Giant Spiders and Motorcycle Deer Strikes

“I am through riding the Blue Ridge Parkway,” said Chris Jacarawycz. “This is the fourth time I’ve whacked a deer on this road, and the next one may whack me.”


Chris Jacarawycz is one of the finest motorcyclists I have ever known. Whether stirring up the dirt in backwoods Pennsylvania on a raging KTM, or taking a Honda Goldwing through twisties that would daunt a much nimbler bike, Jacarawycz is a biker’s biker. He carves through curves like a Renaissance sculptor, rendering gravel-coated corners into the moto equivalent of Michelangelo’s “David.” But all his skill couldn’t stop a large whitetail deer from from diving straight into the windshield of his Yamaha Super Ténéré — at point blank range.


“The deer came out of the brush in a dark brown blur,” said Jacarawycz. “My peripheral vision had barely scored the threat when the bike shuddered under a tremendous jolt. Broken plastic and bits of glass showered over me, as I fought for control. The front end started to wobble and the machine veered to the left. There was no opposing traffic and my thought was to keep it on the blacktop, while I brought the machine to a straight stop.”


He almost made it. The bike went into a front-end skid when the front wheel hit the grass, dropping Jacarawycz in a sliding dismount on the pavement. While not life threatening, his injuries would curtail his riding for the better part of the season. The event would prove fatal to both the bike and the deer. (Jacarawycz wears a full-face helmet and total ballistic gear.)


This was his fourth deer-strike, but only the first time he dropped the bike as a result of the impact. (His last encounter with a whitetail would severely damage the fairing of a Honda Goldwing, but Jacarawycz managed to hold the machine upright, precluding injury to himself, or the pillion rider. This was the outcome of two other deer strikes as well.)


“What could you have done differently to prevent this accident,” I asked him.


“Not a damn thing,” Jacarawycz replied.”It was broad daylight, in the middle of the afternoon, and the deer leaped from thick cover right at the edge of the road. It slammed into the bike a split second later. There was absolutely no opportunity to swerve nor to slam on the brakes.”


“What was your initial reaction?”


“I knew what happened instantly... My reflex was to hold the bike upright, assess the situation, and bleed off speed without slamming on the brakes. I was pretty confident that I’d get it stopped upright, but there was greater impact damage to the forks or front brakes than I anticipated and circumstances proved otherwise,” Jaracawycz said.


“What advice would you give to riders dealing with whitetail deer?”


“It’s the luck of the draw. I’ve heard that if you come across a deer in the road, you should aim for where the animal has been. This assumes that the deer is not the point-man in a column of whitetails, which is often the case. Then again, I’ve seen deer start slipping and sliding on the pavement, and turn around to go back the way they came. The animals do not always enter the road in a tentative stance, pausing to look around. Sometimes they just come barreling out,” said Jacarawycz.


And on a tight, mountain road, this can spell trouble for motorists in general, and bikers in particular.


Nothing gets people more fired up in the US than the manner in which nature is regarded, discussed, and managed. When it comes to wildlife, the average fat-faced American is a real dope, extending human attributes to creatures who coexist with each other in a hair-trigger state of nature. I got my first lesson in this subject 25-years ago, on a fishing trip with my pal, Ihor Sypko. We were camping on the shores of Round Valley, a reservoir in New Jersey, and had planned to launch a rowboat from a marshy area, adjacent to our campsite.


There was nothing compact about the aluminum rowboat, and we chatted as we carried it (by hand) down the access road to the water’s edge. It was a half-mile walk. We laughed as we sweated, making no effort to conceal our movements. About 200-yards from the water’s edge, I noticed a fawn in the undergrowth. It was a thing of beauty. All spindly legs and silvery spots on a tiny, tawny body... It was trying to stand.


“Holy shit,” I said. “I think that fawn was just born. I hope we didn’t spook the mother.”


“I didn’t hear a deer run off,” replied Ihor.


We then carried the boat to the water’s edge in stealth mode.


The fishing was fun. The average size of the fish we caught could have been mounted on a Ritz Cracker, although I did hook into something impressive— that got away. It was probably a Blue Fin tuna or a Marlin.  We returned to shore 4 hours later, sun-dried, bug bitten, and hungry. We were carrying the boat back, when I remembered the fawn.


It was still there, and none too happy-looking.


“Shit,” I said to Ihor. “This little thing needs our help.”


