A Non-Choice (Chp 4; Post 5)

Tossing my bag on the three-and-a-half legged folding card table that was doubling as TV-stand and bathroom countertop, I went to plunk myself down on the bed.  And then I looked behind me. 

Just under my bum, which was lowering itself toward the tattered bedspread, was a family of cockroaches parading below in the shadow of my backside.  I promptly stood back up and decided only a beer or six would make sleep, particularly with the natives on the loose, possible. 

Taking a real look at my sleeping quarters for the first time revealed mold along the floorboards, rusty nailed land mines dotting the threads of which might have once been carpeting, strips of brown and orange 70s era wallpaper holding molting plaster to the wall, the cockroach parade-ground that was the bedding.   

The flashing neon “BEER” and “LIQUOR” outside might just have well read: "Welcome!!!"

This is what my handler at the agency would have referred to as a “non-choice.”   Three strides and I was out the door and on my way toward the shiny motorcycles and pretty signs.  A few beers, a shot of whiskey or two, and I might be able to survive the thought of actually sleeping in my hotel room.

Bad Decision. (Chpt 4, Post 4)

When you wake up in a field next to a wrecked motorcycle, helmet still on, and you take a moment to consider how it happened that you ended up in said field, there is usually a clearly identifiable point, or points,  during the previously evening where you made a VERY BAD DECISION. 

The VERY BAD DECISION is like taking a hard right turn, which subsequently disappears with you  following right along, over the  of a cliff, with equally fabulous results, when you should have stayed on the road headed straight ahead.  You might have had opportunity to turn around after that hard right.  You may have suspected something wasn’t quite right, like the Dead End and Road Ends signs.  But the moment things began to go seriously awry was that turn. 

In my case, despite the rent-by-the-hour, cash-only, tetanus-shot-recommended nature of the motel establishment and roaring bikers in the background at the attached watering hole (their bikes were noisy too), I chose to stay put, and plunked down cash for a few hours rest, instead of moving on to find a more suitable place for a nap.  

That was a VERY BAD DECISION.

But I genuinely intended to rest a few hours, catch my bearings after an unexpected and rushed departure, and put in a call to make sure the dog hadn’t eaten the mattress again.  And loading myself back on the bike in search of a different motel when I was already at one, as questionable as it may have been, just didn’t seem all that necessary.  

 I mean, really, how much trouble could I get into when all I was going to do was nap?

And the second VERY BAD DECISION was when I decided first that I would needed a beer.

Not for Sleeping; Hotel in Name Only (Chpt 4; Post 3)

Maybe I should have suspected that the Inn wasn’t best suited for a solid nap when the woman at the front desk, snarling through her tooth, asked me how many hours I would need the room.

“You mean how long?  Just one night.”  I replied.  Confused.

Squinting over cracked and yellowed spectacles like I was the dumbest thing going, “No.  Hours.  I said hours.  How many hours do you want the room tonight?”

This came out as: “N’Arz. Isay arz. Hahmny arz fah tanite.”  Said as statement of fact.  Not a question. 

Behind me, just outside the screen door to the lobby, if a toiletless bathroom with a hole in the wall can be a lobby, intruded the pop-pop-roar of short-piped Harley Davidson motorcycles.  The few bikes parked outside the bar, had been joined by a baker’s dozen of bored out, ape-hangered, shotgun-toting hogs, all bearing one-percenters in the saddle with a few Old Ladies and other fender-fodder clinging to their biker’s backside.

For the uninitiated, and just about everyone else, a one-percenter is the outlaw biker of urban lore.  These are not the bankers and lawyers and teachers who buy a chromed-out Harley Davidson from their local Harley store and then buy enough leather to re-outfit a herd of cows. 

These guys wear black and have their wallet attached to their self with a chain, and may even refuse to shave the fledgling facial scruff on occasion, but they look more like a wayward member of the Village People and are more likely to take their bike to Hooters for Bike Night than rob a 7-11, steal your teenage daughter, and sell heroin and Oxycodone in large quantities to your son.

The scruffy man on the motorcycle who does sell heroin is a one-percenter.  You might know the one-percenters as the Hell's Angels, Outlaws, or one of the other crime-syndicates-on-two-wheels.  It doesn't matter.  The most important thing is that these guys are serious.  They are serious about their motorcylces, their livlihood, and their gang.  It is best not to mess with them.

And now it appeared that they were having a boys night out at the Inn.
 

Sleeping in the Saddle (Chpt 4; Post 2)

At-speed, a motorcycle will stay upright and run a straight line.  It’s called ghost riding. A rider is kicked off for doing something dumb, or knocked off by an even dumber driver of a car, and the bike resettles itself and continues on its merry way.  At least until it slows from lack of rider keeping the throttle open and falls over.   

A bike will also stay straight with an inattentive rider in its saddle, so long as the rider stays off the handlebars.  This is very important when riding central Florida’s long, flat, straight roads, constant drone of the engine, with far from enough caffeine in the system.  Yep, sleeping in the saddle with my eyes open. 

