James Burleigh
Well-known member
Weary of waiting outside in that dusty Creston heat for our tribe to appear from Southern California, Silent and I headed into the restaurant to secure a table. We stepped through the front door like a couple of gunslingers. Stopping just inside the threshold, we removed our sunglasses and surveyed the interior, nodding and wearing our very best bad-ass, squinty-eyed Clint Eastwood expressions: That’s right, ladies and gentlemen—We ride motorcycles. Big fast shiny Yeah-maha motorcycles. And they’re right outside in case anyone wants to see ‘em…. Anyone? Anyone?
The restaurant was dark inside, so coming in out of the bright sunlight, our pupils were the size of the period at the end of this sentence. That made our squinty-eyed Eastwood impressions turn out to be a bad strategy for looking cool: I tripped over the uneven floor, and Silent walked into a table.
As our eyes adjusted, the interior gathered definition. The place had the look of an Old West saloon—in other words, like it hadn’t been maintained for 125 years. A bar ran half-way down the length of the room immediately to our right. Behind it stood a very short woman. Barely able to see above the countertop, she eyed us—well, me—with obvious admiration (just as all women do between the ages of 18 and 55, all the more so now that I ride a motorcycle).
Behind the short woman, on shelves behind the bar, was the usual assortment of liquor bottles. Past the bar toward the back of the building was an open space with a number of picnic tables placed at odd angles to the walls, as if a cat had arranged them. No doubt that was the restaurant portion of the building. And that’s where the Harley Tribe were. They still weren’t noticing us.
At the bar sat a half-dozen denizens surveying us curiously over their hunched right shoulders, one hand hanging onto a glass or bottle. It was clear several of them had had a few drinks already, judging by the sheen in their eyes and the way their heads moved like a German Shepherd bobble-head glued to the dash of a ’67 Chevy Malibu.
More accustomed to the costume of the Harley tribe, they examined Silent and me. Silent’s curious gray-and-black Aerostitch made him look like he was there to power wash the windows. And if Silent looked like a power washer, in my matching pastel-blue leathers I must have looked to them like a Power Ranger.
In answer to their gaze, we gritted our teeth, nodded a Damn straight! Damn freakin’ straight! and marched toward the back like we’d just bought the place for a buck and a half (which would have been more than it was worth). As we walked past the bar those bobble-heads swiveled on around to left shoulders, causing me to wonder if my leather pants made my hiney look flat. The thought of hiney padding floated into my mind. But when I caught sight of the Harley contingent sprawled across several tables and pitchers of beer at the back in the restaurant section, I chased that thought away, reserving it for a more appropriate time, like maybe NAFO.
We stopped and searched for a table. Yep. The Harley tribe had taken the better tables (so long as by “better” we agree we mean the ones that had four legs and were covered in checkered lime-green plastic tablecloths to cover up the archaeological strata of gradu).
Electing not to beat up the Harley guys and gals, Silent and I went out the door into the garden patio (so long as by “garden patio” we agree we mean a cracked concrete slab in need of a hose down littered with bits and pieces of old automobiles and broken pots containing dead plants).
The heat hit us like a Thanksgiving turkey check, causing an image from a childhood black-and-white TV movie memory to flash into my mind: The first explorers to Mars are making their way along the base of a cliff, careful to stay out of the sun lest its burning rays set them on fire. Suddenly a giant rock monster steps out from the side of the cliffs, sending two men fleeing into the sunlight, where they combust spontaneously.
Cool. I looked at Silent in anticipation. When he didn’t combust, I began to wonder: When you step out onto the garden patio in the back of a restaurant, are you still “in” the restaurant. If not, then how could the SoCal contingent ever find us if they only ever looked in the restaurant?
I began to worry that a metaphysical conundrum would forever keep us from hooking up with the SoCal group, and silently cursed Wittgenstein for his “What is the meaning of a word?” and his “What is the meaning of meaning?”
F**k you, Wittgenstein! I bet you know what that means!
“Where do you wanna sit?” asked Silent, yanking me back into his man-on-the-street world.
I looked around. A couple of large trees cast dappled shadows through their canopies onto the tables and broken pots. A black drip-irrigation hose snaked along a rope above the tables, shooting small jets of mist over the tables. I pointed, and we set to work re-arranging several tables end to end in the partial shade.
That’s when we heard the sound of motorcycles pulling up out front, and through the fence slats caught sight of glistening bits of silver and blue. Silent and I looked at each other like Bonnie and Clyde just before they got hosed with 50-caliber machine-gun fire, then eagerly rushed to the front of the restaurant just in time to see about ten FJRs and some other funky weird-ass looking V-bike pulling up onto the sun-baked dirt in front of the restaurant.
Silent and I mutely watched as the bikes came to rest on side or center stands, and as one by one the anonymous extra-terrestrial creatures in colorful Super Hero costumes stretched and rose and descended from their splendid machines.
As soon as their boots contacted the Earth, kicking up tiny clouds of dust, like Daphne’s transforming into a laurel tree the moment she was caught by Apollo, the conversion back into mere mortal humans was instantaneous and complete, and helmets were removed.
