CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - Roadside Attractions.

South and west of Charleston, the landscape changes from major city to long stretches of desolate grasslands, punctuated by the occasional marshy inlet. Highway 17 is dotted with roadside stands of basket weavers and produce merchants. We stopped at one for a fresh peach at one stand nestled in the shade of a mighty oak. A patch of black standing water backdropped this rickety old wooden shed, Spanish Moss draped over the low lying limbs that reached nearly to the ground.

Our approach, downshifting rapidly from cruising speed onto the loose gravel, seemingly woke the proprietor from a nap, head snapping up abruptly. Every so often, the combination of butt break, easy access parking lot, inviting produce stand and a cool breeze, make quickie stops like this a pleasant memory. A juicy ripe peach right off the crude wooden shelves, mere hours from picking in some cases, is something we need to remember to do in our hectic lives.

The woman behind the shelves stood as we dismounted and smiled a wide toothy welcome. It was refreshing to see a full set of teeth, white and straight as any private school girl back home. Her hair tied in a bun with a red bandana, long loose skirt, dusty at the hem from dragging the ground, and white blouse tied at her midriff in a knot produced a pleasant image.

"Good Morning." She said in a distinctively Creole accent. Although far from Louisiana, she really didn't appear too far out of place in this setting. I was waiting for the now tedious 'Nice day for a ride!' retort that often comes at times like this, but she surprised me with a slow shake of her head, and "Ohhh, how I wish I were you - riding my bike on such a beautiful morning."

I turned my head slightly and nearly gotten a reply out when Lance beat me to the punch. "And how I wish you were riding with us. You're far cuter than this guy" tossing his head in my direction. I sat on a nearby crate after judging its ability to hold me was adequate, and marveled at how the ladies seemed to draw to Lance like moths and he was some burning light in the midst of a dark night. She came around to the front of the stand and admired his bike, barely tossing a second look at Ol' Huck. I'll have to remember to maybe wash him off in Savannah - it did look rather dirty. I don't ever recall seeing Petey being washed, but it always looked fresh and clean - not a drop of oil to be seen under it, or a splattered bug on its frame to despoil the look.

I reached up and snatched a peach from its shelf, sat back and took in the sight. A cool breeze made the flaps on her umbrella wave, while her soothing voice teased Lance out in the parking lot. I couldn't make out what was being said anymore - they were too far away with their backs turned, and I wasn't that interested anyway. I enjoyed soaking in these small clippits of life - no longer worried about making good time on the road, not concerned with beating rush hour traffic and certainly not annoyed with the passing of hours. Charleston Harbor wasn't 45 minutes past, and the low-lying port of Beaufort not far up ahead, but this is what was playing at the moment and I took it all in.

A small terrier was panting on the ground near where the woman sat earlier - probably used to distractions and customers; it never moved. It simply looked up at me as I jumped slightly trying to catch the peach juice as it dribbled down my chin from a too-large bite into the soft fruit. Almost as if it tried to spare me the embarrassment of being caught, it looked away unconcerned. Lance was walking the woman around his bike pointing out various niceties, absorbed in being the entertainer for a moment. There's nothing like having no particular place to go and no particular time to do it in.

My attention focused on the young woman. Not an entirely unnatural thing for me to do. With her hands on her hips, it accentuated the curve of her waist not noticed before under her long thin dress. With her barely within the shade of the large trees, and the bright morning sun beyond, more than just her waist was noticed through the dress. It was a pleasant diversion. The dog looked up at me and appeared to understand what was going through my mind, our gazes returned to the display in unison, not willing to miss much of the show.

She was crouching low now, inspecting some aspect of Lance's bike, while he stood just beyond her. He looked at me and winked. I did one of those eyes-closed-head-shakes that guys know as an acknowledgement of defeat. He wins again. Why should it be any other way?

They came back to the stand and Lance introduced me to "Arianne" - who was watching her fathers stand while he went to get a late breakfast. "She's going to Daytona day after tomorrow", giving me a raised-eyebrow look of interest, "we need to figure out someplace to meet - any ideas?"

I figured wherever we meet she'd have to stand in line. Give the guy 20 minutes in Daytona and she'd be a distant memory. "Got no clue where we're gonna stay, but likely will be up in the Ormond Beach area - and that won't be until around next Tuesday. We're gonna go to Fort McCoy for a couple nights first. We could meet ya for breakfast Tuesday morning? There's a Waffle house right where US1 splits off from I-95 - just north of The Fireside Bar, know it?" The question was more for Lance, but Arianne answered first.

Turning to Lance she said, "I'll be there for breakfast Tuesday, around 9?"

"Course, you could join us in, say, St. Augustine, Sunday morning - and ride over to Fort McCoy with us?" Lance was thinking real hard how to make this happen earlier than Tuesday. Arianne nodded as if she was on board with that. We hauled out the maps and studied them a minute.

