Chapter 10
Welcome to Colorado and goodbye Utah, It’s not even dinner time yet and I’ve gotten through like 5 states already today, although I suspect there will be no stopping for dinner tonight. Years ago when my Pops and I traveled this way on our big Honda cruisers, we stopped for the night around Beaver Utah. Yeah, moving a lot faster this time, although riding with my Pops behind me is always pretty freaking sweet. I hit a ridge and can see another storm system ahead of me, I mean like I can see all of it, I guess every state will have a way of welcoming me so, welcome to Colorado Bob. I scratch my helmet for a minute, well crap, pull over and put on my suit, again. I ride through the rain and with in a half hour I am back out of it. Ok, maybe next time I will just get wet, this putting on and taking off of the suit is starting to bug me a little, it’s not the action but the time, it just takes time and I don’t think I have that kind of time, or at least it’s debatable because after all, race.
I pull over frustrated but dry, the suit comes off and gets re packed, this road is mine, I’m eating up the miles. Hello Grand Junction Colorado and some of the prettiest highway this country has to offer I am sure. It seems they are doing a bit of road work on the east side of the town so things slow for a minute over a bridge. Surrounded by big rigs and large family cars, passing safely and extremely slow, crap, but I get through it without a scratch or inpatient car running me over. A group of 3 competitors pass me again, aIl moving fast as hell on their newer Harley Baggers, wait what? I know I saw these folks at the starting line but how did their skoots qualify for the race? I suspect maybe one or two of them are racing and the other one is what, along for the ride? I’m sure Charlie has some deal with them, and good for them for showing up. Honestly they all look like they are out for a Sunday cruise, 2 middle aged men and a good looking woman, good for them.
I stop for fuel again at the bottom of the great Colorado Rockies, I actually remember stopping at this fuel station with my Pops years ago. I fuel quickly and do my routine and even manage to stop for a minute and text Ella who texts me back, she is fine and got home ok. Good I think to myself, puts my mind at ease. Maybe she thinks I really really need to concentrate but darn, it would be good to get a text or something to know she is ok. Humm, something to think about? Oh forget it, I call her, she answers on the second ring. We chat for a few minutes, I tell her where I am, how I am feeling. Ella can’t believe I am moving so fast. She tells me about breakfast with my family and all good things but she still seems a little off, like something has put her in a surprised mood maybe. Well, if it was important she would tell me I guess. I tell her bye for now and that I will talk to her soon and, ask her to text me some more as its always a good surprise to find on my phone. She agrees and reminds me how sexy I am, etc… Yeah, the perfect pick me up conversation.
It’s hot and humid where I am looking up to the great mountains of the Rockies but, I know it will be cold so I put on my Dickies land speed racing jacket under my vest and endure the swelter of my sticky sweat for now. This jacket is a dark blue poly cotton blend type, complete with some cool land speed patches. Not a terrible heavy jacket but, just enough to keep a cool edge off. I figured when it’s cold enough for a big jacket, I would just put my suit on so the lighter jacket made sense to me at the time of packing for this trip. Off I go, ready to conquer the Rockies via my skoot and my skoot is happy to be at these high altitudes and running above my expectations.
Nickel Creek, “The Lighthouse’s Tale.” Nickel Creek, Sugar Hill, 2001
Back on the highway now moving along and, smack into a one lane construction zone behind a fedex truck doing 35 m.p.h. in a 50 m.p.h. construction zone, CRAP! Well at least I won’t be blowing my engine up and I sure do appreciate all the packages these people bring to our door steps but crap, seriously!?! Well, just have to let people be people, I mean the driver is not doing anything dangerous all be it, illegal to go so slow and very annoying as the line of traffic behind me feels the same annoyance about the situation as I do and they are all trying to drive up my ass, crap. After several miles the road opens up again and I pass the truck and up through the mountains. After a few miles, a competitor by the name of Jay is fast on my tail and catches up with me on his older harley shovel chopper. He passes me on the climb where I wave the Stampede wave to him then I fly by him. My engine wants to Rev and his wants to tork. Through the Rockies we fly, shuffling positions with a few funny and entertaining antics till eventually I fly far past him enjoying all the beautiful scenery and a little healthy competition on the way.
