BBQ with a crew I haven't seen in awhile...
And a broken wheel that nearly killed a friend. An old-school outlaw biker who's been on a sled practically 24/7 since before Christ was a corporal, he's a helluva rider; he got his heavy cruiser shut down from about 75MPH with his tire shredding without even putting a scratch on his bike. Most exciting thing I've seen lately. How he didn't dump it into a spinning, sliding wad of bloody broken things is rather a mystery, even to him, truth be known.
Lots of laughing, back-slapping drinks over this one, and roaring war-stories of near-death on the road told and retold. Retelling tribal legends over campfires is built-in, a genetic memory thing, the way we ward off the Dark. We all have versions of it, I think.
Then today in Arkansas, knowing I had to come back. Quachita, DeQueen, Broken Bow, Idabell, Clarksville, Paris - hard, ass-kicking riding, and alone, but perfect weather, miles of asphalt rolling away under me so smooth I could almost be convinced that I was standing still as the world spun under the gyroscope of my bike, wheeling, spinning, curving away - it tries to sing me away from home. Night coming on...
Then today in Arkansas, knowing I had to come back. Quachita, DeQueen, Broken Bow, Idabell, Clarksville, Paris - hard, ass-kicking riding, and alone, but perfect weather, miles of asphalt rolling away under me so smooth I could almost be convinced that I was standing still as the world spun under the gyroscope of my bike, wheeling, spinning, curving away - it tries to sing me away from home. Night coming on...
...and now I'm here telling you this, road grit and dead bugs scraped off me, civilized again, worn out and worn down, back for the duration. Because I have a life and I have to work tomorrow, and there are invisibly subtle bindings and hooks of blood and years and life that only stretch to....here, then bring me back, dress me up, and make me sane enough to be presentable.
It's a good trade, mostly.
In Our Next Episode: A road story. And since it doesn't involve redheads, here's one for you now, instead.
"Don't Sweat The Petty Stuff.
Pet The Sweaty Stuff."
(Patch On Leathers, Mena, Arkansas)
Did the wheel split and shred the tire, or the tire shred so that the wheel split after rolling bare on asphalt? I don't know enough to know if one of those is implausible.
ReplyDeleteNice tummy (not yours).
Your list drove me to a map, where I liked seeing the state line follow a rivercourse that continues to change.
Great tummy. Hers, I mean.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the wheel split, which resulted in an instant to-the-ground flat with the tire snaking around trying to come completely off the rim while the rim's doing its best to cut the tire to ribbons. Very exciting.
The border between TX and OK has always been about as well-defined as the Indian/Paki border in the Kashmir region, although you wouldn't know it looking at the maps, whose makers have to express confidence in such things, even when there isn't much...turns out that dividing something using the center point of the high-water marks of a variable depth river is tricky. Everyone's finally just decided they're either on the TX or the OK side, but exactly when that transitions in a lot of places is changeable and problematic.