Saturday May, 30, 2009 – Entertaining Ride

[snoof]

By the time I got my son to the airport for his return to California and back home it was 1:30. My first thought was that this would be the day of the night ride. I want to start late and ride through the dark. That didn’t happen today, but it will. Instead I rode for a few hours from:

Home to Volente on Lake Travis to Lago Vista to Marble Falls to Park Road 4 to Llano to Round Mountain to Johnson City to Dripping Springs to Home. 205 miles.

Well, the Texas heat is on. It was a hot 93 degrees and it’s still May. But I don’t complain. I used to whine and bitch about it but I don’t anymore. Move if I don’t like it I tell myself, but I haven’t moved so I don’t complain. Besides on RK most any weather is fine. But I did sweat a lot.

FM 2222 is a nice and twisty road but it was packed with screwheads on the way to the lake. I am working very hard on developing a psychic ability that will allow me to override the radio systems of cagers. I will then project my voice through their vehicles’ speakers in a deep, guttural, satanic manner. The idiot drivers will hear booming declarations of:

“You ignorant, insignificant lump of weasel shit. Get the fuck out of the passing lane or I will reach through this radio and rip out your throat.”

“Put down the phone and pay attention to the road and your driving, you slut or the next sound you hear will be your head exploding.”

”Pencil-dick, that light was red. You will never run another one or sleep again and I will possess your ass for the remaining week you have to live.”

or

“Hey, narcissistic shit for brains, don’t they supply your $80,000 import with turn signals? Or are you too damn important to use them?”

I’d augment the sound effects with other supernatural effects I’m also working on like making the turn signals and headlights detonate and set the vehicle of the non-signal using MFers afire. I’d have windshields spider crack and crash in on the driver and passenger; transmissions and engines would drop the twelve feet from the jacked up pickups to the ground; speaker sounds would alter from their irritating thumping bass to screeching high tones that would tear through the occupants eardrums drawing blood and further damaging their minimal brains; hoods will fly open; tires will blow out; airbags will deploy; stuff like that.

When I perfect my abilities I will be a force to be reckoned with. I will weed out those that have no business driving. They will not want to fuck with me.

Crossing RR 620 I released my resentments of the drivers and enjoyed the road. The lake is probably 20 feet down and we could sure use some rain. I still enjoy looking at the water though. Past Volente and Sandy Creek Park where I spent some memorable time camping when it was pretty primitive I got into some of the very serious twists and turns. There were several times when the turns and leans lasted so long that I felt a little disoriented, like my equilibrium was off. But then the road would straighten.

I left this fine biking road for the next one, FM 1431. It is wider and faster and once you get through Lago Vista the hills really begin. I noticed the little church where I preached and Cow Creek Road where I hunted with a drunk who almost killed me with his pistol. Memories.

The exotic deer and other foreign animals on the big ranch were lying under trees, panting with their tongues hanging out like oversized puppies. It would have been a crime to hunt and shoot them in that condition. But I don’t hunt anymore. I had trouble putting the half of a bee that I later found somehow still alive on my windshield out of his or her misery. I just have trouble taking life in my old age. Unless that life is stupidly driving a car or truck.

I didn’t dawdle in Marble Falls, turning north onto 281 and quickly getting up to 80 mph. The short left turn lane onto Park Road 4 comes up fast and I was diligent in letting the speeding cagers behind me know of my intentions to turn well in advance. Having a half or ton of truck run up your ass is a bad way to end a good day on the bike. But it didn’t happen and I was soon enjoying the lesser traveled Park Road.

I had no real objective or direction to follow today and thought I’d just observe my surroundings. It was a good choice. I eased up and appreciated the scenery which included, in addition to the trees and hills and water, the beautiful cemetery and the castle in the distance. I’d like to romp around in that undoubtedly haunted monstrosity for a night or two.

Inks Lake State Park was crowded with campers, hikers, fishermen, kids swimming and folks generally having fun in the sun and water. It was good to see. There’s too little fun left and most people over six years of age have forgotten how to have it. That’s probably a big part of RK for me. It gets me laughing and howling, hooting and hollering. It has woken up parts of me that I had thought dead. RK the Resurrector, that’s what she is.

I hadn’t left the seat of RK for the 105 miles into Llano and I was parched and needing to pee. I crossed the bridge and turned left to the park rest room that has served me well over the last year and a half. I drank a Diet Coke, then peed, then drank another Diet Coke.

Nobody was at the park so I went back and explored the women’s rest room. I have found these to be exotic and mysterious places that have fascinated me since my early exploits into the cinder blocked “Girls” room at the city swimming pool and the wooden doored holy toilets in Catholic school. They had a machine in there, like a rubber machine only it dispensed “Sanitary” products.

