“When I die I want to meet God and say, what the Hell were you thinking; like what were you thinking?”
—Indian Larry
“Hold on to yourself Bartlett, you’re twenty feet short.”
—Steve McQueen
…from the movie THE GREAT ESCAPE
“If I had to describe him, I’d say he looked like Elvis Presley.”
—Lorenzo Lamas
…from the episode The King and I from the television series RENEGADE
“If there is a God I’d like to meet the dude and hangout with him.”
–Mickey Rourke
…from the movie HARLEY DAVIDSON and the MARLBORO MAN
Ma then spread her wings and dove into darkness.
Larry continued to stare for a few seconds more, “Let’s get that wood.”
Hauling wood from under the bridge, while at the same time being careful not to fall, was nerve-wracking. Ma’s hut had been built at the edge of a cliff below where the bridge joined the overhang; wood away from where the hut had burned was undamaged and as long as we were moving we were warm. Larry and I continued carrying armloads until we’d built a large pile about fifty feet up on the road.
Larry pointed down the Ridge Route into darkness, “Ma said the bridge has given us permission to cross and will guard our backs, but we’ve still got to protect ourselves from anything coming from that direction. I’ll get the fire started, you get the bikes. Be careful; my senses are telling me we’re being watched.”
In less time than he’d taken to tell me he thought we were being watched he’d started a fire and I’d found my way to the Road Warrior; thankfully its engine turned over on the first try. It seemed to want to get back to where it was warm as much as I did.
“Good, now get the Wide Glide.”
Where before there was no firelight to lead me to the bikes, there was now enough brightness to reach out fifty feet and touch the edge of Femus. Femus lay between my bike and Larry, his huge skeleton held together only by sinew and skin. Looking more like a monstrous unwrapped mummy than a man and knowing Ma said he’d once been good to travelers didn’t stop me from circling his body; memories of him chasing us were hard to forget.
I was in luck; the Wide Glide hesitated, stuttered a little, and then started on the second try. Larry’s firelight had grown large enough to reach out and paint a path back to the bridge, and it gave me the confidence to stretch my luck and stop within a few feet of Femus.
He’d been visited. Too surprised to panic; I found myself getting off my bike to get a closer look. Between his head and shoulder were large footprints, close together as if kneeling; whatever had been here had rolled Femus over in the time it had taken me to get from the fire to my bike.
Every nightmare I’d ever had as a child walked me back to where I’d parked; left in neutral and running, I had only to shift the Wide Glide into gear to leave. Nothing jumped from the shadows on my return trip to the fire.
“You stopped, why?
“Something’s out there and it’s been messing with the body.”
Larry poked the fire causing the sparks to change into red hot fireflies, and then like lines of lemmings they would follow each other up into the night sky trying to reach the stars before they became too cold and gravity was able to pull them back down.
“You know we’ve got to get what’s left of Femus, drag him back here and burn him;” said Larry, “he’d have wanted it. If we don’t, whatever’s prowling around out there is going to try and reanimate him. The two of us shouldn’t have any trouble; he’s mostly just skin and bone.”
Larry’s argument to go and retrieve the body convinced everything but my legs it was a good idea. After we’d pulled Femus nearly to the fire and were in the process of tossing him into the flames, I promised to listen to my legs; what was left of his body tried to rise up as if it were on strings.
“All the way, leave nothing outside,” Larry said, swinging Femus’ arms into the fire. “All must be burned; nothing can be left to bring back to life, not a hand, even a finger, not even a fingernail.”
Once in the flames the body began to shrink. An aura about an inch off its surface accelerated the burning; ten seconds later it was gone. Larry and I continued to stare, maybe because we were worried Femus would rise from the ashes like the Phoenix.
“Lucky for you two meddlers Ma and Hilts were around;” came at the end of a hollow laugh from just beyond our circle of light,” I just may have to start dealing directly with you two meddlers myself.”
With my guitar pointed in the direction of the voice, I shouted back, “Show yourself,” at the same time a thin blue line arched from the guitar’s neck, twisted outward into the darkness, sparked, and brought forth a responsive “Ouch!”
“That’s it, that’s all you got?” laughed the voice again. “You gotta have the will as well as the skill and you don’t; you never really had the gumption to do much of anything but counterpunch, open for headliners or be an over-the-hill studio musician. You never could get it up when it counted; you’re nothing but a reaction to the action, and that’s why you’ll never be more than just someone’s back-up.”
Smoke mixed with the smell of Femus drifted past my nose then thankfully downwind. Light from our fire lit up a radius of a hundred feet.
“He’s gone;” Larry said a minute later, “he would’ve made his move if he could’ve, instead he chose to mock us. We’ll be OK if we can make it through the night; pretty sure we’ve got enough wood, but to be safe we’ll get more.”
