The phone rang in Red Lodge.  The sun had already faded behind the mountain, and the street outside where the bike was parked was covered in darkness. Only the glow from the quarter moon allowed the bike to be visible from my vantage point inside the Pollard’s Lobby.  The hotel manager told me I had a call coming in and it was from Cooke City.  By the time I got to the phone at the front desk, they had hung up. All that the manager had heard from the caller was that I was needed in Cooke City just before the line had gone dead.  Because of the weather, my cell phone reception was spotty, and the hotel’s phone had no caller I.D.

Cooke City was 69 miles to the West, a little more than an hour’s drive under normal circumstances.  The problem is that you can never apply the word normal to crossing Beartooth Pass even under the best of conditions, and certainly not this early in the season.  I wondered about the call and the caller, and what was summoning me to the other side.  There was 11,000 feet of mountain in between the towns of Red Lodge and Cooke City, and with a low front moving in from the West, all signals from the mountain were to stay put.

Beartooth Pass is the highest and most formidable mountain crossing in the lower 48 States.  It is a series of high switchback turns that crisscross the Montana and Wyoming borders, rising to an elevation of 10,947 ft.  If distance can normally be measured in time, this is one of nature’s timeless events.  This road is its own lord and master. It allows you across only with permission and demands your total respect as you travel its jagged heights either East or West.  Snow and rockslides are just two of the deadly hazards here, with the road itself trumping both of these dangers when traveled at night.

The Beartooth Highway, as gorgeous as it is during most summer days, is particularly treacherous in the dark.  Many times, and without warning, it will be totally covered in fog. Even worse, during the late spring and early fall, there is ice, and often black ice when you rise above 7000 feet. Black ice is hard enough to see during the daytime, but impossible to see at night and especially so when the mountain is covered in fog. At night, this road has gremlins and monsters hiding in its corners and along its periphery, ready to swallow you up with the first mistake or indiscretion that a momentary lack of attention can cause.

The word impossible is part of this mountains DNA.

: Impossible- Like the dreams I had been recently having.

: Impossible- Like all of the things I still had not done.

: Impossible- As the excuses ran like an electric current
                         through all that I hated.

: Impossible- Only in the failure of that yet to be conquered.

: Impossible- For only as long as I kept repeating the word.

Now it was my time to make a call.  I dialed the cell number of my friend Mitch who worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Cooke City. Mitch told me what I already knew and feared. There was snow on both sides of the road from Red Lodge to Cooke City, and with the dropping temperatures probably ice, and possibly black ice, at elevations above 7500 feet.

Mitch lived in Red Lodge and had just traveled the road two hours earlier on his way home.  He said there had been sporadic icy conditions on the Red Lodge side of the mountain, causing his Jeep Wagoneer to lose traction and his tires to spin when applying his brakes in the sharpest turns.  The sharpest corners were the most dangerous parts of this road, both going up and even more so when coming down. Mitch warned me against going at night and said: “Be sure to call me back if you decide to leave.”

The Red Lodge side of the mountain would be where I would begin my trip if I decided to go, with no telling how bad the Cooke City descent would be on the Western side.  This is assuming I was even able to make it over the top, before then starting the long downward spiral into Cooke City Montana.

The phone rang again!  This time I was able to get to the front desk before the caller got away.  In just ten seconds I was left with the words ringing in my ears — “Everything is ready, and we implore you to come, please come to Cooke City, and please come tonight.”  

Now, it was my time to choose.  I had to decide between staying where it was safe and dry, or answering the call and making the journey through the dark to where fate was now crying out to me. I put the phone down and walked out the front doors of the Pollard Hotel and into the dim moonlight that was shining through the clouds and onto the street.  The ‘Venture’ sat in its soft glow, parked horizontally to the sidewalk, with its back tire pressed up against the curb and its front tire pointed due North.  The bike was not showing any bias either East or West and was not going to help with this decision.  If I decided to go, this choice would have to be all mine.

The original plan had been to stay in Red Lodge for two more days, awaiting friends who still had not arrived from a trip to Mount Rushmore. Then together we had planned a short stopover in Cody, which was not more than ninety-minutes away. From there we planned to take the ‘Chief Joseph Highway’ to Cooke City, which is both a beautiful and safe way around Beartooth Pass. Safety drifted out of my consciousness like a distant mistress, and I looked North and heard the mountain call out to me again.

As much as I wanted to see my friends, the voice that was calling from inside was getting harder and harder to ignore.  With the second phone call, my time in Red Lodge grew short in its importance, and I knew in the next two minutes I would have to choose.

I also knew that if I stood in the clouded moonlight for more than two more minutes I would never decide.  Never deciding is the hallmark of all cowardly thought, and I hoped on this night that I would not be caught in its web as victim once again.  

                                         My Decision Was To Go

In ten short minutes, I emptied my room at the Pollard, checked out, and had the bike loaded and ready at the curb.  I put my warmest and most reflective riding gear on, all the while knowing that there was probably no one to see me. No one on that lonely road, except for the deer, coyote, or elk, that would undoubtedly question my sanity as they watched me ride by in the cold dark silence.  I stopped at the gas station at the end of town and topped off the tank --- just in case.  Just in case was something I hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with, as the ride would at most take less than a half a tank of gas. It made me feel better though, so I topped off, paid the attendant, and rode slowly out towards U.S. Highway # 212.  

As I headed West toward the pass, I noticed one thing conspicuous in its absence. In fifteen minutes of travel, I had not passed one other vehicle of any kind going in either direction.  I was really alone tonight and not only in my thoughts.  It was going to be a solitary ride as I tried to cross the mountain. I would be alone with only my trusted bike as my companion which in all honesty — I knew in my heart before leaving the hotel.  

Alone, meant there would be no help if I got into trouble and no one to find me until probably morning at the earliest.  Surviving exposed on the mountain for at least twelve hours is a gamble I hoped I wouldn’t have to take.

I kept moving West. As I arrived at the base of the pass I stopped, put the kickstand down and looked up.  What was visible of the mountain in the clouded moonlight was only the bottom third of the Beartooth Highway. The top two thirds disappeared into a clouded mist, not giving up what it might contain or what future it may have hidden inside of itself for me.  With the kickstand back up and my high beam on, I slowly started my ascent up Beartooth Pass.

For the first six or seven miles the road surface was clear with snow lining both sides of the highway.  The mountain above, and the ones off to my right and to the North were almost impossible to see.  What I could make out though, was that they were totally snow covered making this part of southern Montana look more like December or January, instead of early June.  The road had only opened a month ago and it was still closing at least three out of every seven days.  I remembered to myself how in years past this road never really opened permanently until almost the 4th of July.

When the road was closed, it made the trip from Red Lodge to Cooke City a long one for those who had to go around the mountain.  Many people who worked in Cooke City actually lived in Red Lodge.  They would ‘brave’ the pass every night when it was open, but usually only during the summer months. They would do this in trucks with 4-wheel drive and S.U.V.’s but never on a motorcycle with only two wheels.  Trying to cross this pass on a motorcycle with high performance tires, in the fog, and at night, was a horse of an entirely different color.  

At about the seven-mile mark in my ascent I again stopped the bike and looked behind me. I was about to enter the cloud barrier.  The sight below from where I had just come was breathtakingly beautiful.  If this was to be the last thing I would ever see before   entering the cloud, it would be a fitting photograph on my passport into eternity.

I looked East again, and it was as if the lights from Red Lodge were calling me back, saying “Not tonight Kurt, this trip is to be made another time and for a better reason.” I paused, but could think of no better reason, as I heard the voice on the phone say inside my mind, “Please come,” so I retracted the kickstand and entered the approaching fog.

There was nothing inviting as I entered the cloud.  The dampness and the moisture were immediate and all enveloping, as the visibility dropped to less than fifty feet.  It was so thick I could actually see rain droplets as it passed over my headlight.  The road was still clear though and although it was hard to see, its surface was still good.  The animals that would normally concern me at this time of night were a distant memory to me now. The road stayed like this for what seemed to be another two or three miles, while it trapped me in its continuing time warp of what I still had to overcome.

It then turned sharply right, and I heard a loud ‘wail’ from inside the bike’s motor.  My heart immediately started racing as I thought to myself, ‘What a place to have the engine break down.’  It only took a few more seconds though to see that what I thought was engine failure was actually the tachometer revving off the scale on the dash.  The rear tire had lost traction, and in an involuntary and automated response I had given it more throttle to maintain my speed. I now had the engine turning at over 5000 r.p.m.’s in an attempt to get the rear tire to again make contact with the road.  Slowing my speed helped a little, but I was now down to 10 MPH, and it was barely fast enough to allow me to continue my ascent without the rear tire spinning again.

                                  I Could Still Turn Around And Go Back    

I was now at an elevation above 8,000 ft, and it was here that I had to make my last decision.  I could still turn around and go back.

While the road surface was only semi-good, I could turn around and head back in the direction from which I had just come.  I could go back safely, but to what and to whom? I knew my spirit and my heart would not go with me, both choosing to stay on this hill tonight regardless of the cost.  “If I turn around and go back, my fear is that in my lack of commitment, I will lose both of them forever. The mountain will have then claimed what my soul cannot afford to lose.”  I looked away from Red Lodge for the last time, and once again my eyes were pointed toward the mountain’s top.

It was three more miles to the summit based on my best estimation.

From there it would be all down hill.  The fear grew deeper inside of me that the descent would be even more treacherous as I crested the top and pushed on to the mountain town of Cooke City below.  Cooke City and Red Lodge were both in Montana, but the crest of this mountain was in Wyoming, and it looked down on both towns as if to say … ‘All passage comes only through me.’      

This time I did not stop and look over my shoulder. Instead, I said a short prayer to the gods that protect and watch over this place and asked for only one dispensation — and just one pass through the dark.  My back wheel continued to spin but then somehow it would always regain traction, and I continued to pray as I slowly approached the top.  

As I arrived at the summit, the road flattened out, but the cloud cover grew even more dense with visibility now falling to less than ten feet.  I now couldn’t see past my front fender, as the light from my headlamp bounced off the water particles with most of its illumination reflected back onto me and not on the road ahead.

In conditions like this it is very hard to maintain equilibrium and balance. Balance is the most essential component of any two-wheeled form of travel. Without at least two fixed reference points, it’s hard to stay straight upright and vertical.  I’ve only experienced this once before when going through a mountain tunnel whose lights had been turned off. When you can’t see the road beneath you, your inner sense of stability becomes compromised, and it’s easier than you might think to get off track and crash.

This situation has caused many motorcyclists to fall over while seemingly doing nothing wrong. It creates a strange combination of panic and vertigo and is not something you would ever want to experience or deal with on even a dry road at sea level.  On an icy road at this elevation however, it could spell the end of everything!

My cure for this has always been to put both feet down and literally drag them on top of the road surface below. This allows my legs to act as two tripods, warning me of when the bike is leaning either too far to the left or to the right.  It’s also dangerous. If either leg comes in contact with something on the road or gets hung up, it could cause the very thing it’s trying to avoid. I’ve actually run over my own foot with the rear wheel and it’s not something you want to do twice.

                     Often Causing What It’s Trying To Avoid

At the top of the pass, the road is flat for at least a mile and gently twists and turns from left to right.  It is a giant plateau,10,000 feet above sea level. The mountain then starts to descend westward as it delivers its melting snow and rain to the Western States. Through mighty rivers, it carries its drainage to the Pacific Ocean far beyond.  As I got to the end of its level plain, a passing thought entered my consciousness.  With the temperature here at the top having risen a little, and only just below freezing, my Kevlar foul-weather gear would probably allow me to survive the night.  On this mountaintop, there is a lot of open space to get off the road, if I could then only find a place to get out of the wind.  

I let that thought exit my mind as quickly as it entered. The bike was easily handling the flat icy areas, and I knew that the both of us wanted to push on.  I tried to use my cell phone at the top to call Mitch at home.  I was sure that by now he would be sitting by the fire and drinking something warm.  This is something I should have done before I made the final decision to leave.  I didn’t, because I was sure he would have tried to talk me out of it, or worse, have forbidden me to go. This was well within his right and purview as the Superintendent of all who passed over this mountain.

My phone didn’t work!  This was strange because it had worked from the top last spring when I called my family and also sent cell-phone pictures from the great mountain’s summit.  I actually placed three calls from the top that day, two to Pennsylvania and one to suburban Boston.

                                         But Not Tonight!

As I started my descent down the western *****, I knew it would be in first gear only.  In first gear the engine would act as a brake or limiter affecting my speed, hopefully without causing my back tire to lose traction and break loose. With almost zero visibility, and both feet down and dragging in the wet snow and ice, I struggled to stay in the middle of the road.  It had been over an hour since leaving Red Lodge, and I still had seen no other travelers going either East or West. I had seen no animals either, and tonight I was at least thankful for that.

The drop off to my right (North) was several thousand feet straight down to the valley below and usually visible even at night when not covered in such cloud and mist.  To my left was the mountain’s face interspersed with open areas which also dropped several thousands of feet to the southern valley below.  Everything was uncertain as I left the summit, and any clear scenery had disappeared in the clouds. What was certain though was my death if I got too close to the edge and was unable to recover and get back on the road.

There were guardrails along many of the turns and that helped, because it told me that the direction of the road was changing.  In the straight flat areas however it was open on both sides with nothing but a several thousand-foot fall into the oblivion below.

Twice I ran over onto the apron and felt my foot lose contact with the road surface meaning I was at the very edge and within two feet of my doom.  Twice, I was sure that my time on this earth had ended, and that I was headed for a different and hopefully better place. Twice, I counter steered the bike to the left and both feet regained contact with the road as the front tire weaved back and forth with only the back tire digging in and allowing me to stay straight up.

As I continued my descent, I noticed something strange and peculiar.  After a minute or two it felt like I was going faster than you could ever go in first gear.  It took only another instant to realize what was happening.  The traction to the rear tire was gone, and my bike and I were now sliding down the Western ***** of Beartooth pass.  The weight of the bike and myself, combined with the gravity of the mountain’s descent, was causing us to go faster than we could ever go by gearing alone.  Trying to go straight seemed like my only option as the bike felt like it had lost any ability to control where it was going.  This was the next to last thing I could have feared happening on this hill.

The thing I feared most was having to use either the front or rear brakes in a situation like this.  That would only ensure that the bike would go out of control totally, causing the rear wheel to come around broadside and result in the bike falling over on its opposite side. Not good!  Not good at all!

Thoughts of sliding off the side of the mountain and into the canyons below started running through my mind.  Either falling off the mountain or being trapped under the bike while waiting for the next semi-truck to run over me as it crossed the summit in the darkened fog was not something I welcomed. Like I said before, not good, not good at all!

My mind flashed back to when I was a kid and how fast it seemed we were going when sledding down the hill in front of the local hospital.  I also remembered my disappointment when one of the fathers told me that although it seemed fast, we were really only going about ten or fifteen miles an hour.  I wondered to myself how fast the bike was really going now, as it slid down this tallest of all Montana mountains? It seemed very, very fast.  I reminded myself over and over, to keep my feet down and my hand off the brakes.

If I was going to crash, I was going to try and do it in the middle of the road. Wherever that was now though, I couldn’t be sure.  It was finally the time to find out what I had really learned after riding a motorcycle for over forty years.  I hoped and prayed that what I had learned in those many years of riding would tonight be enough.

As we continued down, the road had many more sharp turns, swerving from right to left and then back right again.  Many times, I was right at the edge of my strength. My legs battled to keep the bike upright, as I fought it as it wanted to lean deeper into the turns.  I almost thought I had the knack of all this down, when I instantaneously came out of the cloud.  I couldn’t believe, and more accurately didn’t want to believe, what I was seeing less than a half mile ahead.

The road in front of me was totally covered in black ice.  Black ice look’s almost like cinders at night and can sometimes deceive you into thinking it holds traction when exactly the opposite is true. This trail of black ice led a half mile down the mountain to where it looked like it ended under a guardrail at the end.  What I thought was the end was actually a switchback turn of at least 120 degrees.

It turned sharply to the right before going completely out of my sight into the descending blackness up ahead.

My options now seemed pretty straightforward while bleak.  I could lay the bike down and hope the guard rail would stop us before cascading off the mountain, or I could try to ride it out with the chances of making it slim at best.  I tried digging my feet into the black ice as brakes, as a kid would do on a soapbox car, but it did no good.  The bike kept pummeling toward the guardrail, and I was sure I was now going faster than ever.  As my feet kept bouncing off the ice, it caused the bike to wobble in the middle of its slide. This was now the last thing I needed as I struggled not to fall.

As I got close to the guardrail, and where the road turned sharply to the right, I felt like I was going 100 miles an hour.  I was now out of the cloud and even in the diffused moonlight I could see clearly both sides of the road.  With some visibility I could now try and stay in the middle, as my bike and I headed towards the guardrail not more than 500 feet ahead.  The valley’s below to the North and South were still thousands of feet below me, and I knew when I tried to make the turn that there would be no guardrail to protect me from going off the opposite right, or Northern side.

                   Time Was Running Out, And A Choice Had To Be Made

The choices ran before my eyes one more time — to be trapped under a guardrail or to run off a mountain into a several thousand foot abyss.  But then all at once my soul screamed NO, and that I did have one more choice … I could decide to just make it. I would try by ‘force of will’ to make it around that blind turn.  I became reborn once again in the faith of my new decision not to go down, and I visually saw myself coming out the other side in my mind’s eye.

                                        I Will Make That Turn

I remembered during this moment of epiphany what a great motorcycle racer named **** Mann had said over forty years ago.  

**** said “When you find yourself in trouble, and in situations like this, the bike is normally smarter than you are.  Don’t try and muscle or overpower the motorcycle.  It’s basically a gyroscope and wants to stay upright.  Listen to what the bike is telling you and go with that. It’s your best chance of survival, and in more cases than not, you’ll come out OK.”  With ****’s words fresh and breathing inside of me, I entered the right-hand turn.

As I slowly leaned the bike over to the right, I could feel the rear tire break loose and start to come around.  As it did, I let the handlebars point the front tire in the same direction as the rear tire was coming.  We were now doing what flat track motorcycle racers do in a turn — a controlled slide! With the handlebars totally pressed against the left side of the tank, the bike was fully ‘locked up’ and sliding with no traction to the right.  The only control I had was the angle I would allow the bike to lean over,which was controlled by my upper body and my right leg sliding below me on the road.

Miraculously, the bike slid from the right side of the turn to the left.  It wasn’t until I was on the left apron that the back tire bit into the soft snow and regained enough traction to set me upright. I was not more than three feet from the now open edge leading to a certain drop thousands of feet below.  The traction in the soft snow ****** the bike back upright and had me now pointed in a straight line diagonally back across the road.  Fighting the tendency to grab the brakes, I sat upright again and counter steered to the left. Just before running off the right apron, I was able to get the bike turned and headed once again straight down the mountain.  It was at this time that I took my first deep breath.

In two hundred more yards the ice disappeared, and I could see the lights of Cooke City shining ten miles out in the distance. The road was partially dry when I saw the sign welcoming me to this most unique of all Montana towns.  To commemorate what had just happened, I was compelled to stop and look back just one more time.  I put the kickstand down and got off the bike.  For a long minute I looked back up at the mountain. It was still almost totally hidden in the cloud that I had just come through.  I wondered to myself if any other motorcyclists had done what I had just done tonight — and survived.  I knew the stories of the many that had run off the mountain and were now just statistics in the Forest Service’s logbook, but I still wondered about those others who may had made it and where their stories would rank with mine.

I looked up for the last time and said thank you, knowing that the mountain offered neither forgiveness nor blame, and what I had done tonight was of my own choosing. Luck and whatever riding ability I possessed were what had seen me through. But was it just that, or was it something else? Was it something beyond my power to choose, and something still beyond my power to understand?  If the answer is yes, I hope it stays that way.  Until on a night like tonight, some distant mountain high above some future valley, finally claims me as its own.

                     Was Crossing Tonight Beyond My Power To Choose?

After I parked the bike in front of the Super 8 in Cooke City, I walked into the lobby and the desk clerk greeted me. “Mr Behm,

it’s good to see you again, I’m glad we were able to reach you with that second phone call.  We received a cancellation just before nine, and the only room we had left became available for the night.”

I have heard the calling in many voices and in many forms.  Tonight, it told me that my place was to be in Cooke City and my time in Red Lodge had come to an end.  Some may need more or better reasons to cross their mountain in the dark, but for me, the only thing necessary was for it to call.

                                               …  Until It Calls Again





Gardiner Montana- May, 1996

My Heart Was Saying One Thing, My Mind Another ...

Some things you just know — like the feeling I get when looking at my children or the way I felt the first time I looked into the Grand Canyon. Some experiences are too strong for reason or words. There are some things, that even though they defy all conventional wisdom in your heart and your mind — you just know.

Never dying on a motorcycle is one of those things. I can’t explain it rationally, it’s just something that I’ve always known. It’s a feeling that has been deep inside of me since I first threw my right leg over the seat of that old powder blue moped. I knew I was never going to die as the result of a motorcycle crash. In many ways, I feel safest when I’m back on two-wheels and headed for points previously unknown.

Lately Though, I’ve Been Made To Feel Differently

I now had my daughter on the back of the bike with me. I’ve started to wonder whether my premonition covers just me, or does it also protect all who ride as co-pilot and passenger? Would the same Gods of 2-wheeled travel, who have watched over me for so long, also extend their protection to those I love and now share my adventures with?

