textfiles/fun/CAA/gecaa-21

From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan  7 17:24:33 1991
To: wordy@Corp
Subject: chapter-21

ACCIDENT AND AFTERMATH

#21 in the second online CAA series

by

Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)

Healdsburg, CA; 11,450 miles.

(c) January 23, 1987





     Fort Ross, California -- late.  Dressed in black, I lay with my cheek

against cold moonlit sandstone, gloved hands covering the telltale brightness

of my face.  Careful breath, toes tensed to spring, all senses hypertaut.

Behind me, under me, around me rumbled the surf; I strained through it to hear

a footstep, a dislodged stone, the muffled jingle of a jouncing zipper pull.

Nothing.  It was quiet out there... too quiet.  Inches from my nose the stone

was wind- sculpted into micro-catacombs, mega-honeycombs -- the alien

footprints of unchecked elements stampeding the coast for centuries after a few

thousand miles running start.



     I peered through my fingers into the moonscape, the stark jungle of rock

and scrub that rendered every shadow a danger zone.  Was that a movement on the

ridge?  I stiffened.  Yes, no doubt about it. Catlike, supernaturally conscious

of every pebble, I glided out of my nook and over the knoll, down a smooth wash

and onto a false beach 100 feet above the violent luminous tangle of rock and

wave.  Sprinting in the moonlight, stumbling in loose sand, I made for a

shadow... suddenly much too far away.



     NOOOO!  There was a blinding flash off to my right; the beam lashed stark

through salt mist to strike me full in the face.  Not really understanding how

it happened, I tumbled to the ground... it was over.  I was hit.



     Soft hands roused me.  Through half-open eyelids I saw her, smelled her,

lifted a sandy hand to touch her thigh.  Maggie was holding the mini-maglite,

kneeling beside me in the mini-dress, grinning victoriously.  Our lips met.

Why not?  Why not here?



     Later, giggling, we made our way past the torpid swans and dozing ducks,

into the cavernous central hall.  Yuppies on furlough, all good-looking, sat

two-by-two in happy bubbles of love; raccoons clambered over the beams, peered

around driftwood, munched atop the cigarette machine.  Koi drifted in milky

haze; somewhere a fork clinked china as another perfect entree met its match.

Logs outgassed, giving the Windham Hill a soft acoustic pedestal; through the

window I caught the fast-flickering red LED of my security system. Maggie

brought coffee, cozied down beside me, and it was Friday night at the Timber

Cove Inn.



     We had come there after a day of wild extremes -- cold tailwinds, hot sun,

steep grades sweaty up and freezing down (yielding my new all-time speed record

of 50.1).  We rode along for an hour with a group of migrating gray whales,

blowing fountains against sparkling blue and treating us to surprise glimpses

of fin and fluke as they made for Baja spawning waters; we flew around the

characteristic fast switchbacks of every cove and inlet from coastal sun to

deep shade and back again.  By dusk, we were tired... and Jenner was still a

dozen miles away over a succession of Big Ones.



     Computerized recumbents are always good door openers, of course, and

before long they had their own room in this exquisite Inn:  1300 square feet,

sunken bath, fireplace, ocean view, enough space for in- room hiking and

deep-tub diving.  Set artistically against dramatic coastline, this idyllic

retreat undisturbed by phones and phosphors will top my list of future romantic

getaway spots.



     But I wanna talk about the NEXT day.



     It began dramatically, as befits the coast.  Looking down through Minolta

8X20's on the backs of soaring hawks, wingtips like splayed fingers playing the

thermals with precision.  Wide-eyed flight down a tightly coiled road, losing

700 altimeter feet in moments only to hurl ourselves once again against the

great wall of gravity:  clattering down through the gears to that

never-quite-low-enough granny, setting the jaw, tinking the aluminum seat

supports with the pulsing backthrust of pedal effort, watching the quads on

freshly exposed pale legs ripple smooothly with uphill cadence.  It becomes

hypnotic, even smooth and poetic -- the rhythm of heavy cranking the antidote

to its own pain.



