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Through the Blast of the Straights I Shouted TURN IT OFF

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Page 1: Through the Blast of the Straights I Shouted TURN IT OFF

8/14/2019 Through the Blast of the Straights I Shouted TURN IT OFF

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Two Bro’s Tale – Peace Brother  1

Through the blast of the straights I shouted, “ TURN IT OFF!” ” TURN IT OFF!”  “  MOTHERFUCKER, YOSH, TURN IT OFF!” But noooooo. T he fucker wouldn’t listen. He just stood straddled over the ancient iron, shit eatin’ grin on his face. Motherfucker was obliterated from the dust I laced into the joint. I shoulda’  known better. FUuuuCK! Shoulda known better. Just add dust to a dust head 

and whadda’  ya get? Fuckin’ insanity. Shoulda’ known better. I told him “ Youdon’t need any more dust”. But would he listen? F uck no. So here we are on thelast run. The final run. Lost in our own minds.There was a time when we knewour limits. Knew what we should and shouldn’t do. But that was then. This isnow. And Yosh was way beyond knowin’ who he is. Who he was. Shit eaten’  grin. Just about toothless. One jagged point top. One jagged point bottom. Another crooked tooth off to the right. You know the look. And there he stood all hundred and sixty pounds of someone who used to weigh in at a lean twotwenty. Throttle wide open. Don’t ask me what he was thinkin’ cuz I don’t know. What the fuck? Suppose maybe the scream of the now smoking machinewas a cry for help. A last stance against whatever it was that was ailin’ him? I don’t know. Standard answer, “DON’T KNOW”. We were br others for a long time. True Brothers. Brothers to the end. No blood between us. But the blood of another on our hands. We shared that. Shared it from the time Ronny wouldn’t let it go. Fuckin’ asshole he was. I told him “  Don’t do it Ronny” . Fuckin’  asshole wouldn’t listen. Yosh stuck him right in the eye. Pierced him good too. Ronny twitched for what seemed like eternity. We were only sixteen. Ronnywas a fuckin’ asshole. What was he thinkin’? I told him. He shoulda’ listened. He didn’t. We buried him out back of the barn. The same barn we stood in today.Throttles wide open. Sure I poked on the same toke. It’s just that the dust didn’t whack me like it did Yosh. Nope. Not even close. Supposed I could handle it. Or 

so I thought. But wasn’t I standin’ here? Ronny buried out back? And Yosh wideeyed and wide open on a perilous road to nowhere? Weren’t we headin’ downthat path together ? Didn’t Yosh’ s father beat him to a pulp from the beginnin’? Didn’t Yosh’s father beat him in a drunken stupor? Didn’t  I hold Yosh each and every time? Yosh would show up at the farm black and blued head to toe, I’d rock him like a baby until all was calm. Didn’t I comfort him? Tell him someday? But here I am still tryin’ to comfort Yosh. Still tryin’ to put out the fire inhis soul. Still tryin’  to quell the rage. Didn’t I always? Yosh is a brother. Mybrother. More brother than any one could imagine. The blood or kin? They don’t count. Not even close. But this little man, this brother of mine…..I love youYosh. Never told you that but I do. Through all the hell we’ve been through 

together. Yet I never failed ya. Nor you me. As brothers we stood by each other. Even when that stupid bitch thought she had us. Remember? She had that sleazybastard of an old man holed up over at the Pembroke inn. Peg legged motherfucker. Her old man. Douche bag didn’t know that she was just being  pimped by that peg legged motherfucker. Peddlin’ his evil. She came strollin’ intothe bar. Strollin’ into our lives. All the while we behaved as if we were strangers. Perfect enemies. She thought she was playin’ us. Remenber? Fuckin’ dumb bitch.

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Two Bro’s Tale – Peace Brother   2

 Man did n’t we get her? And her old man? The stab wounds were “superficial” . Not, ” life threatening ” . Sure scared the shit out of them though. High tailin’ out athere. Gravel flyin’ everywhere. Thought that old pick-up truck of theirs was gonna grenade. Fuck yea. Remember? Stupid fucks. Man did we have a good laugh. Them high tailin’ and leavin behind that old iron and the ten thousand.

Ten thousand smackaroos. Gone in a week and a half. That must be some kind of a record. No? And all up in smoke. Some kinda record alright. Fuck yea. Sure wehad hopes. We had dreams. But what happened to them? Maybe that stupid bitch did win in the long run. She looks familiar. Can’t remember who the fuckshe is though. Yep maybe she did win. I mean before she and her scum bag old man ran didn’t they first introduce us to this evil? You know. The dust. Or werewe just lookin’ for another escape route? Who the fuck knows?  I don’t. All I know is that here we stand today. Penniless. Broke. Nada. Nothing. The last scoot between us about to explode into shrapnel. Why? Where the fuck did it gowrong? We were innocents. Weren’t we? I mean didn’t we have a good life.Wasn’t being raised in the middle of one of the most beautiful countries in theworld enough?. In the heartland yet. Farms. Corn. Beans. Picnics. Parades. Families. Yea, I know Yosh’s family was fucked. Sort of. But hey look it. Lookaround. Where else do you go to school as a child of five nurtured by kind and  gentle souls. Remember Miss Clark. The third grade teacher. She taught morethan just readin’, writin, n’ rithmatic. She taught kindness and love. In a gentleway. You know it to be true. No denying it. