long road ghost - part 9 of 9 (conclusion)

“Gang warfare,” the Sheriff said. I didn’t have the heart to argue with him. Besides, with the hit my noggin’ took, who knows if I remembered what happened rightly. All I knew was that Alex was missin’, Brom had also disappeared, and a twisted piece of scrap was all that remained of the bikes, mine included. Mornin’ traffic, I learned, is what found us.

The next few weeks were really quiet, the days spent livin’ the old, much-loved routine of pourin’ drinks and fixin’ bikes – and the Bonneville needed a lot of extra lovin’. Then, against all expectations, Brom came in one night, lookin’ like he hadn’t slept in days and was bein’ chased by Old Nick himself. Bloodshot eyes, dirty; his good looks had gone the way of his sanity. But I gave him a beer on the house, feelin’ sorry for him as he yammered on wildly about the headless rider and the cops.

“I can’t be out at night,” he kept sayin’. “I can’t be out at night.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to offer him a spot to sleep in some dusty corner of the bar; he was wanted by the police and I sure as hell didn’t want to cross Monk. Then again, the softie in me didn’t want to see Brom get killed or driven insane before gettin’ a chance to set his life on the right path. But before I could make a decision, Brom jumped off the bar stool and rushed out to a shiny bike – a Suzuki, of all things. I followed as quick as I can, only to see Brom ride off into the moonlit distance on a bike he probably stole. The sound of another motorcycle, like an angry dog, startled me. I turned to see a black and chrome Harley Road King. The rider wasn’t headless, but it seemed as if he burned with the blue-white flame I’d seen on the headless rider. I got in closer for a better look and almost jumped out of my skin when the rider turned to look at me. Within the flame, partially hidden by a black helmet, I thought I recognized Alex Crane, only his narrow face was twisted into the ugliness of a man possessed by anger. I didn’t have a chance to find out for sure; he sped off in the same direction as Brom. I’m not sure why I didn’t follow. Scared, I guess. None of it made any sense.

The doctors said I might suffer some lingerin’ effects from the concussion. Whatever, as the kids say these days. I still didn’t sleep well for many nights after that, and I still get a mighty big shiver whenever someone mentions the headless rider. And I never did see Brom or Alex again. I eventually did tell the Sheriff what I saw, not that it helped any.

A few months after the whole thing peaked in a TV news frenzy and went the way of the latest celebrity fuck-up scandal, Monk stopped by for a beer. Even out of uniform – he had on blue jeans, a clean-pressed white shirt, worn black cowboy boots – the man looked like he could stop a freight train in its tracks with only a stare. But he was in as good a mood as I’d ever seen him, despite the frustration that he’d had no leads in what was now bein’ called the Headless Rider murders. Monk hated the name and without saying a word he let me know what he thought about me blabbin’ my mouth off to the press and givin’ em ideas. I just blamed it on too much beer, though when I sobered up I regretted feeding’ the red meat to the newshounds.

“Ghost and ghouls and goblins, huh,” he said. Seein’ as everythin’ was quiet, I poured the Sheriff and me a pint of that Newcastle the customers kept ravin’ about and leaned on the bar across from him. The radio belted out a static-filled oldie.

“Ghosts and ghouls and goblins,” I said, and we clinked bottles. “Unless you still think its gang warfare.”

He laughed. It sounded like breakin’ glass. “Who the hell knows? Probably not. But who the hell knows?”

When I didn’t say anything, he added, “I ain’t gonna tell what you did or didn’t see. I wasn’t there. Whether it was some headless spectre you saw or it was something else, I can’t say.”

“Guess we’ll never know.”

“Guess not. The evidence ain’t speaking. But I’ll say this.”

“Yeah?”

“Thinking about Alex and Katrina…I’m probably too far gone to find myself a woman to get old and wrinkly with,” Monk said. “But if I do, I’d sure hope…”

I knew where he was goin’ with it. I had been thinkin’ the same. Here we were, two old men hangin’ on to the glory days, faced with not much more than more of the same, stuck with somethin’ we couldn’t explain, and one question that burned more than any other. Without an answer – who could say anythin’ about love’s rise and fall? – we drank our beers in silence.

