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Chapter 5 He felt the sensation of the motorbike throbbing between his legs. "Yeah!" he said to himself. "I'm riding a motorbike!" The huge metal beast vibrated under him. It was almost sexual, the way he kept having sex with women every evening. Well, most evenings. He would be riding through a small town and he would slow down to avoid the risk of an accident, and then he would catch sight of a woman he liked. She would then be his prey. He could usually tell the good ones by judging them solely on the basis of their physical appearance. Once, he read some feminism books that said this was the wrong thing to do, and instead you should get to know a women on the basis of her personality, not her looks. She didn't have to be ugly, but it ought to be more to do with luck than deliberate choosiness. He tried this, but it just didn't work out for him. Yes, maybe that's okay for some people. But personally he found that if he spent a few minutes getting to know an ugly woman, he went right off sex for the evening, and consequently failed to do it with her. And at the end of the day, isn't that missing the point rather? He loved American ladies. They were so much more... American than the girls where he grew up, in Hemelhempstead. It was the land of the free. Everything was free - if you had enough money to pay for it, that is. And Craig did. So it was. The sunlight reflected an image of the Arizona desert in his mirrored sunglasses - or at least, so he assumed. He verified this by looking at himself in the motorbike's right side mirror. Yes, there he was. What a fine figure of a chap. His blond hair flapped in the breeze. He looked terrific. He smiled with immense satisfaction and did the thumbs up to himself. The bike wobbled slightly as it hit a bump and he had to hurriedly struggle to regain control. His sunglasses had unfortunately fallen off during this slight hiccup. No matter. He would stop and buy another pair. The next town was approaching. He floored the gas pedal and felt a rush of spiritual energy bursting through his soul as the bike surged forward. Ah yes - The motorcycle. People said Craig was insane. Why not take the bus? But in an insane world, paradoxically, sometimes the most insane things, such as hurtling along on an unstable two-wheeled contraption powered by exploding petrol and risking a broken neck, are really the sanest. And the sanest things, such purchasing a bus ticket, are totally bonkers. Life's too short to waste it sitting on a bus. And according to statistics, it's especially short for motorcyclists, so that only proved his point even further. He saw what looked like a shop coming up about a quarter of a mile ahead. He was getting a bit peckish anyway, so maybe he should stop and buy new sunglasses and a sandwich. He certainly hoped it was nicer than the sandwich he had yesterday. One thing was for sure - when you lived life on the open road, with no place special to call home, and with only your motorcycle and the hot desert wind for companionship, you rapidly became something of an expert on sandwiches. The bike purred to a standstill. He had slightly unpleasant surprise when he realised that he recognised the next bike along. It belonged to a really mean bastard who'd given him trouble in the last town. Never mind. He'd play it cool, that's what he'd do. He moseyed on into the shop, or "store" as they were known locally. The door made a pleasant ding sound, and flies buzzed around him. He mused to himself that people were somewhat like flies. Always flying toward the loudest thing. Well, like blind flies, maybe. Anyway. He saw the mean bastard at the counter, all seven-foot-two of him, already being served by a small old lady, who looked understandably scared. "Got any marzipan?" asked the mean bastard, menacingly. She brightened up a little, and asked shyly, "You bakin' a cake?" "That's none o' yer fuckin' business, bitch," growled the mean bastard. He turned to the dirty magazines and picked one out. The old lady flinched. Watching this from the back of the shop, Craig flinched too. He hated to see the elderly being mistreated. The old lady drew herself up to her full height. "I don't approve of cuss words in my store, young man," she said. Her mouth trembled slightly. The mean bastard slowly turned back to face her. "What did you fuckin' say?" Craig would have to do something. He couldn't just stand there and watch an innocent old lady being insulted. He knew how mean this man could be. With his own eyes, Craig had witnessed him slapping an old man just for wearing orange trousers. The old lady opened her mouth to speak, but her fear stopped the words from coming out. Craig had a plan. He grabbed randomly at a tin from the shelf and stepped forward. "Just these please," he said, brightly. The mean bastard looked him up and down, very slowly. "Well. If it isn't the little English pipsqueak." "H-hello," said Craig. He smiled at the old lady, as if to say, "It's okay now. I'm here." But his heart was thumping in his chest. The old lady pulled out a shotgun and shot the mean bastard in the chest. He flew backward and slid up the aisle, coming to a halt with his head against a sugar bag. He made a gurgling sound as his lungs filled with fluid. "Just the peas then?" she asked Craig. "Er..." said Craig. He nodded. "Two bucks." Craig frowned. "Bloody hell, that's a lot for a tin of peas," he said. She drummed her fingers on the barrel of the shotgun. "Sure you don't wanna buy anything else, son?" * * * * * He was soon on his way again, his motorcycle now a little unsteady on the road because it was loaded down with provisions. He wouldn't need to make another stop for a while. The only trouble with that was that he would probably start to get bored. As much as he liked riding his motorbike down the long desert highways for days on end, it could get a little boring. In fact it could get really fucking boring. Mile after mile after mile of flat ugly road, surrounded by patchy scrubland for as far as you could see. Then some more road. With more desert. Maybe the occasional mountain in the distance, but not the kind you'd want to take a picture of. Just a sort of brown bump a long way away. Sometimes you'd get to a hilly region, and the road would start twisting and winding. This was a great way to break the monotony. Until this also became monotonous and he was sick to the back teeth of twisty, windy road. The sunsets were breathtakingly beautiful, but they were always the fucking same. Every bloody night, another breathtakingly beautiful sunset, the same old gorgeous purple and yellow dance of fire followed by the usual awe-inspiring night sky. He was sick to death of it all. But that degree of boredom lay some time ahead of him. For now, he was still enjoying the peacefulness and relative lack of shooting in his present situation. Man, he'd been nervous in that shop. He must have bought every kind of tinned vegetable known to man. He'd also bought a small radio, which was currently playing the end of I Want To Know What Love Is by Foreigner. In my life there's been heartache and pain Craig felt like the song was about him. The lyrics spoke deeply to him. There had been a bit of heartache and pain in his life, in particular when he had to choose between his new life on the road and his collection of Superted videos. And it was a lonely life. But it was his life now. The song ended and the zany babble of the DJ took over. "That was a classic tune, wasn't it? And we've got some heck fire crazy news from England, where apparently society has completely crumbled." Craig slowed his bike down. "Heck, most of us usually think o' those English types as being pretty reserved, right? The kind o' folks who like to settle their differences man to man, like a bunch o' faggots." Craig frowned at this insult, but he was used to it. The main thing he objected to was the casual homophobia that was rife in this part of the world. Not that he was gay himself, of course. "Anyhow, seems like they forgot about all that stuff now, and now they're looting all the stores and nobody's going to work. They got no electricity or TV, communications are down. The President says it's sort of a crisis, but nothing to get too fussed over." Craig had stopped his bike and was listening dumbfounded. Nothing to get too fussed over? "Even so, the US Marines is apparently headin' over to see if they can help out any. So let's wish our boys the best o' luck." He was about three hundred miles from the nearest naval base, in San Diego, and that was completely the wrong end of the country. But damn it, he was going to have to try. His country needed him. He turned his bike around, and tore up the empty road. |