It was unseasonably warm in St. Louis for late fall. October overcast, but warm enough to ride comfortably for hours on end, given a proper leather jacket, sweater and gloves. I made good time finding my way out of that city and turned west. It was the first time I had headed seriously in that direction since earlier that spring. Heading west had great significance for me: it meant mountains, drier climate, and home in San Francisco, my fair lady by the bay. Although the midwest is not without its charms, I don't think I could get used to the sheer flatness of it all. Rolling hills are no substitute for the genuine article. Where could I find the majesty, where might I feel the humbling significance of mountains that will outlive us all.
Perhaps it is that flatness which the midwesterners find so attractive. With no mountain canyons, there is no place to really hide. Everything is exposed. Does the middle of the U.S. imply some unspoken honesty then, to wake up each day and look not at mountains, but endless fields, neighborhoods, roads; all in plain view of one another, and all so obviously connected to one another? North America can be such a puzzle, yet all the unlikely pieces fit together so well, so intimately. And so there I was, heading west, back to the land of earthquakes, where Ma Nature checks the integrity of those pieces at her whim, and usually when we're looking the other way.
As the rural outskirts of St. Louis melted into farmland, so did the freeway which was carrying me melt into a two-lane highway. I noticed the leaves were beginning to show their fall colors. I found a place to camp as the October sun was retiring for the long night. It was just a narrow dirt road, which let into some kind of field. I had an idea, and I had wanted to see if it was actually possible. I removed all my cargo from the sidecar. Extra warm clothing, pots, pans, food, water, and stove. Then out with the seat cushions and... it was a little cramped... it was less uncomfortable than I thought it would be... but I was able to get in and lie down flat in my now empty and seatless sidecar. I extricated myself from the sidecar, got the sleeping pad and bag, and threw them in and made the bed. Actually, it looked less like a bed and more like a coffin. The foot and middle were covered, and only in the head area - the part of the 'car just forward of the trunk - could the head area of my body be seen. Gasp.
I heated up a can of beans, opened a cold beer, finished both and went to sleep. My coffin was very cozy.
"I'm proud to be an Oakie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball.
Where they still fly Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightning's still the biggest thrill of all."
The radio in my head was turned on and tuned up. When in Oakie country, think Oakie songs, no? Well, I wasn't in Oklahoma, I was still in Missouri - but the one's as flat as the other. Damn all this flatness! I want a mountain road to wind around in. The closest thing to a mountain was looming nearer and directly ahead... large, voluptuous, seething thunderheads. There were my unexplored canyons, there were the steep slopes and jagged peaks. And from up there too comes the pelt of 50 mile an hour rain; there too was the blinding terror of Thor and his forge of lightning bolts. And it was all over me before I had a chance to react. Ka-bang! Kansas City, Kansas. I ducked between the bolts of blue fire, ducked off into town in search of a motel.
I checked in and immediately jumped out of my drenched clothes and into a hot shower. No matter how good or bad the day was, a nice hot shower at the end always made that day a little better. The wind was screaming through the motel door. It was having its way with the trees in front of the little strip mall across the road from me, turning the mall lighting into strobe lighting. It was becoming a dark and stormy night... and I was becoming concerned. I was still almost 2000 miles from home. I turned on the TV to see about the weather forecast. It wasn't good. My October overcast warm days had been canceled effective immediately. There was a cold front coming through. I turned off the TV. I didn't want to know about any more weather, I just wanted a good night's sleep. The sound of the running furnace was reassuring
When I awoke the next morning, I cracked an eye towards the slit in the curtains. It was bright outside. I got up and parted the curtains to have a look. There was not one cloud in the sky. And the wind was almost gone too; there were only the gentlest of little breezes wafting through the almost leafless trees outside my room. It looked like a good day for a ride. I threw on my pants and a tee shirt. I needed to go out to the bike to get some things out of the saddlebag.
I opened the door, stepped outside and almost slipped on a puddle of ice. Ice, and now I could see my breath, and just then I looked all around me and realized that the cold front had left behind a thing which I did not like or want to inherit, and it was a terrible thing, a troublesome thing, this arctic blast of cold, and the 2000 miles between me and home flashed into my mind, and it may has well have been the 250,000 miles between me and the moon, and just as cold and icy. I had been abducted overnight from the modern world, something went wrong, very wrong in that dream and now I was headed back into the Ice Age. I went back into my room, got under the covers and considered my options.
