the mindquake at Two Wheels To There

The Real Stuff – 2011.10.01(a)

Published on December 28, 2015 by Ry Austin 10 Comments

In the dawn-cast shadows of the Westwitness Peaks, the short-o’-forty miles of interstate through south City of Contradictions, around Transit Point, and into north Shamton were as dull to Surtch Pherther as any ever. Though he loathed slab by bike, avoiding it when possible whatever the weather or time of day or quality of light, he took it that early morn to get there quick, to the real stuff–to sooner hit the dirt of Smuggler Road.

Just in from the teeth of Shamton Canyon, he caught it sneaking off the highway and into the brush. From there, Smuggler’s first few miles were a gravel-strewn, worn blacktop up-snake with curve-pit erosions plenty hollow to wholly swallow the wheel of a jacked pickup and thus gaping enough to single-gulp a reckless rider too. With some road-know, Surtch might have slain the steep serpentine, but as he hadn’t before been there, he carved the curves with care.

At its first fork the pavement veered right into a dead end lovers’ lot overlook while the left turned to a poof-dust and loose rock meander up a broad bench past gulch-heads and valley views along the face of the south Westwitness in the chill morn that still pledged a mild day among thickets and dry glades and hardwood groves with papery leaves all shades of flame wherein the blue and white were clouds and sky and all that was left after autumn’s slow burn.

From a high point turnout where Surtch lingered over granola bars and thermos brew and views of south Shamton and Friar Canyon’s mouth, Smuggler Road, now prickly with stones and gouged from four wheel wallowing when wet, swung around a nameless peak to tease the lips of little gullies on its wander down a thirsty dell to a T-junction with the left fork of Fetter Draw–asphalt again already after a mere sixteen miles.

Within a few sweeps at street speed, Surtch shook off the dirt-feel of peg readiness and hands happily clutch- and brake- and throttle-tired from the rough stuff and re-embraced the full body bike-hug that winding pavement promotes.

At the draw’s fork he put a foot down for a gang of wild turkeys on the trot for a hidey-spot ahead of Thanksgiving dinner and then hung a left up Fetter’s right, where–after nine-ish miles, and to his delight–the blacktop vanished before another poof-dust meander over the head of the draw and beyond, into open range and a tangle of dirt roads.

For his area-ignorance and the vagueness of his map, Surtch lost nearly an hour to probing dead ends and other wrong ways, even toppling once from a frustrated quick-stop at a bad lean in a turnout’s deep gravel. He managed to right Escape Artist just as two dudes in a beat-up pickup with windows down to let the smoke out clattered over a rise and skid-stopped nearby in the shoulder’s soft dirt.

“Hey, man. We heard that somewhere around here is a way through the hills to San Cosme Reservoir. Do ya know where it is?”

“Shit. I can tell you where it ain’t–been lookin’ for it myself. I’ve a sneaking suspicion it’s back the way you came, near that last stream crossing.”

The dudes exchanged glances, said, “Thanks. Good luck,” and resumed their shake, rattle, and roll down the road.

Morning had blossomed by the time Surtch found the way in question–a weathered two-track atop a spur a throttle-twist past a wrecked gate-for-no-good. Shortly thereafter he gained the main ridge above the water.

From there his route leapt side to side deer-like for six or so miles up through nakey quakies and past hunters here and there–more here, after Fetter Draw and in the warming day, than there, in those chill, dawn-cast shadows on Smuggler Road.

Then, at its highest point on San Cosme Ridge, it as good as took flight. Here the vague map indicated a split: a fine right leg hugging the pine-covered mound ahead to a soon union with a gravel road out of sight, and a rough left leg plunging down a zigzag ravine. Yet scan the scene as Surtch did, the right leg didn’t exist, likely never had.

Well, he thought, I could return to the overlook to hit that other road to the reservoir and lose even more time, or…

Applying theory anxiously–on pegs, ass back–and the front brakes gingerly to load the fork, Surtch engaged the ravine’s drop-in. A third of the way down, though, for its steepness or looseness or his inexperience or all, he had to lean heavy on the back brake too. Escape Artist’s rear chattered, locked, and then skidded the rest of the way, swinging out to the right all the while.

Damn, thought Surtch in a lull at the base, if I wasn’t committed before, I sure as hell am now. I couldn’t buck and chuck back up that thing if I wanted to.

