LAST TRIP
A
milestone, if you will. Published in "The Black Boot" magazine, now defunct
IT
WAS THE BIG BROWN NOSE and demonic, toothy grin that I recall most
vividly. The eyes were concealed behind leatherbound goggles, and the
entire assemblage capped by a half shell helmet. He was easing up on
my left on a BSA twin, a Lightning, I would guess.
We
were already rolling along at a pretty good clip, somewhere west of
Glorieta. The acid was starting to wear off, but I was still high. I
glanced over at him, and nodding a greeting, goosed the throttle.
Coming
from the east coast, the landscape still seemed bleak. The high
desert is reluctant to share its sparse beauty with newcomers.
Annamarie was helping that process along with this ride.
She
had gone out there a year or so earlier, solo, on a sweet little
CB350-4. Rented a flat on Galisteo Street, just below the Paseo.
Got a job at the Harley shop. I stopped off to visit, on my way to
Alaska-so I told myself.
Quickly,
things got too comfortable. Within a day or two of arriving—broke—I
got a job at Boddy’s Honda, turning wrenches. Clarence, the shop
foreman, was skeptical of my ability—maybe because when he asked my
name, I told him my old friends called me Gonzo. So, first morning on
the job, Clarence gave me a new CB750.
“The
transmission is bad. Can you overhaul it?”
No
big deal. In Honda school, you had to tear down a transmission and
reassemble it, without the manual. But it’s really not hard, once
you learn the system. All Honda trannies—large and small—share
the same configuration, which is logical and intuitive.
“Sure,”
I replied.
“OK.
Let me know if you need a hand.”
All
I had to work with was the set of hand tools I carried in my
saddlebags, but by lunchtime I had yanked the engine, split the
cases, and inspected the transmission. However, there was nothing
wrong with it—the trannie was in perfect shape: shifters, dogs,
gears, shafts—all sleek and gleaming. So I poked around, and found
the problem: the shift linkage was fouled. A tweak with some channel
locks and it was back in the groove--there had been no need to pull
the engine. By late afternoon, I had the engine back in the frame,
and was hooking back up the last of the cables when Clarence walked
by my bay.
“Need
a hand getting the engine out?”
“Nope.
It’s back in. I’m going for a test ride in a few minutes.”
“What
about the transmission?”
"It’s
fine. The clevis from the shift lever was bent. I straightened it.
Sorry I didn’t find it until I had it all torn down.”
“No
kidding—you had that engine apart and back together in one day—the
flat rate manual gives it 24 hours! Who helped you lift the engine
out?”
“Nobody.”
I demonstrated how you sit astride the rear seat, lay forward with
your chest on the gas tank, and ease the engine up onto one of the
frame tubes. You dismount, balancing the engine with one hand, then
squat beside the bike, and roll the engine onto your haunches. Then
you hump it onto the bench.
“Well,
if you want to go by Gonzo, you’re Gonzo, alright. If you want to
call yourself Jesus, you’re Jesus.”
It’s
no big deal, really. I worked with some serious flat raters in big
shops back east, guys who were faster than me.
***
That
weekend, Annamarie wanted to show me one of her favorite spots. We
loaded the bikes with a small tent, sleeping bags, and some food and
water, and set out for the Pecos Wilderness.
In
my pocket, I had a couple of squares of windowpane, powerful stuff. I
had tried a dose, back in Takoma Park, just before I left. I
went for a walk along the creek, and the acid came on with the rush
of a jet engine. Nearing the road, the sound of the passing cars took
form, growing as the car approached, and dissolving from sight as the
sound receded. I walked up a hill, along a little street I never new
existed. Some old bungalows backed up to the park. As I walked beside
them, one of the bungalows, with a low slung, wide eaved hip roof,
became a merry, portly woman, who hitched up her long skirts and
danced a jig for me. I was eager to share this stuff with Annamarie.
We
must have camped above the tree line, because I remember taking off
my boots and all my clothes, and running through a meadow, and down a
hill. The sun at that elevation was dazzling, and as the acid came
on, clouds, mountaintops and trees took on new forms, merged, and
recombined. I felt scree and thistles cutting my feet, but did not
perceive it as pain. It was like I was shaking off the demons of the
past.
But
Annamarie held back. Maybe she was worried that I would leap off some
crag and try to fly away, or some local might see us and freak out
and shoot us, so I chilled out. Although she was always more
adventurous than me, she was a lot more circumspect. Plus she knew I
had no common sense.
***
I
started pulling ahead of Brown Nose, and he gunned his machine in
response. We were heading up a long incline, and my mildly tweaked
R-60/2 was pulling him all the way. But after we crested the hill,
the BSA overtook me. I had to watch it anyway, because the beemer got
a little wobbly over 95.
And
so it went, I’d pace him up the hills, and he’d gain it all back
going down. Soon, I could no longer see Annamarie’s 350 in my
mirrors. Brown Nose was in the lead when he peeled off onto the two
lane spur into Santa Fe, and I had to yield to a couple of cars.
Trying to catch up, I roared up the shoulder, slinging gravel and
passing traffic like crazy until a bridge abutment blocked my path.
Never caught back up. It was over.
I
killed the engine and waited for what seemed an hour for Annamarie to
catch up. When she did, she wasn’t so much angry as disgusted.
I
suppose it was a good thing, though, because then and there I decided
that I had experienced all I needed of the psychedelic state, at
least for the time. In the thirtyfive years since that trip to Pecos,
I’ve never dropped another hit. Even tapered off of mota,
and finally quit that, too.
But
I reserve the right to try it again some time. Like if I were
diagnosed with terminal cancer, maybe.
Or
if Brown Nose blasted out of the hills again, to give me another
chance.