Larry stood beside the Warrior shivering
Going back under the bridge away from the fire’s light at first seemed risky and yet the opposite proved true. Once we were completely beneath it a sense of calm came across me as if we were being protected. Three armloads of wood apiece were carried back before Larry and I finally stopped.
“Did you get the feeling we were being guarded? Ma said we passed the bridge’s test; maybe it’s protecting us?”
Larry finished arranging two branches into a crude bench about ten feet upwind of the fire before answering, “Not protecting, but certainly hostile to anything that tries to cross it without its permission would be closer to the truth.”
Wearing a heavy sweater along with a wool watch cap, Larry stood beside the Warrior shivering; the freezing cold wasn’t just affecting me. Surviving the night meant putting ourselves and our bikes between the fire and the downhill road; when that was done and with the bridge behind us we settled in to wait for morning. Conversation was kept simple considering the bizarre things that had happened in the last couple of days. Topics ranged from Larry’s ideas for future choppers to Larry’s ideas for future choppers; he even had an idea about building one around the Road Warrior engine.
“I never thought I’d hear myself say it,” said Larry, “but metric V-twins, I’ve two in mind, may be the near future for choppers; the first being Yamaha’s Road Warrior engine. It’s a push rod V-twin with a low profile that can without stressing its 102 cubic inches be coaxed into an easy one hundred and fifty plus horsepower with over three fourths of that number in foot pounds of torque. An Arizona bike builder I had a build-off against and came to respect would’ve called it a beast.”
Secondly, and at the other end of the metric spectrum, is Suzuki’s light 90-degree 1000cc V-twin. Design an almost all aluminum frame built-to-be-ridden chopper around its hundred and twenty plus horsepower engine with over eighty five foot-pounds of torque and you’d literally be melding form with function; you’d be creating functional art. Neither engine would be stressed to perform all day at those levels.
Sorry Charley, I mean Harley; but the art of building choppers will and has always been about the journey, the way, the Tao, transcending the medium, going with the flow. Staying in the same place with the same state of mind, using the same materials with the same techniques defines tradition and ultimately the death knell of chopper building as art. Artists knew this, rebelled against it and became Impressionists. For riding the twisties I’m above all interested in Suzuki’s V-twin.”
Surprisingly we both avoided talking about tomorrow. Once I came close to describing the eight-foot figure of light Pa had changed into, but instead asked Larry if he would ever consider building another bike using part of an airplane’s radial engine.
“Maybe,” answered Larry, “but I’d rather try something new, something that’s never been done before. Get some sleep. I’ll take the first watch.”
Agreeing to relieve Larry at midnight, I fell asleep only to be awakened a little after five in the morning by a tremor. Rippling down from the unseen other side of the bridge it shook the ground enough to rock our bikes.
“Was that an earthquake? You were supposed to wake me!”
“Didn’t feel like one,” said Larry through blue lips and chattering teeth, “and sorry about not waking you; but I started thinking and once I started I couldn’t stop, it kept my mind off how cold I was getting and so I decided to let you sleep. I started thinking how lucky we’ve been that the really bad things that could’ve happened didn’t. Aaron especially; I hate to think what would’ve happened had we taken him with us and he’d been able to join forces with Femus. He said his name was Aaron, but he could’ve been anyone.”
“Or anything,” I added, “don’t forget he had the eyes of a spider and no shadow. My guess is whatever’s taken over the diner is sending out things like Aaron to terrorize the Borderlands. Andy changing into Raggedy Man, the city Hilts built destroyed by electroshock and Femus tricked into becoming a zombie are more examples. I’m sure, now that the jukebox isn’t playing, other bad things are taking place only Ma n’ Pa can know about, can anticipate, or are in any position to stop; if not stop, at least delay from happening.”
Where water seeped across the surface of the road in the daytime the same places glittered like glass; at this hour there’d be ice back to the second bridge. We were trapped here until morning’s sun had time to thaw the road.
“Ma can deal with whatever attacks her, Hilts too if he’s well.” said Larry. “Whatever’s controlling Aaron and once controlled Femus will know that and send Aaron to attack Pa; we’ve got to warn Pa. Ice or not, we’ve got to go back.”
“Won’t Charon stop Aaron?”
“If he’s not fooled;” Larry answered skeptically, “don’t forget he was tricked by the imp he chose for our guide. Charon, although immensely powerful and able to deal with almost any kind of enemy, doesn’t deal well with deception; Aaron’s deceptive.”
Knowing Larry was probably right, my thoughts pictured Aaron somehow slipping past Charon and attacking Pa. That vision, however, was quickly replaced with the vision of a huge figure of light burning Aaron to a crisp.
“Pa’s in no real danger,” I said, proceeding to tell Larry what I’d seen back at their house. “Pa may be Ma’s creation, but if he is, then he’s most certainly her most powerful; my belief, however, is they may be co-creators. Ma, or should I say Ma n’ Pa may very well be being the Borderlands; their being and becoming are—”
“One,” said Larry, finishing my sentence, “and the same. They’re archetypal opposites joined together to complete the Law of Attraction circle; they’re the classic observer and observed, the Yin n’ Yang.”