Coming down the back side or east side of the mountain range it starts to get cold. I fight the urge to cover up and that works for a little while but the sun is going down and damn it’s getting really, REALLY cold. If I can just get into Denver for the next stop I can change there I think. SHIT, I am sure this is way too cold for the human body, I mean my freakin teeth are chattering. Before a tunnel, I pull over next to a gravel pile on a small shoulder, adorning my sweater under my jacket, heavy gloves and turtleneck while violently shivering and cursing myself for making the wrong decision and waiting so long. Damn it gets cold here quick in these Rocky Mountains. Also, my face shield is really showing all it’s scratches as the sun goes down, tail light and especially headlights are really becoming a problem as they splash streaks of light across my vision. They look as tall as my face shield, sometimes it’s hard to make out a car coming at me in the opposing lane or an Alien spaceship from Rylos and Star Fleet. Maybe something has happened to Alex and they need me to take over at Star Command. Centuri had better of brought on hell of a Beta unit with him to finish this race for me. Damn I miss being a little boy sometimes, just enjoying a good movie like
The Last Starfighter. Dir. Nick Castle, Perf. Lance Guest, Robert Preston, Dan O’Herlihy, Catherine Mary Stewart. Universal Pictures, 1984.
I pull into Denver just in time for a little post rush hour traffic. The highway is stopped. Oh wait, I am on a cop bike and, from California. I have a few flashing red and yellow lights on my skoot left over from its heyday. With a flip of a switch they come on and I start splitting lanes. With in a mile I pass a competitor and yell to him to get behind me. He is shivering and frozen and says he doesn’t know how to split lanes. I tell him it’s easy and he can follow me. He follows for about a mile then disappear back into stopped traffic. I pass another competitor, stop and yell to him to get behind me, he shakes his head no thanks. What the hell is wrong with these guys? Oh well, I keep skootin along at a nice 30 miles an hour in the dead stopped traffic with lights a flashing. A few cars try to cut or nose in front of me, one even hits my rear cage and it drags off the front fender, wow that’s gonna leave some damage for them, that was stupid on their part. I wonder what is going on in these people’s minds? Like their rage of jealousy is so great they are happy to endanger my life to make themselves feel better about being stuck in traffic? There seems to be a few of them in every crowd, people who would rather be dead right than safe. Well, I as other riders do have to do my best not to let bad or dangerous driving from cagers upset my ride, my Zen on this road is just worth too much to me. Finally all the stopped traffic lets up after many miles and off we all go. Wow that felt like the 91 freeway back home in Riverside for a while there only, Californians take pride in moving over a little as needed to share lanes with us skoot types.
Another stop, this time I put my suit on. I know I look like a black stay puft marshmallow man wearing a leather riding vest but, I find a big truck stop east of Denver. I notice my lenses for my emergency flashers have fallen out, darn. That construction road in the Rockies must of been tougher than I thought and also, the lights are not working, the bulbs have burned out or in this case, rattled apart, the whole no shocks in the back of the machine thing can really do some damage to these old style bulbs. I buy a 10 pack of 1157 bulbs and some red lense repair tape at the truck stop, replace the bulbs and wrap the lense frame in tape. Some competitors pull in next to me, I ask them if they picked up my lenses I am missing in the rockies? They both laugh and shake their heads, no luck. Well that should work for another 2000 miles with the lense tape. Back on the road, into the dark night eastern Colorado. It’s really dark out here, and really flat. After we got our route last night, my Pops told me he was a little worried about me falling asleep on this section of road, how this land was just flat and the road straight, not worth much and had to be given to Colorado back in the day. Yeah, it’s flat and straight all right with very little traffic, I am sure it is beautiful during the day. As planed, my main headlight is no laughing matter. It’s a huge 9 incher bucket with a big blue daylight lamp and a side light to boot. It lights up the night like the 4th of July and, has got to be the best 100 bucks I ever spent from an old harley store in town called Bikers Alley. Being as I only own one old harley shovel these days it’s not a place I go to visit often but, they have some cool old parts. I went in one day looking around a few years back and the owner Bob asked how my cross country racer build was going? I told him i still needed a headlight, sat me down and said, “Look man, THIS is what you want for what you are doing!”
I agreed, gave him the cash and he ordered it for me. My favorite part was building the mount for it. A long 6 inch by 4 inch by quarter inch piece of strap metal. I needed a big American fine thread bolt for it and found amongst my collection of hardware just the bolt i needed out of my Pops old Harley parts box. I cleaned it up, chased the threads and it was good to go, all chrome, rustic, old and shiny. I’m usually not one for nostalgia as nothing is truly sacred in the world of racing but, having a little piece of my Pops old chopper on my chopper is kind of cool.