From the ravine’s sheer walls, thick-trunked pines stretched out and up with their limbs entwined and their prickly needles meshed, straining sunlight. Though morning was well-on, this place was dim and cool, and pungent from moss and constant damp, from soil–a place to keep all that throughout the summer, though the sun would peak and the surrounding ‘scape go dry.

Among random boulders, through patches of shifty, streambed stones, and over terra-folds and surfaced roots all greasy, Surtch worried and weaved Escape Artist, a capable machine somehow tackling an earthbound pitch and roll with an inept captain at the controls. Though a mere fragment of a mile long, the ravine was as good as endless to new-to-dirt Surtch, who was surprised to finally return–he and Escape Artist, unscathed–to the candor of the mid-morning sunlight, a gravel road in sight.

After a short stretch off the saddle to calm his jello-jiggly limbs and to consult that map of lies once more, Surtch was back astride his ride and hard-throttling steep, washboard curves toward the next fork and fairly familiar roads–those he’d fooled ‘n’ tooled around on a month and a half back over a family weekend at San Cosme Reservoir, back when the aspens still held all their li’l, green tremblers and lush was the undergrowth of tender grasses and wildflowers and small ferns.

Indeed, at higher altitudes, season shift is swift. Surtch had seen it when a younger self and his brother and his sister and their dad once backpacked their typical twenty-odd miles deep into the Cairn Mountains Wilderness and camped there eight days straight.

At the usual eleven, twelve, thirteen thousand feet and then some, they’d climbed rock pile passes and peaks, tromped through marshes and meadows and woods, weathered downpours and dodged hailstones and lightning bolts, fire-gazed after nightfall, and they’d witnessed the wildscape’s dash from summer to fall’s foreboding doorstep. It barely was late July.

As for this small fall adventure, Surtch had embarked for reasons typical and not: to catch and snap some autumn leaves before they all took the short flight to that long decay on the forest floor; to reduce pavement to mere stepping stones between the real stuff; to nudge the dirt closer to home, and his riding horizons farther out; to forge links from the sensational to the divine; and to further explore and finally begin to embrace dual-sporting.

Sadly, the seed planted by that once-upon-a-time, Vespa trip to Lake Mackenzie and the next year’s rerun with his brother at his side, to merge into a master passion his lifelong love for camping and his fresh obsession for riding, had been neglected–nay, ignored–for too long: For two years he’d had Escape Artist, and he had yet to put it through its paces. Though Surtch certainly had been put through his.

Sure, there’d been challenges inherent in lover-swapping a short, smooth Italian for a seriously tall German–he had expected a learning curve. But what a blind corner that shred of time had been, and oh, the motley hazards that had lurked around the bend: a swift smackdown by an early misadventure in the remoteness; continued abuse by folks he’d generously served for too damn long; loved ones’ deaths and, ugh, the closeted skeletons that started a-clackin’; plunging and twisting of countless other knives; and a seemingly calculated strike by a mindquake out of the blue–and all at once. None could have foreseen that.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin — One Ba-a-ad Traffic Jam

Of course, there’s always “pick yourself up, and dust yourself off” and “every cloud has a silver lining” and “it’s always darkest before the dawn”, but cliches and simulated sympathy never aid when one’s been broadsided by circumstance and the absurd.

Surtch had instead seized upon “this too shall pass”, a balanced mantra that can humble the haughty and render hope to the hopeless.

But enough! Enough of that–that way-back-when. Now?… Now his sights were set on spring and his family’s yearly, first of the season retreat to a remote spot amid sand and rocks–a new chance to put Escape Artist through its paces after all, to shoot for a sense of accomplishment, and to stalk that master passion.

Yeah, on this small, fall adventure, Surtch had embarked for a reason and with a plan: to know, before burdening his bike and perchance encumbering others, if his new-to-dirt skills could deliver; and for some peace of mind in the face of the tough terrain he required, to ride light. Well, save for petrol aplenty.

Sure, he could have run the numbers from charts and specs, but Surtch was all thumbs with math like that. Besides, he’d always reckoned that fuel off road was like water in the desert: have for every day and then some–in case of a breakdown, in case of a delay, in case of a fellow traveler in need.

The lashed-on cans were a mere security blanket–because Surtch was still learning the ropes and shaking down his bike; because the road ahead might be more than he could chew, and he didn’t wanna bite; because he was riding by a proven map of lies; and then…

After sixty miles since the last asphalt in Fetter Draw–sixty miles of that hour lost to seeking the way and then toppling in a turnout’s deep gravel, leaping side to side deer-like up San Cosme Ridge and then plunging down that zigzag ravine, re-riding roads he’d fooled ‘n’ tooled around on a month and a half back, and being astride Escape Artist for seven-ish hours already–Surtch arrived for the second time that year at the T-junction of Ourantah Ridge Road and the rural highway between Trapper and Portcullis.