“Because?”
“Because,” continued Larry, “Fritjof Capra, author of “The Tao of Physics,” said all things in space-time are holographic projections of the ‘One’ observing us observing things. His book was the only one in the prison library that had all its pages, probably because it was never checked out, probably because most inmates didn’t want to find out that doing time would be, unless they forgave themselves, forever.”
“What were you in prison for?”
“Let’s just say I had a thing for banks.”
Larry spoke candidly of a history of armed robbery where drugs were his partner until getting arrested put an end to their relationship. Four years in prison studying mechanical engineering and philosophy proved to be more rewarding than crime; so much so, that upon release he applied that knowledge to building a new life building choppers. Treating choppers as art; Larry chose to meld the science of metal fabrication with sculpture. From the Taoists he learned that as in nature; form must follow function, and that to build a chopper that goes against that flow is to go against nature. On the practical side form without function made for a chopper that couldn’t corner.
We ended the night discussing Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”. Was Plato his own shadow cast upon the cave’s wall by Plato’s archetype standing between the Light and the Wall or Plato casting shadows upon the wall? Dawn’s glow reaching up to paint the highest peaks with light settled the discussion by showing us that without the ‘Light’ or the ‘Cave’ there’d be no shadows, no need of allegories.
“We need,” said Larry facing east, “to leave now.”
“Why? The road’s still icy.”
“Because our get-out-of-jail-free-card expires once any direct sunlight hits the bridge; our permission to cross has a short shelf life.”
Leaving the warmth of the fire before dawn to load up our bikes meant freezing, and by the time we’d tied everything down we were numb. Crystal clear ice painted in long strips and looking like thin ribbons of glass still crisscrossed the seamless pavement all the way to the bridge, and where the ice ended a heavy frost took over.
Larry looked sadly over at the charred remains of what had once been his chopper then climbed aboard Hilts’ Road Warrior. The big Yamaha started on the first attempt; my Wide Glide took three tries. Soon both bikes were running and radiating enough heat to warm our hands.
WE’RE ON OUR OWN
Winding our way downhill brought us into a warmer setting
“Follow my tracks;” Larry called over his shoulder as we carefully rode out and unto the bridge, “use your gears to slow down, your rear brake to stop. Using your front brake could cause the front end to wash out, no sudden turns.”
Beyond two hundred yards the ice ended abruptly and frost took over; by three hundred yards we’d traded frost for a cold mist. Swirling to a height of only eight feet, the mist allowed us to only see how far down the mountain sunlight had crept; Larry’s wool watch cap was about the limit of my vision. Teasingly the mist revealed what was above but not in front. Larry’s keen eyesight kept us from hitting obstacles; more than a few were crushed remains of cars some of the models dating back to before WWII, one a crumpled ‘40 Ford sedan with a familiar paint job.
“It’s not Andy’s; it looks a little like his but isn’t.” said Larry after stopping and walking to the front of the Ford and touching the hood. “Whatever hit the Ford was traveling at maybe seventy or eighty miles an hour. There should be the wreckage of the vehicle that did all this damage but there’s nothing, not even pieces.”
“Maybe,” I countered, “the bridge crushed the Ford like a walnut, ate the driver, then left the shell, I mean car; the dent marks match the shape of the guardrails.”
With an image of both guardrails coming together and smashing us like clapping hands Larry and I got moving again; hopefully the end wasn’t far ahead.
Above, dawn’s glow spread further down the mountain, reminding us it wouldn’t be long before direct sunlight touched the bridge.
“Stop,” shouted Larry at the same time he hit his brakes. “It’s really big and has twelve legs,” Larry continued, having already gotten off his bike, “six heads on long necks and it’s about eighty feet ahead; I don’t think it’s seen us yet.”
Joining him moments later and looking in the direction he was pointing, I found myself again confirming he had superior eyesight, “I can barely see its outline,” I said, peering as hard as I could into a curtain of gray.
“If you can barely see it, it most likely can barely see you;” replied Larry, “it’ll locate us by sound, so whisper. The road begins beyond where it’s standing then slopes down hill; it’s unwilling to come on the bridge.”
“What’s stopping it?”
“What’s stopping it is; it’s smart enough to know it’ll end up like the cars we passed if it comes onto the bridge without permission. My guess is it has been sent here to prevent us from getting off until the touch of direct sunlight triggers the bridge into smashing us. Somehow we’ve got to get it to come over here then get off before it can. If the bridge has reactions that are too fast, like a gag reflex, we’ll be squashed too. The pearl colored clouds over the mountains announce morning; direct light is only about a minute away from touching the top span.”
