Wild Horses

It's 5:30, I wake up to the alarm in complete state of forget. It is a haze I stay in for less than two seconds. I rise quietly, grab my phone and head out of the room. The dining room table is covered with a grid work of bike clothing, food and accoutrement's for the Spaghetti Dirt Epic; 62 miles of clay and paved roads. I am ready. I know it. I have done the completely undramatic work. I am surprised by how confident I feel. Fear still walks with me though, and it knows better than anyone all my secrets; How badly I tend to handle mechanical failures, how panicked I change tires, how childlike I become during asthma attacks. It whispers to me at moments like these when I feel good about myself:

"What if you have an issue? What if you have a migraine or asthma attack? What if you get too excited and blow to pieces in the early chaos of the start? What if everyone sees you bent over and retching for breath?"

I have a new answer for all those questions: "Fuck it, I'll ride alone. That's how I got here." Because riding alone was what I have feared most, that's what I have been doing. Long rides on the road, learning to navigate, intentionally getting lost, and making it back, which in many ways describes my life in a perfect little nutshell. I just want to be good enough to ride with my friends. I don't want to beat anyone, or prove anything, I just want to be part of story, instead of hearing the recount.

The start is the typical  mock opera of knuckleheads. Mountain bikers moving to the front and causing all kinds of expansions and contractions in the school moving upstream. Twice I have to speak up to people fighting for Big Worms wheel (which is the most valued piece of group ride real estate in cycling). They want me to give it up and that is not an option.

We turn onto the first section of dirt, the one that Ricky Silk called; "kinda sandy and soft". He said it with raised eyebrows like it was a secret. The underscored subtlety was not lost on me. Once he described Oak Mountains Blood Rock section as "kinda technical". When a guy that can ride anything says something like that, its noteworthy. We hit the sand, I am on Worms wheel, about twenty five people from the front. It's Braveheart on bikes. People and bicycles are performing a dance that would make sub atomic particles blush with envy. The yelling starts behind me as things begin to go wrong. I follow Worm into and ankle deep section of fine brown sugar. Worm shoots far left into a hard part of a little ditch and powers though. I put a foot down and Fred Flintstone for dear life. In the process, I stop roughly fifteen riders behind me. Fifty yards away I see Worm out of the saddle on the first dirt climb, no sign of looking back, no sign of stopping. I am on the edge, breathing like a whipped plow horse, and start running in the brown talcum, with all I have. It is like a bad slow motion dream. I jump on and attack the hill, knowing that if this keeps up I will not stay with the group. I crest the hill and make the catch. We settle back into a hard pace with a little more organization and no talking. There is only heaving breath and the wheel in front of us. As I realize I am going to have to give up and go off the back, Worm tells me, we need to start riding smart and let the leaders go.

 I am saved.

We settle into a rhythm, and the drama resides. Worm  and Storman are pacing us and I recover. We chat about the melee, and laugh about how Cliffy couldn't resist going with the leaders after swearing he was going to "take it easy, have fun and ride with us" (so generous of him). We see a lone rider ahead going the wrong way. The sight of the bright yellow vest, and barbaric beard, sets all laughing. Cliffy comes into view talking to himself as we fly by. He turns and catches us with out any effort we can detect and now the ride is shaping up like we planned. We make lunch, and roll out with a few more strays heading into the second leg for home. I know now, I am going to be alright. I even do a little work at the front (a first in my career on this type of ride, where I hide from the wind for fear of death or getting dropped). Back in the first dirt section after lunch, I am again defeated in the powder and this time I take Jim Smart out. We fight our way through and I pull as back to the group, pissed and exhausted. *I really need sand skills on the cross bike.

Nearing the end of this ride (as all endurance events) when the pack smells the barn, the alliances break and the stronger gently move ahead. The talking devolves to grunts and communication via expression. Future TMBA President, Mike Yaun, stays just off the front of Worm and I and the others are specs in the wavy distance. We are almost home. The three big dirt climbs, come and go, with Worm and I cursing our way over the tops. Back on pavement, we pick off some low hanging fruit from the forty mile ride. I help on the climbs and Worm turns the pistons on the descents and flat tarmac.