Yes, my Pops was an old chopper guy. He had a 1959 old cop bike himself back in the day. It was a Pan turned knuckle with a racked front springer end and a tiny little front wheel, no fender or brake. Complete with a laid back sissy bar and laid back handlebars, as a little dude I thought it was the coolest. One of my earliest memories was helping him push it over the oil hole in the backyard. Yeah back in the day dudes just put used motor oil in holes in the ground, totally uncool these days. Later I would learn that he simply learned this action from an old Boys Life Magazine article, wow times have changed.
I remember asking him why the cops ride such funny looking bikes? They were short, and fat looking.“Because they are riding Japanese Kawasaki’s and not Harley’s,” he would proclaim. I did not understand what that meant then but, I do know. A regular factory off the showroom floor looked odd to me when I was a little dude because it looked nothing like my Pops chopped skoot. Also the rider did not bounce like my Pops did while riding it because it had shocks and my Pops rigid, did not. Oh the funny things we remember from our childhood regarding our very human parents. So here I am, racing a an old moto patrol, chopped Kawasaki across this beautiful albeit currently dark country. I set my cruise control to rub my eyes then, DEER!
There are only two things that cross country racers like me really fear, falling asleep behind the bars and deer. On the straightest of straight roads with my high beam on, I see a field of corn or some kind of tall stock plant to my right and out of the middle of this, a head pops out with 2 red eyes about 5 feet off the ground. Throwing myself forward and grabbing my clutch while stomping on the brakes just as this deer turns around and head back into the tall stocks of the field. Wow, what a fucking eye opener. I breath heavy and start to thank the universe for allowing that situation to go so well. I am scared and can feel myself shaking, I downshift into forth, twist the throttle and back to fifth gear, I also reach forward and turn my big spot light on. Yes, my cop bike has a classic cop spot light mounted just to the right of the main headlight and, the handle is on the left. I have to lean way forward to maneuver it but, it’s doable on a long straight flat highway such as this. I point it over to the weeds on the right and turn my brights on, I light up the night and slow to about 70 m.p.h. Yeah, that was the true definition of some Fucked up shit, checking my shorts again for the second time today.
Still moving forward with cold calm weather I’m wide awake waiting for the next deer to scare the crap out of me or worse. I spot something odd out of my left peripheral vision. I look down and my phone is lighting up. I hit the screen and a visual of Ella appears. I can see she is in her bed, with her grey sheets wrapped around her and a picture on Marilyn Monroe mounted on the wall behind her. I get all excited and start talking then I realize, by the look in her face she can’t see me, like at all or, hear me for that matter. I turn on a small flashlight I have dangling off my handlebars and shine it in my face and can see her face lights up to see me. Ok, this, is going to be, different. I never thought she would video call me on the road. How the heck am I even getting service out here. I motion with a finger for her to hang on and she nods in approval. I unplug my ear buds from my mp3 player, fiddle with the zipper on the phone case and plug her in and yell into the mic piece.
“can you hear me now?” yelling into my face shield.
“Yes” I think she replies with a smile as she nods in approval and blows me kisses.
I start watching the road again and with my hand covering and talking into the mic, I give her the updates about the rain, cold rockies, traffic in Denver, and deer. She nods as if she hears me but I can barely hear her or make out what she is saying.
“You are soooo handsome and I am soooo proud of you and how fast you are going!” I finally hear her yell at me.