"OK," I said turning to Arianne, "Sunday morning we'll be getting up either in Fernandino Beach if we find his friend, or we'll go to St. Augustine and wait for you there. Either way, there's a Hardee's on US1 in Augustine - near some big bridges where the main drag cuts across - King Street I think it is." We figured out how long it would take her to get there from here. "If you leave by 5am - you can make it by 9 easy." She had a Low Rider and could make pretty good time on a Sunday morning.

I got on my bike, trying to draw Lance into getting on the road and heading south. They exchanged numbers and he paid for my peach and an apple that he was munching on. I smiled and waved - moved Ol' Huck out to the edge of the road and waited for them to say whatever it was they were saying.

It was a short wait. I heard the Panhead fire up, and the crunch of gravel as he pulled up beside me. We turned to each other and all's he said, before pulling out onto the highway south, was "This is gonna be a fun ride."

'Indeed it is' was all I could think to say as I cranked the throttle in unison with releasing the clutch. My mind returned almost immediately to the sport. The fun. The reason why we do these kinds of things - The Ride. We pass by dozens more produce stands and basket weavers. I had to wonder, in how many of those stands, as we whiz past with hardly a turn of the head, stood other Arianne's looking for an adventure. Damned fuckin' few I would think. But enough to make the stops at such butt breaks sometimes worthwhile. This was a good stop.

An hour and a half later I was riding over the bridge overlooking the River Street district on Hwy 17 into Savannah. Snaking our way downhill to the Savannah River, we bounced down the football sized cobblestones laid in the street and pulled into the public parking on the river. There was a magnificent old sailing ship moored there and we sat on the brick wall giving us a nice view of history bobbing with the wakes of passing ships. We knew there was half an afternoon to kill here before any hope of bumping into my buds who lived a few miles from here.

David and Sli. Now, there's a pair. I bumped into Sli quite by accident on the Internet while looking in AOL's membership directory. I was doing a little research on Savannah for a ride I was gonna take south, and was trying to find an old riding buddy who, last I heard, lived in Garden City, nearby. I did a broad search of all profiles with the words Savannah and Harley in it. There weren't too damn many - but one of 'em was online and I wasted no time saying hi. What developed over a year or so was a once-in-a-while friendship as she fed me suggestions on where to ride in the area, where's the good bike bars in town - you know - the important stuff.

My next trip to Daytona had me stopping over for dinner and a half-way place to crash for the night. Somewhere along the way, we became buds and looked forward to our once-a-year visits. Actually, I met David first, as I pulled into their suburban driveway that first year and followed it alongside the house to the back yard, where I leaned the bike over on it's stand and was faced with a big grin and an extended hand. Sli's husband turned out to be pretty cool, too. Each time I came down we kinda did the same thing. Shoot the shit for a while on their back porch, pile into his Cadillac and go to the neighborhood bar, comeback and watch David create some masterpiece meal and cap it off with sittin' up til 3am shooting the shit. Was a kinda comfortable routine I could look forward to.

But there's been a lot of Daytona's under my belt and one year we missed the visit because I was taking an inland route to Florida. Then the next year, she was on a business trip. Then the next year - well, you figure it out. Anyway, this was a long shot. I hadn't called ahead, hadn't seen Sli online in years and have no clue what their last name is or what their address is, other than a burnt-in memory of how to find their place on the backroads.

In the meantime, we watch the tourists and exercisers walk up and down River Street. Lance was quiet while I reminisced about my two old friends.

"Have you got anything going on with another woman other than Kim?"

It took me a moment to decipher what he just said. That was an odd question. Now, I'll confess to not really being into sports much. If conversation goes around to the latest greatest baseball player, my eyes glaze over and mind returns to some far off mountain ride I can conjure up in my brain. So, Lance knows by now that that sports is not a topic that would likely manifest into any worthwhile two-way conversation. Usually, the ill-conceived sports question aimed at me is rebutted with a hands-in-the-pockets shoulder shrug, and a clear reply indicating my total disinterest in any sports-related bullshit trivia.

So sports was off the table, and politics wasn't gonna be a contentious topic because we seemed to be in sync there. But asking me if I was cheating on my wife seemed a bit odd. I thought maybe he was fishing for whether or not Sli and I had a thing going and he just wanted to know the ground rules if we bumped into them. I shook my head.

"Nah. I don't even wanna play that game anymore. I have more fun getting to know women with friendship as the main goal rather than the disappointing outcome." I suppose at my age now I could give a rat's ass about appearing macho and always on the hunt. I had no intention of joining the prowl. I enjoyed watching Lance hone his skills every damned place we went, but enjoyed its distant drama as a non-hunter.

"Now - I get a kick outta watching you pick up every young lady we've come into contact with, and admire you for it." I was staring at the upper masts of the Tall Ship tied to the dock. "You do seem to have a radar for attractive ladies all caught up in some dilemma."

"Yeah, I guess I do." He took a deep breath. "It's a curse."