Riding forward made the creature face us. It was as Larry described; it was Scylla, with twelve legs and six heads, right out of Homer’s Odyssey. The hero Odysseus had to choose between being eaten or squashed; we did too. From my back I pulled my guitar around and began to play and at first succeeded in only making three of its heads look over and bellow. As a musician I didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or a complaint; I’ve been booed at before but never bellowed at.
“Get ready; it’s coming, and not for your autograph.”
The bridge shuddered ready to strike, but held back only because it still honored our right of passage. Once direct sunlight touched it, however, all bets were off; its railings would crash together.
When the monster broke through the mist Larry roared off and onto the road. Scylla was completely on the bridge but had misjudged our position by about twenty feet, giving me enough time to flip my guitar over to my back, release the Wide Glide’s clutch and at the same time hear Larry shout.
“Get off the bridge now!”
Suddenly crowned with direct sunlight and without the veil of mist, the bridge became the mythological crushing rocks Homer had written about in the Odyssey. Odysseus had but moments to paddle his ship the Argo out of danger; we had even less time to leave the bridge.
“Hurry!” yelled Larry.
Scylla was fast, two of its six heads missing me by inches; my bike was faster, but not by much. I was barely clear when the guardrails came together like a thunderclap, squirting body parts past me, one of which bounced off my shoulder and up the road. Covered with creature; I now understood what the old adage ‘by-the-skin-of-your-teeth’ meant.
Larry waited a full minute before saying, “Our luck’s changing, we didn’t get crushed and I can see a couple of columns of mist a few miles ahead. They seem to be rising from some hot springs; you could use a bath, me too.”
Except for a huge stain soaking into its entrance the bridge looked normal. We’d been lucky; where Odysseus had the goddess Circe to thank for finding a way past the crushing rocks, we had Ma to thank. Had Ma, disguised as troll, not gotten us to commit to a selfless act we’d be paste. None of Scylla’s body parts could be seen but for the few on the road. Parts left on the bridge were gone.
“If I didn’t know better I’d say the bridge absorbs, eats whatever it crushes.”
“There’s no percentage in thinking too long about what has happened;” said Larry, interrupting my spoken thoughts, “count your blessings and focus on the future. What we can’t count on is Hilts or Ma n’ Pa coming to our rescue; we’re on our own from here until we reach the fourth and final bridge.”
“What about Andy?”
“Can’t count on Andy either,” continued Larry. “The only help we’ll be getting is from Charon and that’s only if we make it to the river Styx.”
Half an hour’s worth of winding our way downhill brought us into a warmer setting. We’d left winter behind. Wafting ahead of us were the sharp welcoming smells of eucalyptus mixed with sage; trees and shrubs beginning to bloom painted the adjoining roadsides with different shades of green. This sudden change from one season to another proved what I had suspected; the last bridge had been some type of barrier between winter and spring.
Speaking of spring, Larry’s guess as to the origin of the rising columns of mist was correct. Cradled within the roots of an ancient pepper tree growing next to a crumbling adobe wall, and whose gnarly trunk had the unmistakable face of an old man; plumes of steam marked the location of a hot spring. Ten feet in diameter and maybe five feet in depth, the pool simmered like a very warm tub.
Memories of crossing the bridge along with the ordeals of last night began to fade away the nearer we got to the pool, until, unable to ride any closer we parked our bikes, ran to the edge and both of us jumped in the water.
“Almost too hot,” Larry yelled as he sank into the water.
“Thought you said it was almost too hot,” I gasped.
“You’ll get used to it,” said the ancient pepper tree that had the face of an old man.
Morning’s sun was showcasing more of the land and with the sun came a peace of mind I’d not felt since Ma n’ Pa’s place. An hour later refreshed and looking like prune men we climbed out, washed the rest of our clothes, then fell asleep in the sun waiting for them to dry. We awakened at noon.
“You’ll get used to the heat,” said the old pepper tree
“Clothes are dry, maybe washed a little more than dirt out;” laughed Larry buttoning up his shirt, “maybe some bad memories, we could use a few less bad memories.”
Getting dressed, checking the bikes, and then getting ready to leave; I felt as had Larry, that some of our worst memories had indeed been washed away and that if the pool had the power to lift our spirits maybe it could…
“What if we filled our gas tanks with pool water then added one of Pa’s pills? We’re near empty and Pa said they’d change water into gasoline.”
“Go for it,” agreed Larry. “Warrior’s running on fumes; if Pa’s pill doesn’t work we’ll double-up on your bike.”
Filling the Warrior’s tank took but a minute and then Larry dropped in the pill. Wind through the leaves wasn’t loud enough to muffle the bubbling sounds that percolated up from the Warrior’s tank, sounds that ended when the tank suddenly belched out its cap vent. Larry wrinkled his nose, waved his arms then hit the starter switch; with a roar the big twin came to life, giving us both grins. Minutes later my Wide Glide, filled with spring water and one of Pa’s pills, was running well enough to give us even bigger grins.
