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BLOOD BOUND
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Another one bites the dust.
There weren't any other bikes at the bar. Myrtle Beach is a year-round hangout for bikers nowadays, and there seemed to be plenty in town today. Murrells Inlet, on the other hand, is a bit off the beaten path if you're heading for Daytona, and none of 'em today seemed to be much interested in this quiet little bar. 'Course, we weren't heading for Daytona. We were just heading south for the time being, and ya know - drinkin' in a bar where you know people and they know you is a good thing, right?
The usual barmaid, and my old friend, Carm, wasn't there. I do think it was the first time I'd ever rolled up and not had either her or Tom come out to greet me. I walked inside and bellied up to the wooden bar to find her boy Josh behind the bar. "Two bud bottles", I said as if I had been here all day instead of missing for the past three months.
"How've you been, Muthuh?"
At least it runs in the family; remembering names. Josh would greet me every year I came down and I still had to be reminded of his name each time. Fortunately, one of the other drinkers at the bar hollered out his name to get his attention as I walked in so I wouldn't have to embarrass myself again this year.
"'sup, Josh. Your mom here today?" A quick look around would have answered that for me, but it did prompt the expected reply.
"Working tonight, won't be in til six or seven I think." He swung the two bottles onto the bartop, sliding them in my direction the last few inches til they stopped directly in front of me.
"Run a tab for me, Josh, we'll be here through lunch tomorrow at least."
"Sure. Tom should be back tonight, too. He and Sheri are flying back in from Vegas this afternoon." He turned to walk away but hesitated, turned back to me and added, "Did you hear Tom's selling the bar?"
Josh held my gaze for a moment, shook his head slowly from side to side, turned and gave his attention to one of the other patrons. I just stood there, both fists wrapped around an ice cold beer bottle, stunned. The implications of Tom selling the place came to me in an instant. Now I'm gonna have to find myself a new bar.
Sure, whoever buys the place might be a nice guy too… maybe even a pretty young lady - and under different circumstances somebody else I could be friends with. But Bullfeathers without Tom hanging out on the balcony just wasn't gonna be the same. And who knows if Carm will stay behind the bartop? By the second blink of my eyes, still dripping condensation on the floor from the cold bottles in my hands, one more thought ripped through my head, sealing the fate of any further connection with Bullfeathers. My eyes went out the window to where Lance was sitting in our old stools by the corner of the deck railing. By the time I get a chance to return, he'd be gone, too.
Josh turned his head in my direction, and nodded once. "Sucks don't it?" He surely saw the dejection I felt over the news. Hey, it's just a bar, right? Well, no… it's not just a bar, but ya can't act all pussified in a bike bar, so I just grunted in reply, shook my own head once and headed for the deck, kicking the door open with my boot as I brought the beer out to the deck.
My mind resumed playing out the scenario for me as I clicked my heels across the deck. Both heels were so worn out that the nails holding them on are the only things that kept the erosion from tearing the heel off completely. As a result, the nail heads tended to click more loudly than usual as I walked.
Lance reached out and grabbed his beer before I sat down, and gulped half of it before I had a chance to crash into the dirty white plastic deck chairs. He caught his next gulp, hovering the bottle near his lips as he looked at me and said, "What's wrong?" Then finished another third of the bottle with his continued attack on his Budweiser.
"Ahhh, Tom's not here. Seems he's gonna sell the place, too."
"Hmm, gotta hate that." And nothing else was said about it. What good would it do whining about it? I suppose I need to snap outta the funk before Tom gets here tonight anyway. Got to be a tough enough decision without giving him shit about it. Lance only met him once briefly, so there was no connection there. I could see his mind was already on something else.
I raised my bottle in toast across the short ledge we used as a table, lining the edge of the deck. It was met with Lance's seconds later. "We hatched this plan a couple of months ago right here on this deck. I was afraid I'd be too old to take a trip like this by the time I got around to doing it, so I wanna thank you."
"Funny, a couple months ago I felt the same way. Only I thought I'd be too dead. So, here's to our little adventure, let's hope it takes us as far as we want it to go." We clanked our bottle's necks loudly, and swilled a respectable load of beer into our stomachs, and sat in silence for nearly a minute before the sound of two Harleys downshifting on the road out front caused us both to turn our heads in unison.
We watched as two black bikes, both looked to be shovelheads, topped by two white-bearded guys with their ponytails floating in the breeze behind them, rolled onto the gravel and slowly backed into a spot directly beneath us making soft crunching sounds as the tires came to a stop. With a little effort, come from hours on the road and days on their butts, they hopped off, gave a wide swinging slap of the palms, ending in a hearty handshake, backed up by a barrel-throated guffaw that I'm sure was heard inside the bar.
Looked to me like these old friends just experienced what all of us adventure riders seem to find on a regular basis - a good reason to hop off the bikes, and the promise of a cold beer with a friend. Their plates told a story all in themselves - New Mexico. About as far from here as we'll be in a month or two.
I kept the grin plastered to my face but thought how things might otherwise turn out some day in the future - Lance and I, road grime on our faces, beards and hair unkempt from weeks on the road, rolling off the scooters in some far-away bar, laughing over some remark one or the other made while riding down the road. Let's hope we get that far, I thought to myself.
"You're late!" Lance hollered as they strode up the half dozen wooden steps to the deck. "Been here 30 minutes and already started drinkin'!"
They stooped mid-stride and looked at him with a decidedly 'who the hell are you' puzzling look. "Tell Josh inside yer beer's are on me - I wanna hear about yer ride from New Mexico." Lance raised his beer in mock toast and grinned.