Our flight from Philadelphia had arrived in Idaho Falls five days ago. We hurried to the dealership, picked up our beloved Yamaha Venture Royale, and then began our quest of another ten-day odyssey through the Rocky Mountain West. This was Melissa’s third tour with her dad, and we both shared the intense excitement of not knowing what the next week would hold. We had no specific destination or itinerary. This week would be more important than that. Just by casting our fate into the winds that blew across the eastern slopes of the great Rocky Mountains, we knew that all destinations would then be secure.

Then We Almost Hit Our First Deer

Three days ago, just South of Dupoyer Montana, two doe’s and a fawn appeared out of nowhere on the road directly in front of us. Melissa never saw them as I grabbed ******* the front brake. The front brake provides 80-90% of all stopping power on a motorcycle but also causes the greatest loss of control if you freeze up the front wheel. As the front wheel locked, the bike’s back tire swerved right and we moved violently into the left oncoming lane just narrowly missing the three deer.

They Never Moved

The old axiom that goes … Head right for the deer, because they won’t be there when you get there, wouldn’t have worked today. They just watched us go by as if it happened to them every day. Judging by the number of dead deer we had seen along highway #89 coming South, it probably did.

Strike One!

We pulled into Great Falls for the night and over dinner relived again how close we had actually come — so close to it all being over. Collisions with deer are tragic enough in a car or SUV, but on a motorcycle usually only one of the unfortunate participants gets up and walks away — and that’s almost always the deer. The rider is normally a statistic. We thanked the Gods of the highway for protecting us this day, and after a short walk around town we went back to the motel for a good (and thankful) night’s sleep.

The next morning was another one of those idyllic Rocky Mountain days. The skies were clear, there was no humidity, and the temperature was in the low 60’s with a horizon that stretched beyond forever. If we were ever to forget the reason why we do these trips just the memory of this morning would be enough to drive that amnesia away forever. We had breakfast at the 5th Street Diner, put our fleece vests on under our riding jackets, and headed South again.

We had a short ride to Bozeman today, and my daughter was especially excited. It was one of her all-time favorite western towns. It was western for sure, but also a college town. Being the home of Montana State University, and she being a college student herself, she felt particularly at home there. I loved it too.

We stopped mid-morning for coffee and took off our fleece vests. As I opened the travel trunk in the rear to put the vests away, I noticed that two screws had fallen out of the trunk lid. These were the screws that secured the top lid to the bottom or base of the trunk. I had to fix this pretty quickly, or we were liable to have the top blow off from the strong winds as we made our way down the road. We spent most of that afternoon at Ackley Lake, in the Lewis and Clark National Forest, before continuing South on Rt #89 towards Bozeman. I was still worried about the lid falling off and was using a big piece of duct tape as a temporary fix.

It was about 5:45 p.m. when we entered the small Montana town of White Sulphur Springs. They had a NAPA automotive store and by luck it was still open until six. I rushed inside and found the exact size screws that I needed. Melissa then watched me do my best ‘shade tree mechanic’ impersonation. I replaced the two missing screws while the bike was sitting in the parking lot to the left of the store. We then had fruit drinks, split a tuna salad sandwich from the café across the street, and were again on our way.

The sun was just starting to descend behind the mountains to our west, and we both agreed that this was truly the most beautiful time of day to ride. We were barely a mile out of town when I heard my daughter scream …

DAAAAAD !!!

At that moment, I felt the back of the bike move as if someone had their hand on just the rear tire and was shaking it back and forth. Then I saw it. An elk had just come out of the creek bed below, and to our right, and had misjudged how long it would take us to pass by. It darted across the highway a half second too soon brushing the back of the bike with its right shoulder and almost causing us to fall.

This time my daughter saw it coming before I did, and I’ll never forget the sound of her voice coming across the bike’s intercom at a decibel level I had never heard from her before. She is normally very calm and reserved.

We had actually made contact with the elk and stayed upright. If it had happened in front of the bike, we wouldn’t have had a chance. Thank God, with over forty years of experience and some luck, I didn’t lock up the front brake this time. That would have caused us to lose control of the front tire and as we had already lost control of the one in the back, it would have almost guaranteed a crash to our left.

Strike Two!

We rode slowly the rest of the way to Bozeman. We convinced each other that two near misses in less than a week would be enough for five more years of riding based on the odds. At the Best Western Motel in Bozeman, we unloaded the bike and went to my daughter’s favorite restaurant for Hummus. As the waitress took our order and then left, Melissa stared at me across the table with a very serious look in her eyes. “Dad, I don’t think we should ride anymore after about four o’clock in the afternoon. The animals all seem to drink twice a day, (the roads following the rivers and streams), and it’s early in the morning and later in the evening when we’re most at risk.” I said I agreed, and we made a pact to not leave before 9:30 in the morning and to be off the road by 4:00 in the afternoon.

This meant we wouldn’t be riding during our favorite part of the day which was dusk, but safety came first, and we would try as hard as we could to live within our new schedule. Our next stop tomorrow would be Gardiner Montana which was the small river town right at the North entrance (Mammoth Hot Springs) to Yellowstone National Park. There were colder temperatures, and possibly snow, in the forecast, so we put our fleece vests back on before leaving Bozeman. At 9:30 a.m. we were again headed South on Rt. #89 through Paradise Valley.

After a few stops to hike and sightsee, we arrived in Gardiner at 4:10, only a few minutes beyond our new maxim. It had already started to snow. It was early June, and as all regular visitors to Yellowstone know, it can snow in the park any of the 365 days of the year. We hoped it wouldn’t last. There was not much to do in Gardiner and as beautiful as it was here, we wanted to try and get to West Yellowstone if we were going to be stuck in the snow. We had dinner at the K-Bar Café and were in bed at the motel by the bridge before nine. All through the night, the snow continued to fall intermittently as the temperature dropped.

When we awoke the next morning, the snow had stopped but not before depositing a good two to three inches on the ground. The town plow had cleared the road, and the weather forecast for southern Montana said temperatures would reach into the high 40’s by mid-afternoon. The Venture was totally covered in snow and seemed to be protesting what I was about to ask it to do. I cleaned the snow off the bike and rode slowly across the street and filled it up with gas. I then came back to the motel, loaded our bags, and Melissa got on the bike behind me.

“Are we gonna be alright in the snow, Dad?” she asked. As I told her we’d be fine if it didn’t get any worse than it was right now, I had the ******* crossed on my left hand that was controlling the clutch.

We swung around the long loop through Gardiner, went through the Great Arch that Teddy Roosevelt built honoring our first National Park, and entered Yellowstone. As we approached the guard shack to buy our pass, the female park ranger said, “You’re going where? There’s four inches of snow at the top. We plowed it an hour ago, but you never know how it’s going to be until you get over it.”

‘OVER IT,’ is where we were headed, and then down toward the Madison River where we would turn right and continue on to West Yellowstone. Even though the Park is almost 100% within the state of Wyoming, two of its entrances (North and West) sit right inside the border of the great state of Montana.

“If you keep it slow and watch your brakes, you’ll probably be fine.” “Two Harley riders came through an hour ago, and I haven’t heard anything bad about them. They were headed straight to Fishing Bridge and then to the Lodge at Old Faithful.” “Well, If the Harleys can make it we certainly can” I told my daughter, as we paid the $20.00 fee and headed up the sloping, and partially snow-covered, mountain.

We made it over the top which was less than a ten-mile ride headed South through the park. This part of the trip didn’t require braking and would be easier than the descent on the backside of the mountain. As we started our way down, I noticed the road was starting to clear. Within ten minutes, the asphalt on this side of the mountain was totally dry and our confidence rose with each bend of the road. It was just then that my daughter said, “Dad, I need to stop, can you find me a restroom?” A restroom in Yellowstone, not the easiest thing to find. If I did find one, at best it would be a government issue outhouse, but I told her I’d try. “Please hurry, Dad,” Melissa said.

In another mile, there was a covered ‘lookout’ with three port-a-potties off to the right. I pulled over quickly, and my daughter headed to the closest one on the left. I then walked over to the observation stand and looked out to the East towards Cody. As most Yellowstone vistas, the beauty was beyond description, but something wasn’t quite right, and …

Something Felt Strange

I looked off in the distance at Mt. Washburn. The grand old mountain stood majestic at almost 10,000 feet, and with its snow-capped peak, it looked just like the picture postcards of itself that they sold in the lodge. I still felt strange.

Then I Understood Why

As I looked off to my right to walk back to the bike, I saw it.

Standing to the left of my motorcycle, and less than thirty yards in front of me, was the biggest silver and black coyote I had even seen. Many Park visitors mistake these larger coyotes for wolves, and this guy was looking straight at me with his head down. As I walked slowly back to the bike, he never took his eyes off me with only his head moving to follow my travel. I got to the bike and wondered if I should shout to my daughter. I knew if I did, it would probably scare the Coyote away, and this was shaping up to be another of those seminal Yellowstone moments. I wanted to see what would happen next.

I slowly opened the trunk lid on the back of the bike. We always carried two things in addition to water — and that was fig-newtons and beef jerky. The reasoning was, that no matter what happened, with those three staples we could make it through almost anything. I took a big piece of beef jerky out of the pouch and showed it to the hungry Coyote. His head immediately rose up and he pointed his nose in the air while taking in the aroma of something that he had probably never smelled before.

I don’t normally feed any of the animals in Yellowstone, but this encounter seemed different. This animal was trying to make contact and on instinct alone I reacted. As I walked slowly to the front of the bike, I ripped off a small piece of the beef jerky and threw it to the coyote. He immediately jumped backwards (coyotes are prone to jumping) while keeping his head and eyes focused on me. He then took two steps forward, sniffed the processed beef, picked it up in his jaws, and in one swallow it was gone. He now looked at me again.

This Time I Was Two-Steps Closer

He was now less than fifteen feet away with his head once again down. He was showing no signs of aggressive behavior, and as I still had my helmet and riding suit on, I felt like I was in no danger. I didn’t think a fifty-pound coyote could bite through Kevlar and fiberglass, and I was starting to feel a strange connection with this animal that was getting a little closer all the time. I threw him another piece.

Was It About The Beef Jerky, Or Was It Something More?

Again, he took two steps forward to retrieve the snack and then raised his eyes up to look at me. At this close range I started questioning myself. What if it is a Wolf I asked, and then once again I looked at his tail. Nope, it’s a Coyote, I convinced myself, as I held my ground and continued to extend my hand out in the direction of my new friend. This time he didn’t move. It was now my turn. I was down on both knees in the leftover snow from last night and started to inch my way forward by sliding one knee in his direction and then the other. He took a small step back.

I then started to talk to him in a low and hushed tone. He moved one step closer. The beef jerky at the end of my hand was now less than five feet from his mouth. We stayed in this position for the longest time until I heard a loud “DAD!!!” coming from the direction of the port-a-potties. My daughter was finished and saw me kneeling down in front of the ‘Wolf.’

When she screamed, the Coyote bounded (jumped) again and ran off in the opposite direction (East) from where I was kneeling. He ran about fifty yards and then turned around to take one more look at me. He then slowly entered the tree line that bordered the left side of the road up ahead.

“Dad, what were you doing?” my daughter asked. “Do you think you’re Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves?” I laughed and said no, “just trying to communicate with a new friend.” My daughter continued to shake her head in my direction as she put on her helmet. I started the bike, put it in gear, and we headed again South down the park mountain road.

We had gone less than a quarter of a mile when something darted right out in front of the bike. It was that same Coyote that I had tried to feed just minutes before. He was about twenty yards in front of me and thank God I didn’t have to do any fancy maneuvering to miss him. I didn’t even have to use the brakes.

Still, this was now three encounters in less than a week. Or was it three? I convinced myself that running over a Coyote wouldn’t have been fatal. Painful maybe, but we would have survived it.

Strike Two And A Half!

We couldn’t help but laugh as we wondered if the Coyote had done it on purpose. Was he trying to scare us for not leaving the rest of the beef jerky or just saying goodbye? We’d never know for sure, but I wanted to believe that the latter was true. I will always wonder about how close he may have come.

As we got to the bottom of the long mountain descent, the sign announcing the Madison River and the road to West Yellowstone came up on the right. We made the turn and then spent what seemed like forever marveling at the beauty of the Madison River. It looked like an easy ride into West Yellowstone until it started to snow again. We crested a large hill with only ten miles left to go. At the bottom of the hill was what looked like a lake covering the entire road. The bottom of the road where the hill ended was lower than the surrounding ground and was acting like a reservoir for the melting snow from the hills that surrounded it.

This Low Spot Was Right In The Middle Of The Road

We approached slowly and stopped to survey the approaching water. We needed to decide the right thing to do next. The yellow line that divided the road was barely visible through the water, and we both guessed that it couldn’t be more than twelve to fourteen inches deep. I decided guessing wasn’t good enough and put the kickstand down on the bike. Melissa held the clutch in to allow the motor to keep idling. I then walked into the water in my waterproof riding boots. The boots were over sixteen inches high. “Yep, no more than six or eight inches,” I yelled back to Melissa. “It just looks deeper. If we go slow, we’ll be fine to go through.”

I walked back, got on the bike, and retracted the kickstand and then put it in first gear. Just as I started to approach the pool, I noticed a huge shadow to my right. Two large Moose were standing just off the apron on the right side of the road. It looked like they either wanted to cross the flooded asphalt, or drink, as they stood less than twenty-five feet away from where we now were. Every time I moved closer to the water, they did the same thing. Three times we did this, and a Broadway choreographer couldn’t have scripted it better. The two Moose moved in concert with our timing getting closer to not only the water, but to us, each time we moved.

Moose, like Grizzly’s, have no real natural enemies except man, and unlike all other members of the deer family, they have a perpetually bad disposition. They seem to be permanently in a bad mood and are not to be trifled with or approached. Even the great Grizzly gives the Moose a wide berth. I stopped the bike again unsure of what to do next.

It Was A True Mexican Standoff In The Woods Of Wyoming

“Melissa then said, “Dad; Let’s try banging on the tank and blowing the horn like we do with Buffalo. Maybe then they’ll cross in front of us, and we can get outta here.” I thought it was a good idea and worth a try. I again put the kickstand down and told Melissa that if they charged us not to run but to get down low beneath the left side of the bike. That way, the Venture would hopefully take the brunt of their charge. I started banging on the tank, as I pushed the horn button with my other hand …

Nothing, Nada!

Both Moose just held their ground stoically looking at the water. It was a true ‘Mexican standoff,’ where we were Speedy Gonzalez faced off against the great Montezuma. No matter how much noise we made, the Moose never budged an inch. After fifteen minutes of this, we decided to go for it. I put the bike back into gear, and going faster than I normally would, I entered the reservoir on top of the still visible yellow line. With a rooster tail of water shooting out from behind the bike over twenty-feet long, we crossed the flooded road.

Once across, we went fifty yards past the water and then stopped to look back. Both Moose had turned around and were headed back into the woods from where they had come. They either had no more interest in traversing the water or had been playing with us making our crossing difficult, while at the same time memorable, and another great story to tell.

Strike Three!

We pulled into West Yellowstone, and the snow was coming down in blizzard like sheets. We spent the next two days touring the shops and museums and even visited the Grizzly Bear ‘Habitat,’ which neither of us will ever do again. Grizzly Bears belong in the wild and not in some enclosure to be gawked at by accidental tourists. We also talked about our past four days ‘communing’ with the animals. We both agreed that we had been lucky and that we would continue to live within our 9:30 to 4:00 schedule as we continued our trip.

I lay in bed that night both thankful and in wonder of all that had happened. I thought about the deer, elk, coyote, and moose that had crossed over into our world. As hair-raising as it had been at the time, I wouldn’t have a changed a thing. I also thought about my over forty years of motorcycle riding. It was just then that a familiar maxim was once again forefront in my mind — as well as my heart. I repeated the familiar words over to myself as I slowly drifted off to sleep …

“When I Die, It Will Never Be On A Motorcycle”

The Day I Hit The Bear

The day started out like most days in the mountains. The sky was bright but not entirely sunny. It was a Friday morning at 8:37 when I pulled out of my ‘economy’ motel on the eastern outskirts of Roanoke.

I had spent the previous afternoon (Thursday) riding the Blue Ridge Parkway from the Carolina border to Roanoke. It was after 6 and the heavy tree formation along the Parkway had started to darken the road, so I decided to call it a day. Too many animals call that time of night nirvana for me to feel safe after dusk anymore.

After a quick stop at ‘Denny’s” it was off to bed in the $41.00 motel I found just off the entrance to the Parkway. I slept great, as I always do on the road and woke up at seven raring to go. After a gas-up and ‘breakfast’ at the B.P. station, I was back up the entrance ramp onto the parkway and making the left turn that would take me North all the way to Front Royal Virginia.

As I started North, I got to thinking. I was riding my beloved Venture Royale, which I had always referred to as just the ‘Venture.’ Most guys I know after establishing a love affair with their motorcycle name their bike like they do their children and dogs. I never had — it was just the Venture.

After 150,000 of the most unbelievable miles anyone could imagine, the bike still had the name it was given by its manufacturer  I had always felt guilty about that, but never seemed to be able to come up with the appropriate name.

As I left the Blue Ridge Parkway and entered Shenandoah National Park (Skyline Drive), the sky darkened and the posted speed limit dropped to 35. I’ve always wondered why the speed limit was only 35 here yet 45 on the Parkway just below. The makeup and complexion of the roads looked identical or at least so it seemed. It’s a long ride through the park to Front Royal at 35mph, and if you don’t stop you might make it in about three hours.

I was now at a consistent elevation above 3000 feet and the air and shrubbery started to feel and look like the Rocky Mountains. I stopped at a rest stop to use the facilities and drink some water and then quickly got back on the road because my goal was to make it to the Pennsylvania line before dark.

The Bike was running as well as it ever has, and after 22 years of faithful service that’s saying a lot. There are only 2 states we haven’t been to together (Mississippi and Rhode Island), and I’ve got both of them on my short list to round out the lower 48. The Venture, there I go again calling it something so bland, has also been to Alaska twice. It has made 5 cross-country trips and my favorite, a 10-day Odyssey with my son going up one side of the Rockies and down the other. The memories of our times together came flooding back as I rounded a large bend in the road to the left.

Then it happened !

Before I could react, downshift, or even pull the brake lever, it was directly in front of me. I saw it, and my life flashed in front of me at exactly the same time. It was a black bear, and it looked to be full size. Before I could even exhale it was less than a foot from the front tire of the bike.

BAMMMMM ! It hit like a sledgehammer. First it sounded like a small explosion just behind the front wheel on the left side. Then the back of the bike lifted up about two feet in the air. I had hit the bear and then run over it as it passed under the bike.

We’ve all heard stories about near death experiences that cause your life to flash in front of your eyes in that very instant. Trust me, it’s true, and here’s what flashed through mine.

Anyone who knows me, knows about my lifelong love for motorcycles and motorcycling. My first ‘car’ was a BSA Gold Star that I had in High School. My mother never knew about it because YES VIRGINIA — my Grandmother and Grandfather let me hide it in their garage.

I bought the first 750 Honda when it was introduced in 1970, rode it all through college and believe me when I say those Penn State winters were brutal. I didn’t know it was called Hypothermia, but I experienced it every week between November and March. I dated my Wife on that motorcycle and am lucky that I still have it tucked away in the back of my garage today.

Combined with my love for Motorcycles is my love of the mountains and the Rockies in particular. I have spent almost all of my vacation time during the past 30 years riding, touring, and exploring the Rocky Mountain West.

As a result of my time in the Rockies, about 25 years ago I also developed a love for bears. All bears. I love Black Bears, Grizzly Bears and Polar Bears, but if forced to choose the Grizzly would be my favorite. My 2 close encounters in Yellowstone, and my 1 in Glacier, with large Brown Bears changed my perception of life and what it means forever. I was totally at their mercy. Looking into their eyes, which the so-called experts warn you against, was a life altering experience that I’m glad to have done

Now, back to what flashed through my mind when the bear was about to make contact. It all seemed to happen in slow motion but I thought as I hit him that if this was truly the end — how lucky I was! YES LUCKY. To end my life doing the thing I loved the most, in a place (A National Park) I loved most being, and to have it ended by an animal that meant more to me than any other. It all just seemed fitting and right.

In that instant I was ready to go, and in a strange and still unexplainable way, I was almost thankful for it happening the way it did.

And then before I had even blinked my eyes, the rear of the bike was back down on the road and now sliding to the right. I counter-steered as I was taught when road racing, and after drifting across both lanes the bike ‘******’ straight up and started heading North again. Instinctively I looked in my rear view mirror and saw the bear run off into the tall grass on the side of the road and then collapse.

I went about fifty yards further up the road and stopped the bike and got off. It was damaged in the front and just slightly leaking. The radiator cowling was broken off and part of the lower fairing was gone. There was organic material all over my left tailpipe which I would later find out was brain matter from the bear. I got off the bike and walked back to where I thought the bear was laying.

He was right where I had seen him collapse and he had a huge opening in his skull where he had made contact with the bike. As terrible as this made me feel, something else made me feel even worse, --- he was still breathing.

Two hikers (a husband and wife), about my age were now walking toward the bear and had seen the whole thing happen. They were locals and worried that there may be more bears around. They both suggested that we leave the area quickly. They told me there was a rest stop two miles further up the Parkway on the left and that I would be able call a Ranger to come and assist (shoot) the bear. I thanked them as they left and watched them head down the trail directly across the road from where the bear and I now were.

