Good Vibrations (30 page)

‘Which one?'

‘Jeez, I dunno. Third, would it be? My old man reckoned we were descended from him. Wrong side of the sheets, he said. Something to do with a girlfriend. Otherwise I might be King of England. Waddaya think of that?'

There was no denying he had the sort of fine-drawn features often seen on the British peerage, and George had certainly ennobled more than one illegitimate son. Graciously, the non-Earl bought us more beer and made way for another man it was impossible to ignore. The writer had grey hair, a small moustache, a black-and-white shirt with a psychedelic pattern and was, he said, a great friend of Jack Kerouac's daughter. I didn't even know that Kerouac, America's most famous beatnik, had a daughter, but before we could find out about this relationship the conversation was rudely interrupted by a bore from Florida. The writer melted away with a resigned expression while Billy, our sponsor, led Roz off to meet a tall, thin gent wearing the highest cowboy hat in the place. My eyes began to close as the man from Miami described the intricacies of his remarkable patio, but through half an ear I was listening to Roz's cowboy. He was bringing her up to date on how he once worked as a rodeo rider but had since gone straight and become a cattle auctioneer. She asked him what his patter sounded like and he called the price of calves over the top of his beer. His earsplitting chant sounded straight from a Nebraska cow sale and it brought the house down. The uproar gave me a chance to give the house-proud Floridian the slip.

We drank too many more beers before Billy kissed Nez goodbye and led us out to his jeep. Roz and I mounted up. Struggling to ride in a straight line, we followed him into the foothills of the Santa Fe Mountains for twenty minutes. At the end of God knows where, he swung into a driveway and stopped at the warm, brown adobe house he rented with yet another well brought up dog.

The views across the Santa Fe valley with its surrounding mountains were uplifting, and everything about the place spoke more of Latin America than the USA. The raised beds in the garden grew long red peppers and even the hills somehow had a look of Brazil or Venezuela about them. Billy organised us a shakedown beside a floor-to-ceiling window and, while the dog made friends with Roz, he rolled a joint of the sort of gravitas rarely seen nowadays. We smoked this with more beers on the side, both assuming that this was the evening winding down peacefully. Just as I was fully relaxed after an extremely long day, Billy clicked his empty beer bottle on to the kitchen counter with dramatic finality and announced that as it was Friday night, we'd better go back to town and check out the action.

Resignedly, we clambered into the battered four-track and were whisked away to the fleshpots. We needn't have worried. Billy, who really had been a Californian surfer, knew all there was to know about a large night out. Now a builder of custom furniture, he was very much part of the arts and crafts community. He also liked to dance and he appreciated good music.

It was fiesta time, and although we drove into town too late for the coincidental annual burning of an effigy of ‘Gloom' in the main square, we never did find out what it was all about. The tree-lined streets were still thronged with revellers of all ages and we elbowed our way around, with Billy running into a friend on every corner. Eventually we settled on a bar where I would be happy to spend every weekend until they nail me up in my box. We each should have paid a $5 cover on the door, but Billy somehow ‘blagged' us all in. Most of the Cowgirls' crowd were already there, mixing with a wide variety of drinkers. The ready, high quality conversation inside was more like being in Ireland than in the US, the wine was of an unusual standard for selling by the glass and the burritos, which arrived to quell what by now was a raging appetite, were the best ever served.

The lights dimmed and the band started. A mix of Latin and easy-going jazz, the music was pure class and shortly we were up on the floor bopping with Billy's pals. Nez was there, and the writer gave me a wave. No sign of the Bore. Next to us, a Navajo with a serene face and braided hair to his waist was dancing with a beautiful woman of fifty in a Stetson and a long skirt with a striking silver-buckled belt. One raven-haired girl wore a scarlet, off-the-shoulder, flouncy Catalan dress, while a much younger girl in a ra-ra skirt gyrated like a professional with a different partner for every number. The best technical performers were a cowboy in a white waistcoat and immaculate blue jeans over gold-trimmed high-heeled boots, paired up with an Indian girl in a black sheath that revealed her warm colouring.

