Ya Can't Get There From Here
Blasting through Daytona in a light
summer shower, the Trailer Park Cyclist is a friendly ghost, swooping
through low-rent neighborhoods where he fits right in; bedraggled and
scraggly and no stranger to the demimonde. He is a soaring spirit,
his soul cleansed and cooled by this gentle sweet rain. With a head
full of future dreams and a heart heavy with past failings and
haunted by late night visitations from fallen family and soldiers of
his command, he knows that it isn't all his fault; and yet some of
it is his fault and he knows it and as the morning rain soaks into
his superheated skin and cools his superheated soul he is lost on a
deep ocean of powerful memories; but he is not yet lost; not yet,
for the Trailer Park Cyclist is a Master Brinksman. He is old and
crafty and he knows where the line is...he has pushed hard and with
bad intent in the past and yes, he knows where the line is and where
lies the Edge and when to forge ahead and when to grab at the last
moment for the salvation of the lifeline.
Whatever
Besides all that, I have a 7:30 AM
appointment next Monday at the VA Clinic (22.2 miles from my trailer)
and I am currently painfully and pridefully without an automobile.
“Who cares?” I say, smirking like
a maniac and gazing fondly at my 1981 Schwinn Super Le Tour.
Night Rider
That's Super with a capitol S and 55
miles and 3.5 hours later here sits I, strong, bold, not haunted nor
daunted. I did a practice run this morning, testing two routes to
the Clinic. Both are fraught with peril. It can be murky and weird
around here just before Sunrise. The local drivers are World
Renowned for their faulty driving practices and on Monday mornings
they ain't always at peak performance. So I will be wearing
reflective clothing and have a rigged up head light and some kind of
taillight and if even ONE hungover driver fails to see me I will
douse my hair with Trailer Park Special Chain Lube and set my head on
fire. That always works and like Richard Pryor once said, “When
people see a black man in his underwear running down the street with
his head on fire, they get out of the way!”
Uh Oh Toto
But this morning on my dry run I got
lost and inexplicably ended up in crack town. Trust me, that is a 24
hour a day enterprise and any scraggly old white bastard pedaling an
old ten speed through there is either undercover or shopping. I was
neither, (for the record) but there I was anyway, only slightly lost
but with strong legs and actually enjoying the experience. Crack
dealers are apparently as guilty of profiling as the police are and I
was variously whistled at and waved at and knowingly nodded at in a
'come hither' fashion and while I enjoyed my new-found popularity,
it was way too early for drug abuse and I had to find that Clinic in
a timely fashion in order to properly map my plans for next Monday's
predawn excursion.
Bingo!
Then just like that, there it was: the
Glorious Governmental Refuge for the Weary of Body and Soul, there it
was and I checked my time and miles, marked them down on my two year
old piece of scrap paper that somehow magically continues to serve as
a place for deep thoughts encountered on my rides; it has my mileage
and ride report notes for near on 4000 miles now and has been soaked
by rain and once nearly perished when threatened with emergency use
in the roadside bushes during an especially overwhelming
gastrointestinal emergency. But that scrap of paper is still with me
and I made my pertinent notes, glanced scornfully at the gathering
morning clouds and started thinking about beer.
No worries there, mates, I know where
they keep it throughout my vast rambling realm and it wasn't long
before I was guzzling a 24 0z Budweiser at creek side and mashing up
some honey-roasted peanuts, staring-down some little bait fish and
pondering all manner of things.
Beechwood Aging
By some inadvertent punching of the
keyboard one night while in me cups, as they say, I ran across an old
girlfriend from those promising post-high school years when I still
had hope of the Presidency and if not that, at least the Nobel, the
Oscar, or the Pulitzer. Anything but the Trailer Park. But I
stumbled across this past love and she has gone on to become a middle
level executive at a mid-level organization that does things I can't
remember. In high school she was by far the most exotic beauty and
clearly the most likely to one day be a femme fatale and she
was always just outside my reach. But I hit a stronger
stride in my young manhood and while high school was not without its
successes, some late-onset physical maturity and a pretty good job
and a pocketful of cash brought me some small reward later on. She
and I were that sparkling nascent promising couple and it was a
rewarding and intense six months, I'll tell ya. But I was only
joking about a steady job, my heart was in the Cosmos and I had no
intention of succeeding, not in the way she saw it and I was headed
elsewhere (which turned out to be Los Angeles) and she had plans that
involved cars, clothes, suburban splendor and so on...
But I ran across her trail late one
night and she asked me: “Have you aged well?”
Rubicon
That was over three years ago and that
not-so-innocent little question started a train of thought that has
plagued me continuously ever since. It has caused no end of
unsettled rumination on my part and I find it to be a kind of a trick
question. Nor have I found the answer. It is a thing that is hard
to know and one would have to perhaps seek judgment from a source
outside of oneself to get a glimmer of clarity.
In the case of the old girlfriend, I
suspect that what she really wanted to know was how my late-onset
physical maturity was holding up and I also suspect she would be
mildly horrified to see this quasi-fit fifty-six year-old man with
too-long hair and a Goodwill personal style blasting around on the wrong
side of the tracks in the rain on a Saturday morning, just a little
lost, grinning foolishly and waving and nodding at the neighborhood
crack dealers and pedaling rapidly and with strong legs, a friendly
ghost from her deep past, a haunting memory of how it was before she
achieved Cougar Status and how he somehow transcended his fate and
magically held the line.
Fish, Beer, Peanuts and Peacocks
I know this: on the way home I stopped
to look at fish, eat peanuts and drink beer. I finished that joyful chore and meandered back to the
highway, only a handful of miles from my home. As I exited the woods,
there they were: the Peacock Peleton zapping by as though shot from
a confetti cannon. A 24 oz Budweiser takes up a little gastro space
and I was just a little stunned but what the hell? I gave it a push
and fell in on the wheel of the last rider, hoping my heavy breathing
and burping wouldn't alert him to my presence before my legs loosened
up and I hit a stride. It is fun as hell for a constant solo rider like myself to feel the pull of fifteen guys doing 22mph. It is easy and like
cheating to keep up and one of these days...
All's Well That Zens Well
The Trailer Park Cyclist is home now,
showered and drinking beer and typing. His Little Darlin' is hosed
off and wiped down and shiny and that bicycle, at least, has certainly aged
well. Those rascally riders pulled in for a break and I wanted to
stop and hang out but I am only a friendly ghost, I don't think they
would understand and I went on my way, pedaling strong into a very
mild headwind. A milder headwind than usual, I think. A trusty bicycle and
a light heart are probably hopeful signs of aging well.
The Cosmos is still here and so am I
and I don't think this story has an end. There is no end and living
in the Now is what they tell us to do but if I don't make plans and
take trial runs I might end up in the wrong neighborhood. That's why I do it. That and the fish, beer, peanuts and peacocks.
Ya know?
Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Ruminatory
#70
Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Ruminatory
#70