I got back on the bike and hurried up to the rest stop. Just as the couple had instructed the nice woman behind the counter called the Ranger Station and they sent a USFS Officer named Gary Roth to talk to me. I pleaded with the Ranger to forget about me, (I was fine), and to please go help the bear. I was pretty sure the bear was unconscious, but even then, you can sometimes still feel pain.

That Ranger spent almost two hours with me, first checking my driver’s license and registration, insurance card, etc. I’m sure he was also doing a back round check on me when he went back to his SUV, and all the while the poor bear was lying in trauma on the side of the road.

These Park Officials claim to love their charges, the animals in the park, but today it didn’t seem that way. I would have gladly given the officer my bike keys and identification, which he could have kept while going back to help (dispatch) the bear. ‘NO’ was all he replied back when I made that suggestion.

Finally, the Ranger left after thanking me for stopping and filing the report. He told me that most people who hit bears (on average one a month) don’t even stop to report it. At this time of the year the bears are very active, as they are foraging incessantly for food, trying to gain weight before hibernation. They are more vulnerable to car and motorcycle traffic in the fall than at any other time. He also told me that I was the only one in his memory (19 years in the park), to have hit a bear on a motorcycle and to have walked (ridden) away.

As I watched him head South on Skyline Drive, I looked at the sorry state of the Venture. I felt guiltier than ever, still referring to my beloved, and now damaged bike, in such an objective way. I decided to ride back to where I had hit the bear and make sure the Ranger did what he said he would do.  By the time I traveled the two miles to where the bear had been, the ranger was gone and there was no sight of the bear. However he did it, the Ranger had removed the bear quickly and took him to wherever they take animals that have been killed on the road.

I turned the bike around and headed North again. As I passed the rest stop I looked over to see if maybe the Ranger had come back, but the parking lot was now empty except for one lone moped parked off on the grass to the right of the building. ‘Must be a camper,’ I thought to myself.

Looking straight North again in the direction of Front Royal, I noticed the ‘Venture Royale’ badge on the dashboard of the bike. An epiphany then happened that had never happened while riding before.

                                THE BEAR / THE BEAR !!!

I would never again refer to my beloved motorcycle as the Venture again. The spirit of something primordial had overcome both of us today and allowed us to survive. From this moment on, the bike will forever be known as — THE BEAR.

Roanoke Virginia
October 2012

There is this kind of time in everyone’s life. That was what I was told. I was also told I was peculiar in a nice way. But I am not going deep down all this time and peculiar thing and all. It is just that sometimes I feel so empty and I was also told that when you try to write something you should try your best to describe all sorts of stuffs so that the readers will get to know the kind of thing you are feeling. Like for now, the kind of empty I am feeling. Kind of funny though, who would want to know what I am feeling and on top of that who would want to know the kind of empty I was feeling. Anyway, I was feeling very empty yesterday and I am writing all this because I just thought it was pretty cool to feel empty, kind of, just like that. I am not being emotional and all but that is how it is, you like to feel sort of lonely, sad, happy or whatever at time, just like that. And when I driving on my bike, I speed it up to the most it can bear or most I can bear and twist and turn and run over other motor bikes and stuffs that are moving in the road in a kind of modest way but I know they are as ******* as I am. But hell with that, I don’t want to know if anyone is ******* or not. I can’t even think about the right word to replace the *******. But, you know what I mean. It’s kind of sad to find that everyone is *******. Then, that makes me madder and I speed up more. I start to rip apart my accelerator, literally. You know what literally mean, don’t you? It’s when you do something in a literal way just like when some lousy guy start acting out too corny while they say they will bring down the stars and moons for the girl they love.  To hell with love, love is the stupidest thing that will ever again happen to me and if that happens then I will crown myself with all kind of stupid crowns and be the king of stupid. But love was kind of good feeling too.  Anyway I just try not to end up breaking my neck when I am in bike. But you know then I just intently look at the something something that is coming towards me and then I feel like speeding up more and just encounter that innocent ***** face to face. Yeah, I mean it. I feel like pointing the direction of my bike right to that something something truck or stuffs that, just like you know when an archer aims. You know then, I also have this shrewd kind of look in my eyes, like I am dead serious about what I am going to do. Its fun when you know you won’t but you act like you will. Yeah, I just feel like heading right towards the something something and hit it right on its grotesque face with some silly stupid art. Then, can you imagine what will happen? I can see every ******* retards gathering around me. I am lying down with blood over everywhere. I can see pieces of my grand motor bike here and there. I can see the driver of that something getting out and trying to explain that I was the one who came directly into him as if I was attempting suicide. To hell with suicide. What kind of person does suicide. I can see traffic cops and medics and all. They are just trying to carry me to hospital. But I know I won’t want to go to hospital because hospitals make me sick. There are lots of sick and depressing people around. If they would want to take me anywhere then I would like them to take me to mountain top from where I could see a bluest lake  all the clear reflection of clouds and the greens and rainbows and butterflies and all those stuffs the poets from nature describe in their poem. But I know they are too busy for that. They are some stupid people who just want me to admit to hospital. Anyway, when they start to lift up, I just get off the stretcher and start laughing out loud. I will tell them that I am okay and its all my ****** series of imagination and show them that I don’t have wounds and all but they will just vanish. I keep laughing and laughing because then I could finally feel or imagine the pain that I will go through. The pain that will fill me up and I don’t feel empty anymore. That is the exact kind of empty I feel. But that is not enough, I am still on my bike. If you have lost me, I want to repeat all that happened was just a part of my imagination. I imagine stuffs a lot and I think they are cool when I imagine stuffs about dying and just waking up as if I am just taking nap and waking up. Is there anything like that rebirth or stuffs? Anyway, I am still on the bike. I speed up thinking all these things and then I make my way through a very narrow alley between two moving something trucks or buses and there… That is the right kind of empty that just got filled. You know it or not, when you speed up and make a narrow escape from between the moving trucks just closely to save your life. Man, I can feel the air move through my veins and I can see my heart flying out of my chest. Man, was that crazy? I ask to myself. To hell with it. I am still alive and breathing and I am not feeling empty anymore. But as I keep thinking, I just get so mad. I don’t know at what or at whom. Everything is so pale and depressing. I try to cheer myself up looking at the clouds and green trees and trying to think about witty lines that’s funny to me and all and all and them , all it just makes me so mad, just more depressing.

That right, I then stop my bike on the side rail and start thinking about writing about all these stuffs. Because I have this group of friends who kind of poem and stuff and they are pretty good too. I also poem and stuff sometime but nothing that I wrote ever became good. Because I can tell by reading them all that, the stuffs that come in paper are not everything I feel. Like if I have to use percentage to say how near they are to the amount I feel, it would be like ten percent or around. That is not much. Even the government value added tax is thirteen percent. I was trying to be funny but hell with that. I was just feeling empty and all and now I am on my bike stopped on the side of the huge highways where everything is moving. Its depressing to find out that everything is moving , everything around you and you are the only one stopping to look at them moving. If only there was someone who was there by your side to hold your hand and look at all these moving vehicles and the traffics and kids holding the hand of their mothers and fathers and uncles to cross the road safely and those dogs and oxen lying over the road.  To hell with it, if there was actually someone who would be by my side, I won’t be feeling empty and imagining crazy stuffs and stop my bike trying to write a poem out of it or something or anything just so I can be more cool showing my rad poem to the group of my circle who poems. Man, do I love that ? I can certainly make a good actor out of me if I play in a move but it just make me feel more sad and I don’t know why. I look around if I can find any teashop or anything. Just so, I could sit there and order a tea and stay sad and pale and then someone would come and ask me. Hey boy whats the matter with you? Then I would just ignore his question. People can be real nosy sometimes. I am just siiting here having tea and something man. Head off to you own way, I will tell that. Why would I tell me why I was sad anyway. I was thinking about a beautiful girl like an angel that we see in movies , beautiful like that when the word beautiful fails to describe the amount of beauty she has,  I was trying to imagine a situation when I am sipping over my tea sadly and then this angel comes over and ask me what is that making me look pale. She would say nice stuffs to me and man, do I fall in love again? Man… love is the silliest thing ever. You can have enough of it. I was just feeling empty because some girl told me that she doesn’t have anything for me. Even I didn’t have anything for her . But you know there are times when you actually fall in love like madly in love. It’s the same person everywhere, all around you. You can’t just stop thinking about her. But the one who said she has nothing for  me, she meant no feelings or loves that she can do to me. We met few times, two or three and she was nice and all. I was funny and all. But even I haven’t felt anything towards her. Now she is really beautiful with this hair and this long slender face that she has. And then you know it when you want to fall in love. I wanted to fall in love with her because she was exactly the type of the girl that people have to fall in love with. She was active and hardworking. She has a good smile and dimples too. Man, those dimples drive me crazy. I just feel like diving into those tiny little cheeks and then right into her heart. And on the top of that wavy curly hair, it can drive anyone mad. Well, it drove me mad and that is why I am trying to fall in love with her. But anyway she told me last night or sometime in past that she doesn’t feel like that. I want to tell her that even I don’t feel like that with her. But I don’t want to because that may just drive her away from me all more. But anyway I was just mad when she told me that. Not mad like psychologically but like emotionally. I was just trying to explain her that we should may be spend some time together and get to know each other and all because you know I was kind of trying to fall in love with her and wanted to know more about her and make a lover like impression on her and all but man, was she crazy or something? She just said she doesn’t want to. It just made me so mad that I started my bike , yeah after paying for tea and all. I speeded up again and I didn’t want to stop but I had to stop because of this stupid traffic signal but my legs were all dancing because I was anxious and all and I just wanted to cry for nothing. But I can’t cry because I don’t feel like and when you feel like crying you cant stop it anyway. Those stupid tears will just fall off. Then The traffic signal goes green and I speed up and want to race with someone and feel good by beating them. But then there are other bikes that goes ahead me and that makes me feel more sad and then I just so over the yellow side line and start driving like slug. Man, I am extreme. I can feel it. I try to think about writing all this when I go home but I know I wont because I have done this many time and I have never written anything. Its just like that.

Its just like that. You have all these stupid to intelligent ideas an stuffs when you are walking or on the bike but I never do anything. When I reach home, I change my dress start it all again. I start to become normal like nothing is wrong with me. It just drives me crazy.. everything is so wrong with me. I have to be somewhere is some other good job that I will enjoy and that also pays me pretty good so that I can enjoy and all. I also have to fall in love with this girl. I have to complete one of my research paper so that I can earn good reputation among these technical circle of mine. I have to pen down some good stuffs so that I can perform it loudly in front of everyone and then everyone would cheer for me and all. I will just act modest and bow down. I also have to meet some of these my school friends and all and have some crazy times with them mocking the professional life and all. I have to be with my family, go to temples and stuffs and pray and ask the god to help me focus in my pursuit, which I am not sure what that is so I also pray and ask the god to show me the  right path. Its easy to pray and all and just stay happy thinking god will do everything but hell with god. I also have to prepare for this test and I have to complete reading this book and man, I have so much to do. I can’t just waste my time just like this.  

**There are always enough stupid things to drain the best outof you and leave you in terrible vacancy.

--------------
Just bought a new back wheel
For my tall and sturdy bike
And riding back from a party
I got hit by a big white truck

I was cycling by the curb
A truck came zooming up
I had the space of a meter or more
But quickly the space diminished

Suddenly I felt it
A crunching of the wheel
I shouted in anglo-saxon
Wehey! As I leapt from the speeding frame

I fell into a running roll
And stood straight up and turned around
My bike was laying flat
The back wheel sadly spinning.

I wrung my hands and giggled
And looked about in awe.
The people that saw this happen
Came up and shook their heads

Are you alright? I cant believe what happened.
I didn’t catch his number plate
What a ******* crazy driver
Are you sure you are alright?

A gay irish man was there
You uttured a cry he said
And then flew from your bike
Like a… like a… a ballerina

I forced the wheel back into place
So it was was sort of fit to roll
The chain and gears were gnarled
So I couldn’t exactly ride

On the way two foreign drunks
Looked and spoke about my bike
Autobus smash, I said
Ohhhhhh they said

Finally arriving near finsbury
A man who was cycling past
Said do you need some help?
I said yes please I got run over by a truck

What I can do, said thomas from hungary
Or what we can do
Is take a length of chain out
So at least you can get home

Ok yes please I said
And he bent down and used his little tools
And got his hands all oily black
And made me a fixed gear bike

Now your bike is a fixie bike
So im afraid you cant change the gears
Like my fixie bike, he said
Thanks hungarian dude

so like
i know this isn't the classiest way of doing things
and i apologize in advance for posting my proposal
on the bulletin board
of this skeezy coffee shop -
no offense to the owners
please don't throw this letter away -
but last week
you stole my bike

it was a great one
not shiny or fancy or anything, but it worked well for me
worked for the past four years
and the twenty years before that
when it was still my dad's
and he rode it to the post office every day to
help letters get where they belong
(maybe letters like this one, isn't that romantic
maybe he's guiding this
thanks dad, you're the best)
and passed it on when his knees froze up
and i rode it to this skeezy coffee shop every day -
sorry to the owners
(again)
but i buy your ****** lattes every day
least you can do is let me propose -
but then last week
i left it outside
and didn't lock it
(fate, see)
and you stole my bike

i think
you were probably walking by -
maybe about to come get a ****** latte
from this skeezy coffee shop
(sorry)
but then something caught your eye
i think you saw all the emotion invested in my bike.
two decades of getting letters where they belong.
four years of ****** lattes.
and well
who can resist so much meaning
spread out in the open for anyone to take?
and i mean
since you saw it there,
didn't just say 'oh'
'a bike'
like everyone else,
you were probably meant to have it.
it's a piece of my heart
(the bike i mean)
and now you have it

or maybe you just liked the color
and like
i do too
green is a great color

i like green
you like green
you wanna go out sometime

we could go on a bike ride
except
you stole my bike

anyway
i don't think the bulletins are supposed to be this long
but it's an important one
so maybe it's okay this time
so if you see someone with an old green bike
tell them i'm in the skeezy coffee shop
i'm the one drinking the ****** latte
and holding a jewelry box

I’m thinking now of my childhood
Of Dinky toys and a bright shiny trike
I travelled for miles going nowhere
On that beautiful three-wheeled bike.
It even had a boot on the back
Like a bread bin between the wheels
That I used to fill with books and toys
Only opened to best friend’s appeals.
The bike was bright red and I loved it
I raced round on it every day
Until that time when I was just too big
And the bike was taken away.
I missed that old red tricycle
It had been my companion for a while
But the two-wheeled cycle that Dad got
Soon turned my lips up in a smile.
It was a second-hand bike and quite grown-up
Hand-painted the darkest maroon
And I rode it for miles, this time with my dad
But it’s fun-giving days went too soon.
My next bike was blue, and a racer
Derailleur gears numbered ten
I wanted to ride out again with my dad
But he’d cycled his last before then.
My dad rode a bike for the whole of his life
Yet he never reached fifty-three
When I’m on a bike now, cycling along
I think of him riding with me.

©Joe Wilson – Riding a bike with my dad…2015

Downshifting

drifting, listing to the right,

I fell on my bike the other day

flipped over the front of it actually

but kept myself in a navy crawl frog position

landed kind of on my stomach, kind of on my knees

and then a split second later my bike had finished its flip and it landed on my back.

Nothing really happened except this nice man came by— he had seen it.

I got up and was walking back and forth

and he dusted leaves off of me and felt my head in the back where the bike hit it.

I had a bump and the man was gentle, respectful.

He asked how it felt to walk and asked where all the places were that I thought I hit.

I said here here here and here especially. 

And I said, “Did you see my bike land on me?” 

He said, “The whole thing was kind of bad.” 

And I think he wanted to downplay it.

He was about my age and I wanted to say hey, I’m not really asking you out on a date but you are so kind and if there isn’t a woman in your life who

would be upset about it would you like to have a coffee with me? 

but then I thanked him instead and unexpectedly hopped on my bike and started riding away to catch up with my son. 

And the guy was saying to my back, “Really? You’re just going to ride your bike?” Like maybe I was supposed to be traumatized or something.

 But maybe he wanted me to walk with him for a minute…

The truth is I really wasn’t hurt at all except for a couple of

scrapes and big bump on my left quad muscle and bikes are second nature to me, so yeah, I’m gonna ride.

 So I rode for awhile and I felt like I had just been in a soft pillow with that dude. The feeling of being so comfortable wasn’t leaving me and I thought man, I rode away so fast, how come? He would have felt like an idiot yelling after me, I made it impossible for him. He was a shy guy anyway, I could tell. Or at least was sort of surprised by the exchange.

 I could have helped him out could have just said hey thanks are you on facebook? do you wanna do the friend thing…?

 So now I’m imagining what if I had done that and turns out he's single and we got in touch…. and then my mind goes into a happy little land of strong forearms and twinkly laughing and good food and boats and lakes and music and *** in the kitchen and laughing so hard you blow milk out of your nose.

 And THEN I remember….when you fall in love you it’s all fun and stuff but, in reality, there is a whole entire other person attached.

 And that person has all these appendages that are called family and they are a part of the package and you end up having to get along with a bunch of people you ordinarily wouldn’t say more than five words to. You have to see them at every holiday. You have to buy them presents. You have to bake stuff and decorate stuff. And besides the family, the dude himself always has issues of some sort that, no matter how much you love him, are annoying as ****. Why is that?

 And then I think, this…this… this is precisely why I ride my bike. So I can think.

Day #4: Cody To Saint Mary’s

After breakfast in the Irma’s great dining hall, I left Cody in the quiet stillness of a Saturday morning. The dream I had last night about Indian summer camps now pointed the way toward things that I could once again understand. If there was another road to rival, or better, the Beartooth Highway, it would be the one that I would ride this morning.

It was 8:45 a.m., and I was headed northwest out of Cody to The Chief Joseph Highway. It is almost impossible to describe this road without having ridden or driven over it at least once. I was the first motorcyclist to ever ride its elevated curves and valleys on its inauguration over ten years ago. It opened that day, also a Saturday, at eight, and I got there two hours early to make sure the flagman would position me at the front of the line. I wanted to be the first to go through while paying homage to the great Nez Perce Chief. I will forever remember the honor of being the first motorist of any kind to have gone up and over this incredible road.

The ascent, over Dead Indian Pass at the summit, reminded me once again that the past is never truly dead if the present is to be alive. The illusion of what was, is, and will be, is captured only in the moment of their present affirmation. The magic is in living within the confirmation of what is.

The Chief Joseph Highway was, and is, the greatest road that I have ever ridden. I have always considered it a great personal gift to me — being the first one to have experienced what cannot fully be described. Ending in either Cooke City or Cody, the choice of direction was yours. The towns were not as different from each other as you would be from your previous self when you arrived at either location at the end of your ride.

It turned severely in both directions, as it rose or descended in elevation, letting you see both ends from almost anywhere you began. It was a road for sure but of all the roads in my history, both present and before, this one was a metaphor to neither the life I had led, nor the life I seek. This road was a metaphor to the life I lead.

A metaphor to the life I lead

It teased you with its false endings, always hiding just one more hairpin as you corrected and violently pulled the bike back to center while leaning as hard as you could to the other side. While footpegs were dragging on both sides of the bike your spirit and vision of yourself had never been so clear. You now realized you were going more than seventy in a turn designed for maximum speeds of forty and below.

To die on this road would make a mockery of life almost anywhere else. To live on this roadcreated a new standard where risk would be essential, and, if you dared, you gambled away all security and previous limits for what it taught.

It was noon as I entered Cooke City again wondering if that same buffalo would be standing at Tower Junction to make sure that I turned right this time, as I headed north toward Glacier National Park. Turning right at Tower Junction would take me past Druid Peak and through the north entrance of Yellowstone at Mammoth Hot Springs and the town of Gardiner Montana. Wyoming and Montana kept trading places as the road would wind and unfold. Neither state wanted to give up to the other the soul of the returning prodigal which in the end neither could win … and neither could ever lose!

From Gardiner, Rt #89 curved and wound its way through the Paradise Valley to Livingston and the great open expanse of Montana beyond. The road, through the lush farmlands of the valley, quieted and settled my spirit, as it allowed me the time to reorient and revalue all the things I had just seen.

I thought about the number of times it almost ended along this road when a deer or elk had crossed my path in either the early morning or evening hours. I continued on both thankful and secure knowing in my heart that when the end finally came, it would not be while riding on two-wheels. It was something that was made known to me in a vision that I had years ago, and an assurance that I took not for granted, as I rode grateful and alone through these magnificent hills.

The ride to Livingston along Montana Rt.# 89 was dotted with rich working farms on both sides of the road. The sun was at its highest as I entered town, and I stopped quickly for gas and some food at the first station I found. There were seven good hours of daylight left, and I still had at least three hundred miles to go.

I was now more than an hour north of Livingston, and the sign that announced White Sulphur Springs brought back memories and a old warning. It flashed my memory back to the doe elk that came up from the creek-bed almost twenty years ago, brushing the rear of the bike and almost causing us to crash. I can still hear my daughter screaming “DAAAD,”as she saw the elk before I did.

I dropped the bike down a gear as I took a long circular look around. As I passed the spot of our near impact on the south side of town, I said a prayer for forgiveness. I asked to be judged kindly by the animals that I loved and to become even more visible to the things I couldn’t see.

