After the terrible crash and Husker’s losing of face it was hard for him to keep up with us. We were averaging 85MPH on the interstate and he was lagging behind. His bike ran okay, El Stinko and I ran it few times and it seemed okay.
We were in Memphis, Tenn. and eating breakfast at a Waffle House–a place where you will always find someone who is 150 pounds heavier then you will ever be. Husker had got his own room at the hotel and shunned our after-ride beer drinking and TV commentary ritual. We’d sit in bed watching local TV news, drink Bud and mostly say, “I’d bang her. I’d do both of those girls upside down.etc” We told him at the waffle hut,for the brazilianth time, that if he fell behind he’d be left behind!
Well Husker had enough, and as we rode down the highway he fell behind, rode to a Greyhound station, abandoned his $4,600 1000cc, 2003 motorcycle in the parking lot. He wore the Angels shirt he bought at the Angels/Dodgers game I took him to and pointed to the shirt saying" I want to go here!"
He reportedly changed buses in Dallas, got into LA then to Orange County. He met a deranged bleached-blond Mexican woman, with a chihuaha that my dad said had scabis, who drove him to Casa De Bubba Sr. He was on a plane to Planet Taiwan the next day with tales of woe and half his luggage, (the other half Stinky was carrying for him) and lots of cool Walmart T-shirts for friends and family.
After 3 hours we gave up waiting for him then heard the above story 3 days later. Nothing like ditching your friends after 5,000 miles of riding!!! …then there were 2!
At least he didn’t take our Freakin’ tools like Mouldy did.
By this time we heard that Mouldy had left his bike in Pittsburg and was making his way back to Taiwan.
After Husker’s disappearance- we did what every biker trash redneck would have done-
We bought a gun and went to visit Elvis’ house and prayed to the King for divine intervention.
We stopped in a Bass and Hunt emporium that was a redneck Mecca. There were stuffed wildlife everywhere, rows of beef jerky, young kids begging parents to buy them highpowered weapons, I swear I heard one kid say while pointing at a chrome plated snub nosed .357 “That’s the one my grandma has.”
They had both kinds of music playing over the muzak- country and western.
There were huge displays of bass fishing boats, outboards, speed loaders, crossbows, scoped assualt rifles, and cammo kids wear. Guys drove up in camoflauged pick up trucks looking for a good time.
Well I found her. While shambling through the store I caught the eye of a blond, feather-haired beauty working there as a cashier. She was a juicy southern peach ready to be picked. I could see her undressing me wondering what my tattoos looked like under my Joe Rocket jacket and road grease. She looked like Farrah Fawcett did when I was twelve and every 12 year old had her poster on their bedroom wall. And every 12 year old was thinking right what I was thinking about miss southern belle. Miss Southern Peach she had round bouncy yammies and a backside that swung like a North Carolina porch swing on a long, hot summer night.
But I degress.
Stinko was working his charms at the gun counter with another cutey while looking at a black powder .44 pistol. Totally legal to carry and purchased without background check the same day.
I asked her if she and the cashier would like to go to Graceland with us after work. She said, "I don’t care about that stuff, I only like huntin’ and fishin’ " Stinky Rodriquez was in love. That lump in his pocket was not a .20 guage shell.
Gun bought, love unrequinted, we left for the Rock and Roll White house- Graceland.
Graceland is in a poor black neighborhood, we stopped at a drive through southern soul food restaurant next door to it. We parked in the parking lot and an angry black woman slid open the take-out window, took one look at the bikes and gear and yelled,
“Can I help you?”
I yelled back, “Yeah you can help me. You can sell me something to eat- I’m fuckin’ starving.”
Fried Catfish, coldslaw, sweet tea, huge potato chips–damn good. We prayed to the King for guidance and safety and then…
Off to Arkansas.
I hate Arkansas. It’s a mosquitoed-infested swamp between Tennesse and Oklahoma. Someone decided to make the swamp a state. Other than Jim Bowie Knives and pork rinds-I’ve never heard of anything good coming out of Arkansas. I’ve never had a good ride through Arkansas and this wasn’t going to be a good one either. The first thing I did in Arkansas was to almost run over a kyak oar lying on the interstate. Arkansas was either too hot or too cold. I seemed to suck me in like quick sand–the faster I rode the deeper I was sucked in. It took almost two days to leave it.
I was saved from its dull scenery by the heavy rains. We had to pull over because the spray from the semi-trucks rooster tailing water off the road was blinding us. As we sat swatting Arkansas mosquitoes I said to Stinky-“How come we never see Harley riders on days like today?”