Finis

Missed a part of Long Road Ghost? Catch up by clicking here.

long road ghost - part 8 of 9

The sky was a bleedin’ red and with my eyesight not bein’ quite what it was it took a long time for me to adjust to the lack of daylight. By that time, Brom and Alex had already reached Rasor Road, revvin’ their engines and givin’ each other cold looks. They were none to happy to see me when I pulled up alongside them.

“Ain’t gonna solve nothin’,” I said. Leanin’ closer to Alex, I suggested he let the law handle things. But he just got sad with the pain of a broken heart and said, “I don’t know what I want more; for me to be dead or that rat bastard.”

“If ya gonna get melodramatic about it,” I said. “Christ.”

And the two went off down the freeway, leavin’ me behind with a cloud of exhaust beneath a dark sky. But then I felt somethin’ strange, the hairs on the back of my neck standin’ straight. From nowhere in particular came the howlin’ sound of a motorcycle, like a wolf on acid. Then I felt something rush by me; it was too quick for me to see. My heart was beatin’ fast; I admit it. But I got on my bike and sped off after Brom and Alex and whatever else passed me by, swallowing my growin’ dread – I was very far from bein’ a fearless young buck.

I could feel the furious shakin’ power of my Bonneville between my legs as I gave the engine some gas and counted off the ticks to the 70 mph mark. It didn’t take long for me to catch up with Brom and Alex, who were each tryin’ hard to get the upper hand, but merely passin’ the lead back and forth. And damned if they weren’t alone. A headless rider dressed in black leathers, his stump burning with a blue-white flame like the one comin’ out of his exhaust, was gainin’ on them. I tried yellin’ out, feelin’ the fear build up in me like high-pressure steam, but the roar of engine and wind drowned me out. A goddamned headless rider who somehow always managed to stay ahead despite me pushin’ my growlin’ baby to the limit.

Brom and Alex were close enough to start tryin’ to push each other off their bikes. They swerved on the weirdly dead-quiet freeway – where the fuck was the traffic? – barely keepin’ control of themselves and their machines as they jabbed at each other. And on went the headless rider, that ghost outta hell. I saw him reach down to pull out a wicked blade, a machete with a motorcycle handlebar for a grip. Santa Claus was right; it did glow. I was almost close enough to the headless rider to do somethin’, but what that somethin’ would be I had no idea. That’s when he caught me by surprise by slowin’ down suddenly , forcin’ me to brake. The sudden change in speed made me lose control – a stupid thing, really, for an ol’ biker like me – and I wiped out, barely registering the sight of the headless rider swingin’ his blade towards Alex’s neck and loppin’ the poor guy’s head clean off.

I was lucky. Sometimes you’re meat…sometimes you’re not. I was five for five. But even with a helmet the shock to my head made me see things, like little silver stars, that weren’t there. It hurt like a motherfucker. I passed out.

When I came to, a young woman in a medic’s uniform was goin’ over me with a fine tooth comb, ignorin’ me when I said I was fine. Just a few cuts and bruises. Like I said, lucky. Sheriff Monk, cars with flashin’ lights behind him, loomed over me and didn’t waste time hasslin’ me for details of what happened. I told him what I could, leavin’ out the loopy-soundin’ headless flamin’ parts. When I asked about Alex, he told me they didn’t find head, or body, or motorcycle. That gave me the chills.

Next week...the conclusion!

long road ghost - part 7 of 9

No sooner had Monk driven off that Brom scratched his itch to pick a fight with Alex. This time a punch connected and Alex fell bloodied to the floor. Katrina went to his side, eggin’ him on, but despite all that anger and hate, Alex stayed down like he did before.

“Just like in college,” Katrina said. “Mouse.”

If I didn’t like Katrina before, I liked her even less for leavin’ her man and cozyin’ up to Brom like he was a hot shot.

With Katrina droolin’ all over Brom and Brom promisin’ to teach her how to ride, Alex left with a mouthful of bad words for his wife. The mood in Sleepy Hollow, what with the death’s of Brom’s gang and the ugly business of man fighting for and losing a woman’s heart, was sour beyond even the medicinal powers of beer or the strongest whiskey.