The ride through the Lewis and Clark National Forest was beautiful and serene, as two hawks and a lone coyote bade me farewell, and I exited the park through Monarch at its northern end. There were now less than five hours of daylight left, and the East entrance to Glacier National Park at St. Mary’s was still two hundred miles away. An easy ride under most circumstances, but the Northern Rockies were never normal, and their unpredictability was another of the many reasons as to why I loved them so. Cody, and my conflicted feelings while there, seemed only a distant memory. Distant, but connected, like the friends and loved ones I had forgotten to call.

At Dupoyer Montana, I was compelled to stop. Not enticed or persuaded, not called out to or invited — but compelled! A Bar that had existed on the east side of this road, heading north, for as long as anyone could remember, Ranger Jacks, was now closed. I sat for the longest time staring at the weathered and dilapidated board siding and the real estate sign on the old front swinging door that said Commercial Opportunity. My mind harkened back to the first time I stopped into ‘Jacks,’ while heading south from Calgary and Lake Louise. My best friend, Dave Hill, had been with me, and we both sidled up to the bar, which ran down the entire left side of the interior and ordered a beer. Jack just looked at the two of us for the longest time.

It Wasn’t A Look It Was A Stare

Bearded and toothless, he had a stare that encompassed all the hate and vile within it that he held for his customers. His patrons were the locals and also those traveling to and from places unknown to him but never safe from his disgust. He neither liked the place that he was in nor any of those his customers had told him about.

Jack Was An Equal-Opportunity Hater!

He reminded both Dave and I of why we traveled to locations that took us outside and beyond what we already knew. We promised each other, as we walked back to the bike, that no matter how bad life ever got we would never turn out to be like him. Jack was both a repudiation of the past and a denial of the future with the way he constantly refused to live in the moment. He was physically and spiritually everything we were trying to escape. He did however continue to die in the moment, and it was a death he performed in front of his customers … over, and over, and over again.

As I sat on the bike, staring at the closed bar, a woman and her daughter got out of a car with Texas license plates. The mother smiled as she watched me taking one last look and said: “Are you going to buy it, it’s for sale you know?” I said “no, but I had been in it many times when it was still open.” She said: “That must have been a real experience” as she walked back to her car. It was a real experience back then for sure, and one that she, or any other accidental tourist headed north or south on Rt. #89, will never know. I will probably never regret going in there again, but I feel fortunate that I had the chance to do it those many times before.

Who Am I Kidding, I’d Do It Again In A Heartbeat

I would never pass through Dupoyer Montana, the town where Lewis and Clark had their only hostile encounter (Two Medicine Fight) with Indians, without stopping at Ranger Jacksfor a beer. It was one of those windows into the beyond that are found in the most unlikely of places, and I was profoundly changed every time that I walked in, and then out of, his crumbling front door. Jack never said hello or bid you goodbye. He just stared at you as something that offended him, and when you looked back at his dead and bloodshot eyes, and for reasons still unexplained, you felt instantly free.

In The Strangest And Clearest Of Ways … I’ll Miss Him

It was a short ride from Dupoyer to East Glacier, as the sun settled behind the Lewis Rangeshowing everything in its half-light as only twilight can. I once again thought of the Blackfeet and how defiant they remained until the very end. Being this far North, they had the least contact with white men, and were dominant against the other tribes because of their access to Canadian guns. When they learned that the U.S. Government proposed to arm their mortal enemies, the Shoshones and the Nez Perce, their animosity for all white invaders only heightened and strengthened their resolve to fight. I felt the distant heat of their blood as I crossed over Rt. #2 in Browning and said a quick prayer to all that they had seen and to a fury deep within their culture that time could not ****.

It was almost dark, as I rode the extreme curves of Glacier Park Road toward the east entrance from Browning. As I arrived in St Mary’s, I turned left into the Park and found that the gatehouse was still manned. Although being almost 9:00 p.m., the guard was still willing to let me through. She said that the road would remain open all night for its entire fifty-three-mile length, but that there was construction and mud at the very top near Logan Pass.

Construction, no guardrails, the mud and the dark, and over 6600 feet of altitude evoked the Sour Spirit Deity of the Blackfeet to come out of the lake and whisper to me in a voice that the Park guard could not hear “Not tonight Wana Hin Gle. Tonight you must remain with the lesser among us across the lake with the spirit killers — and then tomorrow you may cross.”

Dutifully I listened, because again from inside, I could feel its truth. Wana Hin Gle was the name the Oglala Sioux had given me years before, It means — He Who Happens Now.

In my many years of mountain travel I have crossed both Galena and Beartooth Passes in the dark. Both times, I was lucky to make it through unharmed. I thanked this great and lonesome Spirit who had chosen to protect me tonight and then circled back through the gatehouse and along the east side of the lake to the lodge.

The Desk Clerk Said, NO ROOMS!

As I pulled up in front of the St Mary’s Lodge & Resort, I noticed the parking lot was full. It was not a good sign for one with no reservation and for one who had not planned on staying on this side of the park for the night. The Chinese- American girl behind the desk confirmed what I was fearing most with her words … “Sorry Sir, We’re Full.”

When I asked if she expected any cancellations she emphatically said: “No chance,” and that there were three campers in the parking lot who had inquired before me, all hoping for the same thing. I was now 4th on the priority list for a potential room that might become available. Not likely on this warm summer weekend, and not surprising either, as all around me the tourists scurried in their pursuit of leisure, as tourists normally did.

I looked at the huge lobby with its two TV monitors and oversized leather sofas and chairs. I asked the clerk at the desk if I could spend the night sitting there, reading, and waiting for the sun to come back up. I reminded her that I was on a motorcycle and that it was too dangerous for me to cross Logan Pass in the dark. She said “sure,” and the restaurant stayed open until ten if I had not yet had dinner. “Try the grilled lake trout,” she said, “it’s my favorite for sure. They get them right out of St. Mary’s Lake daily, and you can watch the fishermen pull in their catch from most of our rooms that face the lake.”

I felt obligated to give the hotel some business for allowing me to freeload in their lobby, so off to the restaurant I went. There was a direct access door to the restaurant from the far corner of the main lobby where my gear was, and my waiter (from Detroit) was both terrific and fast. He told me about his depressed flooring business back in Michigan and how, with the economy so weak, he had decided a steady job for the summer was the way to go.

We talked at length about his first impressions of the Northern Rockies and about how much his life had changed since he arrived last month. He had been over the mountain at least seven times and had crossed it in both directions as recently as last night. I asked him, with the road construction, what a night-crossing was currently like? and he responded: “Pretty scary, even in a Jeep.” He then said, “I can’t even imagine crossing over on a motorcycle, in the dark, with no guardrails, and having to navigate through the construction zone for those eight miles just before the top.” I sat for another hour drinking coffee and wondered about what life on top of the Going To The Sun Road must be like at this late hour.

The Lake Trout Had Been More Than Good

After I finished dinner, I walked back into the lobby and found a large comfortable leather chair with a long rustic coffee table in front. Knowing now that I had made the right decision to stay, I pulled the coffee table up close to the chair and stretched my legs out in front. It was now almost midnight, and the only noise that could be heard in the entire hotel was the kitchen staff going home for the night. Within fifteen minutes, I was off to sleep. It had been a long ride from Cody, and I think I was more tired than I wanted to admit. I started these rides in my early twenties. And now forty years later, my memory still tried to accomplish what my body long ago abandoned.

At 2:00 a.m., a security guard came over and nudged my left shoulder. “Mr Behm, we’ve just had a room open up and we could check you in if you’re still interested.” The thought of unpacking the bike in the dark, and for just four hours of sleep in a bed, was of no interest to me at this late hour. I thanked him for his consideration but told him I was fine just where I was. He then said: “Whatever’s best for you sir,” and went on with his rounds.

My dreams that night, were strange, with that almost real quality that happens when the lines between where you have come from and where you are going become blurred. I had visions of Blackfeet women fishing in the lake out back and of their warrior husbands returning with fresh ponies from a raid upon the Nez Perce. The sounds of the conquering braves were so real that they woke me, or was it the early morning kitchen staff beginning their breakfast shift? It was 5:15 a.m., and I knew I would never know for sure — but the difference didn’t matter when the imagery remained the same.

Differences never mattered when the images were the same



Day #5 (A.M.): Glacier To Columbia Falls

As I opened my eyes and looked out from the dark corner of the lobby, I saw CNN on the monitor across the room. The sound had been muted all night, but in the copy running across the bottom of the screen it said: “Less than twenty-four hours until the U.S. defaults.”  For weeks, Congress had been debating on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling and even as remote as it was here in northwestern Montana, I still could not escape the reality of what it meant. I had a quick breakfast of eggs, biscuits, and gravy, before I headed back to the mountain. The guard station at the entrance was unattended, so I vowed to make a twenty-dollar donation to the first charity I came across — I hoped it would be Native American.

I headed west on The Going To The Sun Road and crossed Glacier at dawn. It created a memory on that Sunday morning that will live inside me forever. It was a road that embodied the qualities of all lesser roads, while it stood proudly alone because of where it could take you and the way going there would make you feel. Its standards, in addition to its altitude, were higher than most comfort zones allowed. It wasn’t so much the road itself but where it was. Human belief and ingenuity had built a road over something that before was almost impossible to even walk across. Many times, as you rounded a blind turn on Logan Pass, you experienced the sensation of flying, and you had to look beneath you to make sure that your wheels were still on the ground.

The road climbed into the clouds as I rounded the West side of the lake. It felt more like flying, or being in a jet liner, when combined with the tactile adventure of knowing I was on two-wheels. Being on two-wheels was always my first choice and had been my consummate and life affirming mode of travel since the age of sixteen.

Today would be another one of those ‘it wasn’t possible to happen’ days. But it did, and it happened in a way that even after so many blessed trips like this, I was not ready for. I felt in my soul I would never see a morning like this again, but then I also knew beyond the borders of self-limitation, and from what past experience had taught me, that I absolutely would.

So Many ‘Once In A Lifetime’ Moments Have Been Joyous Repetition

My life has been blessed because I have been given so many of these moments. Unlike anything else that has happened, these life-altering events have spoken to me directly cutting through all learned experience that has tried in vain to keep them out. The beauty of what they have shown is beyond my ability to describe, and the tears running down my face were from knowing that at least during these moments, my vision had been clear.

I knew that times like these were in a very real way a preparation to die. Life’s highest moments often exposed a new awareness for how short life was. Only by looking through these windows, into a world beyond, would we no longer fear death’s approach.

I leaned forward to pat the motorcycle’s tank as we began our ascent. In a strange but no less real way, it was only the bike that truly understood what was about to happen. It had been developed for just this purpose and now would get to perform at its highest level. The fuel Injection, and linked disk brakes, were a real comfort this close to the edge, and I couldn’t have been riding anything better for what I was about to do.

I also couldn’t have been in a better place at this stage of my life in the summer of 2011. Things had been changing very fast during this past year, and I decided to bend to that will rather than to fight what came unwanted and in many ways unknown. I knew that today would provide more answers, highlighting the new questions that I searched for, and the ones on this mountaintop seemed only a promise away.

Glaciers promise!

I thought about the many bear encounters, and attacks, that had happened in both Glacier and Yellowstone during this past summer. As I passed the entry point to Granite Park Chalet, I couldn’t help but think about the tragic deaths of Julie Helgeson and Michelle Koons on that hot August night back in 1967. They both fell prey to the fatality that nature could bring. The vagaries of chance, and a bad camping choice, led to their both being mauled and then killed by the same rogue Grizzly in different sections of the park.

They were warned against camping where they did, but bear attacks had been almost unheard of — so they went ahead. How many times had I decided to risk something, like crossing Beartooth or Galena Pass at night, when I had been warned against it, but still went ahead? How many times had coming so close to the edge brought everything else in my life into clear focus?

1967 Was The Year I Started My Exploration Of The West

The ride down the western side of The Going To the Sun Road was a mystery wrapped inside the eternal magic of this mountain highway in the sky. Even the long line of construction traffic couldn’t dampen my excitement, as I looked off to the South into the great expanse that only the Grand Canyon could rival for sheer majesty. Snow was on the upper half of Mount’s Stimson (10,142 ft.), James (9,575 ft.) and Jackson (10,052), and all progress was slow (20 mph). Out of nowhere, a bicyclist passed me on the extreme outside and exposed edge of the road. I prayed for his safety, as he skirted to within three feet of where the roadended and that other world, that the Blackfeet sing about, began. Its exposed border held no promises and separated all that we knew from what we oftentimes feared the most.

I am sure he understood what crossing Logan Pass meant, no matter the vehicle, and from the look in his eyes I could tell he was in a place that no story of mine would ever tell. He waved quickly as he passed on my left side. I waved back with the universal thumbs-upsign, and in a way that is only understood by those who cross mountains … we were brothers on that day.



Day # 5: (P.M.) Columbia Falls to Salmon Idaho

The turnaround point of the road was always hard. What was all forward and in front of me yesterday was consumed by the thought of returning today. The ride back could take you down the same path, or down a different road, but when your destination was the same place that you started from, your arrival was greeted in some ways with the anti-****** of having been there, and done that, before.

I tried everything I knew to fool my psyche into a renewed phase of discovery. All the while though, there was this knowing that surrounded my thoughts. It contained a reality that was totally hidden within the fantasy of the trip out. It was more honest I reminded myself, and once I made peace with it, the return trip would become even more intriguing than the ride up until now. When you knew you were down to just a few days and counting, each day took on a special reverence that the trip out always seemed to lack.

In truth, the route you planned for your return had more significance than the one before. Where before it was direct and one-dimensional, the return had to cover two destinations — the trip out only had to cover one. The route back also had to match the geography with the timing of what you asked for inside of yourself. The trip out only had to inspire and amuse.

The trip south on Rt.#35 along the east side of Flathead Lake was short but couldn’t be measured by its distance. It was an exquisitely gorgeous stretch of road that took less than an hour to travel but would take more than a lifetime to remember. The ripples that blew eastward across the lake in my direction created the very smallest of whitecaps, as the two cranes that sat in the middle of the lake took off for a destination unknown. I had never seen Flathead Lake from this side before and had always chosen Rt.#93 on the western side for all previous trips South. That trip took you through Elmo and was a ride I thought to be unmatched until I entered Rt.#35 this morning. This truly was the more beautiful ride, and I was thankful for its visual newness. It triggered inside of me my oldest feelings of being so connected, while at the same time, being so alone.

As I connected again with my old friend Rt.# 93, the National Bison Range sat off to my west. The most noble of wild creatures, they were now forced to live in contained wander where before they had covered, by the millions, both our country and our imagination. I thought again about their intrinsic connection to Native America and the perfection that existed within that union.

The path of the Great Bison was also the Indian’s path. The direction they chose was one and the same. It had purpose and reason — as well as the majesty of its promise. It was often unspoken except in the songs before the night of the hunt and in the stories that were told around the fire on the night after. It needed no further explanation. The beauty within its harmony was something that just worked, and words were a poor substitute for a story that only their true connection would tell.

This ‘Road’ Still Contained That Eternal Connection In Now Paved Over Hoofprints Of Dignity Lost

The Bitteroot Range called out to me in my right ear, but there would be no answer today. Today, I would head South through the college town of Missoula toward the Beaverhead Mountains and then Rt.#28 through the Targhee National Forest. I arrived in Missoula in the brightest of sunshine. The temperature was over ninety-degrees as I parked the bike in front of the Missoula Club. A fixture in this college town for many years, the Missoula Club was both a college bar and city landmark. It needed no historic certification to underline its importance. Ask any resident or traveler, past or present, have you been to the Missoula Club? and you’ll viscerally feel their answer. It’s not beloved by everyone … just by those who have always understood that places like this have fallen into the back drawer of America’s history. Often, their memory being all that’s left.

The hamburger was just like I expected, and as I ate at the bar, I limited myself to just one mug of local brew. One beer is all that I allowed myself when riding. I knew that I still had 150 more miles to go, and I was approaching that time of day when the animals came out and crossed the road to drink. In most cases, the roads had been built to follow the rivers, streams, and later railroads, and they acted as an unnatural barrier between the safety of the forest and the water that the animals living there so desperately needed. Their crossing was a nightly ritual and was as certain as the rising of the sun and then the moon. I respected its importance, and I tried to schedule my rides around the danger it often presented — but not today.

After paying the bartender, I took a slow and circuitous ride around town. Missoula was one of those western towns that I could happily live in, and I secretly hoped that before my time ran out that I would. The University of Montana was entrenched solidly and peacefully against the mountain this afternoon as I extended my greeting. It would be on my very short list of schools to teach at if I were ever lucky enough to make choices like that again.

Dying In The Classroom, After Having Lived So Strongly, Had An Appeal Of Transference That I Find Hard To Explain

The historic Wilma Theatre, by the bridge, said adieu as I re-pointed the bike South toward the Idaho border. I thought about the great traveling shows, like Hope and Crosby, that had played here before the Second World War. Embedded in the burgundy fabric of its giant curtain were stories that today few other places could tell. It sat proudly along the banks of the Clark Fork River, its past a time capsule that only the river could tell. Historic theatres have always been a favorite of mine, and like the Missoula Club, the Wilma was another example of past glory that was being replaced by banks, nail salons, and fast-food restaurants almost wherever you looked.

Thankfully, Not In Missoula

Both my spirit and stomach were now full, as I passed through the towns of Hamilton and Darby on my way to Sula at the state line. I was forced to stop at the train crossing in Sulajust past the old and closed Sula High School on the North edge of town. The train was still half a mile away to my East, as I put the kickstand down on the bike and got off for a closer look. The bones of the old school contained stories that had never been told. Over the clanging of the oncoming train, I thought I heard the laughter of teenagers as they rushed through the locked and now darkened halls. Shadowy figures passed by the window over the front door on the second floor, and in the glare of the mid-afternoon sun it appeared that they were waving at me. Was I again the victim of too much anticipation and fresh air or was I just dreaming to myself in broad daylight again?

As I Dreamed In Broad Daylight, I Spat Into The Wind Of Another Time

I waited for twenty-minutes, counting the cars of the mighty Santa Fe Line, as it headed West into the Pacific time zone and the lands where the great Chief Joseph and Nez Perce roamed. The brakeman waved as his car slowly crossed in front of my stopped motorcycle — each of us envying the other for something neither of us truly understood.

The train now gone … a bell signaled it was safe to cross the tracks. I looked to my right one more time and saw the caboose only two hundred yards down the line. Wondering if it was occupied, and if they were looking back at me, I waved one more time. I then flipped my visor down and headed on my way happy for what the train had brought me but sad in what its short presence had taken away.

As I entered the Salmon & Challis National Forest, I was already thinking about Italian food and the great little restaurant within walking distance of my motel. I always spent my nights in Salmon at the Stagecoach Inn. It was on the left side of Rt. #93, just before the bridge, where you made a hard left turn before you entered town. The motel’s main attraction was that it was built right against the Western bank of the Salmon River. I got a room in the back on the ground floor and could see the ducks and ducklings as they walked along the bank. It was only a short walk into town from the front of the motel and less than a half a block going in the other direction for great Italian food.

The motel parking lot was full, with motorcycles, as I arrived, because this was Sturgis Week in South Dakota. As I watched the many groups of clustered riders congregate outside as they cleaned their bikes, I was reminded again of why I rode. I rode to be alone with myself and with the West that had dominated my thoughts and dreams for so many years. I wondered what they saw in their group pilgrimage toward acceptance? I wondered if they ever experienced the feeling of leaving in the morning and truly not knowing where they would end up that night. The Sturgis Rally would attract more than a million riders many of whom hauled their motorcycles thousands of miles behind pickups or in trailers. Most would never experience, because of sheer masquerade and fantasy, what they had originally set out on two-wheels to find.

I Feel Bad For Them As They Wave At Me Through Their Shared Reluctance

They seemed to feel, but not understand, what this one rider alone, and in no hurry to clean his ***** motorcycle, represented. I had always liked the way a touring bike looked when covered with road-dirt. It wore the recognition of its miles like a badge of honor. As it sat faithfully alone in some distant motel parking lot, night after night, it waited in proud silence for its rider to return. I cleaned only the windshield, lights, and turn signals, as I bedded the Goldwing down before I started out for dinner. As I left, I promised her that tomorrow would be even better than today. It was something that I always said to her at night. As she sat there in her glorified patina and watched me walk away, she already knew what tomorrow would bring.

The Veal Marsala was excellent at the tiny restaurant by the motel. It was still not quite seven o’clock, and I decided to take a slow walk through the town. It was summer and the river was quiet, its power deceptive in its passing. I watched three kayakers pass below me as I crossed the bridge and headed East into Salmon. Most everything was closed for the evening except for the few bars and restaurants that lit up the main street of this old river town. It took less than fifteen minutes to complete my visitation, and I found myself re-crossing the bridge and headed back to the motel.

There were now even more motorcycles in the parking lot than before, and I told myself that it had been a stroke of good fortune that I had arrived early. If I had been shut out for a room in Salmon, the chances of getting one in Challis, sixty miles further south, would have been much worse. As small as Salmon was, Challis was much smaller, and in all the years of trying, I had never had much luck there in securing a room.

I knew I would sleep soundly that night, as I listened to the gentle sounds of a now peaceful river running past my open sliding doors. Less than twenty-yards away, I was not at all misled by its tranquility. It cut through the darkness of a Western Idaho Sunday night like Teddy Roosevelt patrolled the great Halls of Congress.