About 10 miles out of Kansas City, I came to realize that the buckskin gloves I had been wearing for about ten years would not work in this new world, this merciless 60 mile per hour sub-freezing world. I had to stop and warm my gloved hands on the cylinder head of the engine for a few minutes. Then I had a thought: what I needed just then was a pair of mittens, big fat lined mittens, and I hadn't brought any. I exited at the next town and went mitten shopping.
Now, the midwest is a place where it always goes below freezing every winter. Just as sure as the summers will always be hot and humid and at times unbearable, the winters will always be just as cold. And it is a fact that if you want to keep warm things warm, you bundle them together. You don't separate them - they lose more heat that way. With that knowledge in mind, it would not be too much of a stretch then to assume then that when the weather turns bitter cold, and if the use of individual fingers is not required, it just makes sense to keep one's fingers bundled together and warm inside of a mitten. That's why mittens are so popular with the downhill ski crowd. A good downhill skiier can approach motorcycle speeds, the weather is usually freezing or below, and little manual dexterity is required in the act of skiing, so mittens are a perfect choice. Alas, there is no skiing in Kansas. Your average Kansan must have no use for mittens, because after having gone into the fifth sporting goods store, I had come away with nothing. Nothing that is, except for lost time that could have been spent heading west toward home. And a cold pair of hands.
I went into sporting goods store number 6. Bingo. They had one pair of mittens, probably an inventory error. They were blue leather, they were lined with fake blue fur, and they would do. I also found a pair of thermal-knit glove liners. I bought those too, and planned on wearing them underneath the mittens. Thermal underwear for the hands.
Saddling up was becoming really cumbersome due to the frigid weather. And now I had to get it all just so before putting on the mittens. If the zipper on my old leather jacket worked loose, and it would loosen every 50 miles or so, I had to stop, remove mittens, zip up, get the wrinkles out of the thermal underwear for the hands, put the mittens back on, swing a half-frozen leg over the fender and ride. It was colder than a well-digger's arse at 45 miles per hour, but the big sky was a heavenly shade of blue. And with that sidecar tagging along for the ride, 45 miles per hour was about all the motorcycle could do. It was a long spell between mileposts...
The wind was starting to pick up now. It was coming straight out of the north about 15-20 mph, which the forward velocity of the motorcycle amplified to twice that. It's the "apparent wind" effect that sailboaters know so well. If the wind is coming at you anywhere from dead ahead to 90 degrees to the side, your forward motion adds to the velocity of that wind, and sail must be trimmed accordingly. You run into it on a bicycle, too: no matter which direction the wind is coming from, it always seems to make for more headwind than it should. Heading west put my right leg on the north, and windward side of the rig. And that leg was getting really cold around the knee. I anxiously awaited the next - and too infrequent - turnpike overpass so that I could stop where the wind couldn't attack me, and do a few dozen laps around my iron horse to get the warm blood flowing out to the extremities.
It was shortly after one of these stops, before I could get my speed up, I noticed a long line of wooden fence posts on my side of the road. And on one of these posts, about a half-mile in front of me, there was something sticking out on top. As I approached closer, I could make out the shape of a bird. A big, black bird. It was a crow. Or a raven, I didn't know how to tell the difference. Still don't. Anyway, this character was staring at me. As I went past the bird doing about 35, I could see the head slowly turn to follow me. After I had passed, I could still see the head in my rear-view mirror. The bird was still watching me. Watching and wondering, no doubt, what this fool was doing on a contraption like that and in such weather. Watching me slowly disappear, hearing my exhaust note gradually fade away. Fine, then. I have helped create a rural legend for crows. Or ravens. They may still be handing the story down from elder bird to younger bird today.
Then, a wonderful thing happened. It brought joy to my heart, "Gas Food Lodging, Next Exit". I could see it already: The orange roof of a Howard-Johnson's. I had been wanting a hot cup of coffee for the last 30 miles or so. And the time spent wanting was a good thing, because I argued myself out of the coffee and in favor of hot soup. Hot coffee would cause the call of nature to come calling too frequently. And as it took 20 times longer to answer that call - what with frozen muscles, bulky clothing, fingerless mittens etc. - I reasoned that the soup would be the better choice.