Springtime became summer as we rode down onto a high plateau saddled between hills wanting to be mountains; all snow was left behind. Fields left to grow on their own pushed past fences; and like the farms we’d passed since leaving the barricade they’d been long abandoned. At the end of the plateau the road divided, the right fork paralleling a widening arroyo that followed a river that had cut its way down to a dry plain. Three hundred yards away the left fork ended at a rockslide beginning directly behind a vertical rock face; and by rock face I mean literally a huge thirty foot face made of rock.
“The right fork leads down and onto a dry plain so wide I can’t see the other side. Going back the way we came is not a choice;” said Larry, then pointing at the rockslide, “our only real choice is to take the left fork. We can either find a way to get our bikes through or climb over it.”
Riding up to within twenty feet of the rockslide caused a cascade of gravel; above the cascade was an ascending near vertical terrace of outcropping boulders. Would the sound of our engines dislodge them, were they waiting their turn to fall? Further up the hill were more rock ledges.
“I’ve an idea, it could bring the whole hill down, but it could also clear a path for us,” Larry said looking at the steep slope. “I figure if we can get the nearest ledge to fall it’ll knock part of the slide out of the way and carry both sets of boulders down the hill; it’ll give us a path through.”
Staring at where Larry was pointing, I added, “And if we’re wrong we’ll make an even bigger barrier.”
Revving our engines succeeded in scaring a large type of crow out of nearby trees. They circled, then realizing we were no threat landed back on their favorite limbs; seconds after they landed the closest ledge fell, frightening them back into flight.
Larry’s estimation of the direction of the falling rocks had proved to be correct; arching across the road then striking the far side of the slide, they took the other rocks, as well as themselves, over the edge and down the hill.
“Be the arrow, be the target,” I said using my best Zen voice.
“Ledge was an easy call; more importantly we’ve a narrow trail;” answered Larry, “the question is, do we ride our bikes or walk?”
Rivulets of gravel were continuing to cascade down the hill when I answered, “I vote for walk considering the rest of the ledges are ready to fall.”
“Walk it is,” said Larry getting off his bike. “Bikes can be replaced, maybe retrieved; having the hillside land on us isn’t an option.”
Instead of returning to the trees the birds circled low over the huge rock face, not once but back and forth, sometimes so close their wings grazed its surface.
“Something’s wrong,” Larry whispered.
Suddenly and without warning the crows, which looked more like the shadows of crows than crows, began making high-pitched screams. Instantly the rock face awakened and also began screaming; so piercing were their sounds they sliced through every thought, every stone, like in boulder, like in hillside of boulders.
“Follow me; don’t stop until you’re clear!”
Running as close to the outer edge of the path as possible, I followed Larry; the fact the whole hillside was crumbling down on our heads gave us no other alternative than to race forward along the narrow ledge.
“Keep up; everything’s turning to rubble.”
Behind came the sound of the road falling away, below our feet the ground was turning to gravel; it was as if the Borderland was being turned to dust, then into mist.
“Not far,” Larry yelled over the sound of crashing and crumbling, “just twenty more feet.”
Awakened by the birds the rock face began screaming
Twenty more feet and the seamless pavement of the Old Ridge Route ended at the beginning of an asphalt road; one with all the predictable potholes, bumps and weeds that come with narrow asphalt roads.
Not far from the small town of Hollister California is the village of Tres Pinos; behind Tres Pinos begins Santa Anita Road. It’s an old backroad that runs through fields bordered with tall valley oaks. Twisting upward out of the earth and with branches looking more like tentacles than tree limbs, these old valley oaks would line the road, bracketing it for about ten miles until ending at a small bridge. The bridge, built in the 1930s, led to a locked iron gate; I was sure this was the same road.
STYX AND STONES
The old oaks had top branches that looked like tentacles
Just twenty more feet and we’d be safe; but could Larry survive leaving the Borderlands? Could the slide somehow have made a rift between my world and the Borderland, and why was the land behind us crumbling into dust and the dust changing to mist?
“Don’t stop,” Larry shouted at the same time he made a long jump from the last bit of crumbling Ridge Route onto the potholed road; a second later I’d completed the same jump and was on solid ground. We’d made it, barely, but didn’t stop running until a hundred feet later.
“From mountains and valleys to mist in seconds; I can’t help but wonder if Ma n’ Pa or any of the Borderland they created survived,” I said, still trying to catch my breath.
Already a dense wall of fog had filled in the void and was moving toward us. Larry and I walked back a dozen yards and waited. Billowing in, replacing land and sky; the fog stopped where we’d made our jump.
“I’ve no idea what’s on the other side of the fog, empty space or what’s left of the old Borderland, maybe in the process of reforming;” Larry said looking at me, “and that I haven’t started to disappear makes me think maybe part of Ma n’ Pa’s Borderland may still surround us. It could very well be, or at least pieces of it, part of this road; like threads woven into the fabric of your world.”