Running Softly, But Carrying Within It A Sleeping Defiance

I had seen its fury in late Spring, as it carried the great waters from on high to the oceans below. I have rafted its white currents in late May and watched a doctor from Kalispell lose his life in its turbulence. In remembrance, I said a short prayer to his departed spirit before drifting off to sleep.

A bicycle is the most efficient transportation machine.  A little input and I’m gliding, moving a useful measurable distance but more than that. I like going fast enough so the wind in my ears is louder than my thoughts.  On a tough day I like riding until I can be grateful again; sometimes that takes a couple hours but every ride is a good ride.

My youth’s independence was a banana seat Huffy pulled from an under-appreciated pile of rust in the back of St. Vincent’s Thrift Shop.  No school bus meant riding to school, the first 45 minutes of every day in all weather. Afternoons were exploring detours; summers were expeditions to the city limits, sometimes beyond.  I needed an upgrade for high school; I found a spotless antique 3 speed Raleigh, the cultural English workhorse collecting dust in an unlikely garage for $50.

I kept it through two foster homes. The first one kept me busy with farm chores, but the second was back in town. There, I had the bike back, and as an aside, they had a phenomenally sophisticated wall sized sound system: reel-to-reel and amazing headphones. I would forget myself in records: Sgt. Peppers, Genesis, Yes, etc, and another favorite. Just a guitar and piano instrumental album with a simple melody called Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter. Something about that one song in particular I heard faint glimmerings of contentment that was denied to me.  I would replay it to cling to this hint of a simple happiness I didn’t understand; that if it was in the song, it was somewhere deep in me.
Without a car for 10 years, one used 10-speed or another got me to various eccentric jobs.  

Fast forward to the life-changer, after a divorce. Needing to reconnect with myself, I searched for a decent bike. I found it hanging dusty in the back of a cluttered boutique shop smelling of tire rubber, quiet with racers’ confidence. They had a Lemond thoroughbred on consignment, assembled custom 5 years earlier to race. It was slightly outdated, but a dent on the top tube put it out to pasture. It was steel though, so rideable enough for me.  My entire $300 savings and it was mine. Then I discovered the special pedals needed special shoes, so another month saving for those.  I wasn’t going to wear those silly spiderman outfits, until I started to ride more than 10 miles and my **** demanded it.  And those pockets in the back of the shirt were handy.  I met a friend who taught me how to draft: my skinny wheel a few inches behind the bike in front at 20 mph, to save precious energy in the slipstream. Truly dangerous, vulnerable, and effectively blinded; but he pointed at the ground with various hand signals to warn of upcoming road hazards. I was touched by this wordless language of trust and camaraderie. This innate concern is essential to the sport, even among competitors, so it seems to attract quality people I liked.  My new life expanded with friends.

I discovered biking exercise could stabilize the life-long effects of brain injury, lost some weight, grew stronger, and started setting goals.  First longer group rides, then a century (100 miles in one ride), then mountain biking: epic fun in nature, unadulterated happiness.  Then novice racing, then the next category up with a team, then a triathlon.  It became an admitted obsession but I won a pair of socks or bike parts every now and then.  Eventually tattooed two bike chains around my ankle, one twisted and the other broken.  I loved the lifestyle, and had truly reinvented and rediscovered myself.

A 500 mile ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles with fellow wounded veterans helped dissipate the old shame from the military.  I had joined the ride to raise money for a good cause.  I respected the program and knew personally that cycling had changed my life.  They turned out to be inspiring, helping me more than I could have helped them.  Some had only just started riding a bike for only a few weeks, some were amputees fit with special-made adapters on regular bikes, some had no legs using hand cycles.  They all joined on to the task of riding 500 miles. No one whined, and helping each other finish the day was the only goal.  While riding with them, I began to open up about my experience.  I found a few others who also had TBI, and we could laugh about similar mishaps.  The other veterans didn’t judge me about anything, like when I was injured, the nature of my disability, how much I did or didn’t accomplish. I had signed up just like them, had to recover back to a functioning life just like them.  It was the first time in my life that whole chapter in my life was accepted; I wasn't odd, and they helped close the shame on that old chapter.  (Thank you, R2R.)  The next year I took a 1500 mile self-supported bike trip through western mountain ranges with my husband and soulmate, whom I had met mt. biking.

There was one late Spring day, finally warm after a long winter, when I just wanted to ride for a few hours by myself.  No speedometer or training intervals, just enjoy the park road winding under the trees. I had downloaded some new music on the IPod, a sampler from the library.  I felt happy.  Life is Good.  Rounding a bend by the river, coasting through sunbeams sparkling the park’s peaceful road, my earphones unexpectedly played Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter.  I hadn’t heard that simple guitar tune in three decades.  My God, time suddenly disappeared.  I was right back in the forgotten foster home, listening for the faint silver threads of the contentment I was feeling at this very moment on the bike.  The full force of this sudden connection, the wholeness of the life and unity of myself in one epiphany, brought me to tears. I found myself pouring my heart into praying hang in there, girl, hang in there, you’ll find it and I felt my younger self hearing echoes of birds singing in new green leaves.

Congratulations, you now have a sweet *** ride
It was really my own fault for leaving it outside.
I have to say, I’m almost impressed,
because stealing a bike must have been quite the test.
In broad daylight, no less, you snuck up to my house,
snatched up my bike and scurried off,
quiet
as a mouse.
My neighbors must have been distracted, you picked a great time,
to steal that bike right off my lawn, the perfect crime.
I hope that you took it because you loved it a lot,
not so you could sell it, get some money,
and buy,
lots of ***.
But I’m sure that’s not the case, you wouldn’t do that,
I’m sure that you’re just borrowing it to bike off some fat.
Or you took it because you couldn’t afford one for your kids,
if that’s the case don’t worry,
I’m glad,
that you did.
Regardless of the reason it was taken for,
I’ve learned my lesson, I’ll leave my bike out no more!
Anyway, I hope that you’re now really happy.
Good day to you.
Sincerely,
Me

This probably isn't what they are called,
And I can't think of the elusive word,
But...I really like bike bells.

You know the ones!
The little diddlydoos on the handlebars of a ten-year-old's bike.
The ones that go
bbbBBBB
      RRRRRrrrrr
           iiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIII
                  NNNNnnnnnn
                 ­      ggggggGGGGGG!

God, they're my favorite.

Because, you see...here's the thing:

When you were a ten-year-old,
Riding a bike to some friend's house your mom didn't approve of,
Did you ever bbBBrrIInnGG the bike bell on your bike when you were upset?

Of course not!

Bike bells are a child's way of telling the world,

"Guys! GUYS! I had a really good day!"

And it makes me happy to know some little kid is so joyful they can't help but bbBBrrRRiiIInnNNggGG all the way down the street.

Stopped at a red light,
Looking down the hill,
We wait to take flight,
We wait for the thrill.

Riding the green light wave,
Riding the small bumps and holes,
My bike and I roll down the way,
My bike and I roll as one soul.

The wheels turn quicker and quicker
While the air flies past like sweet sound.
My bike light continues to flicker,
While together we, in our music, are drowned.

There's a level of trust between us two,
We listen to each other and feel as one.
And yet there's a sense of mystery that we pursue,
That of machine and man having fun.

Jim’s younger sister
Followed you everywhere
and stood watching

as you rode the old car
around the field
or whizzed around

on their motorbike
to the cheers and shouts
from the fence

Monica why don’t you
go off and play
Jim said

yes
said Pete
her other brother

go play with your dolls
go take a run and jump
she said

and still stood watching you
her eyes fixed on you
like wasps on a jam jar

I want to watch him ride
she said
and stood with her hands

on her hips
waiting until you stopped
the bike and got off

and wandered over to you
and said
I like the way you ride

like how you sway
and swerve on the bike
and you smiled at her

and took in
her short stature
her dark eyes

her determined expression
and as Pete rode off
on the bike

and Jim stood
on the fence
calling to him

Monica put her hand in yours
and said
wish you were my brother

I know you’d let me ride
the bike or car
and not tease me

or bawl me out
I guess I would
let you ride the bike or car

you said
and sensed
her small hand in yours

her thumb rubbing
against your skin
but seeing

as you’re not my brother
she whispered
maybe you could

marry me one day
and we could ride off
into the sunset

like they do in the movies
in Jim’s old car
yes sure maybe

you said
knowing inside
that’d be a bridge too far.

A  MOONLIT  KNIGHT.

Fern rises and looks out of her window.
Silver shards of moonlight lick the lawn.
She who once felt gay and oh so joyous,
Now feels oh so desolate and lorn.

Will she ever find true love again?
She before has never felt so low.
Should she, for love, continue searching?
Or give up by ending it here and now?

Outside, all is monochrome and still,
Inside, Fern is still and very sad.
Will she feel happiness again?
Who knows how long she’ll feel this bad?

At the stroke of midnight, there’s a change,
There seems to be a disturbance in the air.
Gradually something seems to materialise
On the lawn, a shape, come from where?

It is a knight, armoured cap-à-pie,
On a horse, for war caparisoned.
From his saddle hangs a jousting shield,
A silver moon on it is designed.

A white plume is mounted on his helmet,
On his lance a white pennon is tied.
The knight looks at her, at her window,
Silently he sits and does bide.

He raises a gauntleted hand and beckons,
Should she stay in, or venture out?
In her white nightdress she goes downstairs,
Deciding to see what it’s all about.

Cautiously she opens up the door,
And putting her head out, looks outside.
The knight still sits, patiently waiting.
Fern wonders what might now betide.

Slipping on an old pair of shoes,
She slowly walks over to the knight.
In her wake she leaves a dewy trail,
And as she nears, the knight fades from sight.

Fern wonders what this all might mean,
Is she dreaming or is she awake?
Is, what she has seen, been real?
Or has she made a big mistake?

Then, whilst standing there in wonder,
She happens to look down at the ground.
Where the knight was, the grass is trampled,
As though a horse has curvetted around.

Then she hears a sound from behind her,
And startled, Fern quickly turns round.
Her house no longer seems to be there,
In its stead, a keep there is stound.

The sound she hears is a woman calling,
“My Lady, please come back here inside.
You shouldn’t be alone out in the dark,
Please come back and in your chamber bide.”

The woman, from a window, looks at Fern.
“Excuse me, are you addressing me?”
Fern directs the question at the woman,
Who replies to her, “Of course, my Lady.”

“’Tis not safe out at this time of night,
And you are in your night attire dight,
So if someone, of you, catches sight,
You’ll not be seen in a good light.”

Before Fern can think of what to say,
She hears the sound of a galloping horse.
It is getting nearer in the dark.
She hopes that things will now not get worse.

“My Lady, quickly, please get you inside,
Do not just stand there as if dazed.
Hurry now, before it it too late.”
Fern, though, does stand there amazed.

Approaching through the night is a horse,
The one she’d seen before on her lawn,
The same knight is seated on its back,
Though now the pennant on his lance is torn.

The horse stops right next to Fern,
And caracoles to bring them face-to-face.
The knight lowers his lance to show his pennant,
Which Fern sees is a torn fragment of white lace.

The knight again does sit in stilly silence,
He waits, and does not make any demand.
Then lowers his lance to touch her nightdress’s hem,
When suddenly, Fern does understand.

The hem of her nightdress is lace trimmed,
So Fern bends, and seizes it in hand.
Then with a sharp tug she tears it off,
Removing it in a single strand.

The knight raises up his lance higher,
The old lace, from the lance, Fern does remove.
Then ties the furbelow on very tightly,
Saying, “Please take this favour with my love.”

The knight dips his lance in salute,
Then turns his horse, back down the road to face.
His spurs lightly touch the horse’s flanks,
Which straight away gallops off at pace.

Fern walks across to the keep.
The woman opens the main door wide.
Fern steps across the threshold,
And now, in her own house is inside.

She turns to look back across the lawn,
Which is still lit by the silver moon’s light.
The lawn is now smooth and unblemished,
With no marks caused by the steed of the knight.

Fern goes upstairs to her bedroom.
Has this all been a dream ere now?
Then, as she gets back into bed,
She sees her nightdress lacks its furbelow.

Fern remembers her nightdress has a pocket,
And into it, her hand she does place,
Then, to her utter amazement,
She pulls out a fragment of torn lace.

Fern wonders at what’s just happened,
Was it real, or only in her mind?
If it was just her imagination,
Why has she been able, the fragment to find?

Eventually Fern drifts off to sleep,
Waking with the chorus of the dawn.
Although she doesn’t think she has changed,
She no longer feels quite so forlorn.

“Why does the knight appear to me?
Why has he only come at night?
Is he trying to find out if he’s wanted?
Is he trying to make something right?”

Later on that day Fern walks to town,
And heads for the library to find,
If there are any references to knights
That might help to ease her troubled mind.

Fern does find a story of a knight,
Who had a moon device on his shield.
He was very brave in the fight,
And to a foe would never yield.

He had been commissioned to take a message,
To a lord, by order of the king.
It was to be delivered urgently,
And he was not to stop for anything.

He was nearly there when something happened.
By the side of the highway lay a maid.
Being a chivalrous knight, he should have stopped,
Instead, he carried on, not giving aid.

He delivered the message to the lord,
And later was seated, drinking in the hall,
When there entered in some serving men,
Carrying on their shoulders a shrouded pall.

They lay down their burden on the floor,
And without having said a word,
Reverently uncovered the face of a body.
It was the lady of the lord.

Then entered in another knight,
Who stepped up to the lord, and said,
“On our way here, we found your lady.
She was wounded, and now, alas, she’s dead.”

The other knight continued with his story,
“Seemingly, she had been robbed and *****.
There was no sign of the perpetrators,
We think they’d been disturbed, and then escaped.”

“Perhaps if we had managed to come sooner,
We might have been there to prevent this crime.
However, it seems the Fates conspired against us,
So we were not there to help in time.”

The Knight of the Moon sat there horror-struck,
He knew if he’d not been so keen to arrive,
Though helped, as his conscience had dictated,
The lady might yet even be alive.

Instead of speaking up, he stayed silent,
And never about this matter spoke a word.
Then he rose, and gave his condolence,
And went out from the presence of the lord.

The lady was removed to lie in state,
The Knight of the Moon went, to look at her face.
He knelt there in silent prayer awhile,
Then, from her dress, removed a length of lace.

He accoutred himself in his full armour,
Then rode from the keep that very night.
He left a note, stating his omission,
And of him, no-one ever saw a sight.

Fern is very sad to read this story.
What had then been in the knight’s mind?
Had he ridden off to end his disgrace,
Or the perpetrators, gone to find?

Fern now makes her thoughtful way home,
Hoping he’d found surcease from his torment,
Wondering what to him had befallen,
And if, for his lapse, he’d made atonement.

Fern reaches home rather tired,
So lies down on her bed, then falls asleep.
She dreams of knights in armour and fair damsels,
And jousting in the grounds of the keep.

Eventually, Fern wakens from her slumber.
She lies for a moment in her bed.
Yet again she thinks about her dream.
Was it real, or made up in her head.

“Perhaps,” she thinks, “I’m just on the rebound,
Because I’m still in mourning for my love.
And being of a romantic nature,
Dreaming of knights this does this prove.”

“Knights should have been chivalrous and kind,
Treating damsels in distress with care.
Except, when a knight I truly needed,
As it happened, there was not one there.”

“On that night, if we’d had some help,
My husband might still be alive.
Now, he has been taken from me,
And I feel that alone I cannot thrive.”

“However, life must go on as usual,
I should carry on, if just for him,
And so, perhaps, I should cease this moping,
And try to get on with my life again.”

So Fern gets up, refreshed from her nap,
Then decides, after eating, to go out.
That she must now get herself together,
Fern is not left in any doubt.

“Perhaps a short drive into the country,
And to stretch my legs, a gentle walk.
However, I will get on much quicker,
If I do not, to myself, talk.”

Fern puts on her coat and gets her bag,
Then goes out and walks to her car.
This is the first time that she’s driven
Since losing him, so she’ll not go too far.

Fern unlocks her car, and sits inside,
Then she is overcome with fear.
“Suppose, now, I am too scared to drive.
Perhaps I’d feel better if help was near.”

“Come on Fern, pull yourself together!
Feel the fear and do it anyway!
If you don’t do it now, then when?
Start the car, and let’s be on our way.”

So having given herself a little lecture,
Fern belts up, and pulls out of her drive.
Then, not really knowing where she’s headed,
Off she goes to see where she’ll arrive.

Fern motors out into the country,
And following a lane, drives up a hill.
At the top she parks and gets out.
Everything seems peaceful and so still.

She aimlessly ambles round the hill top,
And reads a notice saying it was a fort.
Then, Fern drifts off into a daydream,
And views the panorama without thought.

In her mind’s eye she sees a castle,
Decorated with many banners bright.
A tournament seems to be in progress,
And the winner is, of course, her moonlit knight.

Eventually, Fern becomes aware,
That she has gone some distance from her car.
So she slowly makes her way back to it.
She hadn’t meant to walk quite so far.

The shades of night are now falling fast,
And everything is starting to look grey.
So Fern unlocks her car and gets inside,
Ready to be getting on her way.

Slowly, she starts off down the hill,
The lane is very narrow with high hedges,
The moon is hidden behind some lowering clouds,
The track’s overgrown with grass and sedges.

Somehow, she’s gone a different way.
In the dark, everything seems wrong.
Fern is now starting to get worried,
And wonders why the track seems so long.

Eventually, she debouches onto a road,
Though she is not sure exactly where.
Fern is by now really anxious,
Then suddenly, gets an awful scare.

It looks just like the road they had been travelling,
When her husband lost control of the car.
It had skidded, spun and then rolled over,
The door had opened, and Fern had been flung far.

Her husband had still been trapped inside,
When it suddenly erupted into flame.
Fern could only stand and helplessly watch,
All the while loudly screaming his name.

No-one was around at that moment,
Perhaps someone might have pulled him out.
Then, as other motorists arrived,
They phoned for help, while listening to Fern shout.

Quite soon, a fire-engine came,
Closely followed by an ambulance.
The fire was eventually put out,
And Fern driven off still in a trance.

That had been several weeks ago,
And Fern has not since passed that place.
Now, it looks as if she is there,
And will, her darkest moment, have to face.

Then, to her horror, she sees a shape,
Dimly lit by her headlamps’ light.
It is a fallen motorcycle,
And the rider’s lying by it, just in sight.

Fern stops her car, and runs up to him.
Perhaps she can be of some aid.
As she approaches, the man gets up,
While a voice behind her says, “Don’t be afraid.”

“You just do exactly as we tell you.
We only want your money, and some fun.
Then, you can be on your way.
Do not even think of trying to run.”

The first man picks up the bike,
And pushes it to the road’s side.
The other man comes up close to Fern,
Who wonders again what might betide.

The wind blows the clouds across the sky,
Bringing the bright moon into sight.
The road that ’til then was hidden in darkness,
Is now lit with shards of silver light.

Fern then hears the sound of a horse,
Approaching through the wild and windy night.
The jingling of trappings can be heard,
And Fern thinks that now all will be right.

The courser slowly comes into view,
With the same knight seated on its back.
His lance is not couched, it’s held *****,
And the reins are loosely held, and quite slack.

Casually the steed comes to a stop,
And lowers his head to nibble at some grass.
The men, uncertain, both watch the knight,
While each wonders what might now pass.

One of them goes up to the bike,
And opens up the box on the back,
Then takes from it two crash helmets,
And a length of chain, which dangles slack.

He throws a helmet to his crony,
And they each fasten one upon their head.
Then they both turn to face the knight,
Who has not a word utteréd.

The one with the chain lifts it up,
And menacingly starts to whirl it around,
Then slowly walks towards the knight,
Who casually sits, not giving ground.

The other man reaches into his pocket,
Pulling out a wicked flick-knife,
And then, letting the blade spring open,
Prepares to join in with the strife.

He circles round the knight to the rear,
As the other man comes in from the side,
When the knight drops his lance into rest,
And suddenly, off he does ride.

He charges away from the men,
And gallops right past Fern at full speed.
Then, his lance aimed at the motorcycle,
He urges on his racing steed.

The lance pierces into the fuel tank,
And knocks the bike over in the road.
Petrol gushes out in a torrent,
And soon over the tarmac it has flowed.

The lance is broken in twain, the knight drops it,
And very quickly turns his horse about,
Then as he gallops back past the bike,
Both of the men start to shout.

Sparks from the horse’s hoofs come flying,
Igniting the petrol on the road.
Fern gives a shrill scream in panic,
Thinking that the bike might now explode.

The man with the chain wildly flails it,
Desperately trying to hit the horse’s head.
The knight strikes the man with a morning-star,
Who drops down, just like one who’s dead.

The knight then dismounts, drawing his sword,
And silently strides towards the other man,
Who flings away his knife, and starts running,
Fleeing just as fast as ever he can.

Fern sees the fallen man get up,
Rising groggily to stagger to his feet.
He looks at them, and then he turns away,
Slowly stumbling off, not yet too fleet.

Suddenly, the night becomes quite dark.
Clouds again, do the moon obscure.
Fern turns to try to thank the knight.
He’s gone, though she now feels secure.

Confidently she walks towards the bike,
And sees the lance by the fire’s light.
Fern bends and unties the lace from the lance,
And slowly walks back with it through the night.

