I previously posted about riding with some bikers while I was stationed at Fort Benning. If you’ve read a few of my posts, you might have read that one. I also posted about my lady biker girlfriend of sorts who liked to be called ‘Chains’ who also watched out for me like a protective mother hen. More on her in a moment. Anyway, I took a break from riding with my ‘friends’ for a few weeks to go back home on leave. While I was back on the prairie in North Dakota, I rode a lot with my old friends from my former life. Times were great. I loved riding down the country roads with the bike going basically as fast as it could go, eating as many bugs as I could catch. Cuz at a hundred miles per hour on a bike, you catch and eat lots of damn bugs. Pure protein right there. Yes sirree. No doubt about it. Yum. Yum. Personally, I prefer the crunchy ones over the juicy ones. They tend not to make a helluva mess when they hit you. The big juicy ones. Yeah. Those little bastards splash all over the goddamn place and just generally leave you feeling pretty miserable. If you’ve ever seen the big juicy ones splash against the windshield of a car, you know exactly what I mean. Plus, they kind of sting a little when they hit you too. Goddamn kamikaze bastards. Word of advice here folks: if you pass the local highway patrolman while you’re out blasting down the road at twenty, thirty or forty miles over the speed limit and you aren’t wearing a helmet, don’t smile and wave at the guy. Even if you know him by name. No sir. Not a wise idea. It really doesn’t matter how many donuts he’s eaten since the last time you saw him or how many of your high school sweethearts he’s dated. Not a smart idea. Just don’t do it. It is best to let a sleeping giant sleep. Okay? Why? Because, you guessed it. If you stir up a hornets’ nest, you’re quite likely to get stung. And I did exactly that, one fine day while on leave when I was headed back to my hometown from another town. I woke a sleeping giant, so to speak. I waved at the local highway patrol officer. He immediately flipped a U-turn on the highway, turned on the cherry bubble, and pulled me over. He walked up and said, “How is it going, Wright?” I looked at him and noted, “Oh, I’m alright Rod. I see you still know the way to the donut shop.” “And I see that the Army didn’t teach you how to read.” Touché. I had to admit, the bastard had me. I asked, “What prompted you to go out of your way and turn around? Did you miss me while I was gone?” “Not very damn likely, wise guy,” he retorted. “You see, we have these little white rectangular signs with numbers on them posted every so often along the road to indicate the speed limit. You might have seen one even if you couldn’t read it.” “You don’t say. I really hadn’t noticed.” “Well then, there is this other problem where you weren’t wearing a helmet.” “But, if you look closely, Rod, the bike is wearing one. So, technically, I do have a helmet.” “Well, I figure I’m going to have to give you a ticket. Here, let me twist my arm a little bit.” “Yeah. You’re such a swell guy.” “Hey, I’m cutting you a break. I’m only writing you up for not wearing the helmet. Make sure you go to court for that. Hint. Hint.” “Thanks, Rod. Here’s a few bucks. Have a couple of donuts on me. Don’t eat them all at one time.” The highway patrolman really did let me off the hook because the helmet law in North Dakota was not enforceable. Every biker in North Dakota knew that. If he had written me up for speeding, I’d have been hosed. So, I returned the favor and fed his donut fetish? Donut habit? Whatever. A few days later, I was riding south to Jamestown on Highway 281 with a friend. We had just started to enter the downhill curve into town when a tan Dodge Dart nearly clipped the front-end of my bike and forced me off of the road. Since I was up at speed and there was a guardrail right beside me, I bailed from the bike. I was afraid the bike would collide with the guardrail. It didn’t. I did. That shit hurt! My right leg hit that sucker, and I went up in the air and somersaulted a few times into the ditch beyond. Talk about panic. That was exactly what I did. That shit they say about your life flashing in front of you just before you buy the farm, well, I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of nuclear weapons in the European Theater. I can’t even tell you what movie was playing that day. But what I can tell you is this, I was scared shitless. Yep. I could feel the constipation building for days. When I was done moving and realized that I could still move, I started worrying all over again. Where in the hell were my keys? Oh shit. I lost my keys. Everything was on that keyring. The keys to my car, the keys to my wall locker, the keys to my foot locker, the keys to my rice burner back at Fort Benning, the keys to Chains’ hog. Everything was on that keyring. I’m screwed! Shit. Shit. Shit. Damn. Damn. Damn. Then, I heard it. The buzz of my bike’s engine. Oh, yeah. My keys were in the bike. Whew! Sure, dodged a bullet there. Oh shit. Where in the hell was my wallet? Wait. What was that lump in my pocket? My wallet. Thank God. Oh shit. I was missing a shoe. There was no saving the shoe, though. It had literally been torn off of my right foot when I went over the guardrail. The bike was more or less okay. I bent the gearshift lever and broke a signal light. That was it for damage to the bike. I was not so lucky. I severely damaged the right knee and quadriceps muscle of my right leg. Not to mention that my right foot was a little tore up. A police officer came by and asked if I was okay. I said, “I don’t think I can ride to the hospital, so I will need a ride. Have you seen my friend?” The cop replied, “Your friend stopped me on patrol and told me about the Dodge that ran you off of the road. One of our other units has detained that guy on the south end of town for leaving the scene of an accident and for DUI.” “Oh wow. I didn’t realize the jerk was drunk or anything. I just thought he was being an asshole when he ran me off of the road.” Long story short, when I got back to Fort Benning a week later and finally saw Chains and the rest of the crew a few days after that, they wanted to take a small road trip to North Dakota. Chains was kind of smothering me. She slobbered, “Oh baby cakes. That creep hurt you. I need to tear him apart. Please say I can pile drive his ass into the concrete a few times. Pretty please.” I tried to talk sense into her, “Be reasonable, Chains. Riding all the way to North Dakota might give you a little satisfaction. But I’m fine. In a few weeks, I’ll be as good as new. Plus, that asshole is rotting in jail right now for what he did. So, we’d just be wasting our time going up there. They don’t have enough donuts in all of North Dakota to bribe the cops while we break into jail and beat his punk ass up.” “Well, we could still trash his car, burn down his house, and terrorize his relatives.” “True. True. But what did they do to me? Nada. Nada goddamn thing. It just wouldn’t be right. What do you say we just storm down to Valdosta and terrorize the locals there? Sound like a plan?” “Hot diggity damn! Fire up the hogs, boys. What do you say boss?” The boss roared, “Mount up, boys. Let’s roll.” That was essentially how I thwarted another Chains rampage in futility.
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