“The road we’re on looks a lot like a longer version of Santa Anita Road behind Hollister California.”
“Behind Hollister or not,” Larry answered, “I’ve got to believe it still leads to the fourth bridge. That we had to leave our bikes behind is a bummer; that we weren’t crushed is a blessing. I’ll take the blessing over the bummer anytime.”
And so we began walking eastward and the further we walked the more I realized this was indeed Santa Anita Road, if not a longer version, behind Hollister. “Looking for an Echo” by Kenny Vance was playing in my ear radio.
“Could we have taken the wrong turn; maybe the fork leading down onto the dry plain was the way we should’ve gone? The only bridge at the end of this road leads to a locked gate.”
“Gotta have faith we’re on the right road, can’t go back;” replied Larry, “the Borderland behind us is gone or at least the entrance into it, we’ve gotta go forward. Our only other alternative is to go upwards and we couldn’t do that without an airplane; like maybe if we could hitch a ride on that WWII Navy fighter coming in low over the hills with its flaps and wheels down that looks like it’s going to land on the road ahead, and maybe—”
“It’s Andy!” I yelled waving my hands in the air.
With a 2800 horsepower engine throttled back enough to turn a thirteen foot propeller slow enough to silhouette individual blades; the gull-wing Corsair committed to final approach. Clearing the tall oak beside us was Andy’s first obstacle, amend that to almost clearing; sheared away, the tree’s top leaves rained down seconds after the plane passed over, he was moments from landing. Three, two, one and his wheels touched. With his wings inches above fence posts, Andy kept the F4U Corsair from bouncing by braking and bleeding off as much speed as possible before reaching the end of the straight stretch; which he would have overshot had he not pivoted the plane around just before running out of road.
Running up to the plane, Larry shouted, “How were you able to find us?”
“Ma, she knew where to find you;” Andy yelled down, “I left Ma and Hilts at the Styx Diner then flew here. The whole Borderland is being purged. Ma thought it best to destroy it rather than have it contaminated; she said once it was gone she and Pa would recreate it.”
“In other words, or in computer speak,” I’d climbed up on the wing where it attached to the fuselage, “Ma’s going to crash the system then reboot.”
“Should work,” said Larry who was now standing across from me on the other side of the canopy.
“Should work, you mean is working;” replied Andy; “it’s already started, Ma’s already started the purge. However it may be accelerating at too fast of a pace, which is why Ma sent me.”
“So when do we leave?” I asked.
Even at idle the big Pratt and Whitney was hard to hear over, but not so loud as to cover Andy’s answer.
“I’ve only got room for Larry,” then turning to me, “Ma said Charon would explain; simply put, if I don’t fly Larry to another Borderland he’ll begin to fade away. Part of Ma’s Borderland has followed you, probably because of the jukebox music you’re still getting through your ear radio, but it’ll soon disappear. The fourth bridge is about five miles further up the road. Charon’s on his way here now; speaking of which, we’ve got to be on our way.”
“I’ll find you,” Larry said, climbing into the seat behind Andy, “once Ma’s rebooted the Borderlands. It’s a gamble on their part but I think I know your role in what they’ve planned. Don’t question the journey; trust that everything’s transpiring the way it’s supposed to transpire.”
Jumping down from the wing, I ran to the side, clear of the now wide-open engine, and watched them take off. Both gave a thumbs-up as Andy released the brakes.
Propellers pitched for takeoff and maximum pull, throttle open and with both superchargers engaged, the big fighter headed back down the road. Generating tremendous torque, more than enough to twist itself up on one wheel; Andy compensated by making easy corrections. Within a few moments the Corsair was moving fast enough for the rudder and ailerons to work; in a few more seconds they were airborne. Just a foot off the ground and gaining speed Andy retracted the wheels and easily cleared the oak tree he’d clipped leaves from the top branches.
Thinking they’d fly on, they instead circled back and passed overhead; both were leaning out the cockpit and pointing frantically behind them.
Looking where they were pointing I saw the same gray wall of fog that had followed us to where Ma n’ Pa’s old Borderland ended. About a mile away and moving towards me at a jogger’s pace; it was being propelled by the very wind that’d acted as a headwind helping Andy get airborne. The option of getting caught by the fog was not a chance I wanted to take.
Surfing has been my obsession, but after a mile of running starting from where Andy had taken off I realized I should’ve been more obsessed with marathons. Cresting a knoll, I could see another two miles of road and no sign of the fourth bridge; the fog would catch me long before I had run another mile.
