… they jumped in the cab of Bobby’s pickup, and peeled out of the lot and onto the coast highway, heading south. There was only one road to travel from town to town in the redwood region. The winding Pacific Coast Highway skirted along the sheer precipices high above the jagged, coastal landscape. Below, the pounding waves battered sharp, rugged rocks.
Charlie was wound up to begin with, and his emotions were anything but calmed by the weaving highway as he leaned into one hairpin curve after another. Downshifting and twisting his quick throttle, he felt his rear tire slip against the fog-moistened pavement.
The Shovelhead bounced on the rigid frame that had always felt like home to Charlie. He liked being alone on the bike. It brought a sort of racing solitude, away from the whining pedestrians, and free from the constraints of society. The experience provided him his own singular sense of adventure. Women had always been a by-product of living fast and passionately. He enjoyed their company, their sex, and their looks, but the rest he could do without. Sometimes he wondered if he was wrong, or simply living like a man should. As the bike leaned into another curve, he savored the smell of the salt air and the sound of the surf crashing beneath him.
The big Chevy pickup barreled along the highway at breakneck speeds. “Whataya going to do to the guy?” the smaller cowboy with the broken nose and scarred face said.
“I hate bikers – they have way too much fun, ridin’ their choppers around!” Bobby shouted, staring out of the windshield like a hunter trying to spot his prey’s eyes in the darkness. “You saw how upset she was. I can’t stand seeing any guy hurt a girl.” The truck’s tires squealed going from one hazardous, tight curve to another. “He can’t be far.”
Charlie slowed as the fog shifted from a mist to pea soup, limiting his visibility from half a mile to less than a hundred feet. The fenderless front wheel sent a fine spray directly over his handlebars into his face. His tinted glasses dripped with moisture, which he occasionally wiped away with the back of his sleeve. As the fog became more dense, the bike’s headlight and taillight reflected against the moisture lingering in the quiet air. Charlie felt like he was in a plane flying through a cloud. Nothing existed around him but a few feet of road, the broken white line, and a gray blanket, all illuminated by the headlights of the bike. The road seemed to go nowhere, and there was no sense of direction. Each curve was a surprise, without prior warning.
The cowboys plowed onward through the fog with little concern. Bobby flipped on the windshield wipers and turned on the amber fog lamps. “That boy will be slowing down in this,” he said, a slight smirk lifting beneath his thick mustache.
Bobby’s grip tightened on the wheel. The other cowboy continued to gulp from the stainless steel flask in his jacket, continuing to share with Bobby. The large truck tires slid against the slick asphalt and the warning light flashed against the guardrail erected to posed to stop drivers from certain death 300 feet below.
Bobby disliked bikers. The lumbering construction worker had twice attempted to become a foreman on construction sites. But he could never control the bikers. They were independent-minded, straightforward, hard-hitting, and talented. They wouldn’t take no for an answer, and often knew more about the job than Bobby. Moreover, unlike many of the fools on the job site, Bobby’s size didn’t intimidate them. Bobby felt enormously frustrated. He could feel his hands squeeze the steering wheel even harder, and his jaw tightened.
“What’s the matter, man?” Sam asked, noting Bobby’s rigid, white-knuckled grip on the dirty, grease-caked wheel.
“Nothing,” Bobby snapped, remembering a couple of bikers who had working for him before dropping everything and leaving the construction site so that they could ride to South Dakota in August. It pissed him off that they put their motorcycles and lifestyle ahead of work. “I’m gonna get that bastard,” he growled.
Charlie was only half way to Franklin when he wished he had just dropped a dime to his brother Norman to ease the big man’s mind, instead of swimming through this treacherous fog to tell him that the bitch he’d been with was only pulling another female number.
Charlie had had his share of girls who tried to lure him into one trap after another. He had been fortunate that none of them had laid the baby routine on him. A tough spot to be in, for sure. This one wasn’t right, especially for Norman, because Charlie knew how Stormin’ felt about kids. If the woman had been up front, Norman would have assisted her any way he could. Charlie sucked the fog out of his mustache and swallowed, wrenching the handlebars to make another tight curve that seemed to leap out of nowhere. The fog was getting so thick that there was no way for Charlie to spot landmarks on the familiar road. Then he noticed a change in his wa.
Wa is an ancient Japanese term for someone’s personal atmosphere or environment. Like someone turning on a radio in a garage, immediately the atmosphere can change. This may be a subtle thing, like enjoying dinner in a restaurant when, several booths away, someone starts to argue. Charlie wasn’t sure what it was, or where it was coming from, but he knew there had definitely been a change, as if his engine altered its tone. Then it happened again, and he knew what had interrupted his thoughts. The limited light had changed intensity. And although Charlie couldn’t see the headlights, his senses had noted the altered level of fog-coated illumination at the last curve. It happened a third time. A car had to be only a couple of curves behind.
The small cowboy slugging down the shots of whiskey from the flask spotted the small single taillight from Charlie’s bike first. “Thought I saw something out there,” he slurred.
“You’re right. I’m gonna catch him,” the big man said, grinding his teeth and bearing down on the steering wheel. “I’ll teach that sonovabitch how to treat women.”
The little man took a deep slug on the flask and offered it to the driver, who declined with a snap of his wrist. Sam had accompanied Bobby on several violent forays, and he knew from the dilated pupils, the beads of sweat on his forehead, and the twitching muscles in his jaws that his running partner meant business. The truck lurched as the big man accelerated, tearing the tires loose on the next curve.