We arrive in three hours forty five minutes, a time Worm and I both agreed would be a great number for the day. Beers are opened, spaghetti is eaten and for the first time in four years I am hearing stories about a tough ride, I was actually on. It all seems fine and completely mundane. The best mundane I have ever experienced. A mundane I remember from old days before the storm, before I chose to let anger steal my life. A mundane I hope to keep as long as I am able.


W.B.Z.N.

*Photo Brian Pierce (my nominee for "rider of the day")

 

Time Flies

I hate getting ready to ride. I grumble and hope for rain and dig out clothes and cuss when there are no clean water bottles. I hate my old pump and I am out of tubes. My gloves smell like a dead body. Somehow I mange to throw a leg over.

There is no way in or out of my hood with out a climb. It is a bitch at the beginning of a ride. Crawling up to the Thomasville Road light where the cars always pinch off the curb on the right turn. People come over the hill there at warp factor seven, running from the jobs they hate, rushing home to the television. I am a pissed off cyclist but at least I am not them. I hop up on the curb and then back down at the front of the right turn line. Stink eye from the lady with too much hairspray. I spot a little opening in traffic and in a supreme act of faith, drop onto Thomasville road and hammer towards Hermitage. I catch the light and lean into the great right corner with no traffic. You can hold all your speed going wide and stay around twenty five miles per hour, to the base of the hill. The missing twelve pounds in my jersey are the difference between now and the last time up this hill. I got dropped by my son here in a wheezing stagger, two months ago. 

Over I-10 and into the safety of Kilearn Estates. Drink water. Trying to ignore the smell of food I can't eat. The A.J. decent is next. A van follows me into the the first sweeping left a little too close. I drop him. The scary corner is more blind than ever with fallen trees blocking the vision of potential cars coming up the hill. The climb up to Shamrock isn't bad. Drink water. I have a line from a song I can't stop repeating in my head: "but after a while, you realize, time flies...."  

At the top I see a cyclist go by. I am still half way up the climb. I speed up involuntarily. By the time I get to the stop sign he is a half mile away. He doesn't know it, but we are racing now. He is a fake rabbit on a stick. By the church I am closer to him. He looks over his shoulder, as he starts the fast section. I get out of the saddle. On the fast climb, he is fifty yards away. By the bricks I am on top of him gasping, but I don't come around. I don't have to. It has been a very long time since anything like this has happened. I turn right on Bayshore and disappear. 

A couple climbs and a I am dropping into Hermitage. No traffic. Forty two miles per hour at the base of the descent, I sit up and ease onto the sidewalk and back up the last hill to home.  

The dog is happy to see me. I smell dinner. I want to write. I want to sing. I never thought I could feel this way again. Nothing in the future is written. 

W.B.Z.N.    

     

Don't Crack Up



You ride too much. You quit riding. You come back but don't commit. You start playing music again. You turn fifty and question every decision since the summer of 79. You remember who your friends are and that they will not wait forever. You write a story (you are not sure why or what it meant). It takes a year, and runs off the folks that like to read about how shitty you ride bikes. You are blessed but you struggle.

The calm returns one day on a solo ride, to the coast and back. It is a ride born from anger. You are angry with yourself, for not being able to ride with your people. A dusty switch flips and a rusty machine churns in the wind, on the burning lanes of Capital Circle. You are out of water, food and grinning, at the ride you didn't think you could finish.

You remember that you ride bikes. It's not what you do, it's who you are and not doing it makes you an unbearable, bi polar, fuck face. You start riding more and have a couple small victories: Complete a group ride with the crew. Finish a Chaires ride (thanks to luck and a friend that pulled your carcass home). You get invited to a ride that you normally would have been on the "no call list' for. It starts to come back a little. You get the shit kicked out of you at Munson for the uncountable kabillionth time. It's not supposed to be easy.