Ahead?… Well, south by ninety-odd miles of blacktop through small towns and a tiresome shot across a clayscape waste flanked by the Bucksaw Cliffs lay Blakesville, where Surtch would overnight in a cheap motel. Doubtless countless dirt roads also lay between, but they’d have to wait, to remain hearsay for now, rumor roads–routes of rides to come.

And behind?… Well, behind was a good day of nudging the dirt closer to home and reducing pavement to mere stepping stones, of catching and snapping autumn leaves and further exploring dual-sporting, of forging links from the sensational to the divine.

Indeed, behind?… Behind was a great day of the real stuff.

A few miles out from little Amalgam town, where he would stop for fuel and–in lieu of a late lunch–trail mix and a cold Coke, Surtch was approaching the junction at Portcullis when he spotted a cemetery just off the highway.

Though he’d driven this stretch once before, it was an after dark detour for a wreck in Friar Canyon. Nevertheless, he knew what this place was about.

At the turn of the century, in the town of Snowbound, near Friar Canyon’s summit, a coal mine exploded. Over 200 men were killed.

At the time, Surtch’s great grandfather and great, great grandfather were living in Portcullis and working its mine. They left shortly thereafter for somewhat safer lives as farmers, shepherds, lumberers, teamsters, you name it.

A few years later, in the Portcullis Mine, three explosions in quick succession destroyed the surface operations, hurled utility poles and a coal car almost a mile across the canyon, embedding that wreckage in the talus, and killed nearly 200 men between the ages of 15 and 73. All were immigrants from Greece, Italy, England, Scotland, Wales, Japan, and Slovenia.

Between the explosion at Snowbound and those at Portcullis, several hundred wives were widowed and many hundreds of children were left fatherless.

Now, except for a low hum from the coal-fired power plant at the nearby junction, and highway noise from occasional, passing vehicles, the Portcullis town site was quiet.

No structures were left: Such company towns had commonly moved those from boom to boom. Scattered masonry walls, well-built by proud, Italian immigrants, and weathered headstones bearing exotic names and cryptic characters were all that remained.

Through his mother and her father and his father and his father, Surtch was linked to those laid to rest in this melting pot cemetery, the men and boys put here by the great equalizer. With them, his ancestors had toiled and rested and sipped coffee and eaten and smoked. Perhaps they’d rejoiced and lamented together, maybe even worshiped.

To them, through them, with them, Surtch was connected, as through humanity’s beautiful, dreadful, and fascinating past we all are connected.

Oh, the mutual respect that such a fathomless, shared history should afford…

poof-dust (poof dust) n.
1 especially fine and light, dirt road or gravel road dust that becomes airborne easily and settles onto and into anything and everything

Thank you, Bill Bass, for introducing “poof-dust” to my vocabulary. Bill is a fellow dual-sporter I met in the middle of nowhere in September 2015 and with whom I lunched and shared great conversation for over an hour at an equally middle of nowhere truck stop. Though it’s been said a thousand times, it bears repeating: You meet the nicest people on motorcycles.

To Desire, a Satisfaction – 2011.08.13(b)

Published on May 11, 2015 by Ry Austin 2 Comments

With the armor stacked on the toilet tank, Surtch Pherther plunged his dust-choked jacket into the clawfoot tub’s warm water and suds, agitated the mix, and went back to the kitchen to seek dinner, leaving the textile tea to steep.

For riding, it had been a good day: From sunrise to -set he’d been there, immersed, reluctant to release the small adventure. It might sound trite, but if lessons lingered in the mindquake’s wake, never take desire for granted was one. Indeed, postquake, Surtch had arrived at maybe his best understanding yet of this bizarre, existential experience: To be human is to desire, and to desire is itself a satisfaction.

In the kitchen he was trying to cobble together a meal from clearly incompatible components when he became distracted by what sounded like a leaf blower, distracted less by the muffled hum than by the incongruity: It was late evening, well after dark, so “why the hell would anyone be using a leaf blower”? He stepped down the back stairs, out the door into the sticky night’s big arms, along the dim drive to the walk, and stopped… Aside from the chirping of crickets, the street was quiet.

