CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Dawn of a new day.

Hearing a strange sound while riding your bike - one you are unfamiliar with and uncertain of it's origin - is a bit unsettling. A strange knock, knock, knock coming at weird intervals. Didn't appear to be a metallic sound, more of a… there it is again! Only this last time I had opened my eyes, come out of a dream and sat upright in bed.

I could see the shadowy outline of Lance at the door through the silky white curtain liners. I left the drapes open to make sure I didn't oversleep. Another knock drew me out of bed, unlocking the door and pulling back the security latch. Lance stood there, silhouetted by the street light in an otherwise dark morning.

"Just how early did you mean?" He was fully dressed. I looked past him to his bike and saw his bags strapped to his bike already and two cups of coffee in his hands. One was thrust in my face while he took a sip from the other. "How 'bout we ride into Charleston with the sunrise?"

I'd always liked Charleston. It seemed ages ago when I first spent any time there, but in fact was only about 4 years ago. I was on my way to Daytona with my wife on the back, had just spent the afternoon coming through Myrtle Beach, and found this neat little bar in Murrells Inlet. I shook off the thought not wanting to dwell on it anymore - gotta move on. I spent the prior few months talking to a young woman on line from Charleston, and was convinced to stop in for the night for dinner and a ride through town. That was the trip that convinced me to continue writing my online journals - there's no better way to see a town, but through the eyes of a native. We ate at Hyman's Seafood up on the second floor overlooking the street below, and strolled through the Market. We actually rode around in their minivan because her boyfriend didn't want to ride 'bitch' on the back of her bike. He didn't ride at all. Besides it was a little too cold to enjoy an evening tour of Charleston by bike.

"Gimme ten minutes." I opened the door a little further to let in some of the morning air to judge its temperature. Still a little cold this early in the year, but I did prefer riding a little cold than too hot. "I'll be ready before Petey is warmed up."

It was a little annoying having to wait on the popping and snorting to subside while the ancient old Panhead came up to temperature. Ordinarily I'd be a little more considerate of the motel owner and have helped him push it to the curb on a morning like this, but the owner of this place seemed grumpy enough not to make me care. Won't be back to Murrell's Inlet much anymore anyway.

I closed the door, and dressed. I had gotten into the habit from many nights in a motel on these trips to pretty much pre-pack and lay out the stuff I was gonna wear the night before. Don't get the picture in your head of me carefully laying out folded clothes on the chair - it was more a pile of clothes in the corner of the floor. The dirty stuff - at least the stuff I hadn't planned to wear again - was in the mesh stuff sack I used for laundry, and the computer was packed away ready for an early get-away.

Eight minutes later, I dragged lil' Mut out the door of the motel, and hooked it to the back of my bike. It was 5:00am and Lance was out at the curb idling his. I suppose he didn't feel as grumpy as I toward the guests of the motel, and pushed it out to the road before firing it up. It popped in a sweet rhythm, warmed and eager to find out what was in store for us that day. I cranked mine and let it idle just long enough to get my gloves on, kicked it into gear and rode past the green 1953 FLH, nodded as I passed, took the lead and once again bound for points south, not at all sure where we'd be tonight. Daytona was already gearing up, but there was a lot of things to see between here and Florida.

Twenty minutes later, non-stop as we managed to hit every greenlight on Highway 17, we crossed the bridge into Georgetown two abreast. In the light morning traffic, we rode pretty much the entire way side-by-side on the four lane highway along the lowland coast. We took a left in the center of town and I signaled for him to pull over in front of a little café on the main drag. Both bikes fit into an open spot right in front, mine up against the curb, his alongside nearer the road, both nestled in between a sea of pickup trucks. These good ol' boys from South Carolina sure get an early start to their days.

"Lemme get a quick cup of coffee here." I said "I know a little diner near Battery Park in Charleston where we can get some biscuits and eat on the benches overlooking the harbor as the sun comes up, I just wanna warm up a bit here." The owners of all those pickup trucks seemed to turn in unison as I walked through the front door. Black leather jacket, boots and chaps, gray hair tossed from the short ride to town, and a nearly all-grey beard - I must have seemed safe enough to them. Their heads started nodding in our direction - an unspoken 'Good Morning' to two strangers in their neighborhood café.

Must be the grey beard I'm thinking. When I was younger, big as I am, I'd walk into a strange diner and all heads would be focused on their plates. I could almost hear the parents say to their young kids, 'Don't look at him. Don't make eye contact.' You know them damned bikers - a rowdy lot, all of 'em.