Jimmy may have had me on a tight schedule, but all the coffee in Seattle wasn’t going to keep me properly fueled for the entire ride from the Florida Keys to Waynesboro, Virginia.  Even the most direct route is more than 1,100 miles and would require 18-hours of hard riding. 

Cruising in a car is like sitting on your sofa at home, all cozy and comfortable, running Formula 1 races on your Xbox, with munchies and soda for sustenance.  A motorcycle, on the other hand, exposes you to the sound and fury of the elements, both the natural sort and those with 18-wheels.  You can’t check-out, unless you’re in the south Florida interior.  There is no relaxing when crouched up in fetal position, tucked over the tank and legs jammed up under you.  And if there was a way to drink coffee and smoke a cigarette with a full face-mask helmet, I would have long ago figured it out.  It certainly hasn’t been for lack of trying.

And at Jimmy’s strongly delivered “suggestion,” I wasn’t taking I-95.  I would be taking the back roads and Smokey Mountain passes.  A much slower, albeit more fun, route to travel.  But if you’re running the twisties, you’re shifting you’re weight, standing on the pegs, and paying very close attention to where you’re going and what is one the road before you.  Nothing like taking a blind curve, hitting a patch of wet leaves, and ending up on the pavement following your bike into the ditch.  Good times.

I was going to have to stop for a cat nap.  The base of the Smokey’s seemed like a good time to pull over.  And when I saw the neon lights for the Spokes Inn and, more importantly than a place to rest my head, the Iron Saddle Pub, I knew I’d found the establishment. 

Compasses and Brown Paper Bags (Chpt 4; Post 1)

Normally navigating south Florida is easy.  Find A1A, Turnpike, or I-95 and either point yourself north or south.  If you somehow manage to screw it up, you will find yourself fending off gators in the Everglades or swimming with the sharks off the Atlantic in short order.  

Preferably the sharks.  Then I know I'm in the ocean. The only bit of land navigation that ever stuck with me is the coastline rule.  So long as you know which coast you are on, you know which direction is north and south.  For example, if you wake up on a beach along the American eastern seaboard and the ocean is on your right, then you are facing north.

Of course, knowing which coast you’re on is not necessarily guaranteed.  Try this trick on an island.  After you've had a quick and unexpected exit from a plane that you hadn’t known you were on until you woke up, engulfed by acrid electrical shortage smoke, and, upon quick exploration, had just discovered that the pilot had been relieved of the need to breath via bullet in the brain.  

I must have hiked the shoreline on that heap of sand for two days before finally noticing that the footprints I’d begun following were my own.  It took me years to live that one down at the Agency.

Jimmy had expressly instructed me to stay off the major freeways; cameras, wide open spaces for airborne tracking, and eye witnesses at the few tolls with actual, live people, make for tough going when attempting to travel unannounced.  

In Florida, all highways are toll roads, not just the turnpike.  Service routes, side roads, exit and entrance ramps; if you breath the air above the pavement, be ready to fork over some cash.   I never have cash and I can't use the EZ-Pass.  Wouldn't make much sense to live off-grid and then advertise my whereabouts anytime I wandered to the mainland.  

If you're moving just fast enough and stay to the side of the lane, the cameras usually miss.  And if they don't?  Since I borrow my license plates for jaunts north of Key Large, someone else is recieving my ticket in the mail. 

All that toll money is supposed to fund road construction.  Except there isn't any construction.  The Florida Department of Transportation sets up a bunch of orange barrels, and scatters a handful of "Men Working" signs among them.  This creates a whole lot of traffic, and allows the Highway Patrol to write inflated speeding-in-a-construction-zone tickets for a bit of extra cash.

Around the time drivers are ready to go all vigilante over the constant bottle-necking (Florida drivers have selective blindness when it comes to "merge" signs) the FLDOT pronounces a completion to the construction.  Drivers are so grateful that the construction is finished they never notice that the road conditions have inexplicably failed to improve.  

As for the barrels, they are transported a few miles down the stretch, and the whole scam starts all over again.  Not sure where all that toll money goes if its not fixing Florida's roadways.  But there sure are a number of county commissioners with rather large boats and second homes.  

I've found that the barrels make for decent boat bumpers and dive site markers.  And it takes Ebenezer somewhat longer to chew through them than the average plastic barrier. Works great when I forget to brake when I get to the garage after a night out, too.

The Florida transportation authorities had also begun a campaign to place traffic cameras on every major intersection.    Even if I had the patience to sit through the traffic on the main north-south roads, I couldn’t roll three feet before having my picture by the automated paparazzi like I was the second coming of a Kardashian.

I would be heading west, then north through the state’s interior.  Nothing there but flat, straight road, sugar cane, and a few pick-up trucks, until you get to the Mouse’s empire in Orlando.