The cross bike is aptly named, it is the crucible of truth and the revelatory place where the spirit was waiting. It is the cave where the visions come. The trip you hated that you can't wait to make again. It's "the fucking bike" you are going to ride back to the fold.

I cannot promise I won't start some convoluted story here again (if the ghosts start talking, I must write) but for now, I am back on the bike, and blah blah blogging about it.

Tell your friends.

W.B.Z.N.

Never See It Coming

seventeen

Floyd's Music Store, May 3, 2003: The young opening band for socialburn just finished their set. They are elated. They high five each other, in front of a sold out crowd. They start wave to their friends and family. A loud, rude voice comes from behind:

"Hey what the fuck are you guys doing? Get your shit off the stage!"

The young guys scatter like recruits in boot camp. They are grabbing hand fulls of cables and guitars and pushing gear off the stage as fast as they can move. I look over at Neil Alday (the socialburn singer that I manage) who is laughing so hard, no sound is coming out of him.

Tallahassee, April 18, 2013: I am rolling an old road cases off of the red and blue rubber mats of my garage. This area was for bikes and a work stand for the last fourteen years. Since the day I gave up playing music full time. Since the days I stopped managing bands. This was the sanctuary where the arsenal was kept. The weapons that kept all my demons at bay. The desire to play music and sing was beaten back with sweat, bikes and tools. This shop was kept spotless, the vigil was never forsaken, the watchman never slept and the past was a distant dream. 

Now the space was full of road cases. Cases that had been flown around the world, and dragged into every rock bar in Tallahassee. The old blue drum set inside was beaten and chipped. The cobalt piano finish was pale compared to the day they were new 1988. But they are cleaned, lubed and wearing fresh drum heads. A horn beeps from the van out front. I smile and roll the bass drum case down the driveway.

One year ago this week I had taken my first ride after breaking my right collarbone. A year and a half before that, I had heart surgery. One month before that, I'd had a stroke. I had trouble talking. I couldn't write my own name for a week. I thought I would end up on disability. Slowly it all came back, but no matter how hard I tried, I never felt right on the bike. I felt funny around my friends too. It wasn't anything they did or said, but my world had changed and nothing was the same color anymore. Some part of me never came back from the hospital. August twenty first, and that tiny blood clot changed me forever. The Bike Chain Crew were all different too. Life had caught us all unaware. The difference was, they could still ride. I still rode too, when I could, but it wasn't the same. I had to accept the fact that cycling was not the central thing in my life. I look at my BC jersey, hanging on the bike stand, as I load the last case and shut the garage door.

The light guy tells me to wait for the fog. I hear the intro music start. First the sound of flipping through radio stations, a few seconds of a socialburn song, then "You'll Have Time" by William Shatner starts to play with the opening lyric: "Live life like you're gonna die...cause your gonna!"

"Amen Brother!"

I say under my breath and walk out a little ahead of the rest of the band, to put in my in-ear monitors. I start playing the drum intro to "Save Me" the first song of our set. Eight hundred people stare up as we go from song to song. The applause increases after ever tune, and slowly the crowd warms up. I see the silhouette of Neil, my old friend. I watched him play for huge crowds from the side of the stage as his manager and now I am playing with him. Life is strange. I never saw any of this coming. I count off the last song and look over to see the drummer and bass player from Blackberry Smoke watching. Their arms are folded and they look tired and unimpressed. The drummer is tapping his foot. We finish the song. I give some drum sticks to a few people that ask for them. Blackberry Smoke's stage manager is screaming at us to get our gear off the stage. I start laughing.

"Calm down Sparky."

I say to the twenty something manager.

"This ain't our first rodeo."

I move him out of the way with my left hand and walk by with some cymbal stands.

The gear is all cased and in the van. I am drinking a beer outside the back stage door, soaked in sweat. I  look up and see Charlie Starr from Blackberry Smoke.

