in these mirrors that I see myself as I’m climbing on to the bike. I made a value judgment today. I put on my old Scorpion helmet; the one that I bought from Julio for $50. I decided I would rather wear the blue helmet, even though it is heavier and a little larger, because it matches my riding jacket better; Black and Blue… just like me most days. I usually don’t wear this helmet because of the weight, but because it is so heavy it’s more sturdy than lighter weight models. It looks sharp.

The drive through the city is always the same; too many red lights, too many cars, too many homeless, too many pedestrians. The drive down the 40 is always the same. Boring, with a 90% chance of idiot drivers. It’s after peeling off onto the 70 that I get a change of scenery. With the loss of a couple lanes, the road seems more intimate. The trees are closer now providing more of a sense of privacy. Maybe that’s why I open it up. Maybe.

Maybe I’m just trying to fly.

Flying down the 70 in the failing light of the day, I’m trying to psych myself up for the impending gathering using the heroin effect of speed and adrenaline to prepare me for a social gathering I’ll probably be on the outside of anyways. Carbon Fiber echoes are seeping through what’s left of my ear canals around the sound from the headphones. I swear this machine and I could go to the edge of the world quite happily if not for the occasional need for petrol or urination.

30 minutes of what passes for pacing back and forth on an internal-combustion-powered, two-wheeled animal, and I am tired. I managed to find my way to where I should be turning to drive to the house party, but the road doesn’t exist. I’m parked at the corner of Smithfield and Nowhere in the dark between farmhouses that reminds you of every horror movie ever made staring at the ass end of a full moon cycle that has left the sky as black as the surrounding ink. I’m beginning to question Tommy’s directions.

I’m lost, I’m tired, no one is answering their phone and I know that a dozen of my friends are in a pub sharing beers and doing voice-overs of old movies playing on the overhead T.V.s. Looks like it’s time to head back to town and give up on that elusive ‘better time.’

Being the concerned citizen that I am I send a last text message to my roommate, Bree, informing her that I am going back to the city and I’ll catch up to her later. As my helmet slides back into place the phone rings.

The words “Where are you?” plaintively ring from the phone.

I’m at the playboy mansion. Did you know they have stockpiles of clean underwear here? It’s the damnedest thing. Whole closets of it.

“Ummm… Where?”

I’m lost in Smithfield and I’m heading back to town. This backwoods shit is for the birds.

“Wait! Lemme get you some directions.”

Now, I’m in North Carolina. I understand that people here speak differently. I know there is such a thing as a Southern Accent and that I may encounter said accent from time to time as I am officially ‘In the South.’ Still there are times that this meager mental shield of knowledge does not prepare me for the onslaught that evacuates some peoples mouths.

“Whereyawlgoincanfineaplaiss?”

Dear Lord.

“Huh?”

Nevermind. Hi.

Briefly, I inform the syllabically challenged ape on the far side of the phone of my current location.

“Awlgotchagonnadoritederadafireplacewhoositgonnagotchamonkey,” I swear to God he said monkey “takealeftrounda…”

Wait. Please, in the name of all that you hold dear, Wait. Say that again slowly. Very slowly.

“Well, you go on down to that there street. Raleigh.”

Yes.

“Then you turn up, ” I am guessing he means North but I don’t call him on it. “And follow it till you see Plenta road and you take a right. Now be careful cuz that corner is sharp, and I mean Sharp. It’s like a cats whisker fryingpan hoochie *mumble mumble grumble* LOOK Out, Man!”

Ok, sharp turn at Plenty Road.

“Plenta.”

Polenta? Like the food?

“No, Poo-len-tuh! Like the road!”

Please, continue.

A few more minutes, armed with my newfound country-fried directions, and I am underway. At the corner of Raleigh and Polenta, I found a moderately sharp turn, bearing right as instructed under the huge overhanging trees, I peered at the street ahead to make sure Fannie Mae’s dog wasn’t going to jet into the street and get the both of us murdered by a 400 pound Japanese cruise missile. I’m even farther from civilization now, houses that were sporadic but still close to the road become recessed, backing farther from the road, presumably to allow Old Yeller and Junior more room for simulated incest where the Clampetts can watch.

In this darkness it’s easy to pick out the single headlight in the distance behind me long before I can tell how fast it is gaining on me. In this darkness, it’s easy to think that the world ceases beyond your headlamps. In this darkness, it’s easy to get lost.