I guess it wasn’t really the facilities themselves that interested me, but rather the thoughts of the girl’s private parts entering the rooms, perching on the toilets, and being covered and protected by the products from the metal dispensers. Kind of funny to think about that now. Even funnier that I still go into the ladies rooms when I get a chance at 55 years of age. That could be though because I actually got the wonderful opportunity to screw a woman in a women’s rest room once. Kind of the culmination of a fantasy. Or maybe I still slink into the rest rooms because I’m just one sick hombre.

As I headed south on 71 something drew me to a vegetable and fruit stand on the side of the road. I usually don’t buy perishables on my rides because they ripen and rot in the heat and I shall not subject Harley to that kind of abuse or me to the odor. I suppose I could stash a few peaches and tomatoes in the saddlebag cooler, but that would displace room needed for Diet Cokes. It’s too much to think about so I just don’t buy produce on my journeys.

And who is operating this stand but my old pal Jack. Jack was certifiably crazy when I met him in Alcoholics Anonymous a lot of years ago. He was a University of Texas Professor of some obscure discipline and I asked him to be my first AA sponsor. He declined because he’d been relapsing and was homicidal. I thanked him for his rigorous honesty and then stayed the hell away from him. After he tried to hang himself, I didn’t see much of him around the meetings and had not spoken to him in over 15 years until today.

We hugged, after I stealthily frisked him for weapons, and he invited me to check out his business in the hills. He said it was an entertainment thing that I’d need to see because the avant-garde concept could not easily be explained. I followed his Jeep up the steep paved road into the thick brush. As we climbed the hill I wondered how Jack had finagled the funding for this operation. Just the paved road had to have cost a bundle.

We arrived at the top of the hill. I stopped RK in the makeshift grass parking lot and walked over to the stage he had erected. On the stage, center and evenly spaced across were seven outhouse-sized wooden boxes with padlocked doors. At the foot of the stage was a long wooden crate with “Props” crudely painted on it.

As I took a seat midway up on the twelve row high set of bleachers, Jack looked back at me with that demented look I remembered from years ago and in that dangerous quiet voice he said “This should be good.”

He opened his prop box and first pulled out a black tuxedo in which he dressed himself, cummerbund, bowtie and all after stripping in front of me and discarding the denim overalls he’d worn in the fruit stand. He then took out a large ring of keys and tied them to the belt on his waist. I was further introduced to the weirdness yet to come when he removed from the crate a snub-nosed revolver, a cattle hot shot, a branding iron with a swastika as the brand , lighter fluid, a serious leather whip, chains, knives, needles the size of Shish Kabob skewers, and a huge black dildo. There could be no good to come of this.

He set up an emcee microphone then turned on the PA system. Bizarre circus like music played with pennywhistles and kazoos erupted from the speakers. Jack returned to the mike and in a radio announcer voice said “Welcome all of you ladies and gentlemen” I was the only one there, but Jack spoke like he was addressing thousands. “Welcome to our afternoon matinee. Do we have any first timers here in the audience? How about you, sir?” he said staring at me. I looked around me at no one and reluctantly raised my hand.

“We’re glad you’re here, greenhorn” he said. “After our performance I’m sure you’ll return and bring your friends.” No I won’t I thought, but said nothing because Jack had now tucked the 38 Special under his jacket.

“Enough yammering from me. Let the shew begin!” he exclaimed.

With that he walked over to the leftmost box, fiddled with his keys and the lock until he opened the door. Out fell a tall, emaciated man looking too weak to walk. Jack undid the shackles from his legs and wrists and the man, indeterminate of age, painfully rose to his feet. He wore only soiled underpants and I could smell him from my place in the “audience”.

“Let’s give it up for today’s first act, the incredible Joel!” When I didn’t clap, mostly because I was horrified by the condition of the poor man on the stage, Jack turned and glared at me with one of those “if looks could kill” looks and placed his right hand over the bulge in his jacket made by the pistol. I broke into a hearty round of applause.

The music changed to military marching tunes and Jack yelled, “Dance, you old Fuck! Dance!”

Joel tried his damnedest but could barely manage to lift a foot off the ground. Jack continued to yell insults at him while Joel’s eyes conveyed apologies for not performing with more enthusiasm. The eyes also conveyed fear. And rightly so. At the peak of the Nationalistic music Jack pulled out his 38. The first shot splintered Joel’s shin, dropping him like a weight to the stage floor. The second shot took out his heart. Joel’s days in show business had ended.

Jack began a raucous round of his own applause and hollered into the mike, “We aim to give you your money’s worth folks and you’ve got to admit, it doesn’t get any better than that! But it will!”

