Road Trip Part 5

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

Are you sick of alpacas yet? Okay then, how about motorcycles?

Deborah’s goal was to get a picture of herself with a baby alpaca; mine was to get a picture of myself cruising the bucolic landscape on my newly repaired motorcycle, with my newly repaired foot.

JBrad had some good ideas about where to ride and gave me directions. “We’ll get some picture of you as you ride past.”

Unfortunately, most of the “action shots” are totally blurry. Who cares? To be riding again felt so good. The first day I went out, Brad asked me where I’d gone. “Up to Leland,” I said. (An hour-long 50 mile cruise round-trip that in New York City traffic would’ve been an entire day of near-death experiences and exhaust fumes.)

“That’s a pretty drive isn’t it?”

“Amazing,” I said.

“How was the foot?”

“No problem.”

“How was the traffic?”

“What traffic?”

Honestly, the entire time we were away, I couldn’t keep track of what day it was, and I honestly didn’t care. And now, looking back I can’t remember what we did when — It’s all just a relaxing end-of-summer blur.

I do remember having a beach barbecue on the shore of Lake Michigan, which included the plumpest, juiciest grilled corn on the cob I’ve ever eaten. (Soaked in the lake for several minutes before cooking.) And some “veni-dogs”, hot dogs made from venison, that were pretty fucking good, too. Some beer, some wine, and a nearly full moon.

“Do you think it’s full?”

“It looks full to me, what do you think?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s full.”

“I don’t know, it looks like it might be missing a sliver.”

And so on.

Labor Day Weekend, and not another soul in sight.

I also remember bumming around the Glen Lake Yacht Club — also miraculously quiet — swimming in the lake and sunning on the dock until Brandon took me on a little sail around the lake, across water clear enough to see the bottom. I’ve been sailing a handful of times, but I don’t pretend to know “how to sail.” Didn’t matter. “This is just a one-man sailboat that sails better with the weight of two people,” said Brandon as we glided across the lake.

Deborah gets seasick when there’s a heavy dew on the grass, and regardless of how many times I asked her if she wanted to go out on a boat — either on one of the six sailboats that Brad and Jandy own, or the “floating living room” that Joanne has — she declined. I get seasick myself when the conditions are right, so I understood and tried not to push it, but it was so nice out on the water, I couldn’t help myself.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go out on the boat?”

“Yes!”

She was more than happy to stay behind, sunbathe, swim, and snooze.

Joanne keeps the “floating living room” docked under what can best be described as a carport for boats. “Shore Station,” it’s called — A metal frame anchored in the lake bottom that supports a canvas awning designed to shelter the boat while it’s not being used. Joanne and I went out on the boat one day and when we got a fair distance from the dock, Joanne noticed something white on the top of the awning. “It looks like a towel,” she said. “Or maybe a plastic bag.”

The boat hadn’t been used all summer and was having engine trouble. Rather that stay out and risk having the engine conk out completely, Joanne decided to head back to the dock. “Maybe Brad can figure out what’s wrong.”

Once the boat was settled in the slip, I got out and waded in the water to see if I could figure out what the white thing was.

A few feathers hung over the awning’s edge. “It’s a dead gull,” I said.

Running across the top of the awning is a spiderweb of fishing line designed to prevent the canvas from becoming a place for birds to hold sewing circles and shit up a storm. A gull had become entwined in the lines, no doubt becoming more tangled as he struggled to get away, and died. I went to the garage and returned with a ladder and some rubber gloves to see if I could get it loose.

“I think I’ll have to cut the fishing line,” I said to Joanne. From what I could tell, however, it was a single line that circled and zigzagged the awning, and Joanne was afraid that if I cut it, the whole network would unravel. “Don’t cut it,” Joanne said, “It’s been working well. Just leave it and let nature take its course.”

A couple of hours later, Brad and Jandy arrived. Brad and I took the boat out again to see if we could diagnose the engine trouble. The boat worked much better for Brad, though it still had some intermittent issues. We cruised around the lake for a while and then, as we returned, I told Brad about the bird. He pulled the boat up next to the slip and had me hold it steady while he balanced on the boat’s edge to investigate.

He took out a large pocket knife and cut off one of the bird’s wings and threw it into the boat. A minute later, the rest of the body followed. In the process, the line broke. “Grab that string, will you,” he said. It was nearly invisible, flapping in the wind. I reached up and grabbed it, handed it to Brad, and he retied it to the framework.

“There now,” he said. “Let’s see if we can’t kill some more birds.”