Because we grew up in New Jersey — the land of abundant civil authority — and because we were city kids (relying on the irrefutable truth of Disney’s “Bambi” for our knowledge of deer), we decided to notify the park rangers. Since cell phones were pure science fiction in the late ’70’s, Ihor lit out for the emergency land line, about a mile and a half distant. Our plan was to call in a medivac helicopter and to get the deer airlifted to Johns Hopkins University Hospital as fast as possible.


I figured they probably had a jet at a local airport standing by for this sort of thing.


Ihor returned a bit later, with the news that a ranger was coming.


“Why didn’t you just wait by the phone and ride back in the helicopter?” I asked.


“They didn’t say anything about a helicopter,” said Ihor.


“What the fuck?” I responded, dripping furious indignation. (This was long before the internet, so I actually said, “What the fuck,” as opposed to the letters W.T.F.) “Did you tell them this involved a baby fawn, who may have been alone in the hot sun for a minimum of four hours?”


“Yes,” said Ihor.


“Did you tell them how cute it is with spindly legs and silvery spots on a tawny body?”


“Yes,” said Ihor.


“Did you tell them the little guy is thoroughly disoriented, and barely responds to his name?”


“Yes, I did,” said Ihor.


“Did you tell them his name is Jerome?”


“No,” said Ihor. “I didn’t think of that.”


“Well,” I said pointing in the direction of the phone. “Get moving. It is emotionally draining for me to stand guard over this fawn while you go sight-seeing.”


Ihor had barely set off, when we both heard the drone of motorboat, churning across the lake. It grounded with authority, and a ranger in a gray uniform, with very official hiking boots, stepped out of the boat. Have you ever noticed how some people just look like their chosen profession? I mean, is there a law that all firemen must resemble professional football players in stature, and have the confident demeanor of Navy SEALS? (By the same token, elected officials look like street walkers in the time of cholera.) This ranger, whose name was probably something like “Ted Goodperson,” combined the looks of Robert Redford with the personality of Saint Francis. I remember thinking, “I could fuck my way along the entire Appalacian Trail, without having to buy a drink for any lingerie model, if I looked like this guy.”


The ranger introduced himself, glanced at our gear and stuff, then advised us to wait quietly while he sized up the situation. He went into the tall grass and looked at the fawn carefully, without touching it. Then he looked at the grass around the fawn, examed the underbrush, and then poked around in the adjacent stand of hardwoods. This took about 15 minutes. He concluded his investigation and waved for us to join him.


“This fawn was born dyslexic,” said the ranger, “a condition that will prevent it from standing or walking properly.” To demonstrate his conclusion, he gently picked up the fawn, and set it on its legs.


It promptly fell down. He did this two or three times.


“The mother sensed there was something wrong with the fawn, so she abandoned it. They don’t waste any time with unhealthy fawns,” said the ranger.


This was not the message I wanted to hear from Saint Francis in a gray uniform... That the does of New Jersey were nothing more than wanton slatterns, who popped out fawns that got abandoned on the filmiest of pretexts.


“Why wouldn’t the mother try to nurse it to health?” I asked. “Will she come back?”


The ranger hesitated for a bit, then delivered the gruesome punch line. “The unhealthy fawn will attract predators that may prey on the doe as well. So in the interest of species preservation, the doe has abandoned the fawn. She may have three or four others in the next three or four years.”


“So you’ll take Jerome here to the state park vet?” I pressed.


It was then the ranger looked at both of us, and gave a little sigh. He knew he was dealing with two city assholes who couldn’t handle the truth. With the gentle grace of a good shepherd, the ranger put the fawn across his shoulders, carried it down to his boat, and buzzed off across the lake.


Ihor and I had steak that night... Steak seared over an open fire... Steak carved from the ass of a steer that had been whacked on the head with a sledge hammer in some slaughter house... A steer that had been born in the night, on spindly little legs, just like Jerome. And we felt pretty good... Like a couple of sports who had just saved a deer. And we drank our fortified ginger ale, listening to coyotes that we didn’t know New Jersey had, howling across the lake... Where they were probably eating Jerome.


Because this is the correct order of things, in a state of nature, where the mothers abandon their young to the coyotes, feral dogs, farm dogs, and bears... And where the remaining entrails of those abandoned young feed turkey vultures, crows, mice, twenty-kinds of beetles, and two million fly larvae. (The fly larvae will ultimately grow into big, fat, disgusting, shit-squatting insects, that slam into clear-plastic motorcycle face-shields, creating a need for replacement parts, providing the nice people at Nolan with jobs.)