In the distance, a small speck, a lone motorcyclist could be seen approaching at incredible speed. Half a mile in back of me was the fog. It would be interesting to see which one got to me first, the rider or the fog. My bet was on the rider; if anything his speed had increased. My Wide Glide had been fast, Larry’s radial engine chopper faster and Hilts’ Road Warrior faster yet. The bike coming towards me would have made them all seem slow and slowing was what it was doing. It was Charon, beginning to fade now that he was away from the river Styx, changing to vapor as he rode.
Skidding to a stop beside me then jumping off his bike, Charon pointed behind him, “Take the Hayabusa; the fourth bridge is about four or five miles back up the road, the Styx Diner’s on this side of it. Ma said for you to be sure to get across the bridge; she said for me to say, she and Hilts can handle everything that’s gotta be done inside the diner.”
“What about you, you’re melting away?”
I was left with Charon’s Hayabusa
“Ma found, rather salvaged what was left of me long ago, she’ll do it again;” replied an almost completely transparent Charon. “I’ll come back with the rest of the Borderland once it’s safe.”
Introduced in the late 1990s the Hayabusa was a near 200mph bike out of the crate, to buy one you had to have a donor card; Charon’s was altered to go even faster. With a nitrous bottle just below the left grip, and light Yoshimura exhausts that at an idle bubbled out hints of modifications way beyond stock; the thing was a beast.
“Go,” Charon yelled just before the approaching wall of fog enveloped a large oak a hundred yards away and his body paled into nothing leaving only his helmet.
My options were now, ride for the fourth bridge like my life depended on it or get on the Hayabusa and ride for the fourth bridge like my life depended on it.
Donning the helmet, and hopping on the Hayabusa, and then dropping into first gear, all but tipped me backwards. Only a few feet from the rear fender the thickening fog was accelerating at my speed; which had to be impossible. Thin tendrils looking more like stretched gray fingers had closed to within just a few inches.
Nitrous oxide’s become Popeye’s spinach for the go-fast folks. Use it in an engine engineered for sound not fury and it’ll turn that engine into shrapnel. Suzuki has, however, a history of designing motors for strength and as a result dominated racing. Later, when those same racing motors were detuned and introduced in the 1200 Bandit they’d seemingly run forever without repairs. Hayabusa’s lineage was all of that and more. And so at nearly a hundred and ten, and thinking more of spinach than shrapnel, I punched the nitrous button.
‘Picket fence’ is part of a line in the 1960’s song “Hot Rod Lincoln” and is used to describe what telephone poles look like when passed at high speed. Passing through a gauntlet of gnarly old oaks at high speed blends them all into a continuous wall of branches; sort of like being shot out of a circus cannon down a long hall wallpapered with trees. Maybe someday someone will write a hit song using lyrics with a wall of branches in it?
Fourth gear found me so focused on the road I couldn’t turn my head; if I had the wind would’ve probably broken my neck. Clearing a blind rise with my wheels off the ground had me turning off the nitrous and wondering how anyone could be an atheist.
Two more gears to go and Charon’s Hayabusa was at a hundred and fifty, the fog about half a football field behind, and the fourth bridge about a half mile ahead; just this side of it was the Styx Diner.
Slow down so as not to crash or keep enough speed so as not to be caught became a delicate balance; opting for compromise I ended up, after a series of late downshifts, locking my brakes and sliding completely across the bridge. Chasing me to the bridge, but unable to cross; the fog rose like a giant wave blocking all behind it from sight and then it broke covering everything on its side.
Too quickly the fog melted; where there’d been daylight there was night, for the noon sky had become a sea of stars, and where nothing had been in front of the diner there was now a ‘58 Pontiac convertible. Purple neon letters flickered above the diner’s entrance stammering to spell Styx; first trying to stuttering S-s-s, then T-t-t, then Y, and then half an X. At the same time the song “Maybe” by The Chantels drifted out the diner’s door inviting me to come over and help save the Borderlands. Nothing but static was coming from my little hearing-aid-size radio.
Ignoring Charon’s advice about returning to the Styx Diner; and taking only my guitar, I began walking back across the bridge. Crickets were chirping warnings; stepping on the diner’s front step made the chirping stop. Were Ma and Hilts inside, and where was Pa?
Swinging too easily inward, the diner’s door opened into a room empty of people. Too big for its outside dimensions and with 1950s malt shop counter, tables and booths; its checkerboard tile floor faded first into gray then into the far side of the room. To my right was the jukebox; directly ahead was the bar where I’d given a coin to an Elvis that looked like the Elvis in the movie BUBBA HO-TEP. Behind the bar was the shadow I’d seen move on its own.
“You’re the lucky one, I’ll give you that,” said the shadow, “especially when near Ma,” then pointing directly towards the jukebox, “but also predictable, as was Ma. Ma and Hilts made the Top Ten list; check it out. They’re definitely Hit Parade material now.”
A jukebox menu at a nearby table confirmed what I feared; Ma and Hilts had been burned to CDs, Ma to B-4 and Hilts to B-5. Pictured on top of the labels were their faces looking as they did the moment they were downloaded onto the disk. Where was Elvis?
