I’ve had a variety of web sites since the mid-90s, at least. I’m tired of it all. I’m not interested in keeping the subdomains going any longer. I’m not interested in creating new posts. I haven’t been for quite some time, actually, if anyone noticed. Insta is a drag. Tikky-tokky is a bore. Whatever comes along to replace them will be worse.
So long. It’s been good to know you all – some more than others.
I’ve been living in a small college town in southern Ontario for almost a decade. It has everything I need, and then some. I sold the bagger, knowing I was content and happily ensconced. From a successful career in aviation, and another lifetime of riding, I’ve garnered enough material to keep me happily clacking away on that typewriter thing forever and a day. Anonymous fiction, of course.
Because reasons.
My aviation life was spent in the deserts of Africa. I have flown in the Canadian bush as a fire pilot. I’ve been a mountain and an arctic pilot. I managed to stay away from the jungle. Because more reasons.
As a biker, I was an Independent. I traveled highway and byway and the old blue highways from Canada to Mexico and places in between. I loved every precious minute of it all, even when, well, that’s for me to know and others to read about.
As to my writing, on average, I get around 12,000 downloads a year, every year. My biggest kick was seeing 60 down in Kazakhstan last year. Normally, it’s only ten or so in that bleak wilderness. I do POD sales as well, courtesy of Ingram Spark and Amazon.
Switching gears, my last bicycle was a red and white CCM 3-speed from Simpsons-Sears. I think I might have been 12, or thereabouts.
I remember my old man putting that thing together, not fast enough for my liking. Finally, off I went. The bike wasn’t anything too fancy – as best I can recall. Hitting the binders required one to stand on the aft pedal and push down hard.
So what’s next, I asked myself, because with me, there is always a next.
Answered, I replied, to no one in particular. I like it that way.
The bagger has been replaced!
COSTCO came up with a sweet deal on a CC50 e-bike. No surprise that I couldn’t resist or refuse. Of course, I needed a helmet. Chain lube. A pump. A sizeable hard bag to sit on top of that rack. Some sweet panniers, too. And an alarm. I dug out my leather gloves and a couple of old Slippy Brim helmet liners. Some faded bandanas.
That CCM bicycle was my first taste of freedom. As I got older, I tasted more, and more. And now, I have come full circle. I am still tasting, though. I will never give that up.
I started writing back in the ’90s. I didn’t know shit from Shinola about writing back then*, but I was willing to try anything. This is the desk at which I spent many months over the years refining my lack of expertise.
I wrote my first fiction short in that room in the mid-90s. It took three days of 8-to-5 a day. I ended up with 7,500 words – all hand-written, I might add. Some years later, a laptop was added into the mix.
The astute observer will note the abundance of cheap wine in the foreground. Being the non-drinker that I am, I hasten to add that I was the procurer** for the Inn’s Cheap Wine Party. After closing, some of us would shuffle off to the pool area, where we would light a hellish hot fire in the Franklin and huddle around it in the cold of a desert night. Later, there were t-shirts, but unfortunately, I don’t have pictures, because, you know, discretion and all.
When the poolside fire burned out, survivors would hie off to my room. I’d flash up the cozy fireplace and we would continue talking into daylight in the swamp. Or something.
* not that I claim to know any more now.
** and chief instigator.
I began prepping for this total shitshow on March 2, and I’m not even a prepper. The first thing I did was buy a thermometer and establish a median for yours truly before beginning to take my temperature several times a day. At the same time I stocked up on Tylenol-branded pain killers.
Next I headed for COSTCO to buy gloves and Lysol wipes. I didn’t see any fistfights, but the lineup for good old bumwad wasn’t short, either. I managed to get out of the place using self-checkout, where there was no lineup. I guess the olds were a little reluctant to try something new at their fave place, although I hear that’s no longer true at my own favorite bulk warehouse.
Very early on I noticed the occasional shortage of many grocery products on store shelves. That is unheard of in this country, although I have seen it in others over my lifetime. Grocery stores were sending out emails telling all and sundry who would believe them that there was no shortage of supply. That it was upstream supply chain problems. Can I get an uh-huh on that? Don’t bother. I don’t care, grocery store magnates.
