sludgo’s Mile Markers

This is Part Three of a three-part series. Click the links to read Part One, and Part Two.
It was a warm and sunny June morning and I’d been home about a week and a half. I was out in the garage thinking I should take advantage of the weather and give Mom’s RAV4 a good wash because it needed it. Had gotten dusty sitting in front of the McBungalow since I got back and was still grimy and buggy from the trip, but just as I was getting motivated my phone rang. Saw it was the eldest so I picked up. Knew immediately by his voice that something was brewing. He pretended-normal for a minute, asking me all the usuals. How I was. What I’d been up to. If the dogs were okay. And I answered him with all the usuals. Fine. Not much. Yup. Then he paused and cleared his throat. Said he’d just gotten off a phone call from Grandma—the Beehive—and needed to talk to me about a couple things. So I walked over to my workbench and sat down on my shop stool. “Okeydoke, kiddo. Shoot.”

The Riding Shotgun project has been an interesting one for me, to say the least, and as I picked up the e-phone to chat with the seventh subject of the series I couldn’t help but recall what a certain Mr. Gump had to say about that box of chocolates. Thus far in the project, whenever I’ve connected with any of the RS subjects, I’ve never known what I was going to get, and @hardtuned was no different. A handsome, youngish guy with chiseled features and a slender athletic build, he greeted me with a broad smile and an enthusiasm that was contagious. And when he began my ride-along by offering me a “ten-second tour” of his garage and its eclectic occupants, I knew I was in for another fascinating journey.

Recently I did something that all my life I swore I’d never do. Had been offered many chances to do it before but always gamely resisted, white-knuckling through any and all temptations like a champ. However, over the past few years I’ve found myself growing weaker of body and spirit and mind while the deadly-sweet melody of one particular siren’s song only grew louder and more seductive and last week I finally gave up and gave in. I know there are those who’ll think less of me because of it, people who’ll look askance at me when I walk into the room and whisper and hiss and snicker about me when I walk back out but, oh well. It is what it is. Or was what it was, I suppose. There’s no taking it back now and before rumors started to fly I figured I’d better get ahead of any scandal and admit it outright, admit that I’d gone over to the Dark Side and for the first time ever had my car professionally detailed rather than washing it by hand myself. I hope you were all sitting down.

This last Saturday evening I met my youngest at the rib place over by the mall. We’ve made it a regular date ever since he moved out of the McBungalow however many years ago. I enjoy seeing him and think he enjoys seeing his dear ol’ dad, but I know full well that in light of his instant-ramen-level cooking skills what he likely enjoys most is having a decent meal once a week, especially if I’m springing for it. No matter. I don’t mind. It’s become a highlight of my week. I always buy a couple of scratch-off tickets for us—the five dollar kind—and we sit in our favorite booth scratching away, hoping to win big bucks as we chat about this and that and nosh on our racks of baby backs and stacks of sweet Vidalia beer-battered onion rings before washing everything down with a Long Island iced tea for me and a Dr. Pepper for the kiddo. It’s a good time. Like I said, a highlight of my week.

A week ago I was in the TT and rolled up next to a biker sitting at a stoplight. Three in the afternoon and hotter than blazes here in mid-August southeast Idaho. He was riding solo on a late-model Fat Boy—black on black. Was wearing what Hog riders all seem to wear: an unbuttoned leather vest over a tattered black t-shirt, leather chaps over worn and torn black jeans and a set of scuffed and scarred steel-toed boots. No helmet, of course, just a do-rag, but I saw a beanie-cap strapped to his rear pillion rack—in case he had to go to Oregon, I supposed. His face was mostly hidden by a bristly salt-and-pepper grandpa beard and his eyes were shielded by mirrored wrap-around Terminator shades. His skin looked thick and weathered and was deeply tanned, so deep it took a moment for me to see his arms were slathered shoulder-to-wrist with an ornate selection of tattoos. Flames and skulls and dragons and tombstones inscribed with initials and dates and symbols I didn’t recognize. He noticed me noticing him and gave me a big tobacco-stained snaggle-toothed grin then flashed me the peace sign. I flashed him one back and the light went green and he twisted the throttle and dropped the clutch and roared off to parts unknown. And as I watched him disappear into the shimmering horizon, somewhere inside my head Steppenwolf suddenly started to play.

I parked the ‘B in the expansive and empty red-brick portico and got out. Walked in through the giant wooden front doors that looked like they weighed a ton each but opened easily with just a tug, shutting themselves behind me with a gentle thunk. The smell inside the place was more of a scent—faint whiffs of cinnamon mixed with pine and roses. Orchestral music wafted softly throughout the foyer, itself a grand affair with vaulted ceilings and ornately carved Gothic woodwork and thick indigo-blue carpet. No one was manning the receptionist’s station, but a silver bell was resting on the front counter, so I gave it a ding, and that’s when I met Penny.