Now, why did I write all this stuff about deer-strikes and motorcycles?


I was running through FaceBook last week and under the heading of a rider I like and respect was this well-intentioned advice about how you can tell the difference between orphaned fawns and those that are just parked for a bit. The truth is, there is no difference. Leave them all alone. Either the doe will come back, or Mr. Coyote will. Nature takes care of its own. In many states, it is illegal to feed wildlife as this conditions them to humans and ultimately makes them better targets for those with shotguns or rifles, or for cars and motorcycles.


I wanted to ask the nice lady who was feeding two “orphaned” fawns,  "what she would do if she found a couple of orphaned tarantulas, or other huge, fucking killer spiders with hides?" Would she return with a baby bottle and nurse them to health? Tarantulas need love too. (I had a mother-in-law who was a giant tarantula.)

Suppose the great Disney movie “Bambi” wasn’t about a deer?

What if the hero of that movie had been a huge, killer spider, whose name was “BiBi;” who got lost in a winter storm and who found a kindly old blind person (a guy named “Dallas”), in a remote cabin; who then invited the spider in from the cold (thinking she was an odd breed of talking dog). And suppose BiBi discovered the cabin was infested by Norway rats (British accents), that shit all over the blind person as he slept (like Congress does to the nation), so she laid 22,000 eggs under the kitchen table. Each egg hatched in the pleasant environment of the cabin, and  all the rats disappeared over the course of a week. Suppose the movie ended with the kindly old person falling asleep each night under the warm protection of a living blanket of 22,000 tarantulas?


The title of the movie could be “BiBi Lays For Dallas.” 


This movie would be as factual as “Bambi.” And it would be perfect if the studio could get Noomi Rapace (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) to be the voice of the spider.


Suppose that movie had been made and shown in the 1950‘s... Would we all be feeding orphaned tarantulas? Would we be pulling over on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and pointing in delight as resident tarantulas ate rare hummingbirds trapped in their webs?  Some dopes would. 

There are more deer alive and running around in the United States today than when Columbus discovered America. It makes more sense to feed cockroaches. Leave the deer alone. The fawn you’re feeding may injure or kill someone you know on a motorcycle. Wouldn’t that be swell?


As long as we’re supposing things, suppose cash-strapped states sold “orphaned” deer-feeding permits for $50, allowing well-intentioned, but dreadfully uninformed, people to feed abandoned fawns, provided the animals were ear-tagged, and that the permit-holders were liable for any motor vehicle or crop damage. Who would legally feed the deer then?


Now, do I expect anything I wrote in this blog episode to change the feeble mind of anyone who is feeding “orphaned” deer? Nope. But I do expect to get 10,000 emails from jerks claiming its time to ban motorcycles from the Blue Ridge Parkway, as they disturb the sugar-fueled deer. 


Philly Area Rider Wins Triumph T100, Compliments of Castrol....

Religiously changing his vehicle’s motor oil every 3,000 miles paid off big time for Fred Diehl, the winner of Castrol’s Triumph Sweepstatkes. Diehl accepted the keys to an iconic red and white, Triumph Bonneville T100, at a Pep Boys location in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, June 24, 2012.

Fred Diehl on his new Triumph Bonneville T100 -- Compliments of Castrol

“I have always used Castrol lubricants, in both my car and my motorcycle,” said Diehl. “I was buying oil in the shop and was intrigued by the promotion. So I went back to the office and entered the contest online. Winning this Bonneville T100 is the result of that effort.”


A Harley rider for more than 3 decades, Diehl had an instant appreciation for the T100’s retro appeal. “I have been without a bike for a while and look forward to the Triumph experience,” he said.  Diehl primarily rides on the weekends, but the Triumph, with it’s classic panniers has given him an idea for a longer run.


“My dream ride would be a run with no time-frames, no destination and no purpose, other than to enjoy the scenery and to relax without thinking of everyday problems. I want a short two-wheeled escape from reality,” said Diehl. This bike may make that dream come true.


When asked if he read Twisted Roads, Diehl replied, “I have never read the blog but I have heard of Jack Riepe and some of the strange stories he tells. No one can be that peculiar.”