Weeks later, those same stores are still sending out the same newsletters, worded differently but spouting the same bullshit. Another uh-huh, por favor.
Six days ago, on one fine morning at 0800 I drove some supplies up to relatives in a tiny town 200 kilometers (120 miles) north on Lake Huron. The route happened to take me past a COSTCO. People were lining up already – at eight in the morning! – practicing their social distancing so they could be let in, 50 at a time. Good luck with that, although there’s nothing else to do since everything has been shut down except for essential businesses. While the interpretation of “essential” is broad, it’s what was needed.
Want to know what the biggest pain in the ass about our modern world’s unprecedented times? (Welp, besides the death and destruction of the entire world’s health care systems and its users, that is.)
It’s wiping down every single thing I bring into my household so the stupid shits sneezing and coughing and breathing and the ones still alive don’t infect me!
Okay, now that that weight is off my chest (pun intended, even if you don’t get it), what am I doing with all my leisure time? You want to know, I’m certain. And even if you don’t care, here it is:
I’m watching virus movies! Thank you tubitv.
Oh, and one more thing. My writing productivity is way up. And so are downloads.
Life is good. Write on. Breathe on.
Just don’t breathe on me.
Sitting alone in a room and making shit up is fun. And it has been for 25 years.
Or, lament for another time.
The place is long closed now. On the flat roof the swamp coolers lie silent and rusted. The once always-on day-and-night blue neon sign is dead, obscured and almost overgrown. The building was green every time I stopped, but I see from the images that it’s white now. Maybe someone thought fresh paint would give the place a boost.
Once it was one of my favorite places to stop and take a break. I’d back into the hitching post in front of the No Parking sign, lean the heavy bagger on the kickstand and take a minute to rest my road-weary and aching bones before walking to the end of the building and stepping down onto the diner’s cement floor. I always walked past the tables lining the windows. Instead, I headed for the counter and the short round chrome stools.
The first time there was an old-timer at one of the tables. I gave his faded shirt and jeans the once-over and figured he had a .45 tucked away somewhere on his person. I smiled and nodded and he nodded back. The old man’s eyes wandered to the girl behind the counter and she nodded. He stayed until we got to talking and laughing and then she must have given the old boy a signal and he disappeared.
She was always there, every time I passed through, a dark-haired and dark-eyed woman, sitting behind that counter.
*
I had to look. How could I not? So many years have passed, I needed to see it for myself a final time. (Images courtesy of google maps.)
* * *
The first time I rode through, it was mid-morning. Forty miles ago I was through Dalhart. (I didn’t stop there. That’s another story.) I’d been riding U.S. 54 all night, something I never do any more. Chalk it up to age and knowing better. I was so fatigued I could barely keep my eyes open.
A tired railroad line paralleled the highway. The town was obviously an old cow town, as evidenced by the loading pens on the north side of the road. That must have been a long time ago, because they looked like they’d seen better days. They were grown over and hadn’t been used in forever.
I knew by the sign over the entrance to Ira’s on the opposite side of the highway that it would never be a viable option. Hell, tired as I was, even I could figure out that the rusted and broken neon hanging from the wall was long past its best-before date. I recall thinking it must have stories to tell, and rode on by.
Just a little farther and I crossed paths with a blue and white cafe sign sticking up above the flat horizon. I pulled off the 54 onto an empty gravel parking lot and pushed back against a wooden hitching post. At the time, it seemed to me that a motorcycle or a tied-up horse would be safe at the railing in the former cow town.
The building had definitely seen better days, and not recently. The cafe’s low exterior walls were encased in fading green stucco. The flat roof supported three or four swamp coolers, probably a necessity, given the area’s hot summers.
Thankfully, I didn’t see a window sign advertising the name of the joint as “Mom’s”. One of my road rules dictates that I never eat at a place called Mom’s. At the very least, it would be a safe bet for a bit of grub and a quick coffee to fight the fatigue. I’d be back on the road in no time.