It was a simmering-hot late Friday evening at the end of August in the summer of ’79, the year I’d graduated high school. I’d driven the Gremlin out to the new Hardee’s by the four-lane to meet Dean and Dave and Jeff and Steve and Kent and Robbie. We’d all arrived just before closing time and the counter people and cooks moaned and groaned a bit when we walked in but Steve’s second cousin was the Assistant Manager on duty and she said it was cool. I was glad. Not only was I starving but I was also looking forward to another Friday night doing nothing but goofing off with my buddies. It would be our last such night because come Saturday morning we were all leaving sludgoville and going our separate ways. Jeff was scheduled to report to the Army. Steve, the Marines. Dean was off to Arizona in his sweet ’56 Chevy to attend automotive-tech school and Robbie was taking his dad’s old F-100 west to work in the oil fields. Meanwhile, Kent—the most adventurous of us—had packed his microbus to the hilt, ready to embark on his solo trip to Alaska. And me and Dave? We were the college boys—Dave heading to NDSU in Fargo and me heading to UND in Grand Forks. And as we gathered, it was a bittersweet occasion. We all knew it was the end of the line. The end of an era. The end of the Norton Buffalo Fan Club.

I was thirteen. Over at my friend Rick’s house. Hanging with him and his ultra-cool older brother Nick in their basement on a lazy autumn sludgoville Saturday afternoon. We were playing foosball—two against one—when their mom decided it was snack time. Brought down three frosty bottles of Nesbitt’s orange soda and a serving-tray heaped with a pile of gooey Velveeta nachos nestled next to a blue Tupperware bowl filled with fresh homemade garden salsa. Spread everything out on the coffee table in front of the couch and we eagerly took our seats, attacking the munchables like ravenous badgers. Somewhere in the mix Nick had eaten his fill and casually got up from the couch and moseyed over to the closet. Opened it and pulled out a long, slender black case and a short, square black amplifier. Lickety-split he’d plugged the amp into the wall outlet and opened the case and there it was, an electric guitar—a purple metallic Flying V knockoff with a matching purple metallic headstock. He lifted it reverently from the case and put it on, adjusting its worn leather strap snugly around his back and left shoulder. Then he reached into the case again and pulled out a long curly cord. Popped one end of it into the amp and the other into the guitar then flipped a switch on top of the amp and it crackled to life. My world was about to change forever.

This last Saturday evening I met my youngest at the rib place over by the mall. We’ve made it a regular date ever since he moved out of the McBungalow however many years ago. I enjoy seeing him and think he enjoys seeing his dear ol’ dad, but I know full well that in light of his instant-ramen-level cooking skills what he likely enjoys most is having a decent meal once a week, especially if I’m springing for it. No matter. I don’t mind. It’s become a highlight of my week. I always buy a couple of scratch-off tickets for us—the five dollar kind—and we sit in our favorite booth scratching away, hoping to win big bucks as we chat about this and that and nosh on our racks of baby backs and stacks of sweet Vidalia beer-battered onion rings before washing everything down with a Long Island iced tea for me and a Dr. Pepper for the kiddo. It’s a good time. Like I said, a highlight of my week.

A week ago I was in the TT and rolled up next to a biker sitting at a stoplight. Three in the afternoon and hotter than blazes here in mid-August southeast Idaho. He was riding solo on a late-model Fat Boy—black on black. Was wearing what Hog riders all seem to wear: an unbuttoned leather vest over a tattered black t-shirt, leather chaps over worn and torn black jeans and a set of scuffed and scarred steel-toed boots. No helmet, of course, just a do-rag, but I saw a beanie-cap strapped to his rear pillion rack—in case he had to go to Oregon, I supposed. His face was mostly hidden by a bristly salt-and-pepper grandpa beard and his eyes were shielded by mirrored wrap-around Terminator shades. His skin looked thick and weathered and was deeply tanned, so deep it took a moment for me to see his arms were slathered shoulder-to-wrist with an ornate selection of tattoos. Flames and skulls and dragons and tombstones inscribed with initials and dates and symbols I didn’t recognize. He noticed me noticing him and gave me a big tobacco-stained snaggle-toothed grin then flashed me the peace sign. I flashed him one back and the light went green and he twisted the throttle and dropped the clutch and roared off to parts unknown. And as I watched him disappear into the shimmering horizon, somewhere inside my head Steppenwolf suddenly started to play.