There is a moment of surrender following the realization that one is simply beyond any ability to control a situation. This is the emotionless calm that filters over a defendant as the jury hands down a verdict. I assume it is much like the oxygenated acceptance of an airplane crash while you watch the dirt come barreling at the wings. There isn’t room for panic or fear or anything other than observation of the self; Evolutions finest machine turned into a tumbling articulating piece of flotsam. In most situations you can maintain control by exerting raw power or influence but, ultimately, alignment is a truer power.

From that fateful moment when a situation leaves your control, you are the object in space. you will continue to stay in motion until acted upon by some other force. When your power takes you as far as it can and momentum takes over, if you are misaligned, you may not like where you wind up.

I can tell the road is going to turn. Not from the orange signs which have been reflecting at me through the night, because here there are none. I can tell because at the edge of my headlights there is no more road to be had; only the chalk-white line bending madly across my limited vision from the right to the left. The road turns, so I turn.

I slide slightly to the outside of the seat. I push down and forward on the left handlebar grip forcing the wheel to tip slightly and encourage the bike to fall toward the ground on the left side. I lean to the left and begin the controlled fall that is a high speed motorcycle turn. Controlled Fall. Sometimes I think I’ve lived my entire life in this state. Other times, I think I’ve never been in control.

That chalk line and it’s warning slide gracefully to the outside of reality illuminated by my beams. Then the warning is gone and the chalk comes slamming back. Decreasing Radius.

See also; Fish-hook Turn.
See also; Uncontrolled.

I can see the trees directly ahead. I can tell they are thick enough to be unmolested by the combined weight of the Demon and I. All I think is that I don’t want to wind up on one of those trees. Once I leave the road, there is no more thought.

This is why people pray. That sense of release or responsibility and control; mental morphine. I don’t feel the bike crush my foot along with the exhaust, handlebars, and tail section as it throws me off, cracking my talus and ripping nearly even tendon and ligament from my calf down. I don’t hear the bike crash through what I am told is a $75 section of fence on Bob Riley’s farm. I simply fly and fall and roll.

I keep forgetting it’s the weekend.

I keep forgetting it’s a holiday.

I keep forgetting it’s my birthday.

The days aren’t important. Now that my foot is better and I am walking, I am simply more cognizant of the fact that I can’t fly. I feel rather grounded, but I’m excited for a few things. 145 in 5th; 2 up. Coastlines. And a good ride through the mountains.

I’m stuck at the intersection of Writer’s block and Atrophy. So, I’m going for a ride tomorrow, WAY too damn early, and going to spend some time with friends I haven’t met yet.

In between now and when i finish the crash story, I hope you’ll entertain yourself with thoughts of riding through the national parks on 750cc’s of inline 4 whoopass. Have a butcher’s:

Map of Ride

My Roommate Bree called me at work a couple weeks ago with the joyous news that Linkin Park tickets were $10 for the Grass. Now, I love Linkin Park, and I’ve seen them only once before on the other side of the nation. (You can find that story on this site too) The chance to see them again on the opposite coast appealed to me.

Clickity, clickit. I’ve got a ticket.

Though for some reason the tickets were $20 after the fee for using the web site.

Bree and I speak in hushed tones over the phone concealing our excitement and the fact that we’ll be leaving work early to go get drunk and act like animals. Not that this is a big deal for her since she masturbates to Lifetime TV telecommutes and never goes in to the office anyways. Neither is it an issue for me, since I bill hourly and won’t get paid for the time I take off work. But it feels surreptitious and we relish any opportunity to misbehave.

Flash Forward. Friday. 3:30.

I’m in a parking lot roughly half the size of New Jersey; dirt, understandably, as it would probably take most of the remaining Mexican pyramids to gravel this much acreage. The parking lot is filled with cars and people in orange vests alternately drinking from questionable containers and sleeping. I assume they are to be directing traffic, but have lost their way in the heat.

It’s hot today. Moist, muggy, hot that makes you sweat just thinking about it. As an added bonus, most of North Carolina has an obsession with tailgating and, not to be dissuaded by the complete lack of any organized sports or in many cases a complete lack of a tailgate, hordes of unwashed, sweating, dust-covered locals are boozing it up in the Sandbox parking lot. Ah, the aroma aroma of beer and a stagnating gene pool.