I hope Mr. Diehl reads this whole blog and sends me a comment.


©Copyright Jack Riepe 2012
All rights reserved

Practical Advice For Bikers and Charging Bison...

 The ride across country was as near perfect as a ride can be if one is denied access to a motorcycle. I did, however, have two other ingredients that made the trip special. One was a blonde girlfriend whose hair was the color of spun gold. The other was her Audi A4 convertible. Not quite a motorcycle, there are worse ways to drive across the United States. I had accepted an assignment in Vancouver, BC and refused to fly. This is not because I am afraid to fly.  I have enjoyed many hours in helicopters, small aircraft (an Aeronca Champ on floats), flying first class on British Airways, KLM, and especially Lufthansa, and a few adventures where I took off and landed on a dirt strip. I now regard flying commercially as a dehumanizing experience starting with US airport security, which I feel is mostly show and unconstitutional in spirit if not in practice.

So I give the airport the finger and drive — or ride — whenever possible.

The United States is one of the most beautiful places on earth, with some of the most hospitable people in small towns and rural crossroads. Everyone should drive across the US at least once... Spending as much time in Nebraska, Kansas, and North Dakota as they would in New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco. (In fact, the best breakfast in the United States is served in Auburn, Kansas, tied with one in Keene Valley, NY.) The threshold to heaven begins in Small Town, USA. I was once told that the only thing I’d see in Nebraska was corn. What I saw was an endless sea of corn, waving in the dry summer wind, surrounding remote islands of farm buildings, each illuminated by a single outside light at night. It was astoundingly beautiful, and a sign of this country’s undiminished strength. (There are damn few signs of this strength left.)

I have a thing for signs. They trap me every time. Accompanied by this blonde, I have seen the world’s largest ball of twine, the world’s largest rocking chair, the world’s largest HO train layout (which drove her crazy), every steam train in 22 states, the world’s oldest pair of petrified beaver balls, the world’s largest free standing water sphere (painted to look like a peach), and Pedro’s “South of the Border” assault on the senses. It was in North Dakota that we got off the interstate in the town of Medora, following signs for Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I had never heard of this place before and thought it might be fun to get a look at it as I had never been to a real “National Park” out west.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is a highly condensed natural gem on the edge of the “Badlands,” spanning 70,467 acres, or about 100 square miles. It is divided into three units (the South, the North, and one of which is so cleverly ignored on the Park Services’ website, I figured it was like “Area 57” and infested with aliens).  We pulled into the South Unit, which offers a 36-mile scenic drive, that takes about 90 minutes to cover. The entire park is surrounded by a 7-foot high chain link fence intended to keep livestock out. I found that odd, especially as we drove over a metal livestock grate. I had seen no stray livestock, other than a few antelope or wild turkeys, which I thought would be a plus in a National Park.

The road brought us to an overlook, where I got my first look at the lunar landscape of the Badlands. I was utterly amazed. The woman in my life offered to drive for a bit, so I could play with the camera and the binoculars. We changed places in the little car, and put the roof down, dawdling for about an hour, before retracing our route back to town.

“I don’t think this is the way,” I said.

“Of course it is,” she purred. “There was only the one way in here.”

“Yes,” I said, attempting to reassert my agreeable self, “but I don’t recall leaving all these buffalo laying around.”

The road was about the width of a healthy recreation vehicle and strewn with hoary, prehistoric cattle, which were tossing their heads and sharing maniacal looks that hinted of stampede and instant death. I had seen plenty of buffalo before, on the pages of National Geographic and in history books. My recollections were of hump-backed steers, about the size of feral pigs, half-covered in cheap shag carpeting, being shot by Pony Express riders, who were about 14-years-old themselves.

These buffalo weighed about 14,000 pounds apiece and were following a bull whose horns were covered by a blood-soaked cocktail dress.

“Stop the car,” I suggested.

“Why?”

“Have you noticed that this car is only 20% larger than the cocktail dress atop the headgear of yon mastodon? It occurred to me he might still be pissed at how the prom went last night,” I said.

The bull burped in the manner peculiar to herbivores with compartmentalized  stomachs, as if to emphasize my point.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said my blonde companion. “This is a National Park. The whole system is funded by tips from people who ride in here specifically to photograph these things from little cars like this one. How would they make any money if the animals gored everybody? You are such a fucking pussy whenever confronted with any adventure. A real cowboy, like the ones who wanted to shoot pool for my top in the bar last night, would kick this thing right in the balls, with those cool, snakeskin boots they wear.”