She reaches her car, and gets inside,
Then starts driving off to get back home.
Belatedly thinking of her husband,
And wondering what next to her will come.

Safely arriving home, Fern parks the car,
And getting out, she sees on the lawn,
A pavilion has there been erected,
Turned rosaceous by the coming dawn.

The horse is also there, grazing tackless,
And by the entrance hangs a well-known targe.
Fern carefully goes and looks inside.
The pavilion’s quite small, not very large.

She sees the knight, kneeling on the ground,
His head bowed, as like one in prayer.
He holds his sword in front, just like a cross,
Of her, he seems not to be aware.

Quietly, Fern withdraws from the pavilion,
Then thinks, of the horse, to get a sight.
It’s nowhere to be seen, she turns around,
The pavilion’s now bathed in golden light.

As Fern stares at it in wonder,
See thinks that she can hear an ætherial sound,
Like a choir of heavenly angels singing,
And the pavilion vanishes from the ground.

Fern sees only a sword, stuck in the lawn,
And hanging from a nearby tree, the shield.
Then reliving what occurred in the night,
To tears of relief, Fern does yield.

She wonders if the knight has been translated,
Having now atoned for his mistake,
And Fern hopes that he’s managed to find peace,
For risking his life for her sake.

Fern hangs the sword above her bed,
And fastens the shield over her door.
She feels much more confidant now,
And is able to do so much more.

Sometimes though, when the moon is full,
Fern goes outside at midnight,
Carrying in her hand a strip of lace,
And seems just to vanish from sight.

At that time, if anyone was around,
They might then hear an unusual sound,
As though a fully accoutred

The blue bike
on the side of the road.
The sky blue bike,
ready to fly.
That's when I asked,
How? Why?
The blue bike crashed,
flying too high.
Now it's abandoned,
waiting there  alone.
Waiting for someone to pick it up,
willing to fly with it again.
So I took the battered blue bike,
and began to fly.

She was way too tough for me.
no it's more I was not hard enough for her.
The old ***** brick houses
of Englands industrial north
caught between industrial revolution
and social unrest .
I was just a youth back then.
The big war fading from memory.
I stopped at my friend's back yard
it was a hot summer back then.
His souped up bike was gleaming
like a prize racehorse.
She pulled a flask of *****
and took a long pull
her bright red hair
like glowing coal
her eyes as black as darkness
she was hard pretty.
Her mini skirt flashing
her shaply legs.
a stray dog big and hard
just like her.
jumped up and licked her face.
she Laughed
they were like two
kindred spirits
like sisters by nature
wild and drifting and free.
She had *** with me
the first time I met her
and told me I was not
rough enough for her.
I just was a bit scared
of telling her
I wanted out of it.
The kick-started bike roared
like the steel lion it was.
She squealed in delight.
then the stray dog peed
on the concrete.
she lifted her skirts
like the hard ***** she was
and peed next to it.
she jumped on the back
of his bike and they
went off at full speed.
To test his bike out
at the racetrack.
I hear they shacked up together.
and we're very happy.
I dated a nerdy young woman
quiet and conservative
who became a librarian.
We got married
four years later.
had two kids
and a housetrained dog.
She never once told me
I was not rough enough in bed.

There is a bright light
That which leads to a bike
An enchanting, gravitating and inticing light

I found myself reaching for it
Then there was thunder
Which was followed by rain
Heavy, threatning rain

I retreated
I felt defeated
The surrender and defeat, however could not withstand
My gravitation towards the bike

Then, there was raging thunder
And heavy, presistent protesting rain
As I reached for the bike
The rain became more enraged

But it could not withstand
My desire
My strong desire
To ride away
With the wind blowing in my face

I grabbed the bike
The rain ceased
And I rode and rode away
Away from the dark clouds

I splashed into the puddles as I peadled
I felt the sting of the water on my legs
There were many many puddles

Im my path there was a hill
A very steep hill
And I saw a light at the top
An enchanting, gravitating and inticing light

I peadled, peadled and peadled
My feet began to ache
My knees began to inflame
And sweat found home across my forehead

The bike laid almost still on the hill
Barely moving an inch
Yet my body felt like it had rode across the world

The gears were changed
Yet the distance was not
My control of the bike was lost

I rolled away, away and away
Backwards
I fell at the bottom of the hill with a thud
A loud thud of defeat
And bruises of failure

I blamed the rain
There was nothing I could've done
The rain stood in my way
Eliminated the friction  
My ticket to the light

I laid there

Then I got up
Rode the bike up the hill
I fell again  
And again I got up
And again I fell
And again I got up
And again I fell

Until the bright morning sun
Transformed into a blazing sunset
After many falls
After many bruises
I was again on the steep hill
Peadling, peadling and peadling
Until I saw the light

Saturday afternoon
cycling up a 1in 6 hill
then along the road
toward the farmhouse

you dismounted
and laid your bike
against the fence
and waited

to get your breath back
the farmhouse door opened
and Mrs Putt came out
and said

Jim and Pete are out I’m afraid
her daughter Monica
appeared by her side
they’ve gone out

with their older brother
Monica said
ok
you said

tell them I called
sure I will
Mrs Putt said
I can go on a bike ride

with you if you like
Monica said
Benedict won’t want to have you
to drag along with him

Mrs Putt said
Monica pulled a face
and pouted her lips
I don’t mind

you said
better than riding alone
well if you don’t mind
Mrs Putt said

mind you behave
yourself young lady
she said
and went indoors

and closed the door
just get my bike
Monica said
and went back behind

the farmhouse
you looked around
the farmhouse
and the surrounding fields

and trees and waited
after a few moments
she was back
riding her bike toward you

where we going?
she asked
lets go see the peacocks
along Sedge lane

you said
and so you got on your bike
and off you both rode
she beside you

in her summery dress
and sandals with her
brown hair tied
in bunches

you in jeans
and open neck
white shirt
the sun bright

and hot above you
the birds flying
and calling
the clouds puffy

and white
I’ve always wanted to go
bike riding with you
Monica said

but the boys don’t let me
but I am now
you nodded and smiled
wondering Jim and Pete

would say if they knew
she’d got to go
bike riding with you
she chatted on about Elvis

and the film in town
and how she’d like to go
but no one would take her
and how her brothers

teased her
and her mother
nagged her
after a while

you came to the peacocks
in a wire cage
by a large house
just off the lane

aren’t they beautiful?
she said
peering through the wire
her fingers holding on to

the cage
standing beside you
yes they are
you said

but of course
the **** bird
has the beauty
the hen

is just dull
and ordinary
odd that
she said

wonder why?
don’t know
you said
I’m not dull

and ordinary am I?
she asked
looking at you
sideways on

no
you said
you have
your own beauty

do I?
yes you do
and she blushed
and looked away

and the peacock
called out
and moved off
opening its colourfulness

and Monica did a twirl
making the patterns
move
on her twirling dress.

She’s riding her bike
the wind’s on her cheeks
and hair
She’s got no worries
no care, cause she’s
riding easy on her bike

Rachel comes on her bicycle
down the street and
she sways with a smile;
she can go steady or she
can show off, as she pleases,
on her happiness bike

off her bicycle
she loses her smile
she frowns, she does not talk
but O -
she’s a goddess, she’s Venus
she’s all radiance
when she’s on happiness bike

she’s in her red top today:
her ******* decent
but talkative;
her *** is composed -
and O, as always
Rachel is glowing
on her happiness bicycle
we know it all:
angels come on bicycles now

She’s riding her bike
the wind’s on her cheeks
and hair
She’s got no worries
no care, cause she’s
riding easy on her bike

Get lost on the trails
Bumpy rides and turn
Be careful wipe outs happen
Bumpy rides full or wild turns
Jumps and twists taking risk
Dangers and risks shake off the stress
Bike of blue
Together as one having fun
In the forest nature can't keep mr back
Ride fast get past fear
Up hill down hill take on any skill
Bike riding has a thrill
Not afraid in the zone body aches
Bike galling don want to hit the breaks

Little Tommy, little Tommy,
Get out of my way,
Trring, trring,goes my red bike,
Where are you off to with your bag of books.

Sweet granny, sweet granny,
Get out of my  way,
Trring, trring, goes my red bike,
Where are you off to with your cane and false teeth.

Mr.Brown, Mr. Brown,
Get out of my way,
Trring, trring, goes my red bike,
Where are you off to with your brief case and umbrella.

Naughty Johnny,naughty Johnny,
Get out of my way,
Honk,honk ,here comes my big blue van,
Down the hill as fast as it can,
Where are you off to with your red bike.

Try to remember riding your bike
When summers were too short
And the time until you felt heartache would be very long.
You pick up speed down that big hill then
Bam!
Pavement.

Now I wonder if this is falling.
If my pink Huffy prepared me for love.
In that split second
between bike and ground
(the one that makes you question why you were riding a bike in the first place)
You prepare for the pain and then
Bam!

After the break-up, make-up, *****-up,
Things get better.
Once that pain heals you get up and realize that you want to ride again.
You get a new bike, sit down and pedal.
You want to ride again
And feel the wind in your hair
Because its ******* beautiful.

I bought a cruiser bike
instead of a mountain bike
I’m a sextagenarian
not a 30-something
so every morning I pedal
to the corner across from the Ritz-Carlton and the Montage
next to the high-rent Pandemonde Café
and count the Ferraris roaring by.

I never had a Ferrari
but I did buy a ’96 Mustang once
and souped it up with a supercharger
which was around the time
my doctor took me off testosterone
because my prostate specific antigen
was way too high

You have an inoperable prostate malignancy, he said
after the biopsy
You can’t take hormone replacement anymore
It will **** you

And as I lean on my bike
depressed about missing the rush
of another boost of synthetic male hormone
I enjoy watching the Europen speedsters streak by
so proud of themselves
in cars that cost more
than my house.

I used to wish I was them
used to feel like them
when I was younger and charging hard
but now I just utter prayers
for each Lamborghini that goes by
and I say
I hope your car is faster than cancer.

I woke up one day
And I rode far away
And when I came back
A few weeks late
i decided to shape
up
or else, its a long ride
down

How often do you walk home?
Or should I say struggle
Distances are more attainable
In mixed up situations
I am too deeply rooted in thought
on the topic of meditation
To help this patient
I am inhabiting

Enter: ******* bicycles
I used to find
Walking uphill
And walking downhill
Equally awful
The climb to the top
Is worth the fast ride down
The topic of how many hills
are around
And how often we choose to climb them
Will not  play in this ballgame
Because cycling is a sport
blood doping is dope
breaking news:
Livestrong sponsors the pope

Without a helment
You would tell me I look ****
As I ride with no hands
Don’t worry darlin’
I knew my hair looked good too


Drinking whiskey at home you can make art

I made that without you
It all came out of my mouth
And nostrils
Without you
I will puke again
Without you
Its true
Rough mornings aren’t new
their usually rough
without you
Only because my will is strong
And if I didn’t livestrong
My will -  still will included you
Only if I died on someone else’s terms
(spoiler no such thing)

In an alternate universe
You could be on my bike
And I’d be ****** cold sober
And when that bus hit me
My mom wanted to give you
what belonged to me - the one thing
That survived the accident
Ask a few old friends I survived a few
Whether you knew
Or not
were on it or off
Always on the bottom
Jake
Was a snake
Before I met him
That’s Kona bike history
Living on
Without me

As I age I am learning
To be loyal
To all sorts of objects
like bikes
And women
that own them.
Withholding
without me

I can't see what it would be
like without me -
But lets be honest
Its not so as much about the bikes
As it is about bliss
i've seen what its like without you
It true

If a bus ran over my *** tomorrow
The first thing it would break is my heart
You could start
The day I stopped

Riding my bike

Timmy got a bike,
Timmy ******* died.
Timmy's mother drank,
Timmy's father cried.

And it rained.
It rained for five days and six nights,
and although it stopped raining on the sixth day, the sun did not shine.

It's the movement,
iOS7, download tonight,
Timmy's bike was red,
his friends thought it was tight.

Timmy got a bike,
(Each day we all feel a bit more like Bukowski, a bit more cynical)
Timmy ******* died.

(for my daughter, Mary Ann, soon fourteen)

I was eleven years old when I first had something taken from me.  My parents were still married and my two younger brothers had not yet chosen to choose differently which one they’d live with.  My dog had not yet been made lame by a falling fat man who’d taken the gift of my father’s strange rage square on the nose.  And my older sister had yet to misjudge her jump from a moving train.  No, none of these things, whether they happened or not how I’ve remembered, had happened.

I was eleven years old and in love with an old red bike.  It had a license plate that obnoxiously read Go Now Mega which I’d scratched at with a fork and so became Gnome.  I would fail my whole life to accomplish a thing greater. Before school, I’d walk the bike carefully to the end of our short drive and then seat myself on it and be still.  I would often be so perfect in my stillness that I’d forego riding it and just listen for the bus and at the last possible moment walk the bike, still carefully, back into the garage and cringe at the sound the kickstand made when lowered.  If ever school didn’t go my way I’d think of the bike, alone, in the garage and be calmed.  When I did ride the bike, I did so slowly and deliberately that I could feel my soul get a bit ahead of me.  On the best mornings, I would have for company a bed sheet of fog which made me want to fake being asleep on the couch while my mother and father milled back and forth about who would carry me to bed.

The bike had come with the rental house we moved into just shy of my tenth birthday.  The house was a three bedroom one floor with one bathroom and what felt like two kitchens.  I was too close to my hands and feet to now recall any vision that might tell me how these rooms were mapped though I’ve always held aloft the word blueprint.  I should tell you that what I previously called a garage was actually our backyard and that our backyard was really the backyard of those living in the house behind ours.  I didn’t want you to know right away who took the bike.  Who’ve no imagination.

And now my coffees cold
Your backhanded compliments are getting old
We got in a fight tonight
you stormed out
you kicked over my bike

I was moving out
Parked my bike down the street
With a cart hinged on the bolt beneath the rusty pole
connected to my seat.
The yard was steep, and the stairs leading down
the front
Vanished each car-
go carrying trip
of dictionaries and travel guides that
could have been lumped together in boxes
separately tossed into the neon
green
synthetic fiber
rain-proof buggy
Connected to my seat.
I ran across the lawn, one last time
Buckling the watch I found from high school
remembering it’s broken and not caring
then I saw men wearing polos beneath
Greek symbols beneath a doorway
and held my breath as they stared at me.
This vacant lot held something which I carried back
to find
my bike was gone, replaced
by a life-sized depiction of a bike saying
“no bikes--” A girl inside, explaining where I could find mine
I walked down the grey spiral of handicapped access ramps
surrounded by aquariums or tvs
which comprised the store's interior.
The last ramp faced an exit and went straight past
refrigerators next to vending machines
In the alley behind this office supply store were two old men
Roasting my bike on a chain beside the others
Disconnected, hung
its tires lying on the ground beside their feet
and the carriage slung aside like a bloodied gazelle's neck.
“What the ****!”
A woman got into my face “don’t use that word”
“****’s a perfectly good word, after all, it’s how we
got here”
One man smiled.
He felt bad.
They helped me put the bike together and I walked it back to my house.
I saw my car down the street.
I thought about the long trip to the interstate and wondered why I’d
rode my bike
Then I went back up the stairs of the blue sided hill,
to see the roommate I hated
and thought about stealing his SNES and stereo
but took only my one possession
and walked past rotting turkey bacon in a plastic pouch
on the top of a table
beside some legos
and left.

The grass flickers, as the
Wind pushes it down, in
A gentle but determined
Motion, sweeping upwards to
Swirl the blue-grey clouds
Around the radio tower, before
Dissipating into the milky
Sky, which at this moment
Is the lightest shade of
Blue, an open innocent shade
Of blue, like an angelic birthday
Cake, the pinker clouds, whose
Graceful tendrils embrace the
Air, and dancing twirl across the
Peaceful summer skyscape

Down below them, the
Emerald stalks of corn stand,
Silent sentinels, awaiting the
Coming of the dawn, they too
Feel the pushing of the wind, but
Brush it off, over their shoulders,
And continue their silent watching
On the sloping sides of the hill, the
Growling pines, resplendent in their
Glimmering needles, reflect the fading
Light, off the clouds, as the sun sinks,
Beneath the horizon, and I watch them
Silently on my bike, the only thing
I can hear, is the swish of the wind,
And the hum and whirring of the
Pedals, as my bike and I, we glide up
The hill, and down the hill, and
Around the posts that are meant
To keep the cars from disturbing, this
Peaceful walking path

A while later, we crest a hill, now
Having past the town, I see the work
Of the persistent wind, the clouds
Now whipped into a curling wave,
Of pink and blue-black, spilling
Over the horizon, behind the red-roofed
Country houses, which are strangely
Reminiscent of those old, red, barns
Which would sit abandoned in
Fields of perpetual wheat, and,
Through the turning of the seasons,
Would rot away into timbers, with
No one left to remember, what
They were, or why they remain

Now we have ridden in a loop, my
Bike clicks as I change gears, to
Crest a hill and coast down, at high
Speed, between the guard rails and
The road, with the wind kicking
Up behind me and whisking an
Upcoming tree in to a fluttery
Flurry of leaves and branches, while
Below a stream cuts a field, and,
Skirting a pen, passes by a pinto
Pony, I think it was, that was just
Standing there, as we rode past,
Onto the cobblestones and around
A bend, the group splits, some going
A different route, but I want to come
Back the way I came, and I ride
Beside the highway, listening to
The chirp of the crickets and the
Hum of the wheels against the
Cold, pavement, while up the hill
The verdant pines bob their bows,
Up and down, waving, waving,
The crashing blue-black wave has
Rolled, on past the tower now, it
Is crashing down over the silent
Sentinels, and I watch quietly as
The wind rolls down the hill, and
Whirls some leaves, making the
Grass flicker in the setting sun.

The Island Moorea,
backpacking Tahiti,
In the heat, the sun,
The rhythm of my footfalls
crunching loose gravel road,
The swish of pack swaying
in conert to my measured pace.

Breeze pushing branches of Palm,
Ocean waves breaching shoreline long.
Island vehicles passing, occupant's laughing,
a man laboring under large pack, alone walking,
Who could have been freely riding,
Unthinkable to Island Folk,
in hot tropical places.

Some humble homes passed along the way.
Greetings exchanged with smiling faces there.
Not long afterward a new sound approaching,
crunching gravel, rolling up behind me.

A lovely young girl, perhaps nineteen,
long brown naked legs bike a peddling.
Hair jet black, long to her waist, wearing
a sarong, split up the side,
Shoulders bare and brown.
Dark eyes of wonder, sparkling of youth.
A radiant smile adorning a splendid face.

We went for a time at my even pace,
looking and smiling each in our place.
"Hello there," I said, she giggled, beamed
even bigger. Perfect teeth displayed.

"Why you walk?" She asked in heavily
accented puzzlement.

"To get to where I'm going". I replied
This response producing a pleasant laugh
from the girl. In which I too joined in.

"You go One Chicken?" She asked
I stopped then and turned to her.
"Where is One Chicken?" I questioned
with a grin.

She raised her graceful arm,
one finger pointing up the road.
"One Chicken there," she informed.

It was a store/bar, sort of place,
In the very midst of nowhere.
Indeed, more than one chicken roamed,
Many chickens did and a pig or two,
mingling free and doing their thing.

We entered out of the bright daylight,
into the deepest of darks,
Like in a movie theater, when arriving late.
Eyes adjusting slowly to what lay ahead.

A few Island Beers later,
I had acquired several new friends,
The girl my invitation to the party of
already happy people a little drunk on beer.
The Music was mostly of French persuasion,
With a bit of Bob Dylan thrown in.
The Beatles also had a tune or two.
The Liverpool beat resounding down Tahiti way.

Before the light did fail, I shouldered my pack
and walked some distance from Chickens and Pigs.
Found the beach, hung my Hammock for the night.
Built a small fire and opened a can of Spam delight.

She appeared again about ten,
looking beautiful in the new moonlight.
Newly washed hair, still damp and
smelling fresh of Lilacs,
Or some such aromatic scent.
We did not speak, no words were needed,

Made love on the sand, 'till the retreat of the
tide and sand ***** did come out, in their
eerie numbers, to eat what was at hand.
I suppose even us if we were still and let
them.

We retired then both to my hammock,
A pretty neat trick if you can swing it.
And we did.

She was so childlike and yet,
very much a woman grown.
There was no pretense shown,
no false inhibitions rendered.
These were not limitations of her culture.
people that respond to their emotional
impulses. An open and free spirited
people living passionately within each
minute shared.

It all felt more akin to a dream than real,
All around me there was beauty,
Loving and being loved without hurry,
Free of guilt or even a single expectation.
Living in that wondrous moment,
of uncomplicated human splendor.
Like some Garden of Eden surrender.
A real-life Gauguin painting.

In the morning, we swam naked in the sea,
frolicked like kids having a day at the beach.
Made love in the sand, I dozed in the sun.
Upon awaking she was gone.

I waited an hour or two, packed up my camp,
shouldered my load and returned to the road.
A few minutes later, again I heard the now
familiar crunch of rubber tires, rolling road
surface and there she was, a straw basket in
her Bike's basket, a huge smile on her
unforgettable, beautiful face.

We sat in a grove of trees, among birds singing,
in sight of the sea, upon a Palm log and ate fresh
bread and fruit. Drank strong black coffee
(French Roast I presume,) nibbling some
marvelous cheese.