Not to be outdone, I pull out the Nuclear Crystal Light I made before we left the house and slug about half the contents before handing it to Bree to do the rest. As we are unloading the car, one of our tickets blows under the wheel. I crouch down to pick up the errant paper as some new arrivals pull up next to us and parks.

It’s a strange sensation seeing stars in the middle of the day. Alternating black and silvery white; an optical illusion test, but in full anamorphic technicolor 3D. Normally, one might stop and be quite concerned about the sudden aberrant vision that had hijacked my sight. At this point, I am sidetracked by the splitting pain in my left temple and wondering whether or not my skull is still intact after being sucker punched by whatever chain-wielding Pro wrestler just smacked me in the head.

I can feel the stones in the parking lot biting into my palms where my hands caught me before I could fall into the dirt. I can taste that same dirt in my open mouth, probably stirred up by the recently arrived car. I can feel a drop of moisture, sweat or blood, I’m not sure, teasing the eyelashes at the far corner of my rapidly swelling left eye. I can hear a thick Spanish accent rolling English at me like undulating waves of the Caribbean; fluid but earnest. I feel small manicured hands, nails grazing my scalp, taking off my hat and cradling my head as I sit back on my haunches in the dirt.

Still looking down, I can now see the pedicured toes peeking out of sandals and an anklet adorning one leg; leather with beads like Skittles. My gaze follows the brown shapely calves up to the knees as my assailant crouches down in front of me; short skirt giving me answers to any questions I might have had about the cut and color of her underwear as my vision starts to clear up.

6′ 2″ doesn’t count for much when you are on your knees. My little aggressor didn’t notice me crouch down and thought I had moved out of the way, so she opened her door into my waiting skull. I’m guessing the angry looking Latino at the back of the car is her boyfriend, and in spite of of my recently acquired head injury, he is none too thrilled that his lady is paying more attention to me than to him.

Assuring her that I’m fine, I tell them to go have fun and I start cleaning the blood from the side of my head with one of the beach towels Bree was smart enough to pack in preparation for our day on the lawn. I hope that drink kicks in soon. Bree is laughing at the swelling lump that is the space between my eye socket and temple. What are friends for.

The line-up for the day is pretty promising. I know numerous people who should be in attendance and several of the bands appeal to me. So do some of the Vendors. Giant, Frosty Margaritas; the perfect thing for headaches on hot days.

Bree and I spend the afternoon listening to some bands that alternately suck and entertain. We get our picture taken at some strange booth and I’m gifted with an armband that says “What Now?” on it. I’m tempted to wear it, but I imagine there are about 5,000 people doing just that. Eschewing that particular brand of conformity, I opt for a black tank top at the Hustler booth that says, ‘”I’m not a Gynecologist, but I’ll take a look.” This has me smiling for at least the next hour.

Tommy, true to form, arrives with 4 girls in tow. Two on each arm, that is the style from L.A. Brenna is among them, but since Tommy’s seats are on the front lines, I don’t get to talk to any of them for very long, which is fine by me. Last time I saw Linkin Park I bought great seats and then wound up walking around the grass area most of the day anyway. Bree and I are occupying ourselves with people watching, which in this crowd is comparable to watching surgeries on the Discovery Channel, while traversing the crowds to go and get more margaritas from the vendor booths. We exhausted our supply of water rather quickly, so I tell Bree that we should just rely on the ice in the margaritas to keep us hydrated. Seems logical; also makes us very and solidly drunk.

The day wanes; Bands come and go. Finally, Chris Cornell takes the stage. Daylight has covered most of the music in motes thus far. Somehow in the open air and devoted rays of light, these waves of sound, though well intentioned, have seemed wilted and near soulless. Now, these permeating beams become vagrant and wandering, direction-less and unintentional in the face of the sound check coming from the stage. Cornell takes the stage with his band and for 1/2 a second every mouth in the arena is silent holding in precious, precious breath.

And that mad Angel on the stage begins to scream.

The hair on my neck grows an inch and stands on end as those prior silent mouths open wide, howling and screaming in vicious cacophony with the guitars and song flying off the stage.

