Late For the Sky

Loomings

Call me Tim Joe. I planned on having this my  hard life, having read all those best-seller jacket liners about how some author of This or That had to be everything from a street sweeper to a lion tamer in order to write down simple facts; but what did I know? I was a hick kid from Indiana, (and Southern Indiana at that). Hell, I was practically a Kentuckian, (the unhappy brunt of our geocentric jokes that stood in the stead of all those ethnocentric Polish jokes since just about every person in my little riverboat hometown was either German or Polish.) It was a hell of a lot more fun to make jest of those jackasses living a half mile away across the river than it was to take all the myriad failings of this our race, the Human Beans, upon our own breasts.

Leave It To Beaver

And so, made brave  by my superiority to the Children of Boone, I, the Hoosier Lost, set forth upon my delusional journey into the future (of myself), confident in my inherent capabilities and also, (having read at least the opening pages of Moby Dick), also was I confident that I could knock men's hats off in the street and have a journey aboard a ship, however ill-fated. Likewise was I confident that Ahab, (no doubt of Kentuckian descent), would call upon my Hoosier wisdom in both hooking up and reeling in that tricky Leviathan.

We all know how that worked out.

First: the Horns, Then the Bull

There comes a time in the life of all cyclists when, after confronting the demons of steel vs. crabon and the travails of the late-night cycling forums, after reading late into the night the comments of the unenlightened and surreptitiously clicking into those viagra ads we are forced by either boredom or inertia to figure out the overwhelming question of our clan: What Am I? Roadie or Mountain Biker? Commuter? Do I ride my bicycle because of the sensation imparted to my perineum or because I like to wear those tight clothes?

Troubling questions indeed! But, like a light under a bushel, here am I to answer and clarify. All human knowledge must pass through the Crucible of Truth, which, fortunately, I happen to have purchased at a yard sale last week and then, using cheap labor, donuts and beer, I was able to have it yea and verily transported here to my trailer and bolted down right over there behind the Quasitron 6000 Search Engine. Lo, my trailer doth groan beneath the weight of these Machines of Knowledge as doth my own Great Head, loaded as it is.

Talk Show

First Question:          Will we catcheth the whale?

Quasitron 6000:        Are you asking me, or the Crucible of Truth?

First Question:          Uh... Quasitron.

Quasitron 6000:         I don't know. Pull my chain.

Crucible of Truth:      He means pull his finger! Ha ha what an idiot.

Quasiton 6000:         What the hell does that mean? I don't have any fingers, only gauges 

                                  and chains and relief valves and that big brass thing.   

Second Question:     Big brass thing?

Crucible of Truth:       Are you asking me, or the Quasitron 6000, who truth be told don't      

                                    smell so good.

Trailer Park Cyclist:   You guys cut it out! Readership is down by twenty per cent which 

                                     means you two clowns and me and the Voice are the only ones       

                                     showing up here, except for Miss Daisy the Yellow Dog because she 

                                     heard that these computers store cookies.

Quasitron 6000:          Yes, Master.  Hey, did you hear the one about...

Crucible Of Truth:         Can it, Nuts-n-Bolts.  Hey, Big Guy, you gonna finish that whole bottle by
                                       yerself?  All this truth makes the ol'  Cruce a little thirsty...   

The Counterpane

Then, like a clarion bell ringing forth from the hidden towers of my most remotest visions, it came to me: if I just stick to honest, clear-cut stories of my cycling exploits, tales of fish and miles and dreaming, I will bore my readers into a hypnotic stupor where I can get away with anything. Then, emboldened by harpoons and bent spokes, weird concoctions in the bottle cage and winds that bow down before me, I, the Trailer Park Cyclist, will...

Hey!

“Huh? Voice? Is that you?”

Yeah, of course it's me. You were getting a little carried away there with your Ahab-ness.

“No, Voice, I wasn't Ahab, I was Ish...Tim Joe.”

Relax. Los Angeles is no more intimidating now that it was when you left. Your firstborn just needs a little dad-time, and a little reassurance, and little bit of that thing you do. You'll be fine. It ain't about you or bicycles or wisdom. It's about blood.

“But, Voice...”

Hush. It's late and that bottle is almost gone and the  Moon is up.

“Oh, yeah. Waning moon. I gotta pee. C'mon, Daisy...”

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Place In the Sky

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