The Roy’s:Episode Nine
April 14th, 2008
Episode Nine
(I like Dino’s)
… decided to pack everything we owned onto mountain bikes and go hobo around the country. How it ever got to this point I cannot honestly answer. Somehow, the loss of self respect and ambition, coupled with the heartache of young love, had muddled together into one colossal feeling of hopelessness. Top that off with a dash of the green stuff, and in about thirty minutes you got yourself one fine plate of shit crick. For the most part I really just didn’t know what to do. I suppose I could have called back home or looked for some kind of assistance, but I just couldn’t bring myself to admit my punkish pretention.
So, I ran with it.
Now even though Roy’s plan was Kerouac-ally cool, from what I’ve read, when biking across the country it is almost always advised to bring along a bicycle. Well, this was something Roy had failed to foresee somewhere between Amaretto and Crown Royal. He assured me in no uncertain terms that he would ‘acquire’ a two wheeled demon and that I should do the same. He also advised me that he had secured our stay for a couple of nights with a friend of his who was running for the Minnesota State Senate. To sum up the moment, right now a drunken street bum has just gotten done telling me to get a mountain bike, strap everything I own on it, and meet him across the far side of Minneapolis to stay with a friend of his who also just happened to be a Senatorial candidate.
Doesn’t that happen all the time?
I imagine you could have heard that silent cry for help across the globe. It was my only plan, it was my future. Somewhere deep in the back of my mind, I hoped someone would stop me. For now anyway, I just needed a bike. Once again, stupidity would prevail.
I had about forty eight hours to get a bike and get packed up before the powers that be would arrive to kick me out of my establishment. The only mountain bike I had any access to was one that belonged to hippie Dan. A piece of crap would be appropriate, a pile would satisfy as well; junker, however, will fit the bill just perfectly. Knocking it up another notch was the hand painted faux camouflage that hippie Dan had so carefully spilled all over the entire thing. But, it was a bike, and it had two baskets attached to the back, just ripe for stuffing.
Now I had to figure out how to get it.
My prized possession some fifteen some years ago was a brand new thirty-two inch television. Now back then we didn’t have those fancy plasma televisions like they talk about on that new hit show The Insophisticate, but in its day it was an expensive machine. The way I figured it, I thought I should be able to get a fifty-dollar mountain bike from hippie Dan for a fifteen-hundred-dollar big screen.
Hippie Dan thought so too.
I had a bike. To this day I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to strap about two hundred pounds of possessions onto that little mountain cruiser. Everything that meant anything to me got put on those two wheels, right down to the artwork that I prized so highly. You could barely hold the thing up, much less ride it. Not only did I have a ten mile journey, it was ten miles right smack dab through the heart of the downtown, in rush hour, and most likely uphill the entire way.
At that second I was homeless, so there really wasn’t much debating to be done. I just hopped on the bike and went, leaving my home, my friends, and the perma-grin of hippie Dan, waving wildly with one hand, as he clutched his T.V. guide in the other.
I would never see him (or my TV) again.
I cannot recall ever being so nervous. I felt like such a lunatic driving through the city strapped to the max with my life on a bicycle, headed to some politicians’ house that supposedly the street bum was friends with. With this weighing on my mind, and no backup plan, I hardly noticed the bike ride at all.
When I finally arrived, true to his word, there stood Roy. I had pulled up at about four or so in the afternoon, and just hung at first, aimlessly talking with the intoxicated street dweller. I felt a slight sense of relief to at least have someone there to guide me on the subtleties of being homeless. The whole thing had kind of left me in a comatose state, with the loss of ‘the girl’ still weighing heavily on my heart, and the loss of identity just plum smashing my soul in. The sheer panic in my head almost drove me crazy, until around five o’clock that evening when a man named Dale would enter my life.
Dale, a true to life Senatorial candidate, completely and totally funded by the …
(Stay tuned for Episode Ten)
bozz_2006 said:
…Illinois Nazis!
April 14th, 2008 at 5:15 pm #
Alex said:
Nope. But, I like this guessing thing. Guess away people, guess.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:58 pm #
pack93z said:
Drug & Gambling money???
This “plan” sounds eerily familiar to a plan hatched once upon a time between a couple of high school friends on a bender during on summer of college… the plan.. take the Mexican blackbird trail on a whim.. we made it to La Crosse in the middle of the night.. woke up the next morning to a cow licking my buddies face as he hung out the window.. not a wise plan of attack at all..
April 15th, 2008 at 1:07 pm #