Now that I had ridden into daylight, I didn’t want to burn any on my run south.
I entered through the side door and took a step down onto a cement floor – thus the reason for the low roof-line. A couple of small tables lined the wall under the windows. I headed for the low counter and took up a short chrome stool covered in beat-up, worn-out, thick plastic. If nothing else, I could carry on a little conversation with the woman behind the counter while I drank coffee and warmed my hands.
She poured the coffee and slid one of those old-style, squat, over-sized china mugs with the thick, rounded handle only big enough for one finger in my direction and raised an eyebrow. I shook my head and poured in a little sugar. While I stirred, I investigated the surroundings, and then turned back to face the woman. She sat in front of the old cash register on the opposite side of the counter.
I took a gander at what was inside the pie tray and asked if it was fresh. She said yes, and got up to go into the back. She returned holding a hot metal tray with a dish towel.
That’s fresh, I said, and in front of me she sliced a piece and dished it out. Without a word, the woman went back to the kitchen and came out bearing a giant scoop of ice cream.
I grinned, and said thanks, and she smiled and told me I was welcome.
Her smile was friendly. Nothing more.
That broke the ice, and we kibbitzed back and forth, she from her chair behind the counter, and me from the stool in front. I took a better look and figured she was probably in her late twenties or early thirties, with that tired look around the eyes that comes from gaining too much life experience, too young.
Yes, her face was framed by dark hair. Dark brown eyes reflected the light coming in from the windows. I was so stunned that I don’t recall checking out the rest of her. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her face.
I did when she started to blush.
Sorry, I told her, I couldn’t help it. Like that was some kind of an excuse. Now I was the one embarrassed.
That’s all right, she replied. It happens sometimes.
She came up with the usual questions. Where I’m from. Where I’m headed. How long on the road this time.
This time. I noticed that.
I volunteered the usual answers, but got stuck on this time.
She noticed that.
I chose to ignore her and instead turned the talking in the direction of some of the places I’d been and the people I’d seen. She not only kept up with me, but managed to get as many laughs from me as I did from her.
I’d call us about even, but not in a Mexican standoff way.
When it came time to go, I really didn’t want to, but you know how it goes.
*
Over the years, I made a habit of stopping by on my way through many times. The stucco had been covered with siding, but everything else was the same. So was she. I liked that.
She would be there, sitting behind the counter. She served the coffee, brought me pie and ice cream, and smiled and laughed when the conversation eventually picked up the rhythm from where we left off.
Then I met a girl and settled. Not for long, though.
When I unsettled, I discovered the small cafe closed and locked. Shuttered permanently against the lonely traveler headed down life’s highways, the cafe and its owner now turned into only a fading memory.
I miss that place. Even more than that, I miss the friendly recognition and the smile and the laughter that came along with it.
I’VE SPENT ALMOST FORTY YEARS riding the highways and byways of North America and Mexico. I’ve met people I liked, and some I didn’t like. Most of the people I liked were women. Some ignored me. Some didn’t. Some gave me comfort. Some gave me grief. Sometimes, but not often now, I wish the ones that gave me grief had ignored me.
They’re the ones I call my bank-robber dames.
Just about all of the significant women in my life have been dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a couple of exceptions that never mattered in the grand scheme of things. Four of them scared the bejesus out of me, and they were the darkest-haired and darkest-eyed of all.
The first, when I was twenty, was a little hippie girl with long, straight hair that she probably ironed, although I never saw her doing it. Perhaps she got up in the middle of the night to keep her secret. We got to talking about how things might be for the both of us in one imagined future or another. Eventually I figured out that she wanted to settle down with a man who had a factory job in the only game in town and start a family. I, on the other hand, knew that I had a rendezvous with the world and my future. I made good my escape, but it was a narrow one.
I learned from that, but not much, for what man does?
The second was a married woman, although strictly speaking, with her deep blue eyes, she didn’t qualify to the fullest extent. That didn’t matter, though. All the signs were there. I still wasn’t able to recognize them.