Yes, for riding, it had been a very good day: From the Tumen Creek kilns, he’d taken that ridge-cresting road past a wind farm vast and new since he was last through, back when his dad, siblings, and a younger self were regularly backpacking deep into the Cairn Mountains Wilderness, back when it seemed that such times couldn’t possibly end. But they had ended, and recently–with his dad in denial and no one discussing it–and in life’s typical style too: by its stealing from aging man what it granted him in youth. The key was for all involved to evolve or wither in soul, to pursue new pastimes, to seek new adventures.

I don’t mind your doing your job, Father Time, Surtch had often thought to the universe, Lord knows that the cosmic clockworks would be nothin’ without you. But it’s when you wrench the throttle of this absurd conveyance… You can give us mental whiplash, you know, leave us essentially changed.

Back in the kitchen the incompatibility of dinner’s components refused to be resolved through their combining, and though Surtch tried to dismiss that nagging, muffled hum, distraction was again taking hold. He strode down the back stairs, out the door into the night’s muggy hug, along the dark drive to the walk, and stopped… Crick-crick-crick-crickets was the only sound on the street. “Weird,” he mumbled, “weirdness is goin’ on.”

From the wind farm, he’d descended a short dugway and then headed south into the Hacker Creek drainage to re-find westbound Rose Pitch Road. It was a route that, midweek, might have offered a relaxing ride through forest and meadows, but this Saturday in August the heating air was abuzz and a-gag with noise and smoke and dust from wild herds of two-strokes and four-wheelers tearing recklessly along the road and without restraint across trackless terrain. Surtch knew that they were only providing the state with more reasons to tighten restrictions, but he also knew their type: If challenged, they’d be eager and ready–pistols in hands, rifles in arms–to defend their “right” to abuse the places they “love”.

Late in the day–with shadows growing long; with the wetlands chill rising to roost in the woods, and large game milling down to the marshes to water; with the twisties of West Cairn Road through Bardom Pass and the south end foothills near ahead, and far ahead, sleepy Middlefield and the Westwitness Peaks–Surtch had finally hit pavement.

He agitated the jacket once more in the tepid, sudsless murk before reaching in to scoop it out. Dirty water fell into the tub, and in his arms the wet wad was buzzing like a hive of livid bees. “Oh, shit!” He dropped it–splat!–in the hall, fumbled open the jacket’s inside pocket, and yanked out his cell phone that was vibe-ing its life away and popped off its back and flipped its searing battery onto the kitchen floor.

It had been his phone–the noise of its dying vibes amplified by the water and the tub–that for half an hour or so was sounding like a blasted leaf blower…

WELCOME: smart-alecky comments and caption suggestions for the poor tripod placement for the photo above. Here’s a start…

“Hey, Propeller Helmet, you’ll need wings as well if you hope to take flight!”

To Embrace a Lent Rhythm – 2011.07.30 / 08.06

Published on March 15, 2015 by Ry Austin 2 Comments

“Every future has a beginning, and I must start sometime if I’m going to learn this.” Surtch Pherther loathed truisms. Yet for nearly two years he’d been repeating relevant ones as a sort of mantra. Or rather, he’d been repeating them when clarity of thought permitted, when he wasn’t squinting from deep inside the mindquake’s murk, his eyes straining for signs of light.

He was as cautious to declare the quake’s brutal occupation nearly over as he was uncertain about its pinpoint beginning. Superstition, as well as uncertainty, informed that caution: He wasn’t so reckless as to proclaim “evicted” until his precious mind was again well-fortified to keep another quake at bay, or at least strong enough to fight like hell.

As a verb, as an action, “fight” had been all but erased from his vocabulary, and as a noun, as an object, it was severely faded. It is sheer cruelty when actions are stolen before their objects, when one can still know where he’d rather be, but no longer possesses the vehicle to get there. “Fight” without being able to is like placing water beyond a thirsty man’s reach, like cutting a barred window into the wall of a lifer’s cell.

Time is supposed to heal all wounds, but that can occur only if enough time, a subjective variable, follows the wounding. After all, the passage of one’s time can be ceased too easily, impulsively.

In some respects, time seemed slow for Surtch, and always in short supply. He suspected that was true for most. His dear sister and dear brother had recommended re-engagement, and sure, he needed that, but not as mere diversion: Surtch wanted engagement activities as gappers of distance. He couldn’t control time, but he sure as hell could try to fill it, and enough magically amplifying activities crammed into a span could relegate a bleak bookend further into the perceptual past.