For the next 90 minutes, the ground is alive. Vibration after vibration rake the eath, seeming to raise people out of their seats and catapult them backwards onto the lawn. People are everywhere, no one is sitting down but all milling about like copulating ants driven mad by the ceaseless disruption of their home. A scrawny raver stumbles through my field of vision, neon yellow hair cut short, with two blue racing stripes through it; all the while slobbering on a pale girl in black-on-black. My Spanish assailant washes up, stopping long enough to kiss my cheek and apologize once more, “Lo Siento” before the swirling human cloud rips her and her staring beau away again. Light has failed us. Tribal law and poison alcohol rule the arena with iron fist and when it seems that the world can take no more… as if the very weight of this sound is poised to crush us on this grass-covered body-strewn sacrificial altar, Brenna reappears, huge brown eyes looking black in the absence of day.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

She tells me this with her black eyes. I don’t know if her mouth moved.

In the time it takes me to extract myself from those twin black pits, Cornell is gone. Linkin Park is playing ‘Runaway.’ Good Idea.

Bree leaves for beer, or hand grenades; I don’t remember. The rhythm washes through the crowd, entering their eyes all turned to face the stage. She starts to move.

You know… to Dance.

Just. Like. That.

She moves like a satin viper. The familiar music takes over and now I can move too. She moves around me. Whispering over the bass.

“I like the way you ride. I had fun last night.”

She tells me this while she touches my stomach. She doesn’t have fake nails. I don’t have to look. She’s wearing my hat and telling me stories. The bass beats its way into my head and we’re repeating the lyrics to each other. Chanting. Mantra.

She touches my arm like there is fire there.

Like it burns.

She turns her back to me and I hope she’s leaving. Go. Get out of here.

Not yet.

She backs that tiny silhouette up against my chest, arched like that, and snakes an arm around to the back of my neck with a fingernail of ice; Martini cold.

My arms wrap ALL the way around her.

I’m not sure if the music is moving her or if she’s moving the music, undulating the way they both are. Her head rolls back onto my shoulder and rolls to the side until that hot hot breath is burning down the ice trail her finger is cutting into my neck.

“This is going to be the last song of the night…” there are more words from the stage, but those are the ones that matter. The ones that broke the spell.

That poison apple.

“I should go find my friends.”

She burns this into that same spot on my neck through the exodus of those nails.

“Get out of here,” I say. “Go.”

I can see the lights, red, blue, then devilish red again reflecting in the depths of the kids eyes. He can’t be older than 19, but here he is, asking me these questions that no child should have to.

His pupils are wide in the black night, unaffected by the flaring bulbs around us. He says, “You’re lucky to be alive.”

I ask him, “How is my bike?”

————————————-

I guess it started on Thursday.

The guys I ride with are religious. Not like Preachers or Hells Angels, and most probably don’t even believe in God. God never gave them life, God never moved their souls. Their motorcycles perform both those feats; who cares if dual compound Z-rated radials can’t walk on water.

Thursday. Bike Night. Religion.

We meet under an LCD sign near the Fairgrounds. An empty parking lot with room for hundreds of bikes if you park them neatly. We never do. Sometimes the cops wait across the street.

When we leave we stage in two columns; Spartans 30 deep. The cars don’t stop. They don’t care. That’s why we have blockers; crazy bastards volunteers who pull into traffic and block the cars going both ways. They sit and wait while we launch. Then they follow. Rear Guard.

That Thursday night we ride all over. West for Pizza. I break off with a raiding party; North with 9 bikes because we missed an exit. East because we had already left the city. South to get to the meeting spot.

I drink beer with a girl named George. She has pompoms coming out of the helmet she just dropped. She doesn’t laugh at my jokes and she tells me she hates her phone.

The waitress at this place, Mojoe’s, is a grim unsmiling affair. She is packaged liked Christmas in a cheap bar, black on black, pale skin, red and freckly. No smiles, no jokes, no quarter. I don’t care. I’m a million bucks. I’m riding a Demon in blue. F U, Red.

Bill paid, we break away and head for the parking lot. No one seems to know what the hell they are doing next, so I mount up and head off to the next bar down the street. This place is supposed to be giving out free Miller Light tonight.

It’s bedlam. Some of the guys brought girls along. One of the other riders stepdaughters is after me, and she’s cute for her age, but wouldn’t fit on the back of the Demon. NFC.

