Taking a long shower and gulping down some water always help, so that's what I did. In the shower, I hatched a grand plan: I would pack up and check out. I could ride up to my old apartment in Windsor Locks, where I knew there was a safe and quiet laundromat. I'd wash all my dugs. While the machines worked on my stains, I could have some greasy food at the Friendly's Restaruant which shared a parking lot with the laundromat.
I packed up and checked out, and then rode up there. But the place was closed. The hours on the door indicated they were open, but they weren't. A hand-scraweld "CLOSED" sign was taped to the inside of the door.
Cursing my luck for a while, I stood in the parking lot. I toyed with the idea of just riding to where it was I would ride to, and then doing laundry there. But I had sort of set myself up for an easy day today: not much riding, and clean shirts soon. I remembered another laundromat in East Hartford, near another apartment I had lived in for a while. I drove all the way back and found, with relief, that it was open. I emptied my dirty digs into one of the machines, bought some soap, and went back out into the parking lot.
All the quarters I had used—for the machine and the vended soap —didn't begin to dent the pile of change taht I had in my tank bag. I wondered how I would rid myself of all the annoying coins. I was there, staring at my change bag, when she came back outside.
The only other customer of the laundry that day was a striking woman. She hauled a pile of folded clothes in a basket into her Honda. She was trim, nearly as tall as me, and had striking copper hair. Me, I was in a smelly motorcycle shirt and leather pants. I was wearing sunglasses and reading an artsy paperback book. I can talk to a trillion people at a time from the stage, but I can't talk with anyone one on one. I thought about the situation; it didn't even matter. Couldn't I just chat with her? I had nothing to expect from her, we'd both just disappear. I had an interesting story, and I was sure she did, too.
Christ. So, I got the hell out of there. I rode a few hundred yards down the throughfare to Burger King and narfed yet another huge hamburger. Someone left some pieces of the Sunday Hartford Courant behind, but I only cruised over them. I kept thinking of this pretty woman at the laundromat.
I was done eating, and watched a cop come and go with some food. A young black family came into the restraunt and sat near me. Their children, I noted, were the most well-behaved kids I think I had ever witnessed. Yes sir, no sir. Without any prompting, the little boy offered to get more napkins for everyone at the table.
Of course, when I returned, she was gone. I suppose that was good; I had an awkward moment because I didn't have a laundry basket. How could I get my stuff from the washer, which was now done, to the dryer? I was on my way back out to the bike to use my plastic shopping bags. Then I noticed the wheeled carts for just that purpose. I hauled one over, bent at the waist to push the cart without crasing it—my leather-clad ass sticking out.
As I unloaded my wet threads, she returned. She really was striking to me. In my head, the classic conflict of feeling that I must talk with her, but that I should respect her privacy and leave her alone raged. The feeling obligation: "nice men talk to pretty women without hesitation; are you a nice man or not?" fuled the simmering fire in me. But I didn't. I just dropped my quarters in the dryer machine, pressed play, and went back to my book on the sidewalk.
She came out with another load, and sat there, too. I still didn't say anything. I decided that the chain on the bike really needed to be adjusted. Fuck it all.
She left when I went in one more time to see if my machine had stopped. It had; I decided it was good that she left—I wouldn't have to pretend to care about folding my underwear or shirts before stuffing them into my bug-tattered bike bags. Plus, as she sped off, I noticed a baby seat in her car. Someone with more courage had beaten me to it a long time ago.
With my shirts and unmentionables stuffed into my packs, I returned the cart to the folding table and took off. The attendant thanked me. These trips are really hard: the slightest thing can throw off your morale. For me, this trip, my morale was not hurting but my own indifference was a drag. You can't always tell why you're indifferent, and that leads you to drag against the feeling for the whole trip. But with my clean clothes, I suddenly felt much better.
Unfortunately, it was about 2pm now and I didn't have much daylight to apply my sparky disposition. I hauled out onto the highway, retracing my steps along I-84.
My vow to be more aggressive about taking pictures of state boundary signs was still valid. As I crossed back into New York State, I hopped off and road along US-6, since I knew it had signs for the borders. I took shots of both state signs, and kept on US-6. It traced I-84, and I could see that traffic on the interstate was badly congested.
This area of New York deeply confused me. Brewster was one of the only little towns that I knew anything about, simply because I had become badly lost there one of my car trips back in the early nineties. Plus, a couple of years ago, I stopped there to hid from a large and dangerous thunderstorm. My map wasn't detailed enough to show any interesting roads, so I just used more dead-recoking.
Following US-6 through Brewster, I caught NY-303. It cut north and met up with I-84 just on the other side of the Newburgh-Beacon bridge, in a town called Fishkill. Fishkill: what a name. Society suffered from sickness, and the New York-Connecticut-New Jersey tri-state area was the bleeding lesion on the cancerous tumour causing that sickness.
The problem was apparently an accident someplace along the highway I skipped, because there was very little traffic on I-84 near the bridge. The bridge was notoriously windy, and it was a little tough to cross at first. But I made it, and started racing towards the Pennsylvanian border.
