“Max, do you realize when the sun goes down today we will be in California. Tomorrow or the next day, the trip will be over.”
“Well, Marty, it has already been 33 days with rain and the breakdown, just a little more than you planned, but not bad at all.”
“No, not bad at all,” he agreed. “I am going to hate to see it end. Maybe we should pack everything up and just head for Europe.”
“You have noticed that the mornings are getting chilly. The weather is going to turn to crap soon.”
“Then we will have to go to Australia next,” he said seriously.
“Then we will have to hire a production crew and make a TV series. Marty and Max screw their way across whatever,” I said.
“You know that is a good idea. We could get a pretty young thing to play you,” Marty said, with a laugh.
“Yeah, one with boobs, so the men will watch,” I agreed. “Now pay for the breakfast and let’s get the last day in the real world started. Next stop, never, never land.”
The bikes started on the first try, just as they had every other morning. The tanks were full and the tires were as well, so we headed for California. First, we had several hours of the Arizona hills to climb. I was pretty sure that I was working off some of that excess weight I had been having trouble getting off. Too much of my day back home was spent in a chair or behind the wheel of my minivan. The trip had been a really good experience for my body.
The bikes would run like hell downhill, and even do up to thirty on the flat, but climbing any hill more than a block long started to bleed power from the engine. A long rocky mountain foothill ended with me pedaling like hell to keep the bike from stalling. That isn’t true either, the pedaling was slow, but had to be steady for up to a mile. I had ended the last couple of days with sore calves. I still felt great at the end of every day. I had since the first week. My worst day on the bike out in the open was better than my best day in the minivan.
That morning, Marty and I were just outside Kingman, Arizona, and headed west. The geography was just as it had been the two days before, mostly flat, but with some long uphill grades. Not steep climbs really, but requiring me to pedal now and then. I didn’t even mind. There were some great landscapes to take a look at during the gentle climbs.
I took my eyes off the road only long enough to see the scenery to the right. It wasn’t more than a second, if that. When I looked back, there was an animal that looked like a forty pound dog right in front of me. I knew I was going to take a spill if I hit him, so I tried like hell to avoid him.
Instead of hitting the dog like creature, I ran off the hard surface into the soft sand. That change in surface was all it took to throw the bike off balance. I guess I wasn’t good enough to recover, because the bike went down like a dead body with a concrete block in the local water supply.
When it went down, I flew off it and then back into the road. Marty was way ahead of me and had no idea that I was down. The motor was screaming and there was the smell of exhaust and raw gas. The small gas tank was leaking. I could only hope it wasn’t headed for the hot exhaust. The trailer was on its side and even more gas was very close to the bike. If it caught fire, there could be a loud noise.
My first job was to get to the kill switch on the bike’s handle bars. I realized that I was bleeding, but that it was minor. I also realized that my chest hurt when I moved, that might not be so minor. If I had a broken rib, I could puncture a lung. The pain was real and severe, but I didn’t think it was enough to be a broken rib. Either way it didn’t matter. I was for sure going to have to move out of the road and get that bike shut down.
I fought my way in a painful crawl to the bike. I flipped the switch and nothing happened. I looked down to see wires dangling. Wonderful, I thought. I couldn’t wait for it to run out of gas I had to kill that motor. I tried to remember all the ways Marty had told me that the motor could be killed. I wished at that moment I had paid more attention, when he gave me the tour of the new motor.
I crawled back to the screaming motor. I crawled through a puddle of gasoline on the way. I could just see me as barbecue if that gas on the ground caught. When I reached the motor, I flipped the choke to full. I did that because I had seen Marty do it once on the Honda. I could only hope that it would work on the Greyhound. I was never so happy to hear silence in my life.
I removed the holster from my belt and stashed it in the trailer before I curled into the fetal position. I lay there while I tried to assess the damages. I knew Marty would be back, when he realized I was AWOL. I was pretty sure the rib wasn’t broken, but something was sure as hell sprained. The flesh on my arm was scrapped in a large area. That injury was bleeding a bit. The knee of my jeans was ripped, and there was pain behind it. I was pretty sure that I had at least a scrape there as well. All in all, I felt damn lucky. It could have been a lot worse. I worked the lightweight motorcycle helmet off and found it scratched deeply in at least one spot. That could have really left a scar, I thought.
I needed to cover that scrape on my arm even though the oozing blood wasn’t a huge deal, it looked bad. Right there in front of God and anyone else looking, I removed the blue work shirt, then the white tee shirt. I was topless while I wrapped the tee shirt around my forearm. I replaced the bloody work shirt just to avoid sunburn. At the moment my small exposed boobs were of no concern to me. That would have been obvious to anyone who saw me. I had only buttoned one of the work shirt’s five buttons. Actually, I wore it with the top button done gang style. I hadn’t meant it that way; it is just what I did in my fog of shock.
The fact that there was no shade was going to be a problem, if Marty took too long to come back or if someone didn’t happen along. I got my ass painfully back to the trailer and the water bottle. I propped against the overturned trailer and drank the water.