Mustaches come out. Black ones. God Bless Sharpies.

One of the riders is ready to leave. The girl that came with him isn’t. These are the days we train for. These are the reasons that we buy extra helmets and strap them on the bike, even though we have no Intended. He leaves. She stays.

Her name is one of those ridiculous Puerto Rican names to match her brown eyes. She shortened it from 30 syllables to 2. Brenna. Hi, Brenna. This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard.

Tommy’s friend Alix has boobs.

While at face value one could technically apply this statement accurately to almost any woman on the face of the planet, I have gone out of my way to present to you this simple sentence. So, if this statement is considered self evident and pervasive; how must Alix’s boobs be if I specifically say: Alix has boobs.

Think about that.

When I say that Alix works at a club called Haven, you already know where we went next.

The name Haven is like Vortex or Basement. There a club named each in turn in every city in every state in the USA. The walls of Haven are adorned in the usual fashion of local art and naked women. There is a screen hanging on the eastern wall of the dance area that blasts every shade of the rainbow in Technicolor dream-waves that no one outside of Timothy Leary’s inner circle has ever truly appreciated. Writhing, shaking, and twirling in the center of the screen is the black shadow of a naked woman undulating to the music.

Alix is pinned behind a bar, throwing out drinks to the savages as fast as her breasts arms can handle. She hooks it up while Tommy’s friend tells him he has 5 VIP tickets to the Linkin Park concert the following day that he will be unable to use. Tommy, good friend that he is, obliges the man by taking them off his hands.

There is dancing and drinking and shouting and more dancing. Tommy is a man above. He’s on the floor moving, sandwiched between a Blondie in low slung pants with hips that don’t quit, and Brenna who is making the best of an awesome situation.

I’m afraid to drink. I’ve got to pilot my bike and this girl home safely. Passengers add a sense of mortality to riding a bike that isn’t there when I’m alone.

I have to work in the morning. I remember this and I sigh. While I say my goodbyes to the Riders, Brenna reads my body language and sidles up like it’s a foregone conclusion that she is leaving with me. She’s short, but not the shortest girl that’s ridden on my bike. At 5′ 4″ she says, “and a half” like it’s loaded. She’s skinny but still manages to have an ass. Good thing too, since the back seat of these bikes isn’t exactly Tempur-Pedic.

Winding through the dark city street I can hear her yell directions from her helmet to mine. She lives near this great movie theater that serves beer, so I know the area. When I drop her off, I keep my helmet on because I know where that sort of thing leads you.

Head nod. Wave. I’m on my way home.

Sleep…

Friday.
Linkin Park.

These are my first thoughts, in order, as I wake up.

Top Ten Things I am going to do after I get my foot back.

1. Buy new shoes!
2. Get a new motorcycle.
3. Run up and down the stairs.
4. Slide around in my socks. Whee!
5. Buy Riding boots.
6. Salsaaaaaaa!
7. Go ride a horse.
8. Drive my own truck.
9. Go shark diving.
10. Use all the tape I want.

These are the things that are occupying my time while I recuperate. Yes, Joanne, I know I promised you all the details, and I’m writing it all up right now. but I’ve just obsessing over being mobile again and so I thought I’d jot something down.

On a less selfish note, There is a kid nearby who won’t be getting his foot back. I encourage any motorcyclists in the area to MAKE SURE and come down to the bike wash next weekend in Raleigh for a real worthy cause. NCS has promised 50 bikes, and we can easily deliver that, but only if everyone gets their ass in gear and gets down there. This isn’t just for crotch rockets, though so get out your dirt bikes, cruisers and even scooters and get down there. Details below.

There is a fund raiser for the same kid tomorrow in Raleigh that is not just for the bikers, so head out there and do some good for a kid that’s a lot tougher than you and me put together. There is a link for the fund raiser on Saturday below the bike wash flyer. There is a donation fund for him here: http://www.myspace.com/mkbfund

-

OK.

It’s been a while and a ton of things have happened. I’ll catch up soon, but the rum and percocet are kicking in, so it will have to be tomorrow. Also, the Gallery is broken.
Synopsis.

The Demon is dead. I’m on crutches. The toothless Indian is gone and I haven’t seen the Narcoleptic in weeks. I have a Puerto Rican maid/chauffeur and it kicks ass.

More later.