As things livened up and the dancing grew wilder, I banged hard into something extremely solid behind me. Turning around I found myself face to face with a man with a huge moustache who was as tall as me and even wider. He wore a full motorcycling jacket and an expression that announced, ‘Lookin' for trouble? Yuh come to the right place…'

For a moment he stared me down. I couldn't hear the music anymore and was preparing to try and parry a massive blow as he raised his right hand. Instead of targeting my front teeth, however, he opened it in the classic bikers' upside-down handshake.

‘You those guys pitched up at the Cowgirls from England?'

‘Sure are,' I said, with a cool I did not feel.

‘I gotta buy you a beer,' he said, and abandoning the voluptuous lady at his side, dragged me off to the bar. Later in the evening, Roz whispered that she had dubbed him ‘Buster the Biker' amazed that he could possibly survive the nightclub atmosphere in his riding leather. ‘Probably takes it off on the road…' she said, moving out on to the floor to leap around with her chum the auctioneer.

For a few minutes I sat alone, then a young woman from out of state arrived at my table. I listened with a despair that soon changed to annoyance as she started to fill me in on what a great country America is. This obviously wasn't the right time for politics, and the phrase ‘great country' gave me a bad turn. A few years earlier, Roz had been subjected to exactly the same words towards the end of a formal dinner. They came from a lawyer who ten minutes before had infuriated her by announcing that blacks were physically unsuited for professional careers. She had laid straight into him on how his country was responsible for giving the world the litigious society, then she moved on to the question of civil rights. Veins were standing out on his forehead and all other conversation had stopped. The rest of the diners were right behind her, but there was no future in the exchange of views so I had broken up the party and taken Roz home.

The tempo of the music stepped up a notch as I submitted to the girl's eulogy on a curious mixture of passport-free travel, national parks and the interstate system. I could handle that much, but she soon worked around to a solid view on freedom and justice for all that was either naïve or mischievous. Inner cities, foreign policy and the vital issue of the growing underclass didn't feature in her fantasy. I finally managed to ask her about the journeys she had made to form her opinion. She mentioned half a dozen states of the Union but nowhere else. She hadn't even visited Mexico or Canada.

It was late, I was full of drink and unfit for any sort of intelligent argument. All I could see was the unworthy face America so often turns to an outside world that imagines it to be typical. I was about to let rip and spoil a wonderful evening when Billy appeared out of the throng. His social antennae had picked up the waves of anger and he was having none of it. Taking the woman firmly by the arm, he removed her to Buster the Biker's table.

‘There you are, Honey,' I heard him say amiably, ‘this here's a man who'll appreciate your opinion.'

I saw her look at Buster. It wasn't hard for her to realise that the mountainous biker's idea of a great country might not coincide with hers. She didn't stop long. Buster winked at me and I bought him a beer with a whiskey chaser.

Looking over to Billy from Buster's rip-roaring reminiscences of riding with the outlaw gangs of the sixties, I saw him listening intently to another life story. The booze was really biting now and he seemed more than human. He was a saint from heaven. Sensitive, strong and endowed with a superhuman ability to make things come right. Through the bar-room smoke, his face looked almost holy in a devilish sort of way. Billy, the misplaced beach boy, was serving up good vibrations with a large ladle.

20
TICKETS IN TEXAS
AND LOVE BUGS
IN LOUISIANA

Roz slept deeply by my side under Billy's window while I lay suspended between dreamtime and morning. First light silhouetted the sierra, the moon had long set and the seven stars of the dipper wheeled low above the deeper black of the mountains. Refracted by the atmosphere, the constellation was expanded far beyond any semblance of normality. It reflected the state of my mind as my thoughts wandered into the West Texas Panhandle, now so close.