I removed only what was necessary to go inside and not look too shocking. As I sat down,
I noticed that my body was so cold I couldn't feel the warmth of the dining room. Then
the waitress approached.
"What can I get for you today?", she asked.
"Ah ha a shicken noodo soo", I started to say.
My thought processes were clear, but my mouth muscles were so cold and for so long that it was difficult to speak understandably. The waitress couldn't understand me. I could open and close my mouth and lips to make the "p" sound, but not quickly enough for the words "have" or "soup". I pointed to where the soup choice was on the menu. And the hot chocolate too. I had finished my meal and realized that I really didn't know how long I had been sitting at my table. It could have been twenty minutes, or it might have been an hour. It didn't really matter at all, but it was a bit unsettling that I didn't have my usually acute sense of time. Maybe it's the cold, I thought to myself, maybe I'm more exausted than I think.
I felt better with that hot soup & beverage inside me. It felt good to just sit there and consider my situation. My thoughts drifted around towards the practical aspects of getting my butt home, and I was becoming just a little intimidated by the two leading villains: extreme cold and distance. Make that just a little scared. It wasn't any warmer that afternoon than it had been at daybreak, when I first stepped outside my motel room. And, the skies had remained clear, but with that damned stiff north wind sucking the warmth out of my right leg. There was no evidence so far that the cold front would abate in the next several days, the newspapers said. "Record cold snap", they were shouting in two-inch type. I worked on developing a plan.
Wichita is 180 miles from Kansas City. I had been riding hard since lunch, stopping only to run laps under the ocasional overpass, and now I was 52 miles away from Wichita, the sign said. And it would be getting dark in about an hour. Wichita was looking more and more like home for the night.
But as the sun began to abandon me, and the low angle of what little warmth there was began to fade, it did get colder. Either it got colder or I got colder. The muscle spasms were making it difficult to control the bike now. I found I could deal with this by willing the shivering to take place in only one arm, while the other held on to the bars. I would do this for a few moments, and then trade arms. 38 miles to Wichita now. That was silly. How could I not make the 38 miles?
My will was having its way with the shivering. The spasms were becoming fewer and farther between. I was closing in on my home for the night, and that was a good thing as I was rapidly approaching exhaustion. It was comforting to think that in less than an hour, I could get into a hot shower. The shivering had stopped now. I thought I was still heading towards Wichita , only now I wasn't so sure. The events before me were becoming like a cold, dark, dream.
I stopped at the first decent looking motel I could find. I parked and shut the motorcycle engine off, and it felt like it had been running for days. I felt like I had been running for days. After check in, I did the moves I had been visualizing for the last few hours: strip down, get in shower, get warm. I hadn't visualized how long it would take to do this. My joints and muscles were cold and sluggish. I looked down at my hands and fingers. My hands were very cold, and my fingernails were a light bluish-gray.
Some time later - I couldn't tell you how much later - I regained conciousness in the still running shower. I dried off, and stood stark naked, staring at the room. It was a nice room. Yet, something about it didn't look quite right. I could feel my right leg getting colder again. Literally, I had been chilled to the bone. I got back in the shower, only this time I stayed awake.
I dried off and lying on the bed, contemplated my situation. Should I continue, heading south and holding out for warmer weather? It might be warmer, but it may still be near freezing. What about finding a storage place for the bike, and finding a bus to go back home. I could continue the trip next summer, when the weather would be beautiful. Then it hit me: check the weather report on the TV. Then it hit me again: there was no TV in the room, and that was why it looked different from a normal motel room. I needed to get my maps.
As I opened the door to the hallway, it hit me yet again: I had no idea where I was. I did not recognize the hallway. I thought that I had known just where I was, and I was now coming to the conclusion that I did not. With my head still poked out the door from my room, I could hear shuffling sounds, like the sound of lots of slippered feet all moving together. I moved in the direction of the sounds. They were coming from behind a closed door down the hall and to the left of my room. I looked at the door, listened to the sounds, and thought for a moment. I took the plunge and quietly opened the door. I had to get my bearings; I had to collect the facts surrounding my situation. I looked in the room, and couldn't believe my eyes. It was all so dreamlike. There before me was a great expanse of polished hardwood floor. At the other end were maybe two dozen girls of junior high school age. Girls with freckles, girls with pigtails. Girls with white frilly skirts, girls with ballet slippers on. A ballroom of ballerinas, with an instructor in front of a long mirror. I quietly closed the door.