A few days passed and the sour mood still hadn’t lifted. I was watchin’ Forbidden Planet on the bar’s beat-up TV. I’d never seen it before, but the story about a man whose murderous subconscious gets animated by alien machines was pretty good, if a bit beyond me in the technical details. In the back, Mojo washed dishes while whistlin’ one of those god-awful show tunes, don’t ask me which one. Sleepy Hollow was actually pretty quiet, even by Tuesday night standards. A phone call explained things.

“You know Katrina Crane?” said Monk. It was one of them rhetorical questions; he knew damn well Katrina was a regular.

“What happened now? You catch her and Brom doin’ the mambo?”

“She’s dead, Rip,” said Monk. “Same as Brom’s boys. We found her not far from her home. It seems she’d been riding Brom’s bike. A Triton, right?”

A Triton. Triumph engine, Norton frame. A classic beauty. That was Brom’s, all right. I figured he’d been givin’ Katrina lessons.

“Where’s Alex?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “Hasn’t been around since Saturday.”

The Sheriff hung up on me, his mood worse than ever. Couldn’t blame him. That serial killer had been a nightmare…now the whole town was gettin’ spooked by somethin’ that couldn’t be dismissed as gang violence, or whatever excuse they’d come up with to explain the Bone Riders’ deaths. Even the usual gang preferred not to hang out at Sleepy Hollow on account of the rumors and whispers.

Brom was sittin’ at the bar, though, quiet as a church mouse for a change. I argued with myself as to whether to share the bad news with him or not, than figured that since his bike was at the scene, he’d find out soon enough. Then Alex walked in, his face redder than a taste tester at a chili cook-off, and screamed at Brom.

“You killed her! You and you’re stupid bike! If she hadn’t been riding it, she’d still be alive.”

What Alex didn’t say was that maybe Brom would be dead instead, but Brom caught the drift. It made sense - that is, if this whole thing really was about someone gunnin’ to take out all of the Bone Riders and mistakin’ Katrina for Brom’s crew. But Brom didn’t argue – he just grabbed Alex by the neck and pushed him outside. I followed, only to find the two fellahs gettin’ on their bikes. I expected they were goin’ to settle things by seeing once and for all who was master of the road. Fearin’ for the worse, especially with the Sun goin’ down, I revved up my Bonneville – a beautiful noise – and followed along.

To be continued...

long road ghost - part 6 of 9

That urban legend sure got creepy, though, when police found Sick Jimmy, Nasty Nasty, and Potatohead, heads cut off and left lying on the groud next to their bodies, about thirty miles out of Baker. Their souped-up choppers were only slightly trashed.

“I don’t want to hear about that serial killer crap,” the Sheriff said. “He’s dead, and these losers sure aren’t women.” A lean black man vainly trying to keep a white beard off his face, Sheriff Jackson Monk was ornery in the way only lawmen can be. He and I went way back, even to high school. But where I took to ambushing rich cagers with the Fire Kings to steal their money, Monk, that badass goody two-shoes, went on the police academy. He’s the one who put me away. But all that was ancient history. We were both gettin’ too old for the past, so we got along as best as we could. He turned down an offer of beer, but listened plenty as I told him what I knew. Not very much, really. The boys had come in for a drink and left when there was no sign of Katrina.

“Cocksucker!” came a scream; Brom, comin’ in with a demon look on his face and headin’ straight for Alex.

“You couldn’t fight ‘em fair, you fuckin’ cage monkey, so you had to ambush ‘em like a coward, huh?”

Alex protested while duckin’ out of the way of Brom’s mean right hook, then got angry, pointin’ out how Brom wasn’t gettin’ along all that well with his boys either.

“Were they making deals behind your back?” he said, makin’ Brom even madder.

Monk laid down the law on their asses and everyone piped down. Katrina couldn’t confirm that he’d been home that night – he went out for a night ride, he said, to get over his fear from the pumpkin stunt. Brom was out “on business,” which meant drugs and rival gangs, which meant he wasn’t goin’ to cough up an alibi unless his ass was covered first and he had absolutely no choice.