"Y'all have a good time? The crowd treat you right?"

"Hell ya man. Thanks for letting us play the show. We are huge fans."

I stop talking because I know the drill. The singer was just being nice. Headliners hate talking before they walk on stage. They want to be left alone. I tell him to have a good show and walk over to our van, sitting in the shadow of a forty five foot Prevost Touring Coach. I change my shirt next to a dumpster and climb in the front seat.

"Well Eddy?"

I say to my old friend and sound man.

"Sometimes you are on the bus and sometimes you are in the van."

Eddy turns and laughs out a cloud of cigar smoke.

"Ain't that the fucking truth!"


W.B.Z.N.

Waking Up

seven




She is running through a field and Joey's chasing her. They are in a sheep pasture up above the place he surfed in Santa Barbara. She could see the the little dots of surfers out on the point. It was one of those breezy perfect days you learn to ignore in California. He is taking pictures of her but she's feeling playful and uncooperative. She's running, trying to make him chase her. Just when he thought she was going to pose, she runs again. She's laughing so hard she can't breath and finally leans over to catch up with her heart. The amber grass shares hues of her caramel skin and gold hair. She continues to play and run from him and just when it looked like he might give up and loose his patience, she pulls her hand knitted shirt over her head and throws it away. She looks over her shoulder. He takes her picture and falls for her, in the blink of a shutter. She's been holding that flower all morning, spinning it in her fingers and day dreaming. They were on the beach and decided drive up the hill while the tide switched. He captured her there, and all of who she was that day. She was caught like a firefly in his lens in front of those green Santa Barbara hills that matched the color of her bikini. She falls onto a blanket and watches him walk out of the sun. He takes his camera from his neck and sets it on the edge of the quilt. She stops laughing and looks up at him. She pulls her arms away from her chest, glances down at her bare breasts and then back up at him. It's the fall of 1971. It is the best season of her life. She is nineteen.

"Gretna, wake up honey. The surgery is over, c'mon honey, open your eyes. I have some water for you. Everything is fine, try to open your eyes."

Roscoe had pulled all the wood from the fallen porch and stacked it near the garage. He spent a few days pulling nails and separating the trash from the the good. He was done with the ramp and other than a few nails and screws, was able to finish the entire thing with what he salvaged. When the roof cascaded off of the house into a pile of intertwined lumber, it took with it the steps and an old chain swing. He figured she would need a ramp to get into the house. Those steps were as useless as the porch and he presumed they were both built by the same lazy hands. This whole house seemed ill supported and in need of work. For now she could be wheeled up and that made him feel better. He saw some paint cans, whose drippings matched the porch deck color and tomorrow he'd look to see if it could be stirred and used. For today he was done and he loaded his tools into his old bug and strapped the wooden step ladder to the luggage rack on top. He wiped his hands with a towel and admired his work. He loved to do things right and to help. Today he had done both. He reached into the passenger side and grabbed a bowl and some kibble. As he filled it, the dog came from the woods and wagged his way toward him. He sat it down next the water bowl and smiled.

"See ya tomorrow."

She is watching the boys come down the walk. No matter what was going on in her life, she loved seeing those kids come home from school. She wanted to be like one of those women, at the Timber Lane Hopkins Eatery. They played tennis when the kids were at school and complained about bad caterers over lunch. They had the strained faces of women who didn't dare gain an ounce, for fear of being replaced. Kerry wished she could just be a stay at home Mom. She was starting a new job next week and this was her last few days of freedom before the stress came back. The boys were pulling at each others back packs and laughing. They both had sticks in their hands and a sword fight could break out any second. She caught a reflection of herself smiling in the window. It felt good. Those boys were never a burden. They were the thing she did right. She couldn't wait to hear what happened that day. The rain had finally stopped and the first wisp of fall hung just outside the last grasp of summer. It was a good day.