Such pseudo-intellectual language intoxicated Surtch, or had once-upon-a-time. The question, and his top concern now: Could it help to restore him?…

For Surtch, riding pavement on the Vespa he’d owned for over three years was second nature from the start: There’d been no learning curve with twist-n-go. Well, none aside from the embarrassment early on when, with a few new garden hoses strapped to the back rack and seat, he’d lost control of the throttle in Home Depot’s crowded parking lot.

Yeah, that’s right–lost control – of his scooter‘s throttle – in a lot teeming with testosterone…

His first dual-sporting-on-dirt hurdle was psychological and somewhat cartoonish as well: his hyperawareness that a freakishly tall, 450 pound internal combustion pendulum was swinging beneath him erratically, and his sneaking suspicion that it harbored a secret desire to ride him through the gravel and dirt, rocky ruts, and mud.

Surtch knew the sensation he was seeking, had ridden with it briefly on that gently bounding and dodging road through the Wapiti Hills on his first two-wheeled foray into the remoteness, an outing that ended in a ridiculous spill: Surtch with a bloody nose, a throbbing leg, and sorely wounded confidence; and weeks-old Escape Artist with some minor cracks and scrapes. He had nevertheless scented the game.

He recalled a younger self that grew up skiing with his dad and siblings. In the steep-n-deep, magic moments would happen, but not through his efforts: It was as though the sought sensation wasn’t the commands that he sent down through his legs to the skis and snow, but a lent rhythm that rose from the living earth through its deep powder to him, a naive recipient.

It would occur for a few turns or for half a run and then recede. It was difficult to describe, but he knew when it happened and that it was as the goal. Surtch also remembered that it seemed to despise being discussed.

It was like that passage from Kerouac’s Big Sur:

“…I remember that frightening thing Milarepa said which is other than those reassuring words of his I remembered in the cabin of sweet loneness on Big Sur: ‘When the various experiences come to light in meditation, do not be proud and anxious to tell other people, else to Goddess and Mothers you will bring annoyance’ and here I am a perfectly obvious fool American writer doing just that not only for a living (which I was always able to glean anyway from railroad and ship and lifting boards and sacks with humble hand) but because if I don’t write what actually I see happening in this unhappy globe which is rounded by the contours of my deathskull I think I’ll have been sent on earth by poor God for nothing…”

The last thing Surtch wanted to do was bring annoyance to Goddess and Mothers. But Kerouac had understood–and it remains as true and at least as crucial–that there must be witnesses. Otherwise, there is no possible testimony. Otherwise, it’s as though nothing exists, as though nothing occurs.

We cannot borrow rhythms, thought Surtch–that’s a power we don’t possess. They can only happen, or be lent–by the living earth, the humming cosmos, or the Almighty itself. What’s left to us is to recognize the rhythms and embrace them if we can.

We might be adrenalin addicts, dosing up on that fine line between here-for-now and gone forever; might be throttle jockeys, testing grounded flight at high revs in fifth and sixth on highway tarmacs; might be lean-freaks, teasing the tenuous threshold between grip and slip while feeding our craving to carve – those – curves; might be rhythm fiends, moved by that mesmeric tango between throttle control and a rising, falling, dodging road.

One thing’s for sure, though… We are like eager youths, desiring the seductive ways and skillful touch of the next thrilling sensation.

There’s Salt in the Water – 2011.06.15

Published on February 13, 2015 by Ry Austin Leave a Comment

He fled work at five. He ate bulgogi and banchan, spicy tofu soup, and crunchy cooked rice. He rode to where the Lake Termina Funfair is long gone, where Grandad as a lad played Swing.

Deep-stepping dry sand and parting reeds, stalked by a ghost, he passed remnants… ruins… wreckage… rubble… residue… dust…

Through fly swarms he forged, and footprinted damp sand, and he reminisced, in his bygone childhood, being Grandad’s shadow.

Shore others jigged and tagged, touched and held, stared out at nothing, and gazed into others’ eyes. Shore others far off. Others.

Countless gulls were careful on the ground, watchful from encrusted pilings, and carefree aloft, and he regretted, as a stupid kid for pals, once mocking Grandad’s limp.

To the water’s edge, toward the setting sun, he went, and toed the toe of the surf and eyed the eye of the glare, and he teared up for never apologizing.