We tried to talk, but she understood little of
what I tried to say, my French was nearly
nonexistent, only adding to confusions sake.

She leaned her head on my shoulder,
the way lovers do and tenderly held
my hand within her two,
As if not wanting to let go,
Those gestures said all there was to say,
And we savored each silent moment.

We parted there, she on blue, rusty bike
and me on "shanks mare",
Off in two different directions,
Each out into the depths of our own lives,
Gone just like that. . . And yet,
Indelible, never to be forgotten or replaced.

Chapter One

He sat there looking over the edge alone and couldn’t remember how long he had been there. He thought it had been a very long time.

The drive from Oakland had taken the best part of a day, and although having traveled across some of the most scenic parts of the western United States, his mind was blank, he couldn’t remember anything.  He only knew what he had come here to do, and before the sun would set over his left shoulder, he strengthened his resolve to do it.

He thought about leaving a note, but then who would read it.  He was sure whoever did find it wouldn’t care. He couldn’t remember why he had picked the ‘Canyon’ as the place to end it all. He just knew he was drawn to the place, and in some strange way the Canyon understood.  He wasn’t sure what most men thought about knowing it was their last day on earth.  At this point he was having trouble thinking about anything at all.

He forced himself to try and think about his three failed marriages and his two sons from his first marriage.  One, his oldest son Robert, had recently died of a drug overdose. His younger son Hank was an Army Ranger who had recently been killed while serving a second deployment in Afghanistan.  Neither boy had spoken to him since he had deserted their mother when they were both very young (5 & 7).

He had been discharged from the Army in 1969 at Fort ***** New Jersey after serving 14 months in Vietnam.  He then spent three months hitchhiking across the country, from New Jersey to California, trying to get his head back on straight as he worked his way back home.

He would like to blame all of his bad luck on something that had happened to him over there, but he knew in his heart that he couldn’t.  He had been a supply sergeant at a large depot in downtown Saigon. His only experience with combat was listening to the stories from the grunts recently returned from the bush as they self-medicated themselves inside the many bars and clubs that overran the downtown streets and alleyways.  He often basked in the aftermath of their stories secretly wishing he were one of them. He had had a chance to volunteer for combat artillery but had turned it down.

He took his sunglasses off because it was almost time. He had forgotten to check-out of the Yavapi Motor Lodge before walking the half-mile to the rim where he now sat. The sun was dropping low in the Western sky as he stood up to move closer to the edge. It was just then that he heard a rustling sound coming from the bushes to his left that he had not heard before.  

Chapter Two

The motorcycle ride across the plains and high desert through the Dakota’s and Wyoming had been as idyllic as he ever imagined. He had spent almost a week in Yellowstone, having to force himself to leave on the seventh day. He was headed South, but he had one more great sight to see before working his way back East toward New Mexico.

He had promised himself before dedicating the rest of his life to the Dominicans that he would go and visit the Grand Canyon this one last time.  In many ways his life had been like the Canyon, overwhelming in its purpose and majestic in its beauty. His life had taken on a timeless quality that always left him feeling like everything he had done would somehow last forever.

He had lost his beloved wife Sarah last April after a long and debilitating illness.  They had been married for forty-one years and had traveled the world together. After all of the travel, Sarah’s two favorite spots on earth were Yellowstone and The Grand Canyon.  He always felt that she loved the Canyon the most, and he was saving it for last.  She had been his best friend and partner and had supported him in everything he had done, both at his work, but even more important to him, at his leisure.

He had been born with a restless adventurous spirit inside of him, and it was one of the things Sarah loved most about him and had always given him plenty of rope to roam.  He loved her all the more for it.  He now felt that the only way he could go on without her was to devote himself to a cause she had always been passionate about, the Dominican Mission in Pastura New Mexico.  The mission had been founded almost two hundred years ago to help and educate the many Native Tribes that lived in the area.

He needed to dedicate the remainder of his life to something bigger that just himself.  Because of all the good work his wife had done on their behalf, the Dominicans had accepted him into their order, and they were expecting him before the week was out.

He had recently sold his business for over 100 million dollars, and after securing his grandchildren’s education was going to use the bulk of the money to build a hospital in rural New Mexico to treat the poor and disenfranchised.  He wanted the hospital to specialize in treating diabetes and juvenile diabetes since so many of the Native Americans in the Southwest (and all over the U.S.) were suffering from this terrible disease.  It had been the disease that had finally claimed his beloved wife Sarah.

He was riding a vintage/antique BMW motorcycle that he had spent the last 20 years restoring.  Although it was over 50 years old, there was no part of this bike that you couldn’t eat off of.  Like everything else in his life, it was a reflection of him and the ‘midas’ effect he seemed to have on everything he touched. Everything in his life just seemed to ‘WORK’ !

After checking into his motel at the South Rim of the Canyon, he decided there was still time to get to his wife’s favorite spot along the rim to Watch the sun go completely down.  As he walked through the Pinyon Trees toward the rim, he thought he saw a figure standing close to the edge.  Whoever it was had heard him coming through the brush and was now looking his way.

“Hello,” he called out.  “Aren’t you standing a little too close to the rim?”  “What do you want,” he heard back in response, “I thought I was here alone.” “Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude, but like you, I just wanted to take one look over before the day ended. It’s nice to find someone else here to be able to share this magnificent view with.”
  
“I didn’t come here to share anything with anybody,” he heard back again, “And like I said before, I thought I was alone.”  As the man spoke, he walked slowly backwards and seated himself on the large rock where he had laid his sunglasses before. He put his sunglasses back on before speaking again.

“You know it’s unbelievable, no matter how many times I’ve seen the view from this rim, it’s always like seeing it for the first time again.  This was my wife’s favorite spot on earth.  It’s almost impossible to describe, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know, it’s my first time here, he heard the seated man say.  “Wow, first time huh.  I can still remember my first time, but then every time is like that first time to me, and that was over 35 years ago.”  “It may be special to you,” the man sitting down said, now without looking his way, “To me it’s just a big hole in the ground.”
As he emerged from the Pinyon Pines and approached the rim, he noticed something strange and out of place.  There was a large black handgun sitting with its barrel pointed out toward the canyon, in between the seated man’s two legs.  

He slowly walked off to his left and moved very cautiously toward the rim, being careful not to make any sudden moves.  He tried to act nonchalant and make it seem like he hadn’t noticed the gun.  The man on the rock knew that he had seen it as he tried to close both legs over the gun and hide it from further sight.

“Have you been here long,” he asked the seated man? “I don’t know --- I don’t know, it seems like long.”  ‘Well, it’s a great place to sit and reflect about life and think about where life’s journey goes next.”
“I know all about where my life has been and where it‘s going,”  

At this point the man stopped speaking and there was a very uncomfortable moment of silence — a silence that seemed to fill the surrounding canyon with a new emptiness that rivaled even its great depths.  “You look like you’re upset sitting there all alone, might I ask the reasons why.”  The seated man then finally turned his head his way and said, ‘Why would you care if I’m upset or not.”

“I can’t explain why I care, but I do, and if you’d like to tell me about it, I’d like to listen.”  “Why in the world would you want to listen to someone else’s problems when you seem not to have a care in the world.  Especially coming from someone that you don’t know and who you’ve just met at a spot like this that you so obviously love and have great affection for?” 
 
“Maybe for that very reason, because it is a beautiful day today and this is one of the world’s most magical spots.  I am having a hard time accepting how someone could seem so depressed and dejected in a place like this.  You may not believe me, but that’s exactly how I feel.  Why did you come to the Grand Canyon in a state like this. Were you hoping that the majesty of the canyon would lift your spirits and cheer you up?”

“I know that some like you have said that this is the most powerful place on earth.  I thought it would be a most appropriate place, or certainly as good as any,” as his voice trailed off again and silence intervened.

“As good as any to do what,” the standing man asked as he moved slightly closer.  The seated man didn’t answer as he stared out over the rim into the huge expanse of rock and sky.  Finally, he said, “Really, why would you even care, I’m nothing to you, and it’s really none of your business.”  “About that, you’re right, and if I’m intruding then I apologize, but I’m getting the strongest feeling that meeting you here today in this spot was no accident.  Do you think about things like that?”

The man stood up but did not answer.  ‘What are your plans today after the sun sets? I just checked into the motel a short ways down the road, the Yavapai Motor Lodge, ever heard of it.”  “Yeah, I’ve heard of it, maybe you should be heading back there before it starts to get dark.”  “Why don’t we walk back together, I’d enjoy the company.”
“Look, I don’t have any plans that go beyond this evening, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave, as I’d like to be alone to finish what I started.”  “I’d really like to hear all about that if you’d be willing to tell me. I’ve got nothing but time.”

The man now standing with his sunglasses back on in the approaching darkness was frozen by the words –'Nothing but time.’  He had made the decision earlier that for him, time was up and today would be the end.  Now he had some do-gooding stranger who had invaded his privacy unannounced and wouldn’t seem to back off.  

“Look, for the last time, you don’t want to hear my sad story, no one ever has, and no-one ever will.”  “Well, why don’t you just try me.  If I turn out to be like everyone else in your life after you’ve told me, you can always just get up and walk away --- end of story!”
“You look like someone whose life has turned out very well and never had a bad day in your life.”  

“Honestly, you’re making me feel guilty because when I look at my life in total, you’re pretty much correct.  I have had that kind of a life and feel very blessed because of it.  I’m going to assume that you have not.”

His honesty at admitting to having had a charmed life seemed to make an impression on the man as he answered back, “Nothing, absolutely nothing in my life has worked out, from my failed marriages, to my children who are now gone, and to all the nothing job’s. Everything has been a failure.  My life has been one great disappointment after another, and I can’t see the point in going on.”
The reality of the situation now became crystal clear.

“So, you were going to end it all here today at the South Rim of this Canyon?  It seems too beautiful a place for something so drastic.”
“I was, and I am going to end it all today in spite of everything you’ve said.”  “What is the gun for, if I might ask?”  The gun is just in case I don’t have guts enough to jump.  Guts is something I’ve always struggled with too.”

“Is there anything I can say, anything at all, that might make you change your mind, at least for a little while?”

“Nothing,” the man said.  “You don’t know me, and I’m sure there’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already said to myself.”  “If I could come up with one reason, just one, for you not to jump, would that make any difference at all?”  “Why would you even care to try when my mind is made up?”

“I’m glad you used the word ‘care’ when asking me that question.  Who is the last person in your life that you thought truly ‘cared’ for you?’  “I can’t remember, and I’m not sure anyone ever did.  My Parents split up when I was three and I was raised in one foster home after another before joining the army because I didn’t have guts enough to run away.  I’m not sure that word has any real meaning for me.”

“What if I was to tell you that I care about you, --- very much, and I don’t want to see you do what you’re getting ready to do in this most sacred of spots or anywhere for that matter.”“You just stumbled upon me by chance in my sorry state, and now feel pity for me and your conscience won’t let you leave well enough alone.”  

In a very strange way, he didn’t feel sorry for the man but felt guilty for the blessed life he had lived.  It all needed to make sense, or he couldn’t go back.  Why tonight, and why at this spot that he was looking so forward to.

He struggled for his next words before speaking again to the troubled man who had now gotten precariously close to the edge. The scene started to remind him of the movies he had seen where a man would be standing out on a building’s ledge, high above the street.  In the movies there was always a heroic detective or passerby who was able to talk the man down.  He knew he was running out of time, and he also knew this man he had just met could smell insincerity from a 100-miles away.

“I’d like to help you get through this in any way that I can.”  “There’s no getting through it. If you really want to do me a favor, just walk back to where you came from and let me finish what I came here to do.”

“I can’t explain this to you, but I know now that I was brought here today for a reason — a reason beyond a one last goodbye to this place.  I could have, and actually thought about, stopping at many of the rims my wife and I loved, but I picked this one because this was her favorite.  I know now that it had a higher purpose.  You may not want to hear this, but you came to this place today to end it all because of what has always been missing in your life only to find exactly that when I came walking through the trees.  In fact, to prove what I’m saying, I’d like to make you an offer.

“Suppose someone, in this case me, were to say that they would trade positions with you and that they would do what you are thinking about doing if you would do something very important for them.”  What do you mean,” the man said looking back from the edge.

‘What if I were to tell you that I would be willing to step off the edge of this canyon to show you how much I really care.  Would you be willing to fulfill a dream of mine in turn for my doing that.  You will then see that a total stranger is willing to give it all up for you if you will be willing to commit to something that is equally important to them.”

“You’re either crazy or you think that I am.  Nobody’s going to give up their life to prove to me that they care about saving my worthless life.  Your life seems to have a value beyond what I can describe.”
“You’re right about that, and my life has had a value beyond what even I can describe, but what I am telling you is that the deal I am making you is real. After hearing my terms and agreeing to what you will have to do, I will jump off this Canyon wall so you can find the happiness, peace, and contentment you deserve.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, all of this is crazy, sheer lunacy.  I think I’ve been joined on this cliff by a man who’s completely lost his own mind.”“All right then, let’s do this.  Would you agree to sleep on it overnight.  If you feel the same way in the morning, then I will carry out your plan if you will fulfill mine.  Are you staying at that same motel as I am.”  “Yeah, I checked in yesterday and forgot to check out, so I guess I still have a room.”  Maybe it was for a reason he thought to himself, as he stood there shaking his head in the darkness.

“Don’t shake your head, just tell me you’ll think about it.
If I don’t hear from you, and I’m in room #888, I’ll assume that our deal is set, and I’ll fulfill my part of our agreement.”  “OK, one more night,” the man said as he picked up his gun and tucked it into the small of his back.  “One more night, but I don’t really think anything is going to change.”

They walked back to the Yavapai Motor Lodge in silence together.  Both men felt at this point that they had known each other for a very long time — maybe an eternity.  Nighttime in the Canyon echoes a silence louder than anything that can be made with sound.
As they entered the lobby, they both went in different directions without saying goodnight.

The man who had come by motorcycle wondered: ‘Was I challenged by God before ever reaching the Dominicans? Will I ever see those peaceful hallways and gardens that my wife loved so much ever again?”


Chapter Three

Jack hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in over fifteen years.  His tortured mind and soul just seemed to never rest.  He woke to the sounds of birds and bright sunshine outside his window.  Last night he had truly slept for the first time in his adult life. He never needed an alarm, but it had sounded to him like one had been going off.  

All at once he realized what it was --- it was a siren.  Multiple sirens were going off and he wondered if the Motel was on fire.  Still slightly disoriented from the past two days, and the effects of so much sleep, he threw his pants and shoes on and headed down the hall toward the lobby.

He then remembered the strange conversation he had had with that man in the Canyon last night.  Cold sweat started to flow as he then remembered their agreement. “If I don’t hear differently by first thing tomorrow morning, I will go ahead with my part of our agreement.”  Jack tried to compose himself as he thought, “No way, no way anyone would be crazy enough to do what he said he would do last night.  If this place isn’t on fire, maybe he’s having breakfast in the coffee shop off the lobby.”

As he hustled through the lobby, the desk clerk shouted to him but he didn’t stop.  He saw fire engines and ambulances outside, and he wanted to see what was going on.  He was immediately relieved when he saw Fred’s motorcycle parked in the same spot as last night.
Something else didn’t look right though.  There were at least three fire engines and two ambulances outside but nothing was on fire and there was no car accident to be seen.  Obviously, something was afoot, but everyone seemed too busy to talk to him. He walked back into the Motel and through the lobby…

This time the desk clerk came out from behind the desk and said, “Hey, I was shouting to you as you ran out the door.  There’s an envelope for you here from the guy who jumped.  The police are looking to talk to you as they have no clues as to why or what drove him to step off the edge.  We get a couple of jumpers every year, but this guy seemed totally different.  He was one of the most upbeat people to come in here in a long time.”

JUMP!  It seemed impossible.  Jack couldn’t wrap his mind around it as he opened the envelope.  In a very neat handwriting, it said --- ‘I’ve left something for you under the seat of my motorcycle.” As he started back outside the desk clerk asked, “Did you know him very well?”  “No, not really, I just met him late yesterday afternoon for the first time.” 
 
Jack's knees weakened as the desk clerk went on.  “It’s really weird.  He was actually whistling when he walked through the lobby this morning at about 7:15.”  “Who, Jack asked.”  “Why the Jumper, the guy who jumped.  He was smiling and commenting on what a beautiful day it was, and how he hoped we all were going to have a great day.  I guess it just goes to show --- you never know.
At 7:42, the police got a call from the Havasupai Indians that live along the bottom saying that a full set of clothes had fallen to the floor of the canyon, shirt, shoes, socks, underwear, the whole deal.  Everything, but a body.  The police are having the hardest time making any sense of it at all.”

The words ‘you never know’ kept repeating in Jack’s ears as he walked outside. As he unlatched the seat and lifted it up on the old BMW, he found a two-page note folded over and neatly placed between the frame. It went on to say …

Dear Jack
I don’t know and can hardly imagine what your life must have been like up until now.  I wish I had the power to go back and change the bad things that happened to you, but I don’t.

The only power that I have, the one that all of us have, is to change what happens now.  I hope you will believe me now when I say I really do care about you more than you know, and I am happy and willing to live up to my promise.  I am now counting on you to live up to yours.

The only thing extra I ask, and I’ve put this in writing to the head Abbott, is for you to be allowed to ride the motorcycle back to this spot once every year.  Once here, I would like you to say a Rosary for the souls of my family and for all the faithful departed.  If you put in a good word for me that would be all the better. If you do this, I know your new life will be joyous and take on a deeper meaning, and more than make up for any troubles that you’ve experienced up until now.
If you choose not to keep your promise and go through with ending your life, then I forgive you and still love you, but I don’t think you’re going to do that.

May God Bless and keep you.

Fred

Underneath the note there was a folded-up roadmap with a line drawn in magic marker pointing the way to the monastery in New Mexico. Jack sat down on the curb in front of the motorcycle in disbelief.  There was one more slip of paper folded up in the map.  It was the title to the old BMW.  It had been signed over to Jack.

“He couldn’t have, he couldn’t have, he just wouldn’t have,” Jack kept saying over and over to himself.  Just then a large Park Policeman tapped Jack on the shoulder and asked him if he would mind answering a few questions.  Jack agreed but then told the officer that after speaking with him he just might be even more confused.  The officer went on to tell Jack that none of their suspicions panned out.  This man hadn’t jumped for insurance money (he was very wealthy), or out of a history of depression, he just jumped.
And none of the usual reasons seemed to apply.

After thirty-five minutes of polite questioning the police officer walked away scratching his head.  On the margin of the map was a scribbled note, “Don’t delay out of any concern for me, get to the monastery as quickly as you can.”  Jack had told the police officer about Fred wanting him to have the bike and showed him the title that had been left for him.  He did not show the police officer the letter Fred had left and was in fact surprised that they hadn’t checked the bike.  Then it all started to make sense.  If Jack hadn’t read the note Fred left with the desk clerk, he would never have known the seat to the motorcycle opened up.  He was sure the police didn’t know that either.  He was glad no-one was looking when he opened up the seat and took out the letter.  In all the commotion, everyone else was just looking the other way.

Jack wanted to go back to the spot where Fred jumped and where they first had met, but the police had it roped off. He decided to leave for New Mexico right away because that’s what Fred would have wanted.  The news stations were now calling it a ‘Mystery In The Canyon’ because only clothes, and no body was found.

Jack had never ridden a motorcycle before but had often fantasized about it.  Like most things in his life he had always come up with excuses as to why he couldn’t ride, while secretly envying those who did.  He took to the old bike immediately, and with every hour that passed on Rt #40 he enjoyed the ride more and more. A new type of guilt started to set in because he was actually enjoying his new life with every new twist of the throttle and turn of the handlebars.

Chapter Four

Jack pulled up in front of the Old Dominican Monastery with its Spanish Adobe Walls at 2:30 the following afternoon.  He had spent the previous night in Gallup and had actually been able to volunteer at the Dominican Soup Kitchen that was housed in the old Post Office in the center of downtown.  

Gallup was very depressed and except for a flourishing Indian Jewelry Industry had very little in the way of jobs and opportunity.  The Friar who ran the soup kitchen listened to Jacks story and then put his arm around him and led him inside.  Jack was astonished that the story seemed to make perfect sense to this selfless Padre.

Jack spent the night on a cot behind the soup kitchen and after having an early breakfast with Padre Nick, headed on his way east toward the Monastery in the New Mexico desert.   It reminded Jack of the pictures he had seen of an oasis in the middle of the Arabian desert.  There were palm trees and many varieties of flowers surrounded by what looked like an eternity of sand.  Jack loved the sparseness of his new surroundings, but he still didn’t know why.
The Monastery sat atop a sandy hill at the end of a long unpaved road.  He parked the bike outside the two large, padlocked, doors and began to knock.  

Before he could make contact with the old wooden door on the right a smaller door within it began to open. He stepped through the door as a monk whose hood was completely covering his head lead him inside.  The monastery had a quiet about it that would rival that of the Canyon.  There were three old Spanish Buildings side by side, and the main door to the one in the middle was already open.

He asked the monk where they were going and heard back nothing in return. The hooded monk led Jack down a long hallway to another open door on the left.  He knocked on the door three times as he led jack through and motioned for him to sit down on one of the two chairs in front of the large stone fireplace.  I wonder where they get stone in a desert like this Jack wondered to himself.