He loaded his drums into his car after eating lunch. His youngest son was playing a jazz groove on the drums in his room. He marveled at how good he was. His oldest was on his way to his life guard job and looked every bit of the college freshman he had become. He said goodbye in passing and he watched young man drive off. He had done some things well. He did have moments of pride, in between all the anger and regret. It was in the air. All good things happened for him in the fall. When he lived by the coast it marked the start of the surf season. When he came to Tallahassee, it was the return of students and packed gigs. On bikes it was the magic time of cool temps and night rides with his crew. Spring was the first verse, summer was the dark bridge and September marked the first notes of the chorus. He was rehearsing tonight, feeling good for the first time in weeks and he stopped to recognize a rare moment of content. For now that was all he needed, little shot at something good.


W.B.Z.N.   

In A Lifetime

It's not often I recognize magic while it happens. I'm a good one for getting the point of it all days later. I'm a good one for looking back. This weekend was full of moments in the now, that filled my soul.

It was a rare and precious few days where we all hovered above the tedium and never awoke from the dream. It was like everything was going to be alright forever.

My cup overflows.

Every so often, I realize the light is good, and I get the picture.


W.B.Z.N.

You Are My Sunshine

The day #1 son was born was one of those first child stories everyone has. You don't know if was as dramatic as memory preserves, or if you were just a novice. In either case (as with all new parents) his arrival was a life changer. When he finally came into the light I said to him; "There you are, we have been waiting for you." He turned and looked right at me as my wife and I cried.

Right from the start he was just the happiest guy ever. He found joy in everything and would laugh so hard that he couldn't hold up his head. We had a fish tank and we would scoot his chair up to it and let him watch the fish with wonderment. His first word was "fish" and the first trip we ever went on as a family was to Silver Springs so he could say his only word over and over while pointing into the clear water. 

He was always extremely bright and we would let him talk for as long as he wanted. Through out his first years of school it became routine for his teachers to tell us how smart, polite and kind he was. His memory was other worldly and he routinely learned dances and lyrics to movies and TV shows. Ms. W.B. and I would be entertained for hours watching him sing and move with the characters from the Wizard of Oz and other shows.

The early years of parenthood were tough. We had very little money. My wife and I worked full time jobs and I played music four to five nights a week. We were exhausted most of the time and not the happiest folks in the world. Cray was always a calming force in our life and a constant reminder of how blessed we were to be a family. It was just impossible to be in a foul mood when that kid came into the room beaming with happiness. His brother arrived thirteen months after he did and Cray was never out of his reach. Cory would make noises and talk in sounds we couldn't decipher and Cray would turn to us and say "cheerios" or whatever it was that Cory needed and then Cory would be fine. He has always been intuitive.

I have always been hard on gentle souls. I have a harshness that I accumulated with life. It has not been easy on Cray to have me as a Dad. I am tough guy to be around on my best day. Cray only sees good in the world and approaches every situation with wonder. We used to call him Captain Positive because he always has seen the upside of everything in his gaze. Once when I was taking the boys to the park on an over cast day, I felt the need to prepare them for the possibility of rain. I said to them; "Now guys if it rains we won't be able to play at the park okay?" Cray quickly replied; "But if it doesn't rain we can play for a long time right?" That is his world view in a nut shell. He has made me a better person and softened my edges, often at his expense.

Cray excelled in school and was an honor student all through middle and high school. He was on the high school swim team and works as a life guard for the city. He saved money to go to France last year with the French Honor Society. He volunteered one hundred hours of community service, for Bright Futures. He is graduating with honors from high school with thirty three college credit hours. He is attending F.S.U. in the fall. I have no idea where the time went.

I am so profoundly honored to have him as a son and friend. He is quite simply one of the best humans I have ever known. I am in awe of his intellect and the kindness with which he lives his life. People love to complain about their teenagers, but everyday I see that guy and the way he handles himself, I feel a gratitude for having him in my life I could never put into words.

Congratulations my Son.



W.B.Z.N.