By then I was a fire pilot trapped in a small town with nowhere to go on my R&Rs. It was a hot, sunny day the first time I saw her. Her dark hair was tied back with a purple scarf. She was pushing her son down the road on his tricycle, and I remember thinking, I like that. I saw her around town a couple of times after that. Eventually I wrangled myself into position to meet her. Before long we were dancing in the dark, and in the daylight, too.
I traveled a lot with my freelance flying. It took me out of town often enough and long enough that each time I came back it was like coming back to a new and different woman. She wouldn’t budge, though. She saw me for what I really was, a footloose man without roots, who would never settle down. She was right, and we both moved on.
Eventually, I did settle down, and into a flying job on the Dark Continent. It was there that I forgot all about her. That experience was one of the best things that ever happened to me – and by that, I mean her, and Africa, too. It was just what I needed to clear my head of the experience with her, although the method certainly left something to be desired. It tempered me. I came home a changed man. Some of the things I saw and did would remain with me for a lifetime, but I would never tell anyone about them. Some secrets are best kept.
By the time Delissa came around, I knew the signs by heart and did the best I could to ignore her.
It was slow that morning in the high-desert bike shop. We were standing around, telling lies and trying to sound important. She strode through the door on her first day with a purposeful look. She knew we were paying attention. What attractive woman doesn’t? Her eyes flicked over us and then she put the lot of us on ignore.
She kept right on going in her tailored black leather slacks topped with a dark purple, short-sleeved Angora sweater. Her white arms set it off perfectly, as did her pale face and those lipstick-red lips. Long, pitch-black hair hung past her shoulders. It swung rhythmically from side-to-side with every step.
Oh, yes, I was nice and polite and joked and laughed with her, but I tried hard to keep a certain distance between us. It was difficult, because she was smart and funny and serious and when she talked her dark eyes would sparkle and her hair would shine in the light and sway just so when she walked. Her smile was wonderful and her eyes would crinkle and when she laughed, oh when she laughed…
We were only trying to make it through the nights. All the nights. For some of us need more help than others.
Then she left town, and I left town, and that was the end of that until we touched briefly for a time on social media.
I learned today that Delissa was four months pregnant when was murdered in the dark of night by her husband. He held a gun to her head in their bed and pulled the trigger. She leaves behind two children, both girls.
The news has left me devastated.
If only. If only…
But I must go on to finish what I started, difficult as it must be.
The fourth came along when I was least expecting it, for isn’t that how it usually happens? I looked through an open door and there she was, a rather plain-looking young woman. There was something about her, though. I tried ignoring her, too, but eventually she came to stand beside me and leaned back against the same wall and said hello. We never faced each other when we talked. Rather, we stared with the same faraway look, across the same open space, and onto the tarmac that stretched in front of us and led out to the world.
Then one day while we were standing around killing time and pretending not to flirt, I detected the faint odor of perfume. It was just a hint, the way I liked it. I should have walked away then. I didn’t. I surrendered in that instant and ended up captured. I asked, but she would never tell me the name of that scent. I would look for it, but I could never find it. She must have secreted it away after discovering how it had caught my attention.
I told her things I had never told anyone else, about the Southern Cross visible in the dark African nights; how the sun would rise and set fast across a flat horizon; how the dim of twilight would last for never more than a few minutes. I left out the stench of death and starvation and other things best left untold.
Eventually, she was the one to leave town – yes, imagine that, she was the one who flew away – after she caught her future mid-flight and moved on. I let her get away, my one regret so late in life. I had no choice, for it was the sensible thing to let her do at her young age. We could have held on. We both knew that, and we both knew too that it would be only for a while. I already had my life. Hers was just beginning and I would not keep her from her own rendezvous.
I miss her still, too.
I don’t think there will be a fifth.
Ah, yes, my bank-robber dames. I almost forgot. Had any one of those four suggested, out of the blue, Let’s rob a bank, I might have turned, and looked, and asked, Only one?
R.I.P. Delissa. I have always missed you, and will continue to do so.
I offer my apologies to all for my public sadness and despair at the loss of a warm, wonderful and loving woman with whom I shared many smiles and much laughter for such a brief time in my life.