This was Cactus Jack's country, the border lands of El Paso where the lonesome cowboy in a Marty Robbins' ballad fell in love with a Mexican saloon girl, lost his reason in the gunsmoke of jealousy and shot his rival dead. He ran to the Badlands but in the end was drawn back to his lover, only to be cut down by the posse. According to country music legend, even today, sad-faced barmaids refuse virile young cowboys, preferring instead to walk home with hard, grey-haired men from the rodeo. Such people are so far from Washington DC they might as well be on the moon.

North of West Texas lies the New Mexico Line; southwards, the Rio Grande. Now, comparing distances and motivation, the words of Hurricane John Pournaras, a Greek seaman, came back to me.

‘You can't do everything in this life,' John said as we slumped together in a bar facing a multi-choice immediate future.

He'd been right then, and I was beginning to think he still might be.

For the first time, I realised that I was near saturation point with new experiences. Part of me yearned to see the Rio Grande, to drink in the West Texas dancehalls on pay night and follow my luck to the card tables. But the more I yearned for it, the clearer I saw how close I was approaching blow-out point. The big river wasn't about to dry up and there would be other trips. We'd ground through some long days in the saddle since Nevada and I doubted Roz would be sorry that something in my head had shifted gear. Without seeing it coming, I had contracted what sailors call ‘Channel fever'. I knew the symptoms. It is the concentrated desire to drive the ship home as fast as the winds will blow her, the final phase of ‘long voyage syndrome'.

After the sun rose, Roz and I sat at Billy's table with the morning light streaming in, sharing a simple breakfast with the dog. Billy had left for his workshop. It was a good time for a policy discussion.

‘You mean, just go straight from here to Annapolis?' Roz asked, as I began to untangle my thoughts. ‘That'll mean Oklahoma, then back through Arkansas and Tennessee again. I can't face any more prairie and I hated Tennessee.

‘I don't mind riding less far, but I do want to see New Orleans. And what about the Deep South?'

‘I thought we could still do most of that, but just step up the pace a bit. You know. Really get stuck in. We don't have to hit the interstates, but the roads south from here look fine, and Texas has a 70-mph limit. I bet the highways are smooth. I can't imagine Texans creeping round on crummy tracks.'

‘So what would that mean in terms of daily runs?'

She twirled her fork on the edge of her scrambled eggs and I knew what she was thinking.

‘It'll be a major dogleg to hack all the way down to El Paso,' I said. ‘If we miss that out, go south-east from here instead, then make a straight dive across Texas towards Baton Rouge, we'll be back East before we know it.'

‘It would suit me fine to miss out West Texas,' she said slowly. Her fantasies and mine do not always coincide. ‘But what's the new deal on daily distance?'

‘Three-fifty, maybe 400, perhaps more some days. Take it in stages. We'll be running 60 or 70 mph. It won't be so bad.'

I looked closely at her expression. It did not change. Just to make sure we were going to be of one mind I asked, ‘How long since you had pain across the shoulders?'

She shrugged. The fact was that we had both hardened up beyond what would have seemed possible when we had worked our careful way across the tight civilisation of Maryland in another life two months before.

‘But if you really want to go to West Texas,' Roz said with genuine sympathy. ‘I won't stand in the way. Don't miss it for me.'

‘I do,' I replied, ‘but I've no interest in tearing through it like a man in a video game. I'll come back another day. You never know. Maybe I'll find an easier poker game and clean up. Nothing by chance!'

We spread out the map on the breakfast table. The state line was a short day away, then Texas stretched over the hump of the coffee pot and clear across to the toaster. The place looked huge, but the bikes were full of miles, so I changed their oil and set up their belts. Then we packed the saddlebags, left Billy a ‘Thanks, Mate' note and let the Harleys rip.