With a stifled laugh, we walked across the street into Chuck's Bar. As we walked up the couple steps into the dark tavern, I added, "Every now and then, and it doesn't happen too often, I bump into a really neat lady online in some town I'm rolling through on some upcoming trip. We get to talkin' and before long, we're yakkin' about dropping by on my way through and having dinner, a couple beers and maybe a place to crash for the night."

"It's fun to be friends with someone you've never met, in a town you've never been in before and get a down-home meal, tour of the hometown and good back-porch kinda bullshittin' into the evening." My thoughts went back to most evenings when David would trudge off to bed early, mumbling something about an early day tomorrow. Sli and I would stay up another hour or two talking.

I enjoyed women friendships far more than guy buds. "But in all those times I never did anything more than entertain with stories of the road. I kinda like the sexual tension, there's no lack of teasing about things, but ya gotta put yourself in the mind of a woman. Most would prefer an affair of the mind over a lustful evening of sex. Not all the time, mind you. But sometimes mildly entertaining Knights riding a Harley as he passes through town on yet another adventure is a precious commodity for a lot of ladies. Plus it makes it easier for me not to screw up things with Kim."

I thought about it a moment and added, "On the plus side - I have a lot of good friends around the country instead of past-affairs whom I am trying to avoid. Most just happen to be women."

"Kim know about them?"

"Most of em, yeah. Easier to tell the truth than try to remember the lies." Truth is, she knows about all of them, but perhaps not the extent of the friendships. That's a hard thing to quantify to someone who has not been part of the two-way conversation over a several-month time-span. That's also why Kim has not been big on meeting people on the road - she's just not interested in the pre-planning and the online conversation. Once we pull up to someone's driveway, though, she warms up real fast. That's what she's comfortable with - I love it about her. I tend to like the long drawn-out seduction.

"Lemme give you and example." I realized as the barmaid dropped heavy beer mugs in front of us with my Guinness and his Budweiser that we hadn't gotten her name yet. I watched her serve our beers and go about her business behind the bar with amusement. I love watching attractive women at work. "I was in Los Angeles a couple months ago. Went out to visit a new friend I had been working with via email over a fundraiser event. We spent months setting up ideas and organizing this fundraiser. This lady and I just kind of mind-melded from our first meeting. She pointed out the sights as we rode through town and up into the mountains while just goofing off."

You gotta picture this - Lance and I in a dark pub, fondling the frosted beer mugs between our hands, admiring the barmaid in unison.

"It's like some switch was pulled and we just got along great. Became best friends for the short-term and had a blast together. But it's no more than that, and would have screwed it all up if anything else passed between us."

"Other than finding some nice roads to ride on, my quest on these ride is to find some neat people to befriend." I turned to look at him, "so no - no foolin' around, why?"

"Just gettin' my bearings is all," he said, "didn't know how far I should take things if the opportunity ever presented itself."

"You go on and do what you do best, dude. I'll only watch half the time ... promise."

I got lost in thoughts for a moment and thankfully it seemed Lance was doing the same. I thought about the week or so after my return from Los Angeles. It was a strange feeling thinking about another woman so much. Soon after I got home, I emailed her back - came right out and admitted an attraction, but - if she was interested - wanted to foster a more lasting friendship instead of acting stupid. We were both involved in great relationships and neither of us were wanting to pursue anything like that - just instant best friends, and both eager to go through that discovery phase of a new friendship.

Several weeks of back and forth followed - some days with three or four exchanges, each time careful to delete the email. Not because of any attempt to hide her but because the nature of the friendship was potentially fraught with consequences. Kim knew of her and trusted me but just wasn't a part of the exchange. Wasn't meant to be.

I just had no desire to take it anywhere other than where it was. Then just as suddenly, I hear little from her now. A few polite replies to my emails and little else. I dunno - this pastime of mine is frustrating. Not everyone wants to play. Living up to my promise not to get involved, I allow it to fade from my mind and we lost touch again. Ships passed in the night.

So, the afternoon passed. People came and went, we got to know the barmaids name as required, and more mindless conversation passed between us. The mood was decidedly upbeat from the past few days and it looked like we were both getting out of our funk and enjoying the road trip.

People passed in and out of Chuck's, maybe noticing two bikers sitting at the wooden bar in the dim light struggling over the road atlas splayed out before them. Bottles of beer creating puddles on the countertop, half pealed beer labels crumbled in small pieces in the empty ashtray - a scene which was to repeat itself over the many weeks to come, but one I was reveling in at the moment.

We rode over to David and Sli's place - left a note on their door to call my cell and went back to Chucks for more of the same. The call never came. Dinner came and went, more beer labels piled up in the ashtray and darkness overtook Savannah Harbor out the plate glass window overlooking River Street. It was another good day.

Fifteen miles out from the heart of the city, we saw the passing streaks of lights signaling the Interstate overpass and both took rooms at a Microtel next to the Savannah Harley dealership, and more importantly next to a Hooters.

Friday night in Savannah was a blur.

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