I thank her and return similar compliments with a smile. She looks so good lying down in that bed. Damn I start thinking to myself, what am I doing out here on this road when I could be home with all of that yumminess. After a few minutes, she flashes me a nipple from her loose nightgown, lifts up her breast and licks it, then she kisses it and blows a kiss or 3 at me. She waves and I wave back and we say our goodbyes and good night’s only, I am certain she can’t hear me as I really can’t hear her but whatever. The phone shuts off and goes dark. Pulling a smoke from my vest pocket, yeah I keep a pack in there as well, I hit the lighter. I, have a race to run, out here in the middle of the eastern state of Colorado I can’t get all homesick for a girl I have only been dating a months. Yes, she is a sexy one, well built with all the physical attributes a man could ever desire but racing, is racing. Her large breasts, beautiful face, long dark hair and legs that go for days. Life can be a funny thing for a man like me in race mode, there is just no sexual desire to feel sexual thoughts, but damn I want to. Even if I got a little tingly and hard I would not be able to feel it on the skoot here, my body just won’t allow it. The turbulence of a rigid frame with the rhythm of the road all equal one big mess of an almost any sexual feeling. I have always been a man who needs a lot of stimulation to get hard and get sexually excited. The woman who I have been blessed with in my life, have had to be very good sports and enjoy the road to sexually exciting me much more than the destination if you know what I mean. I remember being a younger man, in my sexual prime and for a few woman I dated this, was just way too much for them. They would get terrible frustrated with how long I took to finish or I would simply wear them out to the point of exhaustion and they would run for the hills. Good to be rid of them and those shallow attitudes but at the time, I was sure it was me and not them. I know now, it was them. Shallow women who did not know how to please a man like me. The universe always has a funny way of blessing us with good things through bad situations.
Ella was a virgin when I met her. She had no previous sexual experiences to compare me too so, for her, sex is a wonderful new experience. The fact it takes some time for us both to be satisfied, is all the more fun. Her and I just go to bed early and fall asleep late every night, it works out well.
When we started dating and I told F Bomb about her he was hesitant to congratulate me on dating such a young woman. F Bomb is 10 years my senior and has been through alot more in life than most people ever would dream possible and some of it, very dark. I have watched him raise up from the most terrible situations imaginable and stand on top complete and victorious. When he speaks, I listen. After confiding in him that Ella was a virgin, his comments were very to the point. “Bob, that a young man’s game! I mean I know you can handle it I am sure but why do you want to get in a real relationship with this young woman? It’s a young man’s game that will leave you broken hearted if you let it! Don’t make me worry about you, you are my friend and I don’t want to see this chew you up. Take your time and just have some fun with her but don’t get too serious about it.”
I would contemplate his words and feelings on the matter many, many times. What he has stated is very good medicine. I have done my best the last several months to do so. When Ella wants to just stop by to say hi, I inform her my Son and I are busy doing something and maybe should could stop by later. Or she would ask if we could go out on a certain night? I state yes then make her dinner at my house that evening just to make sure she is not out looking for a sugar daddy to just take her out all the time. Maybe I am purposely or accidentally 10 minutes late to picking her up and I see how that unfolds for her. It turned out it still took her an additional 10 minutes to get ready anyways. I work around my Son’s schedule as too not confuse him with why she is hanging around us so much. It all worked for a little while, enough maybe to reassure myself it can be said and done but only for a little while. I have to laugh at myself for my meager efforts. She wanted into my life, into our lives and after a few months of courting her I had to let her in and embrace all the goodness she offered and brought with her.
After my wife left several years prior to this and after a long drawn out divorce that seemed to go on forever I always had a great fear that I would meet a woman just looking for a meal ticket. It would all be ok to have this young wonderful woman around to enjoy life with and all we could do together and for each other and she did some good domestic work around the house, and wow she could cook. I am not one to have someone around just to cook or clean or anything like that but, someone who can cook and clean as I do and keep up with me is a huge plus. Above all having her long legs and large breasts to cuddle with every night was a very big plus.
The road is really seems to be getting darker and darker now, I am sure it is not but, It has to be 2 in the morning, Kansas is just up ahead a hundred miles or so. I pull off for fuel again, same routine, and maybe some small sugar donuts to assist me in going all night long. Slowly I will eat them in hope the sugar and fresh coffee assist my goal of not dying. I put on my toke or beanie and my turtle neck wrap as well and, my big heavy leather gloves complete with gauntlets. I make sure all is secure and tight and it’s back on the road.
The weather is clear but getting cooler, not cold, just cooler. However with no windshield or window to roll up and heater to switch on it is going to slowly creep in, after another hour or so I can feel it doing just that. It does assist me in staying awake and alert as this road is pretty empty on this very early Monday morning. Eventually I lift the face shield every 10 minutes or so for several minutes to keep the cold on my face and my eyes wide open. Slowly working through my trail mix, candies and cigarettes seem to help as well. I hit Kansas I think but I don’t seem to notice the signage. It all looks the same but I start to see new mile markers counting down the numbers on the side of the road. Eventually I just can’t take it anymore, it is around 4 or 5 a.m., I see a nice looking rest stop ahead and have to make a decision, it’s time, I am pulling over, right into a damn pajama party.
American Road Runner 