Bicycle Diary: Fly with the Magpie!
Sep. 20th, 2005 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonWent out bike riding with the Magpie last night. Got a call from him enroute to the Hacienda yesterday. This is a rare treat for me. Normally the Magpie is all wrapped up in stage stuff and I usual spend the first of the week doing Nerd Seance with the Cult of the D20. Apparently the Magpie has no rehearsals on Mondays. Mondays, as you may or may not know, are a good night to hang out with theater people. It is apparently some kind of holy day for them, for there are rarely any shows scheduled or rehearsals to be attended. I'm not sure why this is really. I believe it has something to do with the ancient Greeks. Who, as you may or may not know, would never perform a tragedy or comedy on the first day of the week. For that day was sacred to the Wine God, Dionysus, because on that day he was really, really badly hung over and the last thing he wanted to hear was a bunch of toga wearing thespians moaning and bellowing their lines across the amphitheaters, echoing all the way up to the panthenon. Hence the famous story of when King Midas held the very first 48 hour plays and woke Dionysus out of a sound slumber. Long story short: Dionysus showed up with a biker gang of Satyrs and they each took turns Sodomizing (known in prebiblical times simply as 'foreplay') the king for his folly. That and the play got suck ass reviews from the Athens Times. Phew! That King Midas got no love huh? Anyway I got home, I loaded up the backpack with a bottle of cheap Chianti and a fresh pack of Camels. Next is my ritual of the preride tune. I decided on Madness' cover of the The Israelites and ended up doing a little dance in my micro-kitchen. It's 7 o'clock now and the sun is burning down to the last embers of the day. This is how I can tell Autumn is coming, the sunsets shift from Summer Golden to flames of Fall. Darkness gathers along the length of Briarcliff Road. Night soon and I launch myself forward to meet it.
Nothing like a few glasses of red wine to get the pedals going. The Magpie is a lot lighter than me, by roughly a hundred pounds or so, and hence a lot faster on his ride. I've put on a lot of weight since the accident and I'm feeling it now trying to keep up with him. Luckily though that weight comes in handy going down hills, as the mass adds to the momentum and I rocket down Whitefoord (the most ironically named street in Atlanta!)and come up on him out of the blue. I am no longer myself though. For this mission I have taken on the role of Baron Van Karman, ace Stuka pilot of the Luftwafer, who is currently sneaking up on some Tommy doing loop to loops in his Spitfire:
"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!" I click the handle brakes lightly to pretending they're triggers. The Spitfire takes a few to the wing but is still fairly maneurvable and much faster than me. 'Tommy' dodges left, leaping the curb of the sidewalk and 'flying' between two parked cars. I lose him in the dark and momentum, I risk a look behind and here he comes guns blazing! DAMMERUNG! I try to lose him behind a slow rolling MARTA bus but he's too quick, I dive for the cover of a driveway but it's too late he's on my wing and coming in for the kill... Ach Der Lieber Ist vis the end of Baron Van Karman? Maybe so, but the 'Battle of Britain' is far from over.
Later we're having a smoke over at the Jimmy Carter Center. It occurs to me i've never been here in the daytime. I remember coming here years and years ago with some young lady who picked me up at the Point. She took me here and tried to get down my pants, but she was a lady, and a lady always gets a stranger drunk first before taking advantage of a male. I remember another night riding a $5 dollar Special Effect of the tongue and somehow ending up in some garden. I spent a few hours watching the flowers breathe, the city lights talk and wondering how the hell I was ever going to get home alive! We make our way back to his place. We finish off the wine and I realize it's getting close to midnight. It's a long ride home, but that was me investigating new 'short cuts'. I keep riding by all these memories on the way.
Here's where Diane led me by the hand to the park, her little face lit up with love and hope. Big brown eyes and the halo of her smile shined on me so bright I can still it burn a decade later. Over here's where Skinhead Ollie & Marshall chased down some shit talking rednecks. I can see Ollie leap for the back of the cab door on the pick up truck, being dragged down a block while we tried to catch up with them. I hit North & Euclid and see a light on in my old apartment. Lorri is outside half naked screaming death threats at me, Jimmy has pulled up blasting the Wu-Tang Clan from a car he took from this guy who owed a friend of his some money. Irish Mike is pounding on the door, 5-0 is right behind him and he needs a place to hide! Bill & Jay are sitting on the front of Dave's Firebird, sipping Rolling Rocks and waiting for me to get home. I can even see myself sitting there, smoking cigarette butts watching the rain fall all around me.
I finally pull in at my place around a quarter to twelve. All that was just four hours I realize. I call L___ on the phone, tell her goodnight. Inside and I collapse on the bed. Six hours and a wake up. I turn off the light and lay there counting ghosts.
Nothing like a few glasses of red wine to get the pedals going. The Magpie is a lot lighter than me, by roughly a hundred pounds or so, and hence a lot faster on his ride. I've put on a lot of weight since the accident and I'm feeling it now trying to keep up with him. Luckily though that weight comes in handy going down hills, as the mass adds to the momentum and I rocket down Whitefoord (the most ironically named street in Atlanta!)and come up on him out of the blue. I am no longer myself though. For this mission I have taken on the role of Baron Van Karman, ace Stuka pilot of the Luftwafer, who is currently sneaking up on some Tommy doing loop to loops in his Spitfire:
"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!" I click the handle brakes lightly to pretending they're triggers. The Spitfire takes a few to the wing but is still fairly maneurvable and much faster than me. 'Tommy' dodges left, leaping the curb of the sidewalk and 'flying' between two parked cars. I lose him in the dark and momentum, I risk a look behind and here he comes guns blazing! DAMMERUNG! I try to lose him behind a slow rolling MARTA bus but he's too quick, I dive for the cover of a driveway but it's too late he's on my wing and coming in for the kill... Ach Der Lieber Ist vis the end of Baron Van Karman? Maybe so, but the 'Battle of Britain' is far from over.
Later we're having a smoke over at the Jimmy Carter Center. It occurs to me i've never been here in the daytime. I remember coming here years and years ago with some young lady who picked me up at the Point. She took me here and tried to get down my pants, but she was a lady, and a lady always gets a stranger drunk first before taking advantage of a male. I remember another night riding a $5 dollar Special Effect of the tongue and somehow ending up in some garden. I spent a few hours watching the flowers breathe, the city lights talk and wondering how the hell I was ever going to get home alive! We make our way back to his place. We finish off the wine and I realize it's getting close to midnight. It's a long ride home, but that was me investigating new 'short cuts'. I keep riding by all these memories on the way.
Here's where Diane led me by the hand to the park, her little face lit up with love and hope. Big brown eyes and the halo of her smile shined on me so bright I can still it burn a decade later. Over here's where Skinhead Ollie & Marshall chased down some shit talking rednecks. I can see Ollie leap for the back of the cab door on the pick up truck, being dragged down a block while we tried to catch up with them. I hit North & Euclid and see a light on in my old apartment. Lorri is outside half naked screaming death threats at me, Jimmy has pulled up blasting the Wu-Tang Clan from a car he took from this guy who owed a friend of his some money. Irish Mike is pounding on the door, 5-0 is right behind him and he needs a place to hide! Bill & Jay are sitting on the front of Dave's Firebird, sipping Rolling Rocks and waiting for me to get home. I can even see myself sitting there, smoking cigarette butts watching the rain fall all around me.
I finally pull in at my place around a quarter to twelve. All that was just four hours I realize. I call L___ on the phone, tell her goodnight. Inside and I collapse on the bed. Six hours and a wake up. I turn off the light and lay there counting ghosts.