The Fall Guy

I had trouble getting up this morning. Having not slept well for several days, I think I’ve worn myself out with all the fretting required for me to go on this trip. I left Reno at around ten o’clock this morning. Or maybe it was eleven. Reno is a sprawling place with tract-mobile-housing developments and it takes a while to get out.

The GPS is really working out. I pre-loaded all the routes I was going to take from my computer and sync’d them to my GPS. I labeled them Day 1, Day 2 etc. I checked the unit and everything looked A OK. When I pulled out of my driveway yesterday and powered it up and went looking for ‘Day 1’ I found that I had ‘no data’. All of them where gone. No biggie, I just looked up the Silver Legacy in Reno on the map and off I went. I didn’t need the routes and it was unlikely I’d stick to them one-hundred percent anyway. When I left Reno this morning, I saw a sign stating that Las Vegas 440 miles away. After riding for an hour, following the GPS, I saw a sign that said Last Vegas 453 miles. This seemed inconsistent with the purpose of a GPS. But at the same time, it met my stated goals of taking a long time to get there so I continued to follow the pink line it was painting for me on my little GPS screen. Trip ended up taking 482 miles.

Other than it taking me on some really interesting roads through small shitty towns, where most everything was boarded up, it was generally getting me closer to Las Vegas. I’ve never said to myself “Hey look, an acre of sand for sale!” so many times. There was lots of crap dumped on the sides of the road. I passed several landfills on the way too. I think they should do better job of increasing customer awareness or consider lowering their prices. I also passed a huge, dead, salty lake. They had a sign that boasted “20 Miles of Beach”. It was desolate. I’m not sure why you would come to this place. Maybe to fish for gefelte? Maybe to take your pickle water skiing? Across from the ‘beach’ there where some dramatic rock formations. Unfortunately, they had a bit of spay paint on them. I tried to read them all as I drove by. “Jason Loves Clair” was a common theme. And there where a lot of “Jesus Saves”, “He Died For YOU” and “Jesus Lives”. I looked for a small hardware store for the next few miles so I could get a can of paint. I was going to ride back and write “Jesus Hates Graffiti”. Unfortunately, everything in Nevada is closed.

I rode past business after business with signs promoting various goods and services yet the businesses they referred to where all tits up. Some of them started advertising miles before you came up to the proprietor: “Best Beef Jerky Around” and then “Fresh Jerky” and then “Don’t Miss Our Jerky”. And then I’d come up on the jerky making enterprise and it would have a caved in roof. Jerky did not look fresh. There was a lot of bi-polar marketing where a business would have both an “Open” and a “Closed” sign. The open signs where bright and hopeful and confident. The closed signs where sometimes painting hastily on the wall, possibly while a running car was waiting. In these sign battles, 'Closed' had always won.

I stopped at around noon and pulled off on a dirt road and drove out of sight of the highway. I’ve learned, that if you stop a Harley on the highway everyone stops to try and ‘help’. “Are you OK buddy?”, “Need a cell phone?”, “Are you in trouble”.
I guess you could say this was foreshadowing but more on that later. Anyway, I pulled off the road, made sure there where no snakes or scorpions where I was going to put my feet down, ate my sandwich, smoked one of the cigarettes I stole from my father, shot at a car part, an appliance and a glass bottle. I wasn’t going to bring the handgun with me but my Father told me I should. He’s really smart, has a Master of Education and gave me sound advice all throughout my life. I listen to him. And so far, the gun has been a real hit with me. I like to shoot stuff. Now I need more ammo. After lunch, I rode back up to the highway and took off down the road.

I know I’m sounding very down on Nevada but I’m just telling it like it is. I would prefer to avoid this state on my way back. I spent a lot of time today staring at Nevada license plates. I came up with a new slogan for them: “Nevada: Skip It”

Hey, that was fun, I think I’ll do that some more later.

I avoided “The OTHER Box” issue today for most of the morning and afternoon. I thought maybe I’d give myself the day off from starting to look for one. But, of course, if you don’t start looking in the first place you really can’t take a day off. I did a fast U-turn to go back to a little general store I saw. I was able to see a part of a counter display when I blew by, because I don’t think they had a door, and it seemed that it might be a good safe place to start my hunt. They had a roof and everything.

They claimed to have ‘antiques’ but it was really just a garage sale where they charged sales tax. I could not find anything suitable during my first pass through the store but then I spotted a thermos from an 80’s TV show on the bottom shelf below some commemorative Amish Country shot glasses. When I was checking out, the proprietor discovered that my thermos lacked a price tag and she bemoaned having to “look it up in the book”. Unfortunately, this gave us an opportunity to chat.

Are you a fan of “The Fall Guy”?

No

What do you need this for?

I just need a really good thermos.

I’m not sure this is what you are looking for.

It’s just what I need.

I don’t know if this is going to work well for you! It’s not a good thermos. It’s more for children’s milk! (getting upset)

It’ll be great for me. It’s perfect.

I don’t think it even opens anymore. Have you made sure it will work?

Nothing will work for what I’m going to put in it.