The short one simply nodded agreement, but the taller one smiled back and told him in a matter-of-fact tone, "We been drinkin' a lot longer than 30 minutes, so YOU'RE late, but we'll take ya up on the beers", and strode the rest of the way into the bar and let the door slam behind him.
It was a different Lance I was seeing here on the deck from last time we were here. Gone was the morose moody guy contemplating what to do with his last months, hoping to talk me into this ride. He seemed eager to live, quick to turn a stranger into a friend and restless to listen to stories of the road. He was sippin' his beer now, the thirst from the road quenched, now it was just something to do with his hands while waiting for the buzz. He and I shared a similar enjoyment of the two beer buzz, and a similar disdain for getting drunk. Too many beers meant no riding when and where ya wanted. We both were realists enough to know when not to get on the scooters - too risky.
I could hear a rapping on the window, and looked up to see Josh holding up four fingers with a questioning look on his face. I nodded and gave a thumbs up, thankful that he was looking out for us, not letting just anyone add beers to our tab. Gonna miss this place. No fault of Carm's and Josh's, but coming back without Tom at the helm just wouldn't be the same.
We sat in silence for a moment, watching the bikes ride past. I used to wonder why people didn't pop in and sit a spell on this great old deck under the oak trees. Until ten minutes ago, I was torn between wanting to help Tom out by getting more business here, versus wanting the crowds stay away so I could enjoy my beer in peace. Now, I simply wanted them all to go away, belly up to any of the really crowded bars in town and pretend to enjoy themselves there. At least here, the barmaid and most of the bartenders knew your name when ya walked in after several months being away. They had time to come around the bar for a hug or a handshake and would run a tab without being asked. At Suck, Bang, Blow up the road, for example, you could hang out for hours and drink ten beers and no one would even try to find out who you were because they simply didn't have time.
New bikers seemed to gravitate to places like that - buy their T-Shirts and hang out. See and be seen. Tell their friends how many beers they had and roar off on their shiny new bikes, betraying their alcohol and testosterone levels for all the crowd to see. It's the ones who insist on polishing up their bikes in the parking lot that really point out the difference between us. I can ignore the shiny leathers and white sneakers - hell, we all had to start someplace - but some habits die hard and the shiny bike guys will always be polishing their chrome.
I found myself shaking my head at the thought. I'm all for letting people be who they wanna be. They got just as much right to spit shine their exhaust if they choose as I have to ignore them and seek out those who just wanna ride and have a good time.
The door swung open and the greybeards came out with two beers each. My eyes went immediately to check the level of mine and realized I had a couple good-sized gulps to go before I gave up the one I had, and commenced to draining it, making way for the new beer. It was empty before the new one was plunked down in front of me. "Josh called you 'Muthuh', you the guy with the website about Harley Ridin'?" That was the taller one.
Shit. This is the part I hate. While most of my mail is pretty positive about the Riding Stories, some assholes insist their way of riding is better and I should do this, or I should do that. I prefer to keep the anonymity to myself, and just ride without the recognition. Sure, part of me enjoys that somebody actually reads that crap, but the occasional flaming email makes recognition a chore sometimes.
"Guilty as charged, yer honor. Who's askin'?"
"Hehehe, ain't nuthin' honorable about this old coot, I assure ya. Name's 'HighBall', James Scott if ya ask my mother. This skinny lil' runt here is Bobby LaRue but we just call's him 'Squeak', you'll see why in a second."
Squeak extended his hand. Looked a little on the frail side - too scrawny, it seemed, to handle the old 'glide out in the parking lot. "Good to meet you, thanks for the beers." Old Bobby LaRue earned his handle honestly - his voice about two pitches too high to listen to without picturing fingernails on a chalkboard. Both in their late fifties, dark tanned faces, burnt noses and weathered from a lifetime of biking, they sat down easily, drank noisily, and let out a heavy sigh of relief at being on unmoving ground for a change. Lord I know that feeling.
"My kid brother is doing a spell in Quentin County lockup and turned me on to your site a while back." Highball was half through his beer by now. "I read a bunch of yer shit getting ready to do this ride East, looking for places to go. Chick said it was a great way to pass a little time, but needed more pictures of women in it. Hehehe, Chick always did like the women too much - that's why he's in County, too - his old lady put his ass there."
Squeak put his two cents in with, "Well, I'm glad his old lady tossed his ass in jail… I got to ride his bike out here with Jimmy in his place".
An odd couple these two were to be sure, but just another example of how if you look close enough, there's always someone out there with a story to entertain you with.
Lance and I sat through two more beers - two more than our usual stops, but it was late evening by the time we heard the end of Highball and Squeak's stories. Never met these guys before today, but now it's like we're old buds, sharing experiences and places we've all seen on some past ride or other. A mutual brotherhood that goes deeper than just Harley Riders. Just like any society, there's all sorts of flavors you meet up with and bikers are no different. There's a whole different level of respect among riders who prefer the open road to the bar-to-bar hoppers who show off the pretty-boy bikes.
People came and went added their two bits to the conversation and left, but when these guys got up to leave, both hitting the can before they left, it was like the end of the movie. We exchanged emails and promised to hollar at them when we got out west and watched as they fired up, waved and pulled out - headed north to wherever they ended up. Was fun, wish it were longer, but was time to get on with it. Lance fidgeted with the several beer labels he habitually peels off the bottles as he drinks, looked up at the still threatening sky and said, "Let's get a move on, Muthuh."
We found our tab paid for when we got inside, told Josh to say hey to Carm and Tom for us, and walked gingerly down the steps to the waiting bikes. Waiting for Petey to warm up properly, Lance looked my way, smiled and said, "I could do this for the rest of my life!"  For Information, contact: Muthuh@Muthuh.com
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