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From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan 7 17:25:11 1991
To: wordy@Corp
Subject: chapter-34
THE OTHER WOMAN
#34 in the second online CAA series
by
Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
Ithaca, NY; 13,231 miles.
August 21, 1987
copyright 1987, Steven K. Roberts
The road, once begun, never stops. Tonight in Ithaca, over a fine dinner
of linguini and wine, coffee and sorbet, we spoke of travel. Hitchiking
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 goodbyes.
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 hitchikers 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 irresistable 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.