Heading down the hall now in the opposite direction, I went looking for the parking lot. Nothing looked familiar. I passed the front desk - didn't recognize it. I did recognize the parking lot through the glass doors however, and found my motorcycle and sidecar, but not where I expected. I rummaged around in the darkness and found my maps. As I was walking back to the motel and saw the motel sign, it hit me yet again: this was not a motel. Not at all. The four big letters contradicted my senses: "YMCA".
Heading southwest on US 666 with the rising sun on my back was a good feeling. I knew that 666 connected Wichita to Alberquerque, New Mexico, and I was hoping that this new southern heading would be my salvation and deliverance from the depth of cold into which I had been submerged for the last few weeks. It had to be warmer down there. The trip from Wichita to Alberquerque was, by comparison with the last few days, tranquil. It was also less uncomfortable. It was still very cold, but because I was now heading southwest, that nasty north wind was not so nasty. As far as considering my way back home, I was beginning to think rationally, more so than before.
And if there is one thing that a motorcycle can provide on a cross-country trip, it is time to think. No radio, nobody to talk to, nobody to listen to. Up until this event, I had never experienced hypothermia before and was not prepared for it. Not physically, not psychologically. Having already committed to the ride back home in the middle of October, I had but one realistic option and it turned out to be a dangerous one.
As I continued to go over the trials of the last few days, I recalled the shock of discovering that the hotel had actually been a YMCA. I had been so cold for so long, I had gradually slipped down into hypothermia without realizing it. But then, isn't that usually the case. Like a moth to a flame, believing the flame to be the sun with which it navigates, I was also navigating around a false friend, my irrational mind, and making ever smaller circles toward my doom. Instead of burning, I froze. I can't recall - now that I have my senses back - ever being so close to death. Suppose I had chosen a different turnpike exit, what apparition might I have seen then? What if I missed that exit entirely, became disoriented, and irrevocably crossed fully over the edge of hypothermia? Like some drug-crazed fool, I might have hallucinated beautiful, warm water beneath my wheels and jumped in.
So, when the motel hallucination came to me, I had no reason to doubt its authenticity. In my mind, it was a motel. My mind didn't need to reassure me that it was actually a motel, because I believed the false information. Just because I was cold, it didn't necessarily follow that I was also confused, or so my confused mind told me.
But I do have hope. And because I have hope, I visualize the future. And in those visualizations, I visit my own final death not as a young maverick on an iron horse, but as an old man. By that time I will have shared in deaths of some older family and friends. In the visualizations, these people are my teachers, my mentors. As they fall off to the side, through the grief, the anger, and finally acceptance, I observe and remember. I remember them as individuals that made a difference in the lives of others, and I remember the event. And when my own end comes, I will remember them and all they have shown me, taught me. I will be prepared, even as I have prepared others.
Sometimes there is just too damn much time to think while riding alone. I have been known to sing in a loud voice or howl in delight, or to converse with roadside cows to break the thinking loop.
The weather didn't turn cold again until I had climbed fairly well up into the Arizona Rockies, around Williams. I truly believe my body must have adapted, and converted any body tissue not already busy doing something important into insulating fat. I hadn't gained any weight, but I wasn't as sensitive to cold as I once had been. Truly, I could see myself laughing at the cold.
Indeed, the farther I descended from the Williams area, the warmer it got, and the prospect of being back home was gradually becoming more and more of a reality. I was worn out from all the previous death-defying of a few days ago. Then, it happened. A noise. The Noise. My old friend, my reliable mount, my indefatigable iron pony. He made an expensive noise. We began to lose power. The noise grew louder. I was in trouble. I pulled in the clutch lever and coasted to the shoulder of old highway 66. Route 66 was getting its own kicks today. Damn. As if I hadn't gone through enough crap.
The sky at that hour was so deep blue, the air so crisp and pure. It would be sunset in about an hour, I figured. So there I was, on the side of the road, powerless and helpless. At least for the moment. I got out my little tool kit and started to remove a spark plug. The one on the right is harder to get to because of the sidecar, so I removed the left one. It looked OK. I began to remove the right-hand spark plug, and the tip of it was completely smashed in. I got my flashlight and looked into the litte hole where the spark plug goes, and I saw what happened. Evidently, the engine exhaust valve broke, and had been bouncing around inside the cylinder. That was the expensive noise.