It would have been easy enough to do. The bull was sporting a set of stones that barely cleared the ground by two inches. (I swear I saw the Harley-Davidson logo on them too.) The herd started to edge toward us, preceded by an aroma that was the best insurance against anyone taking a shot at one with the intent to use the hide for intimate bedroom apparel.

“Don’t move,” I whispered. “Suppose these are Stephen King Buffalo, possessed by undead spirits from a cursed cemetery, filled with the souls of devil-worshiping lobbyists, or something.”

She looked me through eyes that had narrowed into slits of contempt. “How many of those cowboys have model train sets at home, do you think?” she hissed. I swear the women I come to love are all part cobra, as they eventually spout flaming venom. Yet one of the buffalo must have been a model railroad aficionado as it stamped for a bit, and trickled drool from an evil-bearded maw. The blonde turned pale, clutched my hand and stammered, “Do something....”  Implied but unspoken were the adoring words “You Asshole.”

I took a deep breath, and in a voice that was barely audible, began to sing “They Call The Wind Mariah” from the great screen classic — Paint Your Wagon — starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood, eventually belting out the second chorus as loud as I could. The buffalo had drifted away to go roll in the dust or piss down prairie dog holes, the later of which is a popular activity among a lot of cowboys, or so I understand.

But this raised a rather serious question in my mind? Suppose I had wandered in here, astride a viciously sensual motorcycle, like a gray 2007 BMW K1200GT, with a skull and crossbones painted on each side of the highly unimaginative flat fairing, and found myself facing a heard of demented buffalo, without even the marginal safety of an Audi A4 in which to cower?

What action would I take?

Would I trigger the fearsome Steble/Nautilus compact air horn and twist the throttle until I disappeared into vapor? Or would this invite a deadly charge? According to the precautions published by the National Park Service, visitors are advised to give the buffalo, the grizzly bears, the Komodo dragons, and even the prairie dogs a wide berth, measured in the hundreds of yards. (It is my understanding that a colony of prairie dogs can strip the tires off a tour bus in 15 seconds or less.) But what if the only exit is blocked by fearsome smelling bovines, capable of jumping 15 feet straight up in the air, or sprinting faster than one would expect? And what if you start out being a hundred yards away, and the damn things stalk you? What if the choices are to take a direct hit, or run the bike through piles of buffalo shit ten feet high (guaranteeing you’ll spend the next two weeks running a rag over the chrome parts), or drop the bike on its side (scratching thousands of dollars-worth of custom paint or tupperware) while you climb a tree?

Which is the correct one? 

Legendary long-distance Mac-Pac Rider Gary Christman strikes a pose wearing a Twisted Roads tee shirt.  He has confronted buffalo.  This is a man with style.

There had to be a solution to this, and I put the question to my resident panel of experts — the Mac-Pac — the premier chartered BMW riding club serving southeast Pennsylvania. An answer came within minutes from long-distance rider Gary Christman, who routinely rides from rural PA to Hudson’s Bay (Canada), Yellowknife (Canada), and Yellowstone National Park (in the USA). For those whose rides are somewhat limited in scope, Canada is that big red space on the map north of the Great Lakes. (Shortsighted military planning in 1812 requires US citizens to carry a passport when riding there now.)


 

The buffalo, named "Fast Eddie," followed Gary Christman to his mighty BMW GS Adventure.  Photo by Garry Christman

Christman was confronted, but not intimidated, by a brawling buffalo on his first cross-country ride in 2007. Mounted on a armored BMW GS Adventure (new that same year), he was threading his way through stopped traffic on one of Yellowstone’s more scenic roads, when he noticed a single buffalo, standing a good distance away, striking dramatic poses while pissing down a prairie dog hole. Christman is cautious by nature, and he left the bike idling on the side-stand, as he moved forward on foot, to snap a fast picture.

The buffalo bull has closed in on Gary Christman, whose bike is marked with a huge red duffel bag. Photo by Gary Christman.

 “I didn’t think I would need the flying exit that day,” said Christman, “but I wanted to give myself the option. It was my intention to get a clear picture of this majestic and iconic American animal, without causing the noble beast any inconvenience nor distraction.”

