One gun, two knives, shot whiskey and the fertility goddesses

I arrived astride Bessie dinner time on Saturday night after 7 hours on the 9% rain-soaked grade, washboard-patch-paved mountain switchbacks. I got to the camp right at EENT.

I made the icy oil-mud rink campsite turn-in. Buxom babe in bra and barely nothing bounced out of her tent cheerleading something crazy. I had 550# of babe beneath me already. So, I filed the fact-of away — and promptly dropped my bike in the mud.

Wet and cranky I made the slump o shame to a campfire in the distance.

Texts told me that Guiseppe and Porkpie were warming their heels up in the lodge, all dry and buffet-ed. I joined them for the dregs of the buffet. Some scurrilous lying piece of chicken. Mounted back up and rode back to the rink – all vertical and all.

The corpses of Lynrd Skynrd were up on stage under the band shell, calling to us like acne-scarred sirens. Porkpie got on his Frog Toggs – “ladies love the Frog Toggs.” Guiseppe pocketed the flask – “for medicinal purposes.”

We stayed, ogling the addled aint-bringing-sexy-back BMW babes, none of us dancing, flask notwithstanding. Shuffle-slid our way back down the slippery grass slopes to the rink. Same campfire in the distance, and that’s where we met . . .

Ganja Guy sang us a song and offered to share. The song he sang was one he wrote while doing 9.5 months of 16. The bill of particulars?

“Growing with intent to distribute”

video on youtube.

He sang all six verses to us a capella, unaccompanied by the light of the Poverty Riders’ bonfire. Due to our day jobs Guiseppe, Porkpie and I have we couldn’t even think about accepting his kind offer. Said he only had a public defender and got railroaded. Cops said he had 28 plants. Au contraire said Ganja Guy,

“I only had 18.”

Cops said they plants were 8′ high. Au contraire, Ganja Guy protested. His attorney showed scientifically with coke can for scale

They were only 5′ high.

Everytime someone left the fire to go to bed, all would sing

“Weeding out the weak.”

These are “Poverty Riders” — BMW gypsy riders who live on edge of food, clothing and shelter They gaffer-tape their airheads to keep ’em running. They go from rally to rally . They live on peanut butter and jelly in the off-season to do just this.

They’re like the cranky, crack-knee’d NCOs that this reporter feared as a tenderfoot lieutenant. They smoke too much, they drink too much. They owned the campsite, had the best fire, made the most noise, gave the least quarter. And don’t even think of being water-cooled around them without a beat-down.

“ … there’s some lovely filth down ‘ere … ”

Like a cross betweenYoda, Gollum and the peasants in The Holy Grail, they cackle and smirk. They hoot like Disney hyenas on meth. They’re a log-throwing, can-crushing, gap-toothed lot in the middle of the campground of esquirely effete cruise-controlling hex-head owners.

Just rained and rained all night. The line for coffee at the roach coach about the length of a square-tire skid. The grass is like ice. Sodden airheads all over the place refusing to start. Surly oilheads refusing to stay upright – not unlike some of their riders the night before.

The rain quit. We lingered, we loitered. We watched riders of varied confidences pick their slippery lines out of the campsite, bikes all ass-end swiveling loosey-goosey.

She piloted her own. As high-slung as she was, she rode the R1200C, a decidedly low-slung bike. She looked like the model in the BMW apparel catalogs. Plus, she talked. To us. Bonus.

We were like stupid teenagers. We all wanted to bask in her Toronto glow. Each of us wishing we were the Spanish exchange student she and stupid husband were hosting up north.

Indian Medicine Man Ken White Hawk crossed the country on his /6. We met when he came back to camp for the side-case that had fallen off. He got his case, and a case of the ass from his poverty brethren.

Ken claims Seneca, Seminole and Creek with some black and german. The man’s a walking story book. A former Manhattan friend introduced him to an indian medicine man in T or C, New Mexico. Guy looked him up and down said,

“What kind of fkkng indian are you?”

Spent the next 4 months studying with the guy, Carlos Castañeda style.

Time came to un-ass the campsite ourselves. Secret fears abound –

“please don’t let me dump this thing … ”

in front of the unworthy remaining rabble, in the last 10, muddy-ice bog feet of the campsite turn-out gauntlet.

Everybody, even Bessie and me, made the turnout vertical. We rolled west out of the valley and north onto the main road. All of us jones-ing for some thing warm, some place dry, we pulled in at the town’s unlikely gourmet coffee shop.

At Hypnocoffee, we plugged in. We ordered 7# omelettes. Summer said

“Tony and I make beautiful babies.”

when I asked her about her kiddos in a photo at the till.

She looked like a sweeter Meryl Streep. The guys were quite taken. We got our sissy coffees and our 7# omelettes and we browned-out the county with our 17 electronics charging.

After chowing-down, we smoked off the café balcony, overlooking the creek, while the rain bands came and went. While I smoked up retail Medicine Man Ken rolled his own.

Medicine Man Ken started singing and yipping “John The Revelator.”

“Who wrote the book of the 7 Seals?

John The Revelator”

Well, fkkk me. I was knocked-out unloaded. That was the chain-gang work-party song I’d listened to inbound on the slab.

“How?”

“I played in a band … oh, and Son House, yeah, close personal friend”

“Going to California, you better have this.”

I handed him the iPod shuffle w the mix I’d made for the Willie-Mellencamp-Dylan show from Friday night – that included JTRevelator. He said “You want me to send it back to you?”

“That’s up to you, Grasshopper.”

Tension rose with the threatening rain bands. It felt like taping up jungle boots and stack-and-swivels on M16s for the night’s recon. It was becoming clear – we were on a mission from God. Guiseppe south. Porkpie and I north. We’d get the bastards from both ends.

Ten minutes into the ride, we took to drafting an ambulance angling in anger. 10 miles later, Jon Law rolled up behind us and asked for the pleasure of our company. Said

“Ambulance driver called you in. Didn’t want you landing in the back of his ride.”

“Like a cigar?”

“Thank you, but no thanks.”

Porkpie and I took an hour off. We waited out a band of rain with a couple of fatties and some Fresca.

Back on the road I watched Sportbike Killah Millah fling his K1200LT, con trailer, around the switchbacks. Swinging up on to 2-Horse ridge I averted my gaze to avoid eye contact with the hypnotic mile-high windmills.

About the time I needed gas, we ran up on Jon Law at a speed starting with an “8” — Loudon County Sheriff, so we took the first exit.

Having enjoyed the constabulary in WV, we were gun-shy about getting documens’d in the old dominion. Sure enough after turning around in Round Hill, 2 lay in ambush. Crushing John Deere speed kept the hounds at bay.

Once out of the old dominion, we runned & gunned on I-70. We split lanes and rooster-tailed our way out of God’s country.