The good news was that now I knew what the problem was. The bad news was that now I knew my options were reduced to almost nothing. My ship had run aground. My pony had gone lame. I needed help, but didn't know how to go about getting it. The only thing I could think of doing was to hitchhike, yet I did not want to abandon my motorcycle and all its provisions. I really needed someone to talk to, someone tohelp me. Route 66 was by now just about the loneliest place on earth that I could think of.
That first moment of lifting up my arm, making a fist and sticking my thumb out felt so humiliating. Desperate. I had always been able to care for myself, to pick myself up by my bootstraps, but now I was at the mercy of fate. I had hitchhiked around before, but then it was by choice, and not always out of necessity. This time, it was out of necessity.
There wasn't that much traffic on the road at that time. The cars and trucks came in ones and twos. Sometimes 5 minutes would pass before a car went by. A pickup truck pulled over to the side of the road just across from where I was. The man driving it slid across the seat and got out on the passenger side. He began to relieve himself. Then he got back in his truck and sped away. I don't think he even noticed me. Meanwhile, the sun began clipping the tips of the trees on the distant ridge. It would dip down to freezing before long. A long time went by and nobody stopped. Then, a really strange thing happened. An old car full of what looked to be local yokels approached my spot going very slow. They were looking at me, but were pretending not to look. They passed me, did a u-turn, and headed back from where they came. That little incident really put me on edge. I envisioned them returning after dark, me still standing there with my thumb out, them walking towards me with baseball bats and knives.
The sun had just gone down, and it was definitely getting colder - I could see my breath. By and by, I noticed an old yellow station wagon slowing down. The driver was heading towards me. It was a woman, and she was looking straight through the windshield at me and talking to a microphone. She beckoned me over to her car door. Cautiously, I approached, and I began to hear the crackling sounds and voices coming from a CB radio. Without engaging me in any sort of conversation at all, she got straight to the point.
"You the guy that's got the motorcycle broke down?", she yelled at me over the din of the radio, cigarette hanging off to the side of her mouth, ashes falling off onto her housecoat.
"I sure am", I said, "and thank you so much for stopping. I'm really not...". She put her hand up to me, palm out. She fixed her attention on the radio while a man was talking on the other end. I glanced around at the inside of her car. The windows were streaked and dirty on the inside, the ash tray was full of butts, and the rest of the car was one big disorganized mess. It reeked of stale cigarette smoke. There were what appeared to be many small animal bones spread out across the top of the dashboard. There were candy bar wrappers and Camel cigarette cartons strewn about, and a dream catcher hanging from the rear view mirror.
"Hey, how 'bout that ol' Hounddog", the radio crackled, "Do you see that guy with the bike broke down yet?"
"10-4, Red Racer. I'm parked right behind him."
"Well what's it look like, then. Is it a Harley or what?" Ol' Hounddog studied my sorry old motorcycle, then she looked back at me.
"What kind of bike is it you got there, mister? Is it a Harley?"
"No ma'am, it's a BMW". She put the microphone up to her lips and was about to speak. Then she paused and looked at the bike again, turned to me and asked,
"Is that a sidecar on that thing?" By now, I could hear the sound of a big rig, thundering closer, and could see headlights in the distance. I looked toward the sound, and I could just make out the many clearance lights of a semi-trailer rig heading towards me.
"Come back on that biker, Hounddog", pressed the radio voice.
"Yes, it's a sidecar", I replied. She pushed the microphone button. The truck was beginning to slow down.
"How 'bout it Red Racer, it's a BMW, but it's got a sidecar on it".
"A sidecar?", Mr. Racer's voice came piercing throught the static. A moment went by, and I heard the truck begin to speed up. I took that as an ominous sign. It felt like this would be the one and only chance to get myself out of my dilemma, and I felt that chance slipping away fast. I thought quickly and exclaimed to ol' Hounddog,
"But the sidecar comes right off. It would only take me about five minutes" (actually, it is more like ten minutes, but I was desperate). I heard the truck slow down again. By now, it had come so close that even with all the brakes on, it shot right past us and had to back up a few hundred feet to where we were.