Now, I'm about as old as most of 'em here, and I'm thinking most of them wished they could toss the overalls into the back of their pickups and go off on an adventure themselves. I did feel fortunate to be able to do this, so I smiled and nodded and usually opened the conversation. I find all of them are eager to share their own stories of when they used to ride, or a buddy who used to ride, or a friend of a friend who used to ride. There was a common theme though - it was almost always in the past tense. I suppose I'm not all that unique at 50-something to still be riding - lots of grey beards out there still, but the numbers diminish the longer I ride. Hell, I remember one year at Myrtle Beach, the entire upper deck at Tom's place was nothing but Greybeards and we were drunk enough to keep it that way - warning the young pups to stay off our portion of the deck 'til they growed up some. We got plenty of drinks bought for us that day as I recall.

"Riding to Daytona?" A spitting image of Rosanne Barr in her pink frilly waitress outfit stood in front of me at the counter. Coffee pot in one hand and her other hand on her hip. Classic pose. Her white apron stained with last night's blueberry pie - at least I couldn't imagine anyone eating pie at 5:30 am this morning.

I pushed the empty coffee cup - one conveniently placed upside down in front of every stool at the counter - out in her direction, indicating a fill up, and nodded. "Eventually."

"Gonna be a pretty day for it!" she said as she filled the cup right to the brim. I just smiled at her. More ticked that she left no room for ice cubes to cool it back down, than eager to reply to the same old comment. I just grunted a 'uh huh', and turned to Lance.

He had laid out an impressive cadre of pills on the counter while ordering a Blueberry muffin and water. I knew I had a piece of paper somewhere in my tourpak with the names of all of 'em listed - just in case - but I didn't care to be intimately acquainted with them yet. I just watched as he popped them one after another, as I blew on my coffee, in a hurry not to miss too much of the sunrise over Charleston Harbor.

I figured this would be one of many whistle stops over the next few months. Some would leave an impression, some just served as a piss stop and caffeine break. This was destined to be the latter. A dozen people, all probably knew more of each other's business than I'd be comfortable with, and most probably went to church together. I looked past Lance, around at the small groups sitting at their breakfast tables, openly watched them reflected in the mirror behind the counter top. I figured they all be back tomorrow, and the next day. Same shit; different day. All of a sudden eager to be on the road, cold or not, I timed my last scalding sip of coffee with Lances last little orange pill and bite of muffin.

My "have a good day" was less than enthusiastic as I stepped from the counter stool, left two bucks on the counter not wanting to even see a ticket, and strode to the door., repeating the same nods to the same strangers on the way out. I did enjoy these little vignettes of life as we made our way across the country on this ride… very glad we could limit it to as long as we wanted - always able to ride off into the sunrise if it got too boring. Ten minutes after swinging into those spots, we were off again with the sky lightening up over our left shoulders.

An hour later we were sitting on a ratty old park bench in Battery Park at the tip of Charleston Island. Sausage, egg and cheese biscuit wrappers from BoJangles piling up between us; coffee and boxes of orange juice at the ready - and legs kicked out in front of us taking in the calm scene before us. It was easy to ponder the history that had taken place here. I could almost see the pirate ships lazily cruising the harbor, or Blackbeard peering through the glass looking for prey, or the distant horizon interrupted by Fort Sumter back in 1861 as some nervous gunner lit off the first cannon fire of the Civil War. The morning was beginning to heat up a little, with more blue sky showing through than clouds, promising a nice day to ride. We ate in silence for a bit, listening to the gulls and occasional sounds of a car passing by. The large oaks, with their branches draped in Spanish Moss, created a surreal backdrop embracing the large statues and paved walkways of the park. It was peaceful.

"What's next Cap'n?' Crumbs from his biscuit fell out of his mouth as he brought the orange juice to his lips.

"Oh, thinkin' about staying on 17 til we get to Savannah. Wanna check up on some buds from there. Might have a place to crash if I can find their place again."

"K … I got a friend in Fernandina Beach, near Jacksonville, that I want to hook up with. She's expecting us sometime this week. Maybe we can stay there tomorrow night, huh?"

"Yeah, should get there in plenty of time to visit and goof off a little. Savannah to there's only about a two hours ride. " I was gonna enjoy stopping in Fernandina. Most every time I come down to Daytona, which is another two hours past Fernandina, I am either eager to make it to Daytona on the way down, or eager to make it home on the way back - never seemed to be time carved out of the trip to stop and explore there. "Might need to do some laundry by then anyway - and a good home cooked meal would be nice."