“Whoever did it was a real pro,” Monk said. His voice had more gravel than a quarry. “Rode up beside them and chopped their heads clean off. He hunted and chased every one of them down.”

“Must be some rider,” I agreed. “’Specially if none of the traffic saw him do it.” I didn’t feel sorry for those boys, except, maybe, for the fact that they didn’t get a chance to really grow up. Twenty-somethin’ and nothin’ to show for it but beheaded corpses and a short life of crime. And to think, they could’ve been me if I hadn’t straightened out.

“Better than anyone you know?”

I took a long look at the Sheriff and nodded. You can do some badass shit on a bike. Hell, I seen bikes to some badass shit to riders. That bitch in the back, the one that those dumbass t-shirts keep sayin’ fell off? She didn’t fall off. That bitch is Death and she always goes along for the ride, clutchin’ tightly. That’s the way we like it; fast, hard, relentless.

But I reckoned that chasin’ and decapitatin’ folks on bikes took some doin’, more than anyone I know could do.

“It was the rider,” someone said. “I seen ‘em.”

Monk and I looked around the room until we saw whose lips were yappin’; some guy who slinked into a corner chair with a beer or ten. I hadn’t spoken to him much, though Mojo swore it was Santa Claus takin’ a vacation from the North Pole. Mojo was right, if you wanted to believe that Santa Claus rode a sweet red 1950s Indian Chief instead of a sleigh and summered in California.

“He had no…he had no head,” Santa Claus went on. “He swung this bla…this bla…blade that shined like the moon. He was on fire..fire…kinda…”

Monk gave me the kind of look that said he wished he could pistol-whip the drunk sunavabitch for babblin’ on with nonsense; the Sheriff had heard plenty of headless riders stories used to explain everythin’ from bad drivin’ to missin’ doggies. But Santa Claus didn’t stay conscious for long and Monk moseyed out of the bar with a mean, unhappy look on his face – the kind that said he’d be back to get what he’s lookin’ for.

Tune in next week for Part 7...

long road ghost - part 5 of 9

No one heard from Alex for a couple of days. I wouldn’t have known that he’d disappeared, since it often happened that I wouldn’t see him for a few weeks at a stretch. But the news from town eventually tumbled in, and Katrina tumbled in along with it. I didn’t get her, frankly. One minute she’s givin’ him a frosty shoulder, the next she’s cryin’ in a pint of Pabst Blue Ribbon because he hadn’t come home. All I could figure out was that after fifteen years of marriage, the spark had gone out. He got himself a bike; she was tryin’ real hard to get herself a biker, since Alex wasn’t quite it, but feelin’ torn up about it.

But as luck would have it, just as Katrina was goin’ about how worried she was, Alex stumbled in lookin’ like he’d been run over by a semi. His leather jacket was shredded, his face was caked with dirt, his jeans were torn at the knees.

“The rider,” he said, out of breath. “The rider.”

The man was obviously not right in the head. Shock or somethin’. So I had Mojo make up a strong pot of coffee. When my chubby little Filipino cook came out of the kitchen with said pot, Alex brightened up considerably.

“I went out riding to clear my head,” Alex said. “We needed to talk, Katrina, but obviously I wasn’t saying the right things. I thought a ride would be inspiring. So I’m riding along when I suddenly hear a bike behind. It roared like nothing I’d heard before. I looked back and saw only blue-white flames on the side of the bike…then I noticed the rider…the rider…Can I have something stronger?”

“Stick with the coffee. Ya’ll thank me later,” I told him. He gave me puppy dog eyes and, when that didn’t work, continued on.

“The rider had a pumpkin for a head, a pumpkin on fire. I didn’t know whether it was a prank or not, but I just revved the engine. I could barely make out Rasor Road; I figured I’d be safe when I reached it. It was a silly thought, right? There are no such things as ghosts. But it was getting dark. I was upset. Imagination got the better of me. Then I got off at Rasor and stopped; a stupid thing to do, really. In retrospect. The rider didn’t follow me, but seemed to disappear. I thought I was safe, so I started the engine again and was ready to go when the rider popped up in front of me. I don’t know how he did it. He took off his pumpkin head and flung it at me. I guess the pumpkin hit me right in the head – I have the headache to prove it. I woke up the next day and tried to get to get my bike runnin’, but had to wait until some kids with a dune buggy came by.”

