Chapter 34: The Other Woman
© 1987 by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs
Ithaca, New York (3,231 miles)
August 21, 1987
The road, once begun, never stops. Tonight in Ithaca, over a fine
dinner of linguine and wine, coffee and sorbet, we spoke of
travel. Hitchhiking marathons of 17 years ago were revived in
candlelight; freight-hopping adventures came to life with all the
gritty romance of swaying cars and rusty steel. Bright-eyed and
wine-lubed, we recounted nights alone in Nebraska, Jersey cops,
long-haul truckers, perverts, road romances, the delicious filth of
coal cars across the great prairies, the strange improbable madness of
travel... those moments that linger rich in the memory like first loves
and last good-byes.
I’m not sure what started my addiction—how I graduated from small doses
of bush-league adventure to the hard stuff. I do know that the type of
movement doesn’t matter very much. The megabike is appropriate and
endlessly entertaining, but it’s not the heart of my wanderings. The
heart is a wild throbbing thing of thermos coffee, road maps, strange
eyes, and exploratory kisses—of faded packs and mountains, harbor
smells and camp stoves.
No, I have no idea how it all started, but I do know I’m a victim—a
happy victim, more willing to pedal over hills on a 95-degree summer
afternoon than endure an air-conditioned office at $50,000 a year. The
road, the Other Woman, is the love of my life... and I’ll vow to kiss
her sweet asphalt forever if she’ll keep me free from the torpor of
stability.
She’s a tough one, though. This is never an easy relationship. The
Other Woman seduces the unwary and has thousands of lovers... yet is
jealous of every one. She’ll kill you with your own passion or ignore
you in some backwater until you scream in frustration. She’ll fill you
with delicious fantasies then spill your blood without remorse. But
still you can never leave her—only withdraw for a while to lick your
wounds and sample someone stable, secretly browsing your Rand-McNally in the bathroom like a
worn copy of Penthouse while dreaming of your next escape. The Other
Woman lures you back, time after time, lures you back into her long
winding arms like the helplessly lovestruck suitor you are. For once
you taste her charms, you are forever spoiled, forever ruined—doomed to
fidget through your static spells and gaze misty-eyed at old boots,
stir at the sound of pre-dawn freights, pick up hitchhikers in
tight-chested jealousy and try not to show your pain.
Yeah... if you don’t go running back, you suffer forever.
We’re a sort of family, spread across the planet like a scattered clan
with a rare genetic disorder, drawn together in common need,
recognizing each other in crowds. We are the victims of the Other
Woman. We gather around campfires, trade food, grin across the highway
with weathered faces crinkled and arms upraised. In hostels, our
strange accents tickle each other’s ears; we trot out our memories and
photos to share insights into what makes the Road the irresistible
Siren she is. We can spot each other at a distance, and even sense the
stirrings of puppy love that doom the occasional child to a life of
wandering—the child who stands on an invisible leash at town-edge,
holding his bicycle, biting his lip as we roll past him toward the
mysteries of the open road. We wink, knowing the moment has been
branded onto the surface of that young brain, searing the delicate
cortical tissues into a permanent overlay that will subtly alter
everything he sees, forever. A future brother...
It’s not all men, of course—don’t start waving red flags of feminist
outrage at those personal pronouns. Women are struck too: just as
addicted, just as seriously ruined by the Road for anything even
approaching long-term stability. The Other Woman is quite happily bi,
luring beauty into her lair, terrifying parents, turning career women
into healthy backpack-toting hostelers who push past their road-fear
into a life of adventure. They’re rare, radiant females, glowing with
the flush of urges fulfilled and moving with the free grace of
animals... not the stylized grace of fashion.
But as infinite as the Other Woman is, there are certain things she
can’t do very well—things that leave one fleeing her arms for those of
flesh... then returning again and again, running to and fro in
confusion like a child caught in a divorce. For years I traveled like
that, pedaling from romance to romance against a backdrop of the road.
It became a sort of rhythm, a soft succession of new loves, a Russian
roulette of pathogens. I would pedal into town and meet her. You know,
HER. Eyes would lock. Hands would tremble. She would be drawn into my
writing, my bike, the adventure of my life. I would be drawn into her
beauty, her warmth, her modular phone jack. Needing a place to stay and
sensing the stirrings of passion, I would move in.
By unspoken agreement, the bike would become a piece of abstract
sculpture standing in her livingroom instead of an ominous poised
symbol of my transience. The love would grow, fragile, accelerated by
circumstance, a whole relationship compressed into days. But then the
Other Woman would begin whispering from the dark, and I’d start
gathering the zip-locs, tweaking the bike, scanning my list of
contacts. I’d break the news, and try in vain to soften the pain... my
chest aching at the tears of sorrow and reproach glistening like jewels
on the cheeks of a new friend. Promises... to write, to rendezvous, to
remember. And then the last kiss, so terribly different from the first.
Alone, I’d slap on the headphones and crank up the jazz, reset the
Cat-Eye and flee back to the Other Woman, that bitch, the rhythm of my
pedals salting the open wound of young love shattered again. It got old
after a while, the novelty obscured by the pain.
And so we come to the present. I’m rolling around in a menage a trois
now: Maggie, the Road, and I. This might be it—a blend of comfort and
adventure, flesh and asphalt, love and addiction, freedom and security.
The endless changes of travel keep the moss off our toes, yet we suffer
not from road-ache, that affliction that renders the lone traveler
somehow tragic and driven, a free electron looking for a covalent bond.
We’ve become a molecule, Maggie and I, drifting together from family to
family, more a part of the solution than of the precipitate. It’s a
good life, and I’m even learning to handle the once-terrifying
stability of a long-term love.
We share road food, conjured from her bicycle trailer by magic. We zip
our down bags together to chase the evening chill—our porta-condo a
cocoon of healthy smells as the familiar fabric walls billow gently in
the breezes of a new place. The rhythms of movement beat like an
undercurrent of congas in the night: heart thumping, pedal pumping,
file dumping. New towns roll into view, effortlessly, each a haven of
new friends and warm beds... each a different view of the same
essential home. I write, add bike systems, and expand the family. And
it’s so easy, this nomadic life, now that the desperation is gone and
the tools are familiar.
The Other Woman wasn’t expecting this domestication, but she doesn’t
seem to mind. She still throws us curves, owns our hearts, and leaves
us panting... hungry for more.
That’s the way she likes it.