Holy shit. I was watching a live snuff show. Jack was even more fucked in the head than I could have imagined. I started to ease my way to the outside of the bleachers so I could drop, run like hell, jump on RK and ride as fast as I could away from this macabre, even for me, scene. Jack saw me. That evil darkness engulfed him.

“We’re not even close to intermission Snoof. You weren’t thinking of leaving now, were you? Because if you were, I seem to be short one cast member and will enlist you into our little troupe. Comprende?”

I did.

“However, I do need a volunteer from the audience to help with the next act.” He scanned the bleachers as though he were actually seeing people. Then his eyes settled on me. “ How about you, sir? Would you be so kind as to help us out?”

I looked around and behind me and then pointed to myself as if to say “Me?”

“Yes, you sir. Come on down to the stage.”

Reluctantly I did. I wanted to live.

He had me go to the box on the opposite end of the stage, open the door where I found an equally starved and tortured looking woman. She was probably younger than me, but between the grime and the traumatic stress she looked older. Under the monster’s direction I released her shackles, took her to center stage, and again restrained her. This time bent over with her lower legs and wrists chained to the floor; her too skinny butt poking into the air.

When I protested Jack pulled the hammer back on the 38 and I shut up. He turned to the bleachers and said, “Here’s a little something for all of you perverts out there. Watch closely and enjoy. You may take your seat Mr. Snoof.”

I walked back down and helplessly sat. Jack, the bastard, gave the “crowd” that up and down, Groucho eye brow thing and picked up the big dildo. The son of a bitch was going to sodomize the girl with it. As he started to walk toward her I yelled, “Hey wait a minute, Jack. What about the bull whip. Don’t you think she needs a little discipline first?”

His eyes widened and a big grin covered his lower face. “Yesssss” he said. “She does.”

As he bent over to pick up the whip, at lightening speed, I pulled my Gerber knife, opened it with one hand, and threw it as true as I’ve ever tossed a dart to zero down in a game of 301 and as hard as I’ve ever thrown a hardball from behind the plate to peg a runner attempting to steal on me. It hit his right ass cheek with such force that I heard it strike bone. He yelped, squealed, and most importantly fell; his gun skidding across the stage.

I was on the stage and swung the Nazi branding iron into his head with as much power as I’d thrown the knife. He was out. Breathing but not here. I emptied his gun and after wiping my prints from it threw it as far into the woods as I could. When I retrieved my Gerber from his ass, he moaned, even in his unconsciousness. I wiped his blood from it and then freed the woman. She just stood there staring between Jack and me.

I opened the remaining five boxes and released four more women and another man, all incredibly sickly. They didn’t even talk. After a silent moment they began grunting at one another before simultaneously turning their eyes to the prone Jack. As they descended on him, each choosing one of the implements he had tortured them with, I figured that my work at the Theatre of Jack was done. I waved to the poor, tortured souls, but not a one acknowledged me. They were too set on vengeance.

Riding down the hill I noticed what a beautiful sky the day had provided for me. A huge fluffy cloud became two sheepdogs getting it on. Your imagination can go wild looking at the clouds. I stopped at Jack’s fruit and veggie stand and had a peach. It was juicy and sweet. I didn’t leave any money to pay for it. Why should I? Jack would be dead after his captives completed their well justified torture of him.

As I headed south again on 71 I saw the sign advertising a highway intersection. If it went to the right I decided I would take it. If not, I’d continue on 71. It went to the right and turned out to me 962 which I’ve ridden on the south or east side of 281, but never out here.

As I turned onto the road I got to wondering what the greatest distance I’d ever pissed was – in feet. It was probably about 750 feet from the observation deck of the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio back in 1968. Those were the days before they closed it in because of jumpers and those that threw pennies and stones, and before getting caught vying for records such a this got you a spot in the sex offenders registry. Few men can say that a solid shot of urine from their bladders covered that kind of vastness. I guess I’m one fortunate son of a gun.

The road lazily drifted through Round Mountain, proper and joined up with 281. From there I took her on home. Johnson City, Drippin, as the locals call Dripping Springs and into Austin. Not long or far enough but a good ride. And also a little conditioning in the heat. Still want to do the overnight Ride of Darkness. Maybe next weekend.

Thanks RK.


Note from Sunday the next day:

I took RK into the dealership for a 32,500 mile oil change and look-over early this morn. The tech and service manager in-training that I met a few weeks ago was not there. I asked Rene, who was there, about him and he said the kid had been killed in an auto accident two weeks ago. A real shame. He was a nice guy and seemed to be a diligent worker.

RIP Vaughn.