Yet Gary was unaware that impure thoughts or gestures as subtle as a raised eyebrow can disturb a buffalo. It started to head in his direction and Christman lost no time in hustling back to the bike. Much to his dismay, he realized the buffalo was gaining on him. He mounted the bike, thinking it would be the work of a second to put it in gear and show the buffalo the benefits of an enhanced tail light system. 

The buffalo ignores the red duffel bag, evident in the mirror, and wanders off in search of a woman rider on a Sportster. Photo by Gary Christman. Conclusion by the author.

Christman leveled the machine and snicked the sleek zeppelin-like bike into gear... But the side-stand was down, triggering the automatic engine cut-off with typical Bavarian efficiency.

The engine died like it was shot by a Navy SEAL.

“And in that instant, the buffalo was upon me,” said Christman. “I didn’t know a lot about buffalo at the time, but I realized the presence of a single udder indicated a bull. All I could think of was the flaming red duffel bag strapped across the back of the bike, and the effect the color red was supposed to have on bulls.” The animal passed within ten feet of Christman, who leaned the bike as far over to the right as he could, figuring he’d jump for it, keeping the machine between him and 1.5 tons of aggravated burgers.

“The buffalo just kept on walking, and I had the presence of mind to snap a few pictures to show how close he’d come to me,” said Christman. Just how close was that? In one shot, the buffalo consumes the entire field of vision. The close proximity to the bison made a profound impression on Christman.”I swore this would never happen to me again,” he added.

Less than 15 minute later, Gary Christman is again surrounded by buffalo. Photo by Gary Christman.

It happened less than 15 minutes later, when stalled traffic brought Christman to a halt, and an entire herd of buffalo threaded its way around him. This time, he calmly switched off the motor, looked at the ground, and minded his own business. A dozen bison had passed when one said, “I didn’t know that BMW made motorcycles... You didn’t pay extra for those fugly side bags, did you?”

Gary just nodded in silence.

Gary sent me the pictures he took and a link to YouTube, in which a buffalo does ram a rider on a Honda Valkyrie. (This was a cow with a calf.) I am amazed the Honda rider didn’t drop the bike.  Buffalo can be as nasty and bad tempered as they are evil-smelling. Give them a wide berth.

Author’s notes:
1) Gary Christman  had one hell of a ride that year, including a timed stint on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Further details of that run will appear on Twisted Roads next Thursday. I’d like to thank Gary for the best 45 minutes I had on the phone this week. I can’t make his run to Yellowknife this summer, but if I don’t go next year, it will be because I’m dead.

2) Also on Twisted Roads in two weeks will be my personal initiation to a 1952 Vincent Black Shadow. Now many of you are probably asking yourself, “What bullshit is this? Who would let Riepe anywhere near a 1952 Vincent Black Shadow?” Well let me tell you something, I have friends in low places.
 
3) I received a letter from a reader, a woman out west who rides a gorgeous Harley. She wrote: Do you realize how insulting it is to refer to your present or past love interests by the color of their hair? Describing someone you loved as “The Brunette” is a bit harsh, don’t you think?
 
• My answer to the question is a respectful “No.” I can’t refer any of my former lovers by name, nor by description (nor tattoos, nor profession) as some of their husbands are likely to take offense. (I don’t make the rules, I only play the game.) I have heard from two brunettes who I’ve loved in the past, and both were flattered to be included in the text. (They know I adore them, though SnowQueen has ducked me like I was a swine flu carrier. Another brunette, the second woman to ever ride pillion on my Kawasaki H2, sent me a severed head on Valentine’s Day.)

• I refer to a lady in this story as “The Blonde,” because I don’t want her to have the satisfaction of knowing that I can’t say her name without catching my breath, a condition likely to last for 20 more years.

• My first wife was Lambkin. She once said to me, “Do you know how often I kill you in my mind?” She was a brunette too. Using my system, all of the brunettes think I still love them. 

The author posing for a warm, birthday greeting card photo for his first former mother-in-law, with his first former wife, Lambkin. Photo by Police Gazette,

• Finally, the word from the doctor is that I will not be able to ride for another 5 months. This came as everyone I know has left on a trip. My closest circle of friends, the cognoscenti from the Mac-Pac, left yesterday for their annual West Virginia Cultural Tour, where they will take banjo lessons, learn to call hogs, and practice dropping their bikes on gravel driveways. The boys called me as they started out yesterday, claiming they missed me beyond measure. It seems no one can program the VCR at the cabin, and the whole flush toilet thing has at least one of them confused. But they all posed for a great, heart-warming photograph, that is supposed to have a subliminal message.  The picture is included below. I guess I have to stare at it. 

