Good Trouble

Three flats in five days. Three. This comes after a period of flatlessness that extends so far back that I had forgotten that such trouble was possible. Then, like a bad dream that won't stop, flat flat flat. One of them was yesterday, at the library. The library was the scene of many flats, once upon a time, until I learned about proper inflation and not treating road bike tires like mountain bike tires.

But, for whatever reason, the Curse has returned and yesterday I found myself doing yet another roadside repair. Afterward I always pedal home and patch the bad tube with those Skabs glueless patches that I like. I patch the old tube and put it back on the bike, after removing the spare tube and putting it back in the saddle bag. While having an almost 100% success rate with the Skabs, I figure using a patched tube as a spare is asking for trouble. Me, I get trouble enough without asking.

Or maybe not. In fact, trouble ain't that common with me these days. I would like to think it is a result of my maturity finally catching up with my years, but I know better. Things are just going smoothly because how much trouble can ya get into when all you do is read books and ride your bicycle around town, awkwardly sober and suffering zero interaction with the citizenry?   I famously do not play well with others but these days TJC the TPC roams the streets alone, bereft of companionship and un-pirated. I am without a ship or a mission and as I mentioned recently, enough is enough.

My son Beau, he of the Los Angeles Beauregards, finding himself equally without trouble (or mission) but, unlike his elderly père, seeking both, has made his way home from the West, returning to his natal state of Florida where he now resides, (over in St. Petersburg) stomping the bushes and stirring things up. There seems to be work there, our kind of work, big buildings that need doors and trim, hardware and careful fitting; we have the tools and we have the talent and maybe...

Well, we shall see.

Meanwhile, after getting hundreds of requests (okay, three) I have started thinking about serializing the novel I never wrote. I have no idea if it is even readable. I think I sent some pages of it over to my friend CryJack the Playwright but that was back in one of my periods of dark unrest and for all I know she is even now puzzling over the literary merits of my liquor store shopping lists and multiple drafts of suicide notes.

Whatever the case, I guess I will display my dirty laundry and verbal meanderings for all the world to see. Or at least the handful of my remaining readers.

So stay tuned. After three flats in five days anything is possible. Maybe even something good, some good trouble.

tj

Whispering Pines Trailer Park (for now) and Publishing House