     Russian River.  A good shoulder at last, 20 miles up easy grade into wine

country.  Dormant vineyards, the names familiar from years of casual wine rack

perusal; yellow mustard flowers carpeting the spaces between rows of wired

chest-high vines.  The traffic changing, the flavor changing -- suddenly a

river instead of a sea.  The end of an era... a feeling of winter... vague

sadness...



     Somewhere south of Healdsburg, in a flat valley between vineyards, a man

stepped from a black van.  He stood by the road and watched my approach,

calling as I passed:  "Hey, can I get to Santa Rosa down this way?"  I couldn't

interpret my detailed map quickly enough to reply while still within earshot,

so I slowed slightly, glanced in the mirror, and began a leftward U-turn.



     Something went wrong.  I turned too tight, too fast.  The front wheel

oversteered and jammed 90 degrees to the frame, bending the stainless-steel

steering rod and skidding the 16-inch tire.  Fighting to overcome impending

disaster, I dropped my left foot to the pavement and pushed while turning back

to the right... releasing the front wheel like an uncoiling spring and dropping

the machine abruptly onto its left side.



     The sudden pain was that of a dagger-jawed hydraulic vise:  my left foot

was crushed under 220 pounds of bicycle, twisting the leg unnaturally

counterclockwise and whipping my body face-down onto the pavement.  But I was

far too busy screaming over my ripping tendons to notice the minor scratches:

as the bike ground to a halt atop my ensnared foot I felt that unmistakable

sensation of Real Injury -- the numbing shock of major pain.



     "Somebody get this thing offa me!" I cried from deep inside my private

world of nervous-system overload.  I was vaguely aware of running feet,

stopping cars, people messing with my bike and trying to figure out how to park

it.  Maggie bent over me, eyes full of moist concern as I lay moaning and

squirming on hard asphalt; the guy seeking Santa Rosa stood beside her,

guilty-faced.



     "To answer your question," I gasped through clenched teeth, "the map's

hanging there over the console."  With a feeble hand I pointed, then the pain

flooded again and I knew my ankle was broken.



     The endorphins kicked in.  I freed the foot gingerly from its Avocet and

Wigwam bindings, vapors of sweat and agony radiating from violated swelling

flesh.  Somebody fussed with my twisted steering linkage, and a gawker leaned

down to ask what all the electronic stuff was for.  "Ballast," I hissed.



     There we were in wine country, disabled ten miles from the nearest town.

I suppose there could be worse places to get road-hurt, but first I had to deal

with encroaching dusk and the throbbing injury that lay just beyond the wall of

fire in my lower calf.  I scooted on my ass over to the bike, groped for the

repeater directory, and quickly made contact with local hams -- getting a

message to our Healdsburg friend via N6GXI that I was hurt and might be a

little late for dinner.



     I could hardly expect someone else to pedal this massive recumbent

megacycle, and the logistics of loading it onto a truck seemed overwhelming.

No choice:  I wrapped the injury with an Ace bandage, gobbled a few codeine

tablets, and struggled to my foot. Only one way to do this... two people lifted

me onto the bike.



     For twelve long miles I rode, wincing at the minor hills, sprinting as

best I could through the shoulderless night traffic on the Highway 101 Russian

River bridge, through Healdsburg, through stop lights, and up a mile of bumpy

dirt road.  Consoling myself with the thought that this would make an

interesting story someday, I tried to imagine coupling a custom kevlar foot

cast to a bicycle pedal...



     But it's not broken after all -- which is a shame, said the emergency room

doctor as he squinted through my X-rays at the overhead fluorescent.  Fractures

heal faster than torn ligaments like this, you know.  Stay off it, use lots of

ice, and keep it elevated.  Have some codeine...  Sign here.