I had no idea what to expect next, or what to do. I was pinning all my hopes on this latest development, that this truck and trailer would somehow get me out and away from where I was, and closer to home. And who was this Hounddog, anyway? Was she some sort of small-town self-appointed Mother Teresa, bent on driving around in her beat-up station wagon with her CB radio, smoking Camels and looking for roadside emergencies to care for? A one-woman automobile club? Or was this yet another of my hallucinations. My mind must have learned, through empirical death-defying experience, how to deceive me when it is in my own best interest. If my mind could have its own voice, it would be telling me, "Look. You don't know what you're doing, so stop with the trying. OK? OK. You keep screwing everything up, and I don't want to see you suffer as a result. Let me handle this situation. I'll create a credible hallucination for you, and we'll both be better off".
At that moment, a man bounded out from around the rear corner of the truck's trailer. He was wearing faded blue jeans, a Hawaiian flower shirt, and had frizzy dark brown hair. And his eyes... his eyes were dark and on fire at the same time. His eyebrows sat on prominences that made his face very intense. Mr. Intense Face approached me with his arm extended and hand out for a shake.
"Name here's Tom", he said in an equally intense tone. "My handle's Red Racer. Pleased to meet you." Then he bounded over to Hounddog's car. They talked, but I couldn't hear them. They were both looking at me while they talked. Suddenly, Tom broke away. "So, that's the broke down rig, huh? Whoa, now there's an old timer! Where abouts are you headed?"
"Well", I began, "my home is near San Francisco, but any place closer to there than this would be an improvement." Tom considered this, clamping his thumb and index finger around his chin while staring at an imaginary spot just to my right, and moving his head to and fro like a pigeon walking. Very intense.
"Tell you what, pard", his gaze still fixed in the same spot, "I'm heading to Los Angeles, but I don't need to be at the terminal until 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. Usually when I make this run, I stop at the Ontario truck stop for breakfast. I head out from there at about 5:30 or so, and that gives me enough time to make my destination while avoiding the worst of the morning rush. That way, I'm happy and my dispatcher's happy. So I tell you what. I'm hauling a load of paper rolls to a factory in downtown L.A., and I don't want nobody to know there was a motorcycle sitting on top of them paper rolls. I can give you a ride to the Ontario truck stop, pard, but you'll have to unload there."
Well, if this wasn't the proverbial gift horse. The Ontario truck stop it was, then. That was at least 300 miles closer to home, and getting there in this truck was the best, if not the only option available. No matter how long the trip or how inconvenient it may be, my motorcycle by itself currently could only go zero miles per hour. So getting even a few miles closer to home was a good thing. Also, getting closer to civilization was a good thing, even if that civilization was near Los Angeles. A truck stop has pay phones, lights, food, humanity. My little breakdown spot had none of these. And my little breakdown spot was now almost totally dark, and near freezing. And I'd had enough of freezing.
"Tom, that's the best news I've heard all day. Let's get going. Tell me what to do."
"Well, you can start by getting that sidecar off the bike. Ain't no way we'll get her in there like she is! I'll get the trailer doors open and see about making some room and covering up them paper rolls." He seemed to be friendly enough, but also hurried. I guess a lot of trucking is about keeping schedules, meeting deadlines and such. I also wondered if maybe his hurry was because he was on drugs, as in methamphetamine.
After he had gotten the doors opened, I looked up and saw that the trailer was full of giant rolls of brown kraft paper, like the kind grocery store bags are made out of. Tom said they weigh about six hundred pounds apiece. They were stacked on edge in rows two rolls high. There were no rolls in the rearmost upper row, so that made for a kind of ledge upon which to place the bike and sidecar - assuming we could even get them up there.
I had the sidecar removed in nine minutes flat, and Tom & I managed to get the bike and sidecar up and inside the trailer, and Tom closed the doors. I looked back at Hounddog, but she was gone. Off to rescue another roadside victim, perhaps. I had wanted to thank her. She may have saved my life - she at least rescued my sanity. I climbed up inside the cab of Tom's truck and found the seat belt while he fiddled with some knobs. He reached into a bag and pulled out two small things.