She looked at me like I was a total weirdo after I said that. Personally, I think she shouldn’t have been judging me. I’m wasn’t the one selling a used 80’s TV show thermos for $3.50 on a remote highway in an essentially deserted state. And besides, across the street from her shop, in plain view of where we where talking, was a line of one-room bright pink single wide mobile homes with a giant letter on each unit spelling out “P L A Y M A T E R A N C H”. I’m sure she has better customers to pass judgment on than me.

Nevada is tore up.

Eventually, I made it to Las Vegas. And with Vegas, came traffic. I went from a single lane, sometimes dirt like, road to a big-time seven lane express way with lots of merging, darting cars and lights. The sun had set and I was not seeing well or riding well. My bike seemed to have really mushy handling like I had a flat tire or something. It was also running really hot. It had started running hot about a hundred miles earlier. I’d pulled into a gas station and it would not idle right. The engine was revving up even though I had released the throttle. I had just pulled off the highway when the RPMs shot up. I pulled up to a gas pump and killed the engine. I let the bike cool off a little, filled it up with gas and then was back up to highway speeds, right out of the pumps, and sort of forgot about it.

Now, in Las Vegas on a Saturday night, in traffic, the super hot over-revving bike was an issue. I knew I had to get off the freeway and to the hotel to figure this out. I was so tired, having rode all day through the desert, that I couldn’t think straight. It seemed to take forever to get to the Bellagio. If you’ve ever been to the Las Vegas strip you will be able to relate to this. Once off the expressway, it was a total mad-house. It took me forty-five minutes to get from the off-ramp to the Bellagio parking garage which is only about two miles. At this point, the bike was burning the crap out of my left leg. I was riding with my right foot bent behind me and hooked up on the rear passenger pegs to try to get it away from the heat of the engine. The bike was riding horribly but there was so much traffic I could not pull over, even if there was a place to pull over.

I was managing by shifting to first with my left leg, throttling up with my right hand, rolling five feet, hooking my left foot back on the rear passenger peg, breaking with my right foot, leaning right so the bike would fall that way so I could balance it on the right foot only, clutching with my left hand, rolling the throttle opposite direction with my right hand to force the revving engine down. I was processing these steps with my left brain leaving my right brain free to be embarrassed. Sometimes this would not work right and the bike with lurch, choke or I would nearly hit the car in front of me. I had about a football field’s length left to go.

I had to forcibly crank the throttle the opposite direction you would normally twist the throttle otherwise the bike would starting revving higher and higher. And it was making a really strong burning smell. I hoped it was not flesh. It was hard, if not impossible, to operate the bike in bumper to bumper traffic with the throttle stuck. My hand kept slipping off the grip and the bike would jump, backfire and boom because of the ‘twice as loud’ pipes that Dirk put on it (see earlier post). Did I mention how loud my bike is now? Try pulling it into a “valley” of fifty story mega hotels and take a listen to the echo it makes in that canyon.

You may have heard about the big fountain show they have in front of the Bellagio. Every hour, they have a fantastic dancing water show timed to beautiful music from the likes of the blind opera singer Andrea Bocelli. That was at least what they where trying to play tonight. There were hundreds and hundreds of people, from all over the world, lined up in front of the Bellagio with their lovers, families and video cameras to watch the show. Unfortunately for their keepsake moment, I was ten feet away from them, stuck in traffic, with an obnoxious modified Harley-Davidson with a stuck throttle. And did I mention that it was hot and sort of burning? I wasn’t the only one who could smell it. It was a scene. And it lasted for what seemed like forever. I was finally able to make the turn into the parking garage and locate a place to park the fucking bike. I pulled in, shut it off and jumped off like I was on fire. Because I was. My pants where actually smoking. And the bike was smoking. A lot. I’d parked in a motorcycle parking area and I started to get concerned that it would catch on fire and then catch all the other bikes on fire and cause even more embarrassment. And then I rescued Leigh. Fortunately, the biked stopped smoking. I don’t know what is wrong with it, why it was driving like it had two flat tires, why it got so hot, why the throttle was sticking and why it was smoking.

I was sweating so bad from all the heat but I did not want to take my jacket off. The Bellgio is a nice hotel. It’s full of people in dresses, suits and black evening wear. I did not want to walk in there with a soaking wet t-shirt and my hair matted down smelling like burnt kevlar and leather with no explanation. Did I mention it was hot? It was like 90 degrees at 9PM in Vegas. I thought that if I had the jacket on it would be more obvious that I rode a motorcycle in and that might explain the way I smelled.

I went to the lobby and checked in. I had Leigh with me but I’d left all the crap on my bike. I was just too tired to carry it all. I don’t have one bag. It’s more like six smaller bags and it’s like juggling puppies trying to carry it all at once. I learned that, the night before, in Reno. I asked for a bellman. What I got was Sherry.

