Mike is your typical middle-aged man, 6’1” with wild brown hair that he tucks under a smelly Oakland A’s cap when trying to look presentable. Not fat but not skinny, he settled into a comfortable weight for his age years ago; but it fluctuates greatly at times, due to his overall mood and periodic bouts with depression and hopelessness.
He wears steel rectangular framed glasses that usually make me question whether he can see me given the amount of dirt and fingerprint smudges on them; and his several day old whiskers turn into errant grey patches on his chin that match the grey streaks gaining momentum near his temples, and just above and behind his ears.
Born and raised in South California, Mike speaks with an “I’m so fucking stoned” accent, and he constantly uses Southern California expressions, like using “like,” “totally,” and “awesome” all the time; “you know what I mean?” at the end of sentences; and referring to highways as a proper number, such as “The Five” or “The Four-O-Five.”
Haunted with a nervous precondition, he uses a lot of drugs and alcohol for basic overall comfort, but such things have waned through the decades, and now he’s trying to locate comfort elsewhere. He tells me writing is his true love, his hobby, whatnot; but I’ve never read any of his writing, and most people think he’s just full of shit.
I learned a lot from Mike over the summer. We shared everything: space, time, devotions, contemplations, realizations – motorcycles, drugs, alcohol, and fucking women too. Who would’ve known it was possible to discover something so extraordinary out of something so ordinary? Self-realization was only part of the story.
When we met, Mike was clearly in the midst of a spiritual crisis. Few things are more tenuous than the faith of a disillusioned middle-aged man. He told me that he was planning to commit suicide, a big bang at the end of his ride around the country; but all of that changed after we found each other, after we uncovered some shared reality.
—ooOoo—
After shutting down my business, having decided to take a sabbatical, I left California in mid-June. A motorcycle road trip around the country. An epic journey to finish riding through the Lower 48. I didn’t make plans. I didn’t make reservations. I just loaded up the bike one morning, looked at a map for some general direction, and hit the road without a definitive destination or date of return.
I met Jake on the third day at a campground outside Benson, Arizona. I was doing laundry because all of my shirts had a horrible smell – the hot desert sun was tough going through Nevada/Arizona, requiring lots of sweaty shirt changes. Thankfully, I found a campground with a laundromat, albeit a tacky one with dirty funky machines. “Just be cleaner than when you went in,” was my plea.
I wasn’t feeling good. My nerves were beyond done; my mind wouldn’t stop racing; and my body was hurting from not adequately training for the ride. Like I always say: “Everything gets sorted out on the ride one way or the other.” That being said, I was delighted to be running away, and I knew things would only get better. Everything looks up when you’ve hit that lower emotional/spiritual bottom.
—ooOoo—
After shaking hands, Jake picked up my laundry bag and opened up the screen door for me while we walked inside. That nauseous feeling I felt while walking over seemed to go away, and I felt a wonderful sense of ease than before.
It was like kismet to me, and what chance did we stand against kismet? Knowing what we know now, it most surely was inevitable for us to meet; but who would’ve thought it would’ve been this way? I didn’t see it coming.