Silent and I smiled, eager to meet our new friends. This was our tribe at last—We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
Jb
The restaurant was dark inside, so coming in out of the bright sunlight, our pupils were the size of the period at the end of this sentence. That made our squinty-eyed Eastwood impressions turn out to be a bad strategy for looking cool: I tripped over the uneven floor, and Silent walked into a table.
As our eyes adjusted, the interior gathered definition. The place had the look of an Old West saloon—in other words, like it hadn’t been maintained for 125 years. A bar ran half-way down the length of the room immediately to our right. Behind it stood a very short woman. Barely able to see above the countertop, she eyed us—well, me—with obvious admiration (just as all women do between the ages of 18 and 55, all the more so now that I ride a motorcycle).
Behind the short woman, on shelves behind the bar, was the usual assortment of liquor bottles. Past the bar toward the back of the building was an open space with a number of picnic tables placed at odd angles to the walls, as if a cat had arranged them. No doubt that was the restaurant portion of the building. And that’s where the Harley Tribe were. They still weren’t noticing us.
At the bar sat a half-dozen denizens surveying us curiously over their hunched right shoulders, one hand hanging onto a glass or bottle. It was clear several of them had had a few drinks already, judging by the sheen in their eyes and the way their heads moved like a German Shepherd bobble-head glued to the dash of a ’67 Chevy Malibu.
More accustomed to the costume of the Harley tribe, they examined Silent and me. Silent’s curious gray-and-black Aerostitch made him look like he was there to power wash the windows. And if Silent looked like a power washer, in my matching pastel-blue leathers I must have looked to them like a Power Ranger.
In answer to their gaze, we gritted our teeth, nodded a Damn straight! Damn freakin’ straight! and marched toward the back like we’d just bought the place for a buck and a half (which would have been more than it was worth). As we walked past the bar those bobble-heads swiveled on around to left shoulders, causing me to wonder if my leather pants made my hiney look flat. The thought of hiney padding floated into my mind. But when I caught sight of the Harley contingent sprawled across several tables and pitchers of beer at the back in the restaurant section, I chased that thought away, reserving it for a more appropriate time, like maybe NAFO.
We stopped and searched for a table. Yep. The Harley tribe had taken the better tables (so long as by “better” we agree we mean the ones that had four legs and were covered in checkered lime-green plastic tablecloths to cover up the archaeological strata of gradu).
Electing not to beat up the Harley guys and gals, Silent and I went out the door into the garden patio (so long as by “garden patio” we agree we mean a cracked concrete slab in need of a hose down littered with bits and pieces of old automobiles and broken pots containing dead plants).
The heat hit us like a Thanksgiving turkey check, causing an image from a childhood black-and-white TV movie memory to flash into my mind: The first explorers to Mars are making their way along the base of a cliff, careful to stay out of the sun lest its burning rays set them on fire. Suddenly a giant rock monster steps out from the side of the cliffs, sending two men fleeing into the sunlight, where they combust spontaneously.
Cool. I looked at Silent in anticipation. When he didn’t combust, I began to wonder: When you step out onto the garden patio in the back of a restaurant, are you still “in” the restaurant. If not, then how could the SoCal contingent ever find us if they only ever looked in the restaurant?
I began to worry that a metaphysical conundrum would forever keep us from hooking up with the SoCal group, and silently cursed Wittgenstein for his “What is the meaning of a word?” and his “What is the meaning of meaning?”
F**k you, Wittgenstein! I bet you know what that means!
“Where do you wanna sit?” asked Silent, yanking me back into his man-on-the-street world.
I looked around. A couple of large trees cast dappled shadows through their canopies onto the tables and broken pots. A black drip-irrigation hose snaked along a rope above the tables, shooting small jets of mist over the tables. I pointed, and we set to work re-arranging several tables end to end in the partial shade.
That’s when we heard the sound of motorcycles pulling up out front, and through the fence slats caught sight of glistening bits of silver and blue. Silent and I looked at each other like Bonnie and Clyde just before they got hosed with 50-caliber machine-gun fire, then eagerly rushed to the front of the restaurant just in time to see about ten FJRs and some other funky weird-ass looking V-bike pulling up onto the sun-baked dirt in front of the restaurant.
Silent and I mutely watched as the bikes came to rest on side or center stands, and as one by one the anonymous extra-terrestrial creatures in colorful Super Hero costumes stretched and rose and descended from their splendid machines.
As soon as their boots contacted the Earth, kicking up tiny clouds of dust, like Daphne’s transforming into a laurel tree the moment she was caught by Apollo, the conversion back into mere mortal humans was instantaneous and complete, and helmets were removed.
Silent and I smiled, eager to meet our new friends. This was our tribe at last—We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
Jb
Last edited by a moderator:
.Oh, by the Hans, I've taken all your 4 chapters, cut n pasted them into one document, framed it, and now it hangs at the Longbranch for all to see and read! Just kidding.
