And So That Happened...

 

Deep night out on the Interstate, trying to get home for the weekend. Bettina and I howled into a construction zone running hot.

The roadway between major cities is unlighted, and the crowding traffic was pinched down to a near-solid iron river between sporadic concrete barriers on each side, shoulder and median. No maneuvering room. When I slowed, the people in my lane behind me instantly crept up too close. Faster I could get away from them and also squirt up past traffic wallowing in the narrow right lane, taking advantage of the Bettina’s speed to move up next to the spaces between them, giving me about >< that much room to skip into the right lane if I must. Rule one on a motorcycle — keep everyone the fuck away from you, especially in the dark. Every one of the assholes were on their phones. So I had to be their eyes, too, use my maneuverability to find the holes and stay there, or accelerate out and find the next one.

Out of the dark a jumbled pile of wood appeared, scattered across both lanes. It was probably pallets or lumber lost from a load somewhere in front of me. It was already destroyed by traffic hitting it at highway speeds. Chunks and piles of broken 2x4s and slats slid and bounced down the road as braking traffic in front of me continued to hit them at 70 MPH. The sliding and rolling chunks reminded me of — what? Suddenly I had it — Han Solo piloting his ship through the shifting asteroid field. 

I slammed down into 5th gear and twisted the big bike’s throttle, slipping past the pickup on my right that was swerving into my lane trying to crush me against the median wall to dodge the pile, then leaned deep right curving sharp in front of him, missing his front bumper by inches, driving hard into the closing gap between two skittering boards, then swept back into the left lane to avoid rear-ending the Camaro sliding to a stop, forcing Bettina between the piles of — what the fuck was that, DRYWALL? — and struck a tumbling 3’ 2x4 with my front tire and left floorboard — and suddenly I was clear. 

 I dove across the right lane then between two orange and white barrels and past a barricade, booming down a closed exit ramp to the frontage road.

No traffic here.

I pulled over and shut Bettina down, and examined her as well as I could in the dark with a small light. Other than a thumb-sized lump of crushed lumber in a support member under the floorboard, there was no sign anything at all had happened. I fired her up and headed down the frontage road, testing. Bettina responded like she was new off the showroom floor.

That’s my girl, I told her as she rumbled under me.

It suddenly occurred to me that I was never frightened, never thought for a second that I was in real danger. Too busy, I guess, solving a lot of technical driving problems at the same time. Maybe my life-long opinion that "decision lock" or "freezing" is virtually never the right answer has finally soaked into the decision-matrix calculus of my below-conscious mind. Or maybe it was always there -- now that I think of it, snap actions have often pulled my chestnuts out of the fire. And occasionally caused huge problems. (Shrug). But as here, on balance it seems more useful than not.

But now I was angry and was gonna find whichever redneck piece of shit dragging a flatbed full of unsecured crap through a construction zone was trying to kill me. When I did, I was gonna beat his ass with no word of explanation at all. While he’s healing up, he could just write it off to dumbassery if he wasn’t bright enough to otherwise figure it out.

With that goal in mind, I drove to the next entry ramp and jammed back onto the Interstate watching the ever-present assholes crawling up behind me as I began to merge. I was running near-70 when I hit the black lump at the end of the ramp just where it finished merging into the traffic lane. Now THAT one nearly took me off the bike. Bettina was extremely unhappy at being nearly airborne and it was rather a trick to get her back on task, but I managed. I couldn’t figure out what I’d hit, but it looked to be about the size of a large sewing machine and felt solid as Mount Everest.

Figuring I’d at least run a hairline fracture through a wheel or bent a rim, or holed an oil line, I nursed her into the next town, fully expecting any moment for her to try to slide out from under me as she rolled a tire or lost traction or died. She did none of that, and at the near-daylight of the well-lit truck-stop, other than what I perceived to be a baleful stare at me while I examined her, she seemed to be in perfect shape. We made it home and the next morning at first light I had her up on a jack going over her in detail.

Three scuff marks on the front tire. That’s it. Not even a scratch anywhere. This struck me as a bit unlikely, but a test drive confirmed she was good as it gets. I got out on the Interstate and rode the 15 miles back to the entry ramp to see if I could figure out how the hell I’d managed this bit of luck.

I could smell it a quarter mile away. I parked on the frontage road and hiked across the plowed construction site to the entry ramp. I couldn’t tell what it was — large coyote? Afghan? German Shepard? There was so little left after being ground into the pavement by a bazillion passing cars since I’d last been here that I couldn’t even guess. But whatever it was had been freakin’ huge. Apparently earlier in the day before our encounter it had been struck and slid into the ramp entrance. It must have knocked the crap out of the foglights and undercarriage of whatever hit it. At any rate, when I’d vaulted over it, it was still more-or-less intact.  Big fucker, and no kidding, but softer than a parking block or a sewing machine, which was what I figured it was out there in the dark.

Then, cursing dogs and dumbasses under my breath, I went and washed down Bettina, which she seemed to appreciate.

And how was your weekend?