About half-way through New York, I found myself cruising along in the right-lane. There was so little traffic on this Sunday evening that I could obediently keep left except when I needed to blow by some other cars. I saw a sign far ahead that infmred me the right lane was ending, so I popped one lane over. When I checked my mirrors, I saw a BMW gaining on me quickly, still in the right lane but at least half a mile back.
Well, this fool, with his girlfriend or his wife in the car, doesn't see any of the "lane ends" signs and stays in the right lane. As his lane disappears, he passes me and brushes me to the far edge of my lane. I lay on the horn and flash my lights, and he pops me the finger. At times, I long for the quicken, direct, forthright people of the east coast. But I can't understand their stupidity and overly aggressive behaviour.
Trying to shake off the fool, I marched towards the Pennsylvania border. Again, I stopped in Port Jervis to optimize my fuel costs. By not buying a drop of gas in either Connecticut or New York State, I managed to save about three dollars!
The sun was already low enough to draw huge shadows across the highway in the valley leading away from the Delaware river. I smoked the bike up the other side of the valley and continued back down. I decided that I would stop in Wilkes-Barre and have a few drinks and try to go to bed early.
As I neared Scranton, I became hung-up in some road construction. An impressive detour knocked me about 12 miles out of my way. I stopped to see if my map offered a nifty shortcut, but I had no such luck. In the stop-and-go detour traffic, I caught up to another motorcyclist and shut off my engine. I coasted downhill, shoving my feet on the ground when the congestion allowed me to move forward. The other rider was from Ohio, and had just purchased his bike. It was new, but a three-year old model. That was unheard of to me; I wondered about the dealer who had kept the bike crated (or on the floor) while buyers walked by it.
He wanted to ride all weekend, but was afriad he had bit off more than he could chew: it was getting late, and he needed to make it back home that evening. I encouraged him to stay, since that was the safe thing. But traffic opened up again and our conversation was cut short.
Frustrated by the traffic, I opened the screws when I had a shot out. I rode few dozen miles down the highway and finally entered Wilkes-Barre. I watched the billboards until I found a hotel to my liking. Finally, there was a shot at a Holiday Inn attached to a TGI Friday's. What could be better? I got off the highway and rode US-11 just a few miles away from I-81 to the hotel.
After checking in, I stripped my sticky clothes off. The air conditioner felt great as I lay on the bed, watching the news. After a couple of stories about the gunman in the capitol, I went to go shower. While I adjusted the water, I thought I heard some noise out front. Shure enough, someone had a key to my room and was on their way in! I pulled on a towel and confronted them. They were apparently harmless: a younger boy and his grandfather and grandmother, I guessed. But I had some words for them, I'll tell you.
I phoned the front desk and told them what had happend. The girl who answered just said: "Uh, please hold" and gave me to the manager. He wasn't much help. He said he'd just get me a new set of keys. He insisted the keys were re-coded with every checkin, but that clearly wasn't the case. These people had walked right into my room.
Showering quickly, I waited for the manager to arrive as he had promised. Instead, a bellboy appeared with my new keys. My anger flared again because the manager didn't have any balls and sent the bellboy to do his dirty work. I chewed-out the bellboy (as gently as I could) and told him that I'd be down to the front desk in ten minutes. And that the manager had better be there.
I was shaking mad. The manager offered little more than his assertions that the keys were redone for every guest and that it was impossible for somoene else to gain access to my room. I told him that I wasn't hallucinating. He offered nothing.
In the bar, I immediately slammed a couple of drinks. A fellow sat next to me and asked why I was so jumpy. I related the story to him, and he just laughed about it: he was at the desk, himself checking in, when I had first called. He told me that I had put the fear of god into the poor girl who had answered my call. He worked in hospitals, taking care of equipment. we chatted a bit.
To my left was the bartender's girlfriend. She commented on my story, too, then immediately started talking ot me. They were having relationship problems, and she was very upset about it. Some people hide their problems and others air them out: she was certianly telling me things I didn't truly need to know. She was quite cute, though, and I wasn't about to tell her to go away.
What a night. The girlfriend and the engineer left, and were replaced by some NASCAR fans. I didn't realize it, but the Pocono 500 was that afternoon and all these folks were on their way home from the race. I was lucky to have stopped early and get a room. Otherwise, I might be riding and riding in the night before I would find a place to stay.
You can tell a NASCAR fan a million miles away. What a bunch of rednecks! The best conversation I overheard was among three guys sitting next to me. They discussed how mad their friend's wife was going to be: it turned out that he had been arrested at the last race, too. This time, it was for DUI. The guy not only got stopped, but became belligerent with the trooper who stopped him. Fortunately, they lived around here and would bail out their friend tomorrow.
But, what a crew.
The bartender apparently overheard me talking with his girlfriend, as service was just as slow as it could get. Without enough beer to gather a buzz, I went back to my room. That was fine: I was very tired. I watched some news show on television while I studied my maps and thought of was to attack the next day.
And I chained the door.
Posted on 20 January, 1999.