"You might need these", he shouted over the rattle of the engine. "Ear plugs. This old rig gets pretty damn loud once we get up to speed." I nodded and accepted the offer. But I was hoping we could talk; I wanted to get some answers. Who was Hounddog, how does she know Tom, and why was I suddenly so fortunate?
As soon as the truck was up to speed, Tom was right. It was loud. Too loud to carry on a conversation. I stared into the darkness of night, looking down on the other cars from up high on my diesel truck perch. I felt around in the darkness for something soft, and found a jacket. I wadded it up to make a pillow, and leaned my head against the back of the cab. I wriggled into a comfortable position. It was very noisy, but the noise was very constant. Like a heartbeat. It wasn't long before I fell asleep.
When I awakened, it was still dark outside and we were pulling in to some kind of tollbooth. I squinted into the light... no, it was a California Agricultural Inspection station, and the agents there weren't interested in kraft paper shipments coming in so we sailed right on through. Tom shouted something or other to me, to which I nodded in agreement in the dim light of the cab, and fell asleep again.
By the time we made the Ontario truck stop, it was still dark outside. It was about 4:30 in the morning. There were hundreds of trucks parked all around the place, they all had their marker lights on and they were all idling their engines. Tom had found a place to park, and we proceeded to unload the payload. First the motorcycle, then the sidecar. I set about connecting the two again, with Tom's help. As I was hooking up the lighting plug while Tom was watching, I mentioned that I was just about done and no longer needed his help, and Tom went on inside. I pushed my lame pony over to the main parking lot for those folks with less than eighteen wheels, and went inside.
Now this was a truck stop. I was a bit short on sleep, travel weary, and just wanted to get home, but here was this textbook 4:30 AM Hollywood screenplay truckstop. The stainless steel kitchen. The aroma of coffee, eggs, burned toast and cigarette smoke. The graveyard shift waitresses, some with dark circles under their eyes, some with too much mascara over their eyes, and some with nails that were too long and had chipped polish. And just now, the only thing I wanted to do was to bask in this early morning scene, to take it all in and have some breakfast. The scene was at once surreal, and relaxing.
I wandered around the restaurant looking for Tom, and finally caught the top of his frizzy-haired head across the room. As I walked over, I was stopped by a warning notice: "This Area For Truckers Only". I marched past the sign, made my way over to our table and sat down. Tom told me what he wanted for breakfast and asked me to order for him, as he wanted to use the restroom to shave and clean up a little.
I looked around me. So this was the Trucker's Only area. Well, the players sure looked the part. In another era, they might have been cattle drivers or mule skinners. They are a breed apart. I became curious as to what the popular discussion topics of the day were among such a group. There were several groups nearby, and I pretended to study the menu while I eavesdropped on them. There was the Cummins vs. Caterpillar engine group to my left, and a right-wing vs. extreme right-wing political discussion group over yonder. Another group was arguing over who makes the best full-choke 18 gauge shotgun, and why, and what happened to all the ducks this year anyway. And there was another group talking about hitchhikers. That one sounded remotely interesting.
"...wouldn't a picked him up, that's for damn sure. You're crazy, Pete."
"Now wait a minute, Bill. You don't know anything about this guy. Suppose he has a wife and three kids back at home, and suppose he don't make it home. Suppose your stubborn ass just passes this guy up, and you were his last chance. That ain't right. Just once, try thinking of someone else for a change." Then another trucker spoke up.
"Sorry, Pete. I'm gonna have to take Bill's side on this one. Dontcha remember that guy who raped that gal out in west Texas last spring? That's the one where he killed the gal and stuffed the body in the trunk, and then the car wouldn't start. So he hitchhikes and a trucker picks him up, and that gets the trucker knifed for the $28 in his wallet. Well, guess what. That trucker had a family, and now he's dead. And guess what else: that rapist was a biker in one of them outlaw Harley clubs. And, they never caught the son of a bitch."
"Guys, guys. You need to look at the big picture", said Pete, "and the big picture is that this guy did not have a Harley, he was traveling alone, and it's getting on to winter. Hell, it was about freezing out there. He probably just wanted to get home." My interest had now become piqued. "Anyway, the guy had an old bike with a sidehack. I think I heard over the CB it was an old BMW. Hell, I'll bet he was actually an interesting guy. I wonder what ended up happening?"
I didn't let on that I knew. I decided on the Trucker's Special Plate
with free coffee for breakfast.