Charlie, now constantly aware of the approaching vehicle, grabbed the rubber grips on his bars tighter as he rounded the next curve. The fog was too thick to search for side roads to duck away on. But then, briefly passing through his vision, he noted a familiar sign announcing the mileage to the towns ahead.
Charlie was thoroughly familiar with the post, as he had read its reassuring message for years, informing him that Franklin was 8 miles away. He sighed with the confidence that he hadn’t far to go, and that the final four miles were relatively straight and far enough inland to remove the fear of slipping off a cliff. Nevertheless, the next four miles were the most treacherous, jack-knife curves of the ride. Just then, the headlights from the following vehicle surrounded him from the rear, and he heard the tires screeching as the truck rounded the curve.
Charlie did his best to pull to the side of the road to let the vehicle pass. But it loomed up behind him, attempted to pass, then cut deeply to the right. Charlie leaned to the right, but the truck’s fender swung closer. Aware that the driver was either drunk or trying to kill him, he accelerated, his rear wheel slipping into the gravel shoulder, two or three feet from a hundred-yard drop to certain doom. He broke into a cold sweat under his heavy jacket as he brushed with death, before hearing his engine come to life and pull him away from the edge of the cliff.
The truck kept coming…
Charlie could feel the cold sweat return as the speeding vehicle attempted to force him into the guardrail on the next curve. His extended right footpeg clipped the post and snapped free from under his boot. He turned to the left and found himself breathing against the rusted fender of the pickup truck. He twisted the throttle while jamming his right foot against the mounting plate holding the brake pedal in place. The peg was gone and his foot slipped free from the side of the bike, bouncing against the gray deck below. He lurched again, trying to maintain his balance and avoid being crushed by the truck. It seemed a losing battle as the curves tightened and became more frequent.
“This is going to be a breeze,” Bobby squealed. “I’ll mash that sonovabitch.”
Sam looked for something to hold onto as his body slammed into the cab door and the truck slid to the left around another hairpin corner. The heavy rear bumper screeched against the guardrail post, throwing sparks to the sea below.
The road straightened momentarily. Charlie was well aware of the backcut curve less than 50 yards ahead. He sped into the fog, knowing full well that death was simultaneously both ahead and behind him. He was terrified, yet at the same time, a glint of a smile crossed his bearded face. He though momentarily about the many times he had danced with death on this highways and many others. But this time the issue was forced. The road ahead turned slightly to the left, then hard right, then a 180 to the left again. It was the worst set of curves on the stretch of scenic highway.
The truck peeled away from the guardrail and sped after Charlie. As Charlie reached the first curve, he shut off his lights, reducing visibility almost to zero. He down-shifted and strained to see the white line he was leaning away from. Then, practicing counter-steering, he yanked the bars in the other direction. He felt the bike jerk and begin to break loose against the wet asphalt. He could detect the headlights of the truck entering the first curve.
“Hey, did we lose him?” Sam shouted, as the truck entered the first leg of the series of curves.
In his zeal to catch the swerving biker, Bobby took the lack of taillight as a challenge, accelerating even more before reaching the curves. “There’s nowhere for that sonovabitch to go except to hell,” he shouted, spinning the steering wheel to navigate the first curve. He thought he saw a glint of chrome at the bottom of the curve, and quickly flashed his high beams on and off.
“I can’t see shit,” Sam shouted as they entered the hairpin right.
Charlie gunned his bike in the darkness, emerging from the first 180 before heading across the white line to the inland side of the road. His front wheel, barely visible in the fog fell into the ditch along side a cowcatcher and bounced in and out of the small creek that followed the highway. Charlie left the seat as the front end collapsed and extended, leading him directly into the side of the mountain.
“Turn off the high beams!” Sam yelled at the top of his lungs as the truck careened around the tight right.
“Where is that sonovabitch?” Bobby shouted, slamming into his door and flailing at the steering wheel for control. The truck’s light blinked at the hillside, then back at the guardrail. The windshield was wet with fog and the truck began to slide.
Bobby tried to focus on his surroundings, but the truck was moving faster, spinning. In the fog, he couldn’t tell what direction he was headed. His anger spurred him to thrust his foot against the gas pedal while continuing to turn the steering wheel in the wrong direction. Then the rear bumper caught something on the seaside of the road, and the violent screech of metal tore through the night. For a moment, Bobby could see hillside, but then his headlights revealed only fog, then asphalt, guardrail.
The truck slammed into the corrugated, galvanized metal. For a split second, Bobby was relieved to see the steel barrier, but then the vehicle lifted against the short railing and leaned.
“Oh, my god!” Sam cried out, as his truck door began to crash in against him. The Chevy wasn’t stopping, but instead was rolling over the railing. “Do something!” he shouted as the vehicle lifted the railing, tearing into the entire side of the truck.
Bobby slammed his foot against the brake pedal as he realized that the wheels were being lifted off the ground, and that he was sliding across the bench seat toward his friend. He tried to hang on to the plastic steering wheel, but the truck was on its side, pivoting on the top of the safety railing.
“Oh god, please!” Bobby implored as the vehicle’s inertia took it over the railing and into a free fall toward the jagged crags below.
The truck exploded against the rocks.
Charlie backed his bike back down the cow path, checked it for damages, and continued into town.