“And you’ve been gone for almost two whole days?” Katrina said. Alex just shrugged to that.

Later that afternoon, the Bone Riders made their appearance. The way they giggled left no doubt to me that they’d taken a page out of those headless horseman stories. I’ll bet Alex knew it too, but who would think about it when chased by a hooligan and feelin’ the tight grip of adrenaline?

The thing about his whole headless rider story is that, about fifteen years ago – I remember because that’s when I came out of a three-year stint in the slammer – a serial killer was kidnappin’ women and takin’ their heads as souvenirs, apparently using them for un-Christian purposes. After about four women, the boys from the FBI finally caught up to him. He got killed trying to escape when he flipped his car. Seatbelts, I have to say, are good for cagers.

So from that some said the headless rider was this serial killer, whose name nobody really remembered, on the prowl for more victims. That made even less sense to me than the Hessian mercenary gag, which didn’t even apply to California – the real Sleepy Hollow’s in New York State. But that’s just the sort of thing to get spun into a grand urban legend.

To be continued...next week

long road ghost - part 4 of 9

As it turned out, Alex wasn’t too shabby a rider. He still had a bit of the squirrel in him, but it was nothin’ time and experience wouldn’t take care of. By the time we got back to the bar, the sun was torchin’ the sky and Sleepy Hollow was just wakin’ up. Alex – I just couldn’t bring myself to go for all four syllables of his name – went home and I played barkeep ‘til closin’ time.

We rode a few times, Alex and me. Sometimes once a week, sometimes more or less than that. And from the bug-eating grin he started getting on his face instead of a constipated terrified look, I could tell he and his overpriced Harley had reached that symbiotic point in their relationship. Surprisin’ly, he was a good man to ride with. Low key, able to keep up with me as we cruised down the long road and made the wind jealous. And those times we talked? I appreciated ‘em for the fact that for all his education, he didn’t talk down his nose to a rube like me, who only finished high school because daddy would’ve walloped me otherwise. Even more surprisin’ was that the mumbles of a teacher’s rebellion were getting all the more quiet. As it turned out, he took the stick out of his ass and showed, of all things, a talent for teachin’ some likened to a pastor in a gospel church. Even Katrina seemed on the calm side of things.

Or so I thought. One night, I was behind the bar, pourin’ my little heart out to every poke with a dollar, all the meanwhile keepin’ my eye out on Alex. He’d taken to nursin’ a beer in a corner table, right by the pinball machine, while Katrina sat at the bar chattin’ with Brom. Every so often, Nasty Nasty would try to muscle in on the conversation, only to get tapped in the face and scolded with a pointin’ finger. A confrontation with Sick Jimmy – so-called because the broomstick had a rep for mutilating animals with the butterfly knife he was always playin’ with – would’ve gotten mean if me and my old ridin’ buddies hadn’t thrown our weight around.

Alex, of course, was none too thrilled about the attention his wife was gettin’ – and givin’. He eventually grew balls of a certain size, gettin’ up from the table and marchin’ past a group of visitin’ rice rocket riders in weirdly colored popinjay leathers until he got to the bar.

“Would you like to dance?” he said. Someone had picked “Unchained Melody” on the juke – I hated that song ever that movie with Patrick Swayze came out. Katrina gave him a weird look – at least, I couldn’t figure out what it meant – then shook her head. Maybe there was some truth to the rumors that his willy was non-functional and she was sufferin’ from a lack of gettin’ any.

“Well how about sitting down with me. Have a drink? I’m your husband, damn it.”

Katrina looked really torn about it, but of course Brom had to throw in his two bits.

“The lady’s talkin’ with me, jack.”

“She’s my wife, asshole.”

“Why don’t we let her decide who she wants to talk too.”

“How about you mind your own business, jack.”