From left: My closest circle of riding buddies — Ron Yee, Clyde Jacobs, "Leather" Dick Bregstein, Paul Pollio, Gerry Cavanaugh, and Pete Buchheit. Stare at photo for 20 minutes, then close you eyes to see the subliminal message. Photo by Ellie Mae Simkins, tattoo artist and chitlin' caller.

For the record, two bikes have already been dropped. One because the rider stepped in shit, and the other because he forgotten he’d removed the sidecar before the ride started.



©Copyright Jack Riepe 2012
All Rights Reserved

The Ride To Nowhere... Something Just For Her

It was one of those rare occasions when I was absolutely minding my own business. At the mid-point of 57-years-old, the sole advantage to minding one’s own business is that others mistake your caution for innate wisdom; when in truth it is simple emotional skepticism acting like a seat belt. The woman had pulled up a bar stool directly in front of mine; bracketed my knees with her own; and kissed me squarely on the mouth. She was in her late forties, nicely built and carefully maintained, with dark hair framing a face  that held an incredible smile.

“You probably weren’t expecting that,” she said right into my lips.

I felt the tips of my fingers trace their way to her waist, and I pulled her towards me, turning the kiss which had begun as an opening sentence into a paragraph. Touching my lips with her fingers, she said, “The way you look at me makes me feel like I am the only woman in the world.” I smiled that little boyish half-grin which women find endearing, but which actually says, “You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

Then she lifted up her shirt, put my hands on her breasts, and said, “How long have you been thinking about these?”

My first response was to say, “Since I was 5-years-old,” but the absolute truth never gets anyone anywhere. The boyish half-grin simply switched from one side to the other, acquiring something of a roguish quality in transit. I never took my eyes off hers, but whispered, “How long have you been thinking about my hands on them?”

It had been a while since I had gotten lost in woman’s face. While I had seen this face hundreds of times, seeing it through a 90-second kiss brought the depth of her eyes, the perfection of her skin, and the fullness of her mouth into a different perspective. I had seen this mouth express  guileless smiles and launch lighter-than-air laughter at dozens of parties... And now it was open, pressing against mine, as her tongue ran along the inside of my lips.

Her nipples had gone from zero to rock hard in sixty seconds, and still I couldn’t take my eyes from her face.

“I want you...” she said.

The kiss continued.

“To do something...”

Her lips moved over to my neck

“For me.”

I cradled her face in my hand, then moved her hair behind her ear. A single diamond caught the low light in the room.

“I want you to write something for me... Something that is like nothing else you’ve ever written for a woman before.”

There is nothing like touching a woman with a sensitive part of you that isn’t normally used for touching, like the back of your fingers. I traced the curve of her face to that smile, which then kissed my hand.  And I knew that part of me was etching every second of this moment onto the surface of my mind; so I’d get it right when I wrote about it later; so I’d remember it perfectly, when I was old and nothing this good was likely to occur to me ever again. 

Nothing like this had happened to me for a while.

The tide was going out on a relationship that I thought would last forever, leaving me on the beach with my pants around my ankles, again. A woman, who I swore would be the last I’d ever hold in my arms, whose kisses would be the last I’d ever savor, whose eyes would be the last heaven to overwhelm me, was now certain that her feelings for me were in tatters, and that there was nothing I could do to restore the magnificent paper dragon that I’d once made come alive in her heart. This was the nicest way anyone ever told me that they had heard all of my stories, all of my jokes, all of my plans, all of my fears, all of my beliefs, and all of my opinions — and now preferred to think of me in the past tense.

Just as this wave of abysmal reality was about to sweep over me, here was another woman, with a personality like the mad careening bubbles in champagne, jumping me out of the clear blue. The electric contact of her lips reading mine at point blank range left me as speechless as it did breathless — despite an accompanying sense that I was planting my feet in the soft hope of romantic quicksand. Nothing satisfies the aching hunger in a man’s soul like the taste of a woman’s lips. I had quite forgotten how long it had been since I had fed, and now someone was feeding on me. The desire for a woman in my life is one of the most compelling drives to surface in the stories I write, the sunsets I describe, the thunderstorms that color my adventures, and the tides that carry my plots out to sea. Yet as strong as this drive is, it is nothing compared to the soul-elevating sensation I derive from having a woman desire me. Out of two marriages and a dozen affairs, it has happened exactly once, that a woman ran me down like a cheetah, and left me with no alternative but a gasping surrender.