Sherry was really helpful and inquisitive. She came with one of those big rolling carts and pushed it out to my bike with me and started asking a lot of questions. I had just been through a real tough time and I was not in the mood to talk. I was a little distracted and disoriented and was having a anxious and surreal moment. Sherry told me that if I had any questions about San Diego, she knew that area real well, so I should ask them while I had the chance. My brain sort of hung on this. San Diego? That was like six hours away. Why would she think I’d want to ask about San Diego? I was really confused already and this really put me off center. No explanation for this non-sequitur was forthcoming. Then, as we rolled out to the parking structure, she told me to be careful of the ‘air’. Lots of people have asthma attacks because of the ‘air’ in the hotel. Huh? She must have seen my total confusion and she became defensive. She told me it wasn’t funny and that a guest had a bad asthma attack and had to go the hospital and she’d had one just last week. We started getting close to the bike and I noted it was not smoking. Good. When we got up to it, she reached for the black plastic box. It happened so suddenly, I was caught off guard. I held on to it and would not let go. I could not get the words out fast enough. My brain instantly went to an image of her taking the box from me, reading the label, being surprised at what she was holding, dropping it on the concrete and it breaking open. I pulled, she pulled and I could not believe that she was so insistent. I finally blurted out “This is MY WIFE” and she let go. She was surprised, but did not understand. I was stuck at this point. I told her this box contained my wife’s ashes and that I was on a road trip to New Mexico to meet her family so we could spread them. She got that. I said I’m just not comfortable with anyone touching this box. She got that too.

I realized, at that moment, that I’m the only one that has held this box, other than the mortician. He handed it to me about a week or so after Leigh died. Walking into the mortuary was an other-worldly experience. I parked an their empty lot and walked into the building. It felt like I was walking on sponges. I'd driven there in Leigh’ s mini-van and when I came back out, I put it between the front seats. Afterwards, I drove to the grocery store and went inside. I didn't need anything, but I had an overwhelming need to do something normal. I’ve never felt so alone in my life.

I put Leigh on Sherry’s cart. I put her sort-of in the middle so she would not fall off and cause a scene. Both Sherry and I had trouble making eye contact at this point. I walked back over to the bike, opened up the big case on the back of it and looked inside at the revolver. I shut the case real fast. I totally forgot about the gun. It was sitting right on top of everything. I was trying to think of what to do. Should I tell Sherry that I had everything I needed? Would she think it was odd that I’d called a bellman to cart up one small box of loved-one to my room? I needed a diversion. I walked around the bike and opened a saddle bag on the opposite side of the way the top bag opened so you could not see the contents when I opened the lid again. I asked Sherry to get the things out of that saddle bag for me and when she ducked down to get them, I grabbed the gun, folded it up in my jacket, laid the jacket on the ground. I then started grabbing things I actually needed so I could put them on the cart. Sherry cut me off before I reached the cart to take them from me like a good bellman should. She said is was her job to put things on the cart. I was flustered at this point. I started taking things out, then putting them back, then taking them out again… Sherry started looking at my crossways. At that point, I knew I had to bring this moment to and end quick so I bent down and grabbed the jacket with the gun rolled up in it so I could stuff it in the bike’s top case and shut the door. When I stood up with the jacket, Shery was right there to grab it from me. She pulled, I pulled and I sort of snapped at her that I CAN TAKE THIS MYSELF! And then I stuffed it in the top case and slammed the case shut and locked it. That probably didn’t make sense to her but I had locked it up and I was heading to the room. I could tell that Sherry was sort of put off by me now. On the uncomfortable elevator ride up to my room, she re-iterated the warning to not breathe the ‘air’. She said sternly "I mean it". I held my breath as long as I could and then turned away so she couldn't see me gasp for more air then looked back at her quickly and smiled.

Once in the room, I tried to help carry the bags in but she would have none of it. I gave her a $20 tip because I felt like she had carried a big burden up to my room. The box seems to weigh about a million pounds to me and I figured it was not her average customer service job. The $20 tip was a mistake because now she started being even more helpful. I wanted her to leave so bad but she just kept being helpful. She asked me if I had a network cable for my laptop. I said no. She then said that there is a network jack in the wall, and they run a cable from the wall to the desk lamp, and I could just take the cable, that runs form the wall to the lamp, and plug in my computer directly. She laid down on her back and slid under the desk and started unwinding the cable. She said they had it screwed in with a cable clip and asked me if I had a Leatherman. I really wanted her to leave. I said I did not. She said she could try and bite off the clamp with her teeth. I wanted to grab her by the ankles and pull her out from under the desk but I did not want to be impolite. I asked if there was another way I could get a cable and she told me they have them in the mini-bar but they are $4 and she was trying to save me some money.

After Sherry left, I got a network cable and three beers from the min-bar. I felt better and decided to go get the gun off the bike. I went down there with my riding gear on, for the same reasons I mentioned earlier. I figured I would just reach in, grab it, put it in my waistband, and come right back to the room. It was only as I was walking down there that I started to get worried. It was probably all the surveillance cameras and security guards that got me jumpy. When I got to the bike, I started looking around for the cameras but then I thought that all the looking around is going to bring attention to myself. I just walked up, opened the box, grabbed the gun and left. I’m not sure what the gun laws are in Nevada but I’m sure I know I was committing a felony by California standards. Bad advice Dad. This scores right up there with “Don’t take a drink of your beer as you are driving through an intersection because that’s where they get you”


Anyway, day two is now at and end. Only eight more to go before I start heading home.