I was thrilled when I heard the buzz of Marty’s engine several minutes later. Even though my injuries weren’t life threatening, they did hurt. Not only that, I needed to get out of the sun. Heatstroke was a possibility for sure.
“Are you alright?” Marty asked, standing over me.
“I’m more embarrassed than anything.”
“What the hell happened,” Marty asked. He obviously had no idea what to do.
“I swerved to avoid something that looked like a dog. Probably a coyote,” I said. Marty just stood there still lost in thought. “Marty get on that fancy phone of yours and call AAA.”
“Of course, do you need an ambulance?” he asked.
“No, but I need a place to clean up. They can take me and the bike to a town with a motel.”
“Motel, my ass, you are going to a doctor at the very least.” Since Marty had climbed out of his stupor and began playing ‘Man in Charge, ‘ I let him.
“They are just scrapes, but I could use some painkillers, so okay.” I said.
Even with the fancy phone, Marty had to do some gyrations to get to a tow truck. It took almost an hour for the truck to arrive. We got a ride into El Centro, CA. The bike went to a recovery yard there, and I went to a Doctor’s office.
“Ms Stone, since I don’t have your medical records are there any drug you are allergic to?” the nurse asked.
“I can’t think of any that I react particularly badly to. Some of the new antibiotics give me the runs.”
“I noticed that you were having a problem walking, could you tell me the extent of your injuries you are aware of at this time.”
“I banged up my ribs, but I’m not sure what that is. I have a large scrape on my arm which is covered at the moment. Something is going on with my knee, but I haven’t been able to see what it is. Mostly, I expect, I am one giant bruise.”
“That sounds like a pretty good diagnosis. Let’s get those jeans off and see about the leg.”
“Usually, when people suggest I take my jeans off, they buy me dinner first,” I said, trying to smile.
“At least you seem to be in good spirits. I’ll make a note of dinner just in case,” she said smiling. It was not a sexy smile; it was more a co-conspirator smile. She might have fixing me up with her brother in mind.
As I had expected the knee was bloody. It too looked like a scrape about the size of a dollar bill. I was going to have some real issues with that scrape under my jeans.
“You are one lucky woman,” the doctor said, when he examined me.
“If I was really lucky, the coyote would be here instead of me.” I did smile when I said.
“True, but you could be very dead. From what your friend tells me, you were doing about thirty miles an hour on a bicycle. That is risky behavior at best.”
“Sex with a stranger is probably more risky,” I replied.
“You could always use condoms,” he suggested.
“Do you think a condom would have saved any of Ted Bundy’s victims?” I asked. The doctor gave me a stern look. Obviously, his sense of humor was weak. Shame, because he really was a cute younger man. I outranked him by well over ten years, and that hurt more than the ribs. God, getting old was a bitch, I thought. I mean I was having sex when he was still sucking his mom’s tit, and I was looking to him for drugs. Life was so unfair.
Even before they had all my scrapes cleaned and covered, I had Marty out buying me clothes. I left the doctor’s office dressed in new jeans and a way oversized sweatshirt with the arms cut off. I had used the nurse’s scissors for the amputation of the sweatshirt sleeves. I probably would not have bought a red sweatshirt, but it did look good on me. I was walking reasonably upright as we left the small town clinic.
Marty led me to a car. “Crap, Marty, I didn’t realize I had been in there long enough for you to find and rent a car.”
“The towing guy had a friend who sells used cars. He rents them now and then as well. According to the driver, that isn’t unusual at all.”
“Damn,” I said, as I had a jab of pain break through the drugs the doctor had shot me up with.
“You okay, Max?”
“I’ve been better, but I’m just uncomfortable, not in any danger. I do need to find a drugstore; I have a couple of scripts.”
“Of course,” Marty said.
I knew Marty was too decent a guy to bring anything about the trip into the conversation, so I did. “So how’s my bike?”
“Those things are the tanks of bicycles. It didn’t get more than a couple of scratches.”
“I can’t believe that. There were things hanging off of it.”
“Yeah, the throttle is busted and the kill switch is broken, but that just BS stuff.”
“So you can have it ready to go tomorrow?”
“You aren’t getting back on that bike. The trip is over.”
“My ass, it is,” I said, angrily. I had been expecting to hear that from Marty, but I wasn’t going to buy it. “We did not travel this far and this long to stop a day short of the end. It’s your trip, so if you don’t want me to ride your bike to the end that’s fine, but you are going to finish and I am going to be there, even if it is driving this car behind you.”
“Well, I don’t trust that bike with you on painkillers piloting it.” Marty said thoughtfully. “You could easily kill yourself. Especially since the last day we are going to be in heavy traffic.”
“Then I’ll follow along behind you in this coffin, but we are going to finish this trip together.”
“Alright, there is a bike builder up in Bakersfield who will come get your bike and ship it back across the country for me.”
“Did you get my pistol from the trailer?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied, simply.
“After the drugstore, we need to find a post office.” Marty gave me a curious look, so I added, “I need one of those ‘if it fits it ships’ boxes they advertise on TV. Just before we get on the plane home, I’m going to have to drop the .38 in the mail.”
Maxine's new life 