Ordinarily, stopping in Savannah meant a good meal - but David and Slinky had no clue I was coming - and I planned to just take 'em out to dinner if I found them. There were plenty of good eating places on River Street. It was often a challenge riding down the cobblestone road - made up of football-sized smooth rocks - and finding a parking spot with Lil'Mut on the bike may be a problem, but the scenery and choices of taverns and bars made it worth the effort.

I told Lance about David and Slinky - two friends I met online years ago, and have stayed with almost every Daytona since. It was a halfway point for me, a nice place to stop on the way home. A couple of years ago, I relayed the story, I had gotten pretty sick on the way home from Daytona, and pulled into their driveway about 5pm, waiting til they came out to help me off the bike. I went straight to bed and didn't wake up til 8am the next morning, still with a high fever and awful body aches. The next six hours home were the worst ride I've ever been on. I made it to Raleigh, 30 minutes from home and had to pull over and sleep by the side of the road for an hour, coming home before dark, and stayed in bed for the next three days with a bad case of bronchitis.

I was looking forward to repaying their kindness with a large steak and several bottles of wine. But for the moment, I was content to sit in the warmth of the rising sun overlooking the harbor. Lance was looking out to sea, buried in his own thoughts. Mine turned to the last time I was out here on the Battery, another early morning, with Kim on our way to Daytona maybe 4-5 years ago. Here it is the morning of our third day on this adventure and I really missed having her along with me. It was 7:00am back home - she'd be in her car driving to work. I shifted my weight a little, reached to my hip and pulled the cell phone out of the holster, pressed "1" for a speed dial connection and waited.

"Hey, sweetie!" She said in greeting. "How's the ride?" She sure sounded good.

"Good. Sitting on that park bench we sat at that morning at Charleston Harbor's Battery Park, remember?" It was kind of a silly question - she remembers everything. Something that gets me in trouble at times.

"Hmmm, hey is Lance with you?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well," she sounded hesitant, "I opened the package he gave me." Seconds of silence. I suppose she was waiting for me to give her some shit - in fact I was curious myself. I didn't say anything waiting for her to continue.

"There's some papers in there detailing his prognosis pretty carefully. You make sure you keep a close eye on him - doesn't look good. And there's something else." My silence just egged her on even more. "He's named you executor of his estate, with full power of attorney now - I suppose in case he gets too ill to make the decision later. There's a letter to you outlining how he wants you to handle… well … things." Lance appeared to be in a fog - eyes dancing on the horizon following some gulls skimming the surface of the water. I kept my side of the conversation to a minimum.

"I suppose he intended to tell you to get me to open it somewhere down the line when he get feeling worse, but he never said NOT to open it. There's also a savings account number, phone number and name of someone at the Central Carolina Bank. I didn't think I should snoop around any further when I saw that. What do you think he's up to?"

"I dunno hon. I'm sure it'll make sense at some point." We continued on for a few minutes and hung up as she entered the parking garage at her work.

Lance gave me a sidelong glance and asked, "Everything OK?"

I turned to face him - he had already faced back out to sea. The furrow in his forehead a bit deeper. "Yeah, Kim was just wondering at the Power of Attorney thing in the envelope."

He didn't make any noticible reaction for about 15 seconds, so I turned and followed his gaze, fixing on the swooping gulls in the distance - figuring he was ticked. I learned long ago it was best to get things out in the open and be honest - worked wonders on keeping my marriage alive. Couldn't hurt here.

A full minute went by before he said, "Yeah, I could hear her on your your cell phone from here." He turned to face me but I didn't meet his eyes. "Glad you didn't lie to me about it - means a lot." After a short pause he let out a deep sigh and continued, "She's right, didn't tell her not to open it."

"Don't change nuthin' though." I leaned forward, slapped him on his knee and got up, spilling crumbs and dropping a biscuit wrapper on the ground. "Let's go find my friends in Savannah - I know a dumpy little BBQ joint for lunch near where I think they used to live. Might get lucky and find 'em home."

We collected the garbage, kicked the biscuit debris into the grass and headed towards the two bikes angled over on their kickstands on the side of the road. I dumped the trash, noticed a cop in his cruiser a block away watching us, and I waved. He didn't wave back - even looked away as if he didn't see me. I also made a mental note to ride past him on our way out to show him we meant no trouble, nor did he intimidate us. Some cops can be assholes that way.

"Ya know, Muthuh, I've heard you say a dozen times, 'Another day above ground'. Well, I want ya to know, whenever we get the chance to sit someplace and watch the sun come up - I'd like to do that."

"Nuthin' like the dawn of a new day to put things into perspective." It was all I could think of to say. I don't think either one of us wanted to get all sappy about it - was just a matter of fact. The cop didn't even bother to look at us as we rode by. Chickenshit.

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