Yet it wasn’t about that, or just that, but everything, from forever, even before him, and Lake Termina was too shallow and small to absorb Surtch Pherther’s deepest desire…

It doubtless would return the body to shore.

Wanting to Want – 2010.08.12

Published on February 13, 2015 by Ry Austin Leave a Comment

Big Canyon’s sweepers and the cool-down of Middlefield Draw were not self-significant, but symbolic of Surtch Pherther’s fleeing and pursuing. In between, he must have passed the road to Silvervale, crossed that windswept basin from which routes bear toward the cardinal points, junction-swung south toward Witt and then diverted, and nearly dangled his toes in Keetstone Lake. Must have…

For almost a year, Surtch’s “significant” hadn’t resembled itself, couldn’t stand, had no bones, just evaporated. All he’d get when seeking it lately was silence, and voids that should have been memories of moments lived. He’d always believed that significance didn’t have to be sought, but simply realized. That was before. Now he merely wanted for something–anything–to be meaningful.

He was fleeing mundanity, the middle of the week, swelter in the City of Contradictions, many motorcycling fails, and long days for which for years he’d been malcompensated. He was fleeing abusers whom he’d generously served for too damn long. Surtch was fleeing a fucking mindquake that had swooped in swiftly and silently nearly a year back and had not relented.

As for pursuing, it wasn’t everything opposite. That would have been overambitious. Under the oppression, he had to pursue piecemeal. He still could reason, at least through the simple: He wanted to want, just had to remember how, wanted to feel alive, to feel anything… Surtch wanted connection, something else he’d always believed didn’t have to be sought, but simply was embedded in living. Suddenly, yet again, preconceptions and reality were very different things.

On a rare whim, he’d aimed for north Middlefield and O’Mahoney’s Grill, an old diner in a new place, and he arrived to only one car in the lot. Up to the entrance he stepped, and through the vintage doors.

“Evenin’, hon. Sit wherever.” With tangerine curls and lipstick, and eye shadow and outfit of emerald, Sis (by name tag) could have been of another time, seemed unreal. Surtch wondered if the notebook in her apron and the ear-perched pen were just props or were additional props.

He took a spot near the door at the green marble counter and plucked the menu from its holder. He knew the routine.

“Can I getcha somethin’ to drink?”

“Yes. Coffee, please.”

“Mud comin’ up.”

He replaced the menu and skimmed the jukebox pages at the nearest selector. It held mostly modern songs and many others that didn’t belong. Surtch wanted time machine tracks, to transport him, maybe to Rick’s Garden Party or to go a-Walkin’ After Midnight with Patsy or, better yet, to sittin’ a while on The Dock of The Bay with Otis and gazing longingly at dear Patti’s Old Cape Cod, gazing, as he would, wistfully into an era he hadn’t known, peopled with his grandparents in their prime, an era of scrap drives, war bonds, and ration books–yeah, he’d always thought he was born two generations late. He settled for a weary Summertime with Janis.

Sis returned with a steaming pot and filled Surtch’s cup in a torrent. “Somethin’ from the grill?”

“A Reuben with fries, please.”

“Suits me.” To the kitchen she hollered something about whiskey and frog sticks.

Yeah, Surtch knew the routine: During his wave-tossed youth, he’d spent innumerable nights and wee hours at the mottled pink and gold-glittered counter of since-razed McHenry’s Place, a holdout from the heydays of the ‘40s. He had downed untold gallons of mud, Reubens with fries, and on Sundays, bowls of turkey soup with homemade noodles and with hard rolls for sopping.

He’d lost a fortune in quarters to the pinball’s siren song, scrawled numberless pages of free verse fine and fair and flawed, countless times fallen hopelessly in love with none-the-wiser young women, and of course, pondered the inscrutable, and interrogated mute Purpose. He’d lugged out more mental baggage the last time he left than he’d packed in on his first visit, the contents all questions. At McHenry’s he’d been a restless youth of madness, often self-destructive, fleetingly suicidal, but mostly wild and wide-eyed and wonder-full.

At O’Mahoney’s, Surtch tossed in the last of the Reuben and slurped the dregs of his second cup. Oh, what he wouldn’t have given for a taste of that madness now. Sure, it had been turbulent, but at least it had been alive, a far cry from the raped-up void into which the mindquake had flung him. He paid the check, thanked Sis, and glanced around once more before stepping out the door to the empty lot. It was late evening, and the shadows were long. “They’ve been this way for fuckin’ ever,” thought Surtch. He wondered when the hell the sun would get around to shining again.