Steadily losing altitude towards the Texas line, the impact of the country receded from the haunting beauties of northern New Mexico. The mountains fell away behind us and featureless seas of silver grass stretched ahead, but instead of the impression of vastness we experienced on the high plains, some odd feature of this country contracted the views to a minimalist scale. The land was the antithesis of Montana, where the traveller felt almost crushed by the sheer size of the vista. Here, the margins of the grassy world fell away to some unknown dimension beyond the edge so that although the road was as straight as a bullet's flight, nothing seemed to exist beyond the next few fields.

We paused at tiny wooden towns that could not have changed since the 1950s. Even the women serving in the stores were dressed like fashion plates from my mother's
Home-maker
magazines. Some grain had been harvested and cattle flashed by from time to time, flicking their tails in the afternoon. The road wasn't smooth, but it certainly wasn't the worst we'd seen, so although our backsides felt every bump we made good progress. All in all, it was country to pass through fast. Perfect for our new mood.

A few miles short of the border we crossed a bridge which I somehow knew would be my last contact with the railroad. In the distance a train was coming, so I dismounted, jumped the fence and scrambled down the bank to throw myself flat on the ground as I had when I was a schoolboy. Roz pottered slowly on. She knew what I was up to.

In those days it had been steam that was the prime fascination, the smoke belching from the funnel, the 6-foot driving wheels pounding to the pumping of the pistons and the shining steel connecting rods, all blurred by speed. Steam has gone from America as it has from Britain, but in the United States, the railroad retains its essential spirit. Perhaps the alchemy stems from the sheer size of the diesel locos, maybe it is the impossible length of the freight trains, or the continental distances travelled. Probably they are all factors, but what grabbed me about this one was the name of the railroad company. In the days when I was having my school cap blown off by the London express, my train books showed images of massive American locomotives. Instead of a prosaic ‘LMS' – ‘London, Midland and Scottish' – they bore the lyrical ‘Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe'. This giant red locomotive had ‘Santa Fe' emblazoned down its sides as it rumbled under my bridge, hustling its standard mile or so of what looked like cattle wagons. I had seen it with my own eyes and so, like Tennyson with his rainbow, the child became father to the man.

I walked back to my bike, ruminating on the unpleasantness of having to grow up, and caught Betty Boop at the Texas border. Roz was lounging on her beside a stark sign with an unequivocal message:

‘Don't Mess with Texas!'

I could buy that.

‘Drive friendly – the Texan way,' encouraged a second hoarding on the other side of the featureless road. That would suit us too.

Properly encouraged, we plunged ahead.

With the exception of Alaska, the Lone Star State is by far the largest of the Union. Its territory is greater in area than the combined mass of Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts and the substantial area of New York. The population approaches 15 million humans and, at last count, 13 million head of cattle. We careered across its seven hundred or so miles in two days, stopping only to sleep and eat, with the usual half-hourly rests for rehydration. The roads were as good as we'd hoped, and since we saw almost no traffic we took liberties even with the 70-mph limit. Setting off before breakfast, the sun would be a red ball in the low haze ahead of us, with the cotton crops and cattle ranges misty after the cool nights of early September. Countless small oil pumps clanked steadily in the dewy fields. The same deal as Kansas, only more of it.

The towns were generally well-maintained and the whole state presented an air of prosperity and self-confidence, yet it was here that Roz confronted the power of chance. We had just restarted after drinks in the country town of Hico, south-west of Dallas – wide, straight streets, farmers in 10-gallon hats carrying livestock in clean pick-ups, silhouette cowboy 10-feet high over a bar door – when we slowed down for a crossroad. It was as well we did, because a truck came hurtling around the corner, shedding a rusty 45-gallon oil drum as it rattled away. What followed had a horrible air of slow motion. The drum rolled across the street, directly under Roz's front wheel from my perspective. I waited for her to go down, praying that the thing was empty and therefore not weighing half a ton. For what seemed like seconds, drum and bike came together as if magnetised. Roz had frozen momentarily, but suddenly revitalised herself and heaved back hard on her brakes. Her rear wheel locked and blew dirt, but the front kept slowing under control. As the back-end came around to meet her she put her outside foot down. The bike seemed to slide sideways, then stopped as the drum missed her front tyre by a yard. It looked like spectacular riding. She had followed her instincts and they had done exactly the right thing for her. There was nothing to be said, except that it obviously wasn't her time to get hit. Our luck was definitely in for the time being, so we wheeled back to the Coke machine and had another.