“I only had to wait for them;” said the shadow, “I knew they’d come to fix the jukebox. Once they touched it they were caught, the jukebox was reprogrammed to treat them like spam; Pa, however, was a no-show, I would have really liked him in my song collection. No matter, new era, new songs, actually no more songs; Borderlands ought to be as other lands, without the harmony generated by the jukebox they’ll become part of them.”
Seeing the end of the jukebox cord was but a few feet from the socket, and thinking I’d just walk over and plug it in and play B-4, release Ma and bring harmony and order back to the Borderlands brought an instant response from the shadow.
“You’re thinking,” said the shadow, “can I stop you from plugging the jukebox cord back into the wall, playing B-4, and freeing Ma; am I right? Try moving.”
Struggle as I might my feet were frozen to the diner’s dance floor. Only my arm holding the guitar could move; amend that to almost move.
“You can’t move,” laughed the shadow, “because I’m not moving, and that’s because I was once your shadow and know most everything you’re thinking. I broke free of you the first time you passed through the diner to cross out of the Borderlands; Charon’s coin paid for your return passage across the Styx but not mine. I’ve been stuck here since; and it might as well have been forever as there’s no actual real time in the Borderlands. No matter, as soon as I figure out which song is your favorite, I’ll just punch in the letter and number, and then you, along with your friends, will be part of my Oldies collection.”
“Pa,” I whispered, knowing it was a wasted effort, “if you can hear me, if you’re the cavalry, you’d better hurry!”
The shadow laughed again, “Don’t count on that tall bumpkin coming to your rescue. Aaron, you’ve already met Aaron, my second favorite operative before you destroyed Femus, was sent to pay Pa a visit at his house. I’m afraid Pa’s now part of the compost he so loved feeding to his garden. If he had come here,” and the shadow was still laughing and pointing at the jukebox, “he’d be featured in the Country Music section.”
Hopeful for the first time since entering the diner, “You’ve never really met Pa have you?”
“Didn’t have to; saw him many times through the eyes of my friends.”
“You mean familiars, don’t you?”
“Same thing,” answered the shadow. “Friends, well it sounds friendlier. Pa was never a threat; he’d just follow Ma around like a puppy dog when he wasn’t playing farmer.”
“Speaking of playing,” I said, pointing my Fender guitar at the shadow and playing the first chords of “Deserie” by The Charts and surprising both of us that I could move, “did you ever hear this one?”
The first few chords were all I played before the guitar was torn from my hands, flew across the room and landed against the jukebox. At the same time the diner became dark, and a voice whispered in my ear, “And now I know the name of your song. Get ready to join your friends; I just need a few seconds to coalesce enough to punch in your song’s number and letter, and then, my old friend, in the time it took to have your worst root canal, it’ll all be over.”
“You’ve got the ‘it’ll all be over’ part of it right,” said an eight-foot figure of light that was really Pa; and who had somehow back at his home hitched a ride on or as my guitar, and had just plugged the jukebox back into the wall, punched in B-4, and was watching Ma appear beside him.
Already black, the diner descended into an even deeper black. Pa began to fade, but not before Ma reached out her hand and touched his hand; and then like two drops of water that become one when they’re close enough to touch, they became Ma n’ Pa and the diner so bright I had to shield my eyes between my fingers.
Looking at me the figure of light, which was now larger than before, and which was really Ma n’ Pa joined together, said, “Get out of the diner; the only way we could trap the shadow,” pointing at what had once been my shadow, “inside the diner was to use Ma as bait. We gambled on you ‘not’ following directions, returning to the Styx Diner with your guitar, revealing your song and your old shadow becoming angry enough to become vulnerable when it became solid enough to punch your song’s number and letter into the jukebox. The gate’s unlocked on the other side of the bridge. Take the Pontiac, drive over the bridge and through the gate; it’ll get you out of the Borderland. You’ll be safe.”
In answer my once shadow stretched its arm, now tentacle, across the diner’s floor in an attempt to touch me.
“Hurry, this diner and what’s left of our Borderland will soon cease to exist,” shouted Ma n’ Pa, at the same time stretching out an equally long arm of light and severing the shadow’s tentacle.
No other encouragement was needed; quickly out the door and into the Pontiac had me seconds later spinning its rear tires away from the diner, onto the road and then onto the bridge. Skidding to a stop I looked behind me. Burned in my mind like an arc welder’s flash was the memory of the diner becoming so bright it disappeared; and how the brightness expanded outward blotting out all it touched.
I could see the open gate beyond the bridge. Already the light had reached out enveloping Charon’s Hayabusa and everything else around it. The Doo Wop song “Oh Rose Marie” by The Fascinators was playing on the Pontiac’s radio when I drove across.
FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE
BORDERLAND BIKER
COMING SOON
