Chapter 21: Accident and Aftermath
© 1987 by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs
Healdsburg, California (1,450 miles)
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
smoothly 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
NiCad-powered halogen helmet lights for cyclists from Cycle-Ops, I turn
my attention to the rapidly multiplying obligations of this thoroughly
loony profession.
Cheers from the west ward!