Roz recovered from this fright with sterling resilience as we tore along eastwards down the temptingly fast roads. Soon, the open cattle ranges and giant cotton fields gave way to smaller countryside with an almost eerily English feel to it.

‘I can't believe I'm in Texas, of all places,' she remarked as we stopped to lean against the creosoted fence of a flowery meadow where uncannily British-looking cows chewed rich cud. Tall trees rustled gently in the summer breeze. All the atmosphere needed was the crack of a cricket ball on the willow bat. Even the morning temperature felt like an English summer's day. But it wasn't. As if ordered up by a scriptwriter to louse up a lovely scene, a straight-faced deputy pulled up beside us in his big, burbling Chevrolet. That would have been fine on its own. It was the flashing blue lights that spoiled the decor.

The policeman opened his door and climbed slowly to his considerable height. His shoes shone and he clinked gently under the weight of the usual array of homicidal hardware at his belt as he eyed the bikes neutrally. Then he straightened up and turned to me.

‘Sir,' he began in a deep drawl, ‘five minutes ago I clocked you and the lady at 83 mph. I'm not saying it's antisocial, I'm just remindin' you it ain't legal, but before I give you a ticket, you can show me your licence and tell me what kinda plate that is on the black bike.'

‘How did I manage to miss seeing him?' I was asking myself, feeling as I always do when busted by a traffic cop – like being hauled up before the headmaster. Even so, I liked the way he made no personal issue out of our speeding. We had been travelling perfectly safely above an arbitrary limit on a straight road with no side turnings and nothing in sight. His job was just to collect the money from anyone careless enough to get caught. I mutely cheered the man for not giving me the hypocritical lecture about the dangers of speed that I received from the last policeman to nail me in the UK. The circumstances had been similar. The difference in attitude worlds apart.

The second remarkable thing about this officer was that he was only the second stranger to comment on my yellow, reflective Dorset number plate during the whole trip. Maybe folks hadn't a clue what it could be and didn't want to appear stupid by asking, but not this clear-thinking policeman. He was about to issue a well-deserved, on-the-spot fine and needed to know what sort of game I was playing.

‘It's, er, British, actually,' I stuttered lamely, groping for my driving licence. I knew from ancient experience that the paperwork was going to psyche him out, because unlike the equivalent document carried by an American, a British permit carries no photograph of the licence holder. For all he knew, mine could have belonged to King Kong.

To keep the social side of things moving while I scrabbled through my studded leather saddlebag, I began to explain myself.

‘I shipped my own bike over here rather than buying locally. Easier, I suppose. Beats the waiting list for a new Hog. Impossible to re-register. The bureaucracy…'

‘I could see you was from outta state, but I never heard of a plate like that. Where'd'ya land the bike? Galveston?'

‘Baltimore.'

‘Well, goddamn! You ride all that way down here?'

‘We came via San Francisco.'

The cop looked hard at me, but he didn't pick up the ‘we'. Women who rode Harley-Davidsons 10,000 miles at a sitting were not part of his normal round of experience. He peered down at Roz's Maryland plate and pushed his hat back an inch or so.

‘Did you meet this guy locally?' he asked her. ‘I mean, you're a helluva long way from home too.'

‘I came the same way. We're riding together,' answered Roz.

‘What? All the way? With him? You crossed Nevada on that little bike?'

‘I'm afraid I did.'

There was a pause and for a moment I thought the deputy was going to ask how a girl with Maryland plates came to have an accent like the Queen of England. Instead, he shook his head, smiled very slightly, and put away his ticket book.