And now, just when I was at my lowest point, it appeared to be happening again.

We agreed to meet at a hotel across a nearby state line, far from the chance glance of unwanted eyes, for a couple of hours of mad passion and the kind of laughter that never escapes the pillows. And so it was that I found myself on a red BMW K75, headed for an assignation, the anticipation of which had my hands sweating through my light summer gloves and my breath heating up the inside of my Nolan helmet. There was never a question in my mind that this was trouble... Just as there was never a question in my mind that I needed this like I needed oxygen... Or that a red K75 was one of the original food groups.

It was almost 95 miles to the hotel, a nondescript business property alongside the New Jersey Turnpike. I vowed to think this through — on the ride there — holding my speed to a rational 65 miles-per-hour, as I tried to get my hands around every implication.

“Nothing will ever be the same with this woman again,” I thought. “We’ll never be able to stand in the same room without this very tangible, though invisible connection, between us.” The thought of a connection with her at all set my pulse racing, and I swerved around the car ahead of me, zigging first right than zagging left, as I shot into the middle lane, then returned to my position with the concrete divider about a foot from my left knee. I wondered if that connection would become a gentle smile traded as an invitation to repeat what was about to happen that afternoon, whenever we met by chance or design, or if it would simply be a footnote to the regret of lost hours. And then I looked down to see the speedo needle heading east of the century mark, and realized I couldn’t get to that hotel fast enough.

The whine of the K75 rose and fell as I passed through the toll booths of two states, causing me to wonder what the toll would be for this day’s madness. But the tab was already mounting as there are no free open-mouthed kisses between friends. I arrived at the hotel, claimed my reservation, and sat by the window in the room. The red motorcycle stood like a beacon in the parking lot, a beacon marked by a license plate that bore my last name. This building was getting a facelift, and its facade was covered by scaffolding. How many times do men and women cover their lives with facades of kisses that so poorly hide the imperfections underneath? The room was made of concrete walls, from which pictures of Paris had been hung. I have been to Paris many times. Nowhere in that city is a concrete hotel with pictures of the New Jersey Turnpike on the wall. It was the standard box of a room, in the average box of a chain hotel, devoid of any romance other than that carried in by the guests.

I could hardly wait for her to arrive.

I watched as her car circled the lot, and took a spot next to the bike. My cell phone rang, and I gave her the room number, watching her glance up at the windows on the third floor as she stepped out of the car. I’d filled a couple of glasses with ice and topped them off with vodka and cranberry juice, the original lubricant of passion. There was the usual entertainment center options, and I switched on the stereo, choosing “classic rock” as the background music  to drown out the hammering on the scaffold.

She was beautiful in the soft light of a fading afternoon. We had a couple of drinks before we found each others willingness, concealed in a fleeting tinge of guilt. But the passion was unmistakable, and she was as gentle and considerate as she was creative. All I could think of were the “Meatloaf” lyrics that said, “I used her body like a bandage... She used my body like a wound.” Three hours evaporated in each others arms. Our final kisses were exchanged in the muted atmosphere of the music of “Donavon,” in the 1966 rock classic, “Season of The Witch.” And the room had become eerily quiet.

Something had changed.

That something was the utter abandonment of the hammering that had poured in from the scaffold outside. That’s because the ten guys who were out there had given up for the day, preferring to watch the show in our room through the open curtains.

They clapped as she got into her car and as I mounted the motorcycle.

And the story ends there. There was no tangible, though invisible, connection between us. There was no exchange of smiles. And when I asked her about it, puzzled, confused, and a bit hurt, her response was as if I had mentioned a rumor that was distasteful to her.

There are times when I think I must have imagined half of my life. But I promised I’d write her something that I have never written for any other woman. This blog is it.

My late friend Cretin had a great philosophical outlook when it came to these things. He once said, "Somewhere, that woman has stepped into a bar, a restaurant, an airport, or an office, and a bunch of guys are wondering what she looks like naked. You know. Isn't that cool."

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2012
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