Jack looked up slightly and saw the image of two large and heavily tanned feet in sandals walking toward him at a lively pace.  As he looked even higher, he saw a stocky and athletically built man who looked to be in his mid-sixties with a smile that could have come from an angelic two-year old child.

My name is Abbott Estefan, and I have been expecting you all day.  Early this morning I got a letter from our beloved Fred, telling the details of your meeting.  Before we do anything else, we must pray together to him that your mission here will be successful.  I am certain in my heart that Fred now sits with the Saints in heaven and is at this very moment looking down on us both --- with love !

I read Fred’s words, and I am still in partial disbelief.  Would you like to tell me in your words what happened yesterday, Jack?  Soon Abbott, but not right now, I hope you can understand.”  “I do totally my son. Let’s get you settled and then you can start to feel like one of us.  I know that is what Fred would have wanted.

“When’s the last time you’ve eaten,” Abbott Estefan asked.  “This morning, in Gallup with Padre Nick,” Jack answered.  “Ah, Padre Nick, one of our very finest.  Half Pueblo and half Navajo but all Dominican.  Once you walk through those front doors, all ‘divisions’ of ethnicity and nationality fade away like the shifting sands.”
“First the body, then the mind.  It’s time to get something into your stomach.  We are only humble servants of the poor around here Jack, but we eat like Roman Emperors.  It’s one of the perks of our particular order.”  “Sounds great to me Abbot, when it comes to food, I’m not picky.”

They laughed together at Jacks comment as they walked down another long hallway around a corner and into the biggest kitchen Jack had even seen.  Padre Francisco was the head cook, and he started to ladle out an array of Mexican food onto a plate the likes of which Jack had never seen.  He decided to eat every drop so as not to disappoint the good Padre.  Once finished ,Abbott Estefan led Jack to his new room on the second floor.

It was very well lit and like all of the Monk’s rooms it faced East to meet the rising sun.  “Get some rest now Jack, morning prayers are at 5a.m. and breakfast is at 6.  I’ll have someone put your motorcycle in one of the stables. You do intend to keep your promise, don’t you Jack, Abbott Estefan asked as he closed the door.”  YES, Jack said to himself as he sat down in the bed.  But then he knew the Abbott already knew his answer.

Jack had never heard anyone laugh with the gusto of Abbott Estefan.  He liked it here already as he could feel his old life peeling away like layers coming off an old onion. Two days later, Jack and Abbott Estefan took a walk around the grounds as Jack told the Abbott the whole story about Fred and their chance meeting at the Grand Canyon.  “Ah yes, the police have contacted us because they found out through Fred’s family that he was coming to be one of us.  I pray that they will someday know more about his passing than they do today. In his letter, Fred asked us not to say anything.  

Two Havasupai elders who were meditating at dawn that morning high among the rocks said they both saw an eagle swoop through the bottom of the canyon just before Fred’s clothing hit the ground.  They then looked up and saw two hands reaching out of the clouds which grabbed the eagle right out of the sky.

WE ARE BUILDING A GROTTO TO FRED IN THIS VERY SPOT WHERE YOU ARE STANDING NOW!

The Monastery was almost totally cloistered, and voices were only used when absolutely necessary.  Over the next several months Jack would come to find out how overrated ‘talking’ really is.

Chapter Five

The next few months were an adjustment for Jack as he settled into a life of contemplation and prayer.  Slowly, yet surely, a fundamental change was taking place inside of him.  It was a change unlike anything he had ever felt before.  The empty places inside of him, some of them over fifty years old, he could feel being filled.  Things that he couldn’t explain and things that he had never felt before were rapidly becoming things he could no longer live without.

Almost a year had gone by when Abbott Estefan knocked on his door one quiet afternoon.  Jack was deep in contemplative prayer, having just finished his daily Rosary and he didn’t hear the first knocks, so the good Abbott knocked harder.  He always prayed to Fred at the end of every Rosary, who the Monks were now referring to with extreme reverence as Patron.  Fred was pronounced the same in Spanish as it was in English, only with a slightly different inflection.  The Grotto in Fred’s honor had only recently been finished.

Jack had a direct view of the Grotto from the window in his room.
Jack opened the door to that wide-eyed smile he had come to love.  ‘May I come in Gato,” the Abbott asked. “Absolutely,” Jack said.  He always loved it when any of the Monks referred to the Spanish pronunciation of his name.  “How can I be of service Father Estefan? It is always an honor when you choose to visit my humble room.”

“In one week’s time it will be the one year anniversary since you decided to become one of us.  It will also be the one-year anniversary of our dear Fred’s passing and his ascension into heaven.  No one else dared refer to Fred’s passing in that way, but the Abbott was heard on more than one occasion to say that Fred had been welcomed into heaven by none other than Jesus, the Son of God Himself.  It was his hands that the two Havasupai Elders saw reaching out of the clouds that day. 
 
Abbott Estefan was sure of that in his heart. He told Jack that it was much easier to live with what you knew in your heart, rather than what you could prove.  The Church still required proof for Sainthood, but the Abbott told Jack that he was living proof and the only proof his order would ever need that Fred was sitting next to Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

“Are you planning on keeping your promise Gato?” the Abbott asked him no longer smiling.  “I hope that you are, and if so, I would like you to start making plans right away.  I will have my personal secretary call that Motel and make you a reservation for two nights.  You need to spend the first night at the canyon isolated and by yourself in prayer.  The second day and night are a celebration to Fred, and you need to keep an open mind, and open heart, to anything that might happen.”

The Abbott thought he saw a small tinge of uncertainty in Jack’s eyes.  “You must not hesitate or be doubtful my son.  Remember only that the man who gave his life up for you, a stranger, will be with you in the canyon.  Our Native American Brothers like to refer to this experience as a Vision Quest.  You should fast and sleep little while you are there. And with enough time, the Patrons message will take over you and show you the way.”

After speaking, Abbott Estefan turned and quietly started to walk down the hall.  After only three steps, he turned, looked at Jack one more time and said:  “My dear Gato, please ask the Patron to smile down on this poor Dominican Monk who thinks of him daily.  Ask him to watch over our Mission and all of the poor and suffering souls that we try and help.

Jack hadn’t looked at the BMW for almost a year.  In fact, he had thought about it very little.  The Monk who acted as head groundskeeper had stored it in a stable near the very back of the mission.  He had it wheeled up to the front of the Main Building on the day Jack was getting ready to leave.  It started on the very first kick.

Jack was taking very little with him as he headed to Arizona.  Just the old civilian clothes he had been wearing when arriving a year ago, a road map of the Southwest, and the Rosary Beads he had found draped across the handlebars when he went to get on the bike.
The bikes gas tank was full, and Jack marveled at how clean and well maintained it looked.  ‘Unbelievable, he thought to himself.  “I know if I was to ask, the Monks would tell me it was all a result of the power of prayer — prayer, and a siphon to remove fuel from the Abbots old School Bus.” 

 Jack wondered if anyone not directly connected to all that had happened would ever believe him if he told them his story.  The Abbott had told him it was of no consequence, --- as the truth needed no audience!

Jack rode all day and arrived at the South Rim of the Canyon just after six in the evening.  He checked into the same Motel —The Yavapai Motor Lodge — and parked the Motorcycle in exactly the same spot that it had been in on exactly this day a year ago.  The same desk clerk was working in the lobby who had been there last year.  
“How are you doing?  I NEVER expected to see you back here again.  That was really something that happened last year.  None of us can believe an entire year has gone by already.

“Yes, it was really something,” said Jack.  I made a promise to come back and honor his memory, so I’ll be staying with you for the next two days.  It would mean a lot to me, and to him, if you keep my being here quiet.  I don’t want any publicity, especially from the press.  This is a very private matter and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“No problem, mums the word as far as I’m concerned.  It’s good to see you and that you’re doing well.  Just one thing though before I go home for the evening.”  “What’s that,” Jack said.  “Did they ever figure out why he did it? I never read anything in the papers about why he jumped.”

“No, I don’t think they ever did.  Some things, maybe the most important things in life, tend to remain a mystery from all but the few who are directly involved.  I think in Fred’s case, that mystery will remain intact.”  “That’s right his name was Fred, I haven’t heard anyone use his name in almost a year.  Around here he’s just referred to as the ‘Naked Jumper.”’ Jack smiled to himself at the terminology.  He knew that somewhere high above, Fred was looking down and smiling too.

‘One more thing though,” the desk clerk said as Jack was turning to go to his room.  “What’s that, I’m kind of in a hurry, I want to get into the restaurant before it closes and then over to the canyon before the sun is completely down.”  “Well, it’s like this.  Every morning at exactly 7:00 a.m. the phone rings at the front desk and it’s someone asking for the number of Jack’s room.  When we tell the caller that we are not allowed to give out any information regarding our guests, they immediately hang up and the call ends.  The very next morning they call back again and ask once more for the number of Jack’s room. This has happened now every day for a year.  Your name’s Jack, isn’t it?”

‘Yep, must be a co-incidence. Didn’t they ask for Jack by his last name.”  “No, only Jack, just plain old Jack every time they called.”
Jack knew that Fred had never asked him about his last name, and he was sure that he had never offered the information.  “It’s really funny,” the desk clerk went on, “the caller never stays on long enough for the police to trace the call.  After the tenth or eleventh time we were called we forwarded the information about the calls to the Park Police who tapped into our line and tried to put a trace on the calls.  

Our receptionist, Daphne, who almost always takes the call, has tried to keep the caller on the line, but when she doesn’t give the caller the information they request, the line always goes dead.” Jack said goodnight to the desk clerk, whose name he now knew was Roy, and checked into his room.  It was the same room, #888, that he had been in a year ago.  He picked up the phone and dialed 0 for the Front Desk.

“Roy, this is Jack in Room #888.  Did someone request this specific room for me when making the reservation?”  “Let me check …. Nope, just says Non-Smoking King, on the reservation slip.  Why is something wrong with Room #888?”  “No, everything’s fine, good night, Roy.”

Jack quickly said a Rosary before ordering takeout from the restaurant. He then hurried across and down the road to the Rim where he had met Fred on that fateful day a year ago.  As he sat there quietly eating and staring out over the rim, he felt a peacefulness descend and overtake him both in body and spirit.  As the sun went completely down, he prayed for over three hours for the saving deliverance of Fred’s soul.

Suicide, a word no-one except the police and newspapers had used in his presence, was still a grievous sin in the Catholic Church.  Publicly, the church would admit to no justification that would allow one to take their own life. Jack thought silently about Jesus, --- and wasn’t that exactly what he had done by offering himself up as a sacrifice so all could be saved.  Jesus knew what was going to happen on Calvary that afternoon, just as Fred knew what was going to happen if he didn’t receive a phone call from Jack that morning saying that he had changed his mind.

When the stars had finally filled the sky, Jack got up and walked back to the Motel. As he walked past the front desk he asked Roy, “What time does that call come in in the morning asking for a Jack?”  “At exactly 7:00 a.m. every morning.”

Jack thanked Roy and walked back to his room.  He set his alarm for 6:00 a.m. the next morning. He was in the lobby standing at the front desk at ten minutes before seven waiting, waiting to see if the caller would call again.


Chapter Six

“Nothing,” said Daphne.  “Every morning for a year a call has come in at exactly 7:00 a.m. asking for Jack.  Are you sure it hasn’t been you that’s been making those phone calls?”  “What, call and ask for myself,” Jack said. “What would be the reasoning behind that?”
‘It’s really unbelievable. We’re open 365 days a year and the only property inside the park that is.  This caller has called every day for a solid year and hasn’t missed a holiday, weekend, nothing.  Every morning, and I mean EVERY morning that phone rings --- but not today!”

Jack spent the next day in quiet contemplation on the edge of the rim.  He thought about Sarah and how she had loved this place and said a prayer to Fred to please watch over his beloved wife until he could be with her again.  That night he slept like he had never slept before.

There was a night owl just outside his window and it spoke to him in a language he felt but could not understand.  He could feel it saying to him, --- UNTIL NEXT YEAR, UNTIL NEXT YEAR !!!

Jack got up early the next morning and was in the lobby again before seven.  Once again, no phone call asking for Jack.  After having breakfast and visiting the rim one more time, he rode non-stop back to the monastery, carrying a new part of the Great Mystery.
The Abbott had always been very respectful, and not in a condescending way, of the terms the Indians used to refer to God and Revelation. Jack had heard the Abbott use the term ‘The Great Mystery’ when referring to their religious beliefs many times.  He couldn’t come up with a better term for what he felt had happened back at the Canyon.

For twenty-four more years Jack repeated this same yearly ritual to the South Rim.  The Motel was eventually sold and torn down, and a new Holiday Inn express was built where the old Yavapai Motor Lodge used to stand.  Jack always stayed at the Holiday Inn Express with a room facing East like the one he had at the old Motel.  He was now in his early seventies and each year the trip took longer to get to the Canyon.  

The bike was still properly maintained and running well, but the effort it took to ride it all the way tired Jack out, and every year it seemed like the Canyon got further and further away. Abbott Estefan had died several years ago and Father Jack, or Abbott Gato, as he was now called, was in charge of the Monastery.  Jack had been ordained in a very private ceremony almost fifteen years before. Fred’s children and grandchildren had proudly attended the event in their Father’s honor, each of them placing a wreath at the base of their fathers statue, the Patron, in the garden around back.

As he promised he would every year, Jack checked into the hotel at the South Rim.  It had recently changed its name again to a Best Western.  Including the first time he had stayed here, the time he met Fred, this was the 25th Anniversary of his visiting the Canyon in Fred’s honor. He said “Hi Tammy,” to the pretty young girl working at the front desk.  “So, you’re still riding that old motorcycle all the way from New Mexico?”  “I am, and God willing, I’ll get back there to resume my duties in a couple of days.’  “Well, my dad said to remind you again that you have a standing offer for the Motorcycle if ever, and whenever you decide to sell.”

“Sorry Tammy, but like I told your Dad last year, this motorcycle is going to take me all the way thru the pearly gates.” “Oh Father, you’re such a kidder, but if you do change your mind, my Dad will drive over to the Monastery and pick it up.”  “Thanks Tammy, and thank your Dad again for the kind offer. Are those phone calls still coming in every morning?”

“Every morning at seven a.m. like clockwork Father, except on the mornings you’re here.  It’s old hat around here now and part of the DNA of this place.  I don’t know what we’d do if they ever stopped.”  “I don’t think you need to worry about that Tammy, tell that caller that I said Hi every time he calls.”  “I will Father, he seems to get a real kick out of that.  Two days ago, we weren’t sure what was going on because at exactly seven a.m the phone rang and in the same voice as always, the caller asked for Gato.  When we acted confused, he immediately corrected himself and said ‘Jack,’ could you please tell me the room number of ‘Jack.’

“We’ve got you in #888 as always Father, and it always amuses me that we don’t have any other rooms that start with the number eight.  Do you know why we have one room in this hotel out of sequence with all the others, that is numbered #888, when all the other rooms start with a letter followed by three numbers.
The rooms on this floor go from A100 to A165.”

“No, I really don’t know why that is Tammy, I just know that I’ve always been in Room #888 and I like it that way.  Nothing like tradition right …”

Jack went back to his room and as was his habit said the Rosary before getting into bed.  The next morning, he was outside the restaurant when it opened for breakfast at six.  He liked talking to all the vacationers coming to the Grand Canyon, especially those visiting for the first time.  “God’s greatest creation on earth he would tell all those he met.  He had also become something of a local celebrity, and several local orders of both priests and nuns would come by the south rim during his yearly visit and ask for his blessing.

No-one ever asked him specifically why he was there, but everyone knew, and it was now local legend, that it had something to do with that ‘Jumper’ that had gone over the edge so many years ago. Today was the actual 25th Anniversary of Fred’s taking his place and stepping off into the Canyon.

After breakfast Jack walked the short distance down the canyon road to the rim behind the Pinyon Trees that he had visited so many times before.  He sat on the same rock that he was sitting on twenty-five years before when Fred came walking through the trees.  He began to pray.

He looked down into the loose dirt at the base of the rock and thought that he could still see the impression that his handgun had made in the soft canyon silt. He wondered at his advanced age if his mind not be starting to play tricks on him.  Two of his closest friends at the monastery had been stricken with Alzheimers this year and as he watched them slowly drift away, he prayed more than anything, that it would never happen to him. 
 
Every memory he had had of and in this place seemed to come rushing back at once.  Everything seemed so real.  Not surreal, but really real! He closed his eyes again and prayed.  He wasn’t sure how long he had been praying but when he opened his eyes, he saw that it was now dark.  “Could an entire day have slipped away that fast he wondered, or maybe I really am losing my mind.”

He looked into the sky for any trace of the sun. It was all the way back over his left shoulder, in the direction of California, the land he had come from, the place where everything that happened to him had been so bad.

As he got up to leave, he heard a rustling in the bushes.  He thought maybe it was a black bear, or perhaps a couple of honeymooners coming to the rim to profess undying love.  He called out to the noise in the bushes, but nothing answered back.  He walked deeper in the direction that the sound had come from but it was now so dark that his aging eyes were failing him. 

 It was then that he remembered that he had forgotten his Rosary Beads and had left them back on the rock. As Jack turned around to go back and get his Rosary his eyes went completely blind.  There was a light that he had never seen before coming from the Canyon’s edge and it seemed to be shining only on him.  To the right and the left he could still see darkness, but the brilliant beam of light that he couldn’t understand was following him as he walked blindly back toward the rock.

As bright as the light was it did not hurt his eyes, and it seemed to be drawing him closer and into its light.  As he got near the edge, he could feel the light totally envelop him, both body and soul.  As he got to the Canyon’s edge, he could see the light take shape as it drifted level with his view.  In the middle of the flashing brilliance was the face of Fred who was now smiling at him in the way he had remembered from so long ago.  Fred’s arms were now opening wide as he said through the light …

“Father Jack, you have kept your promise when all I had to give you that day was love.  You have returned that love to me twenty-five fold.  I now release you from your promise so you may go back and live peacefully the rest of your days.  What we did here together will forever be understood, by those willing to give freely and totally of themselves.”

With that the light was gone, and Jack’s body was filled with a new warmth of understanding and love.  It was if someone or something had climbed inside him, someone who needed to reassure him one last time that he would never, ever, be alone again.

On the very next day a message appeared heavily inscribed on the rock.  It read — "He who sacrifices himself in my name shall never die, and my name is love"

Kurt Philip Behm
April, 2012

Returned flush with excitement,
From a ten mile bike ride,
On a day near perfect,
Out along the river,

Temp in mid seventy's
not a cloud in the sky.

Beside the river I ride,
the water summer calm flat,
Scents of wet mossy rocks,
and dogwood trees non relenting.
The perfume of the Valley,
the River damp, sweet and pure.

Ride as I did the trails,
some on paved surface.
most on wood chips and dirt.

Shifting gears to suit the,
changing terrain and the
resources within my aged knees.  

The wind from my speed,
blows refreshingly in my face,
Dark glasses slipping down my nose,
yet keeping sun glare from blinding.

I pass some people,
I smile and wave,
they reply in kind,
Maybe we even
exchange brief
verbal greetings,
Some lost in a blur
of movement.

Easy for us all to smile,
we are happy in our work.

Half way there,
I stop for a drink,
Ease my burning legs.
The spot I pick is under  
cover of a huge old walnut tree.
It's massive umbrella shade,
an embracing sanctuary.

Across the way, a little lake,
On the far bank there stands a
metal skeleton outline of three
buildings that once stood there.
This recreated site of the first
European settlement in Oregon,
Clear back in the year of 1837.

Methodist Missionaries they
were, came overland West,
from North East by wagon.
Bringing so they thought,
Needed "Civilization" to the
poor "heathens" here about.
Almost as always a very,
mistaken, arrogant notion.

There effort lasted only
four years, the locals
responding not so well to
their well intending invitation.

In historical retrospect,
one can not but applaud
their self scarifies, hardship
and strife, some of them even
died still trying.

However they did open
the door, to a new beginning,
Be it for good or ill.
Soon other settlers
made the long journey.
Becoming "Oregon Or Bust"
for many.  

As I reflect sitting beneath
this tree those early people
no doubt planted,
from seed or sapling,
brought so far to this
new land of beginning.
It stands here still,
176 years later,
a wonderful living,
still growing testament
to human efforts of trying.

The breeze livens,
stirs sweet pungent
scents of brackish water,
forest, and Valley,
hints of crocus,
ripe black berries and
summer flowers blooming,
All these scents mingle,
and grow ever stronger.

Off in the near distance,
a strengthening breeze whispers,
Approaching through forest trees
coming ever closer and nearer.
Reaching me in a refreshing
gust that lasts for only a minute.
The sweat upon my face
cooling at it's touch. As I smile,
in grateful acknowledgement.

I have seen this day,
two kinds of squirrels
one red, one grey colored.
Coveys' of doves taking flight,
from my approaching bike,
And birds of many description,
A Red Tailed Hawk on wing,
Harassed by two small pursuit birds
protecting their nests from him.
A huge Bald Eagle diving for fish.
And one of my very favorites,
a spindly legged Blue Heron.
Standing in mud, fishing.
Even a smart fox,
scurrying back to hide
in the foliage, too shy
and too fast to be viewed
for too long by a human.

Thankful as I am,
for this one more
glorious day of living,
In the ***** of nature
so inspiring, so splendid.
I embrace Life and in return,
it grants me, continuation.

I plan on returning soon,
maybe tomorrow if my legs
let me.