Now I’ve been in enough fights to know the look of a man about to throw a punch; Alex had that look. Thing is, Brom also knew a thing or too ‘bout fightin’ – I’d seen him take on bigger guys them him outside Sleepy Hollow – and he recognized the look too. So he threw the first punch, knocking Alex down to the ground. Given that Alex got a split lip out of it, he got off easy. But Brom knew the rules and, damned if it wasn’t true, he toned things down when Katrina gave him a funny look; he just looked at me and shrugged.

“C’mon, let’s get,” he said to Katrina, headin’ out the door without waitin’ for her answer.

Alex was fightin’ mad. Katrina looked at him as if she expected him to get up and challenge Brom to a duel. Now, I’m not sayin’ he did the right or wrong thing, but given how unlikely it was for him to take on a tough like Brom, he probably saved himself a world of hurt by stayin’ down. Then again, maybe Katrina would have respected him more for riskin’, and getting’, a major beatin’ if only as a matter of pride.

When things calmed down a bit, the gap left by Brom was suddenly filled by his boys. They started out with trying to scare Alex with tales of the headless rider. When they got bored with that, they followed with dirty suggestions that piqued Katrina’s interest, despite her efforts not to show it, and pissed the hell out of Alex, who wasn’t about to take on three guys at once. I considered throwin’ my weight – my bar, my right – but figured it wouldn’t help Alex look any more manly in Katrina’s eyes. After a while, it wasn’t an issue. Alex stormed off, tellin’ Katrina that he’s trying his best for her but if that ain’t good enough, well…What worried me was that the Bone Riders followed pretty darn quick.

long road ghost - part 3 of 9

“Well lookit the cager man, all dressed up,” said Brom. “You ridin’ now? Huh? You bettah be careful, cager man; you got road kill written all ovah ya.”

The vets had skeptical looks on their faces too, understandably enough. I didn’t think the scarecrow had it in him to handle a hawg. But I didn’t think about it too much. Things got dicey.

“Hey Brom” said Nasty Nasty, an ugly bruise of a teen with bad acne and a worse attitude. “Guy’s ridin’ a Harley!”

Sure enough, there was a shiny new Harley out in the parkin’ lot, a Road King FLHX Street Glide with a 1584cc twin cam engine, 6-speed cruise drive transmission, a fork-mounted bat-wing fairing, black slotted disc cast aluminum wheels, and chrome touring cross-over dual exhaust with slash-down end caps. It looked like a tourin’ bike, alright, something crossed between the classic bike look and a cop’s ride.

“The headless rider’s gonna eat a weenie like you for breakfast,” said Brom.

“Yeah,” said the pudgy punk everyone called Potatohead, but whose name was really Patrick. “He’ll take your head right off and stick it on his handlebars!”

“Ya boys put a motherfuckin’ cork in it,” I said, “or my motherfuckin’ fist will cork it for ya.” The headless rider was the modern-day version of the headless horsemen. You know the story: a Hessian merc said to have gotten his head blown off by a cannonball during the revolutionary war. Well, since the day granddad opened Sleepy Hollow, the horsemen became a road-poundin’ ghost whose monstrous black and chrome motorcycle left behind a trail of cold blue-white flames. The locals liked to terrify, or titillate, visitors with stories about how the headless rider would cruise the freeway at night in search of his head, settin’ his sights on anyone unlucky enough to get caught before reaching the spot where Rasor Road – just some dirt nothin’ off-roaders use to hustle sand dunes – crosses the 15. Though some of the passin’ drifters swore to seein’ somethin’, I’d never seen anythin’. If that wasn’t reason enough to think it all hogwash, I didn’t know what was.

With the boys properly shut up, as well they should given my bein’ an old Clydesdale who survived four bone-breakin’ wipeouts and countless bar fights to reach, in one piece, the venerable age of sixty-three, I again took to feelin’ sorry for Alex, who asked me if I thought Katrina was impressed. Judgin’ by the look on her face, and the fact she kept sneakin’ glances towards Brom, she wasn’t. But I didn’t come out and say it. I just grunted and took him out back to my shop. If Sleepy Hollow was wood shack chic, gussied up only by the neon sign showing a headless biker on a bad-ass ride pouring a beer down his stump, my shop had the elegance of an outhouse. Parts everywhere, tools, bikes in various stages of assembly; this was home. I even had a cot nearby to sleep on when I couldn’t be bothered to clamber to the bedroom in the back of my bar.