                                * * *



     On borrowed aluminum crutches with crumbling dry-rotted armpit pads I

hobble about Paul's trailer -- every trip to the stereo, refrigerator, or

bathroom a major project.  The foot's a teaser:  I lie in a gentle prescription

fog, surrounded on the hide-a-bed by the trappings of a day's half-work,

thinking the pain has subsided.  I swivel my feet to the floor and press gently

-- no problem. Carefully, I struggle to an awkward standing position -- still

no problem.  I smile, imagining the road ahead.  Then I take a step and it all

comes flooding back in an agonizing rush of icepick and boltcutter,

sledgehammer and cattle prod.  Not yet, I guess.  Not quite yet.



     Maggie left.  She flew to Seattle to rescue our Puget-rusted brown van.

Her voice on the phone, familiar yet odd in the 3 kHz long-distance passband,

speaks of Bainbridge Island friends and barely remembered possessions grown

musty in the woods.  "There's enough stuff in the van to start a household,"

she says -- and I wince at the image of hobbled normalcy.  I wiggle my toes,

force my foot to bend. "I don't WANT to start a household," I say, filtering

out the knife- thrust of renewed anklepain.



     Day, bluebright sky, winter gray vegetation on horsey hills, long slow

crutchwalks around the pond of goose, heron and coot.  Night, skysparkle cold,

calm, hot air mini-balloon weather.  Exuberant Rosalene, Joshua, and Noah make

bright freckled kidgrins at my dormant machine; I eat burritos with the

neighbors.  Paul's record collection and woodstove urge me off my butt every

half hour; he's out carpentooning somewhere, Maggie's on a freeway somewhere,

the cats are hungry here and now.  Clumsy tubslipping showers, crutch-fumbling

doorways, fingers on touch-tone, signing on much too often.  Getting to know

Cleo and Badger and Tigger well enough to predict their feline spats; reading

myself to sleep in mid-afternoon.  An easy-money online searching job, naked

under down bag and computer as Lockheed Dialog disgorges raw corporate

intelligence into my buffer -- then ZAP through GEnie to distant Fortune 500

client.  Strange business for a busted technoid cyclebum sprawled numb on a

wine-country fold-out sofa...



     And the nights, the nights.  A man gets used to a woman.  Here's a

surprise:  I suddenly recall in the solo days and quiet evenings with Paul the

flavor of my first trip -- long long miles of monastic solitude punctuated by

desperate sexual quests ending more often than not in frustration.  There were

sweet moments, of course, dozens of them, but the subtle flavors of travel were

obscured by a pungent hormonal salsa based upon classic male horniness and the

piquance of pure fantasy.



     It's different this time.  Maggie and I are of like passions, and seldom

do my thoughts return to those flawless 2-dimensional images in the glossy Wish

Book.  Without that old urgency, I find it worthwhile to know people better --

even men, since in the era before MagWheels male hosts were but temporary

holding patterns while I scanned the horizon for a suitable female landing

strip.



     But now she's gone to Seattle -- her sudden absence revealing the depth of

my addiction.  NOW I recall those other reasons for taking on a companion

(besides lifestyle maintenance management, sensory enhancement, additional load

carrying capacity, and long black hair). Now I remember.  Strategically, of

course, the timing of this van- recovery project is correct... I might not be

able to pedal for a week or three.  But the enforced inactivity, the headaches,

the crutches, the squalid pool of possessions filling my bed by day and piled

on the floor by night, the sight of our bikes poised outside by the porch steps

-- all underscore the need.  The NEED.  It must be love...



     (Cleo, as if on cue, uncurls from sleep, stretches, steps across the

notebook to my lap and begins sharp-clawed rhythmic kneading. Thanks for the

thought, kitty, but that don't quite get it.)



     OK, ok.  Enough maudlin rambling.  One good thing about being laid up

alone is that I can theoretically get some work done before plunging into the

Bay Area maelstrom of media, adventure, new toys, and old friends.  As Paul

slaves in the back room assembling lightweight Ni-Cad-powered halogen helmet

lights for cyclists ($67.50 from Cycle-Ops, P.O. Box 1581, Healdsburg, CA

95448), I turn my attention to the rapidly multiplying obligations of this

thoroughly loony profession.



     Cheers from the west ward!



          -- Steve