“Son, ya shoulda talked to me before spending way too much money on a bike that won’t get ya street cred ‘round here,” I said.

“But, but…I thought Harleys were, you know, the Lamborghinis of motorcycles,” said Alexander.

I laughed, stoppin’ myself only when I saw the funny look on his face.

“It’s like this. Ya like movies? How about this. Some people like them Hollywood blockbusters, other people like those artsy movies that don’t make money but make film critics cream their pants. Ya get it?”

Alexander didn’t look too sure, but the spark hit him and I gave him a smile.

“Now look at this here beauty,” I said, pointing to my baby. “This here’s a 1969 Triumph Bonneville – Bonneville, named after the salt flats, right?”

“Utah.”

“Good man. 650cc, parallel-twin, two-cylinder engine. See how the engine and gearbox are in the same casing? That’s called unit construction. Now this has been in the family for a long time. My granddad rode it for a while, then my dad. Course, the legend goes to Malcolm Uphill, who got the first ever 100 miles per hour record for a production bike. I was just a kid then, but I remember seein’ Malcom gunnin’ it down the flats, and I was cheerin’. Ya bet.”

I was startin’ to get into old man reminiscin’, so I put an end to that and told Alex that if he wanted, I’d fix him up with somethin’ good. But as much as he admired the Triumph, he turned me down, showing off a bit of pride I hadn’t quite expected. Good for him, I thought. So I told him to get his bike. I’d meet him out front for a ride; I wanted to see what his Harley could do.

To be continued...

long road ghost - part 2 of 9

It was fall, I think, when Alexander Crane came to Barstow to take over the principal’s job at the local high school. Not that it matters all that much in the desert. Leaves don’t change; only the light quality does as the Sun sets earlier and earlier and the light turns golden. The former principal, a nice old black man who, I’m told, really had a soft spot for his students, died of a heart attack while planting tomatoes in his garden. I don’t know what he was doin’ plantin’ tomatoes in his garden. Alexander and his wife Katrina came by the bar on their way in, having driven all the way from Riverside in a beat-up Corolla. He seemed friendly enough, jokin’ about being named Crane and getting a drink at a place called Sleepy Hollow. It was a good joke too, seein’ as he was rather tall and lanky, with big ears and odd angles, just like Ichabod. He was probably better lookin’ than Irving’s old boy, though. And Katrina, well, she was a pretty, mousy blonde wrapped in a woolen coat that left everything to the imagination. She wasn’t at all at comfortable in Sleepy Hollow, walkin’ about with an empty glance that, to me, said she wasn’t all too happy about somethin’.

I didn’t see them too often after that. I got no kids to send to school, so it comes to the times I go to town to get food and drink, or other sundries, for me to see either of the Cranes. But gossip travels fast, and I heard plenty. The teachers weren’t too keen about Crane’s leadership “style,” which was all tough and no heart. At least, that’s what slim Eddie Johnson, a regular at the Hollow who happened to teach phys. ed at the high school, kept telling me. But the teachers figured he’s new, he needs time to settle in, and with Katrina seemingly givin’ him the cold shoulder, he had plenty of issues to deal with.

Then Katrina started showin’ up at the bar every Thursday night after she got off work from a local real estate fellah’s office. Brom Bones, a good-lookin’-to-the-ladies black-haired guy with the look of an eagle and the spirit of a trickster god, always tripped over himself to buy her a rum and coke. His boys – Sick Jimmy, Nasty Nasty, and Potatohead – also tripped over themselves, even getting into so many fights with each other that I’d almost always have to break up by pickin’ them by the scruff of the neck and tossin’ em outside with a good cussin’. All the while, I thought about all those times I got in a woman’s face, and wondered if I’d be married by now if I’d been more of a real gentlemen. The thing about it was that Katrina herself started dressin’ less modestly, takin’ to tight jeans and loose colored blouses that left less to the imagination. There was a woman puttin’ out a cougar’s pheromones, lookin’ damn good too, and I felt bad for Alex. Did the sap even know what his wife was doin’, or was he too busy gradin’ papers and holdin’ parent-teacher meetings?

I found out not too long after that, maybe a few months after the Cranes settled. Alex came into the bar wearin’ leather; jacket, chaps, boots, the whole get-up. He probably was holdin’ on tight for dear life, as the teachers were becomin’ less and less convinced of his rightness for the job. Between that and his wife, whose behavior he obviously knew about, he was in a full-throttle mid-life crisis. Brom’s boys hooted at him.

Tune in next week for part 3...

long road ghost - part 1 of 9

A while ago, my friend Michelle J. threw out a writing challenge - take Washington Irving's classic story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and give it the ol' modern makeover. Long Road Ghost is my take, motorcycles and all, on the tale of a headless horseman. Since it's just for fun and I'm not planning on getting this published, I'm making it available here for your amusement. Hope you enjoy!

Long Road Ghost - Part 1

It’s a long road to Vegas, particularly if ya’re startin’ out in LA. First ya leave the thick city for thinner, blander suburbs. Go through San Berdou and use Cajon Junction to bypass’ jagged, snow-capped Mount San Antonio. Maybe ya even enjoy a detour on historic route 66. Then go through some desert nothin’ to hit Victorville, a big town with everythin’ ya need, assumin’ ya’re not one of the LA hipsters who need style and flash. Then it’s more desert, broken up by those damn retail outlets, ‘til ya hit Baker for a last chance to grab a bite before hittin’ the Nevada border. But forget all that map stuff; drivin’ to Vegas means dealin’ with the Mojave desert; flat, dry, no color. Some deserts feel alive beneath all that desolation, and parts of the Mojave are like that, but on the way to Vegas it feels like it’ll suck the will to live right out of ya. Sure, ya’ll sometime see that creosote shrub with its little yellow flowers and undead grasses. But for the most part, there’s nothin’ to look at. If ya’re not careful, boredom will crawl into ya’re skull and drive ya crazy.

But that 15 can be fun to ride, if ya made ya peace with the desert…and there’s no damn construction or traffic. I assume cagers with real cars, not those sissy luxury things, get a thrill from the road. But I tell ya, the real fun comes from a loud and fast hawg. I’ve been ridin’ around these parts since I was a kid, and there’s nothin’ quite like me and my bike ridin’ alone with the desert, rushin’ wind and splattered bugs.

The only thing that means anything on the drive is Sleepy Hollow, a bar on the way to Baker that I inherited from my Dutch granddaddy; a shabby, grimy, gritty place perfect for bikers to hang out. Sleepy Hollow, which granddad named after that famous place from Washington Irvin’s story, ain’t big on the Dutch obsession with cleanliness and order. I s’pose with a name like Hans Van Ripper – Rip, really – I should live up to my ancestry, but if my clientele ain’t bothered (and they ain’t) well, that’s fine by me. I got bikes to fix and rides to ride when I’m not pourin’ unwatered beers or whiskeys straight-up, no ice.

Now, Baker itself is filled with decent, church-goin’ folk. It’s a quiet place. Riff-raff from Baker and as far as Victorville hang out at Sleepy Hollow, provided they follow my rules: no brawlin’ at the bar and my word is law. Most are bikers; my old ridin’ buddies, the few still alive, from back in the days when the Fire Kings ruled the road; young toughs from the next generation of biker gangs, Brom Bones’ Bone Riders; odd drifters takin’ a break from the raw speed and dust of the long road. Some are just ordinary tourists, nice folk who rarely get comfortable enough among the leather and grease of my usual patrons. They have a drink, maybe one of my cook Mojo’s hot dogs and fries, then leave with the fear of the devil in them, despite my efforts to make ‘em feel welcome. Sure, in my younger days I was one of them young toughs, quite happy to scare the shit out of nervous-nelly milquetoasts. Ya bet. But those days are long gone and I feel bad enough for the past as mean-stupid biker punk that I don’t need to aggravate my conscience. That’s just like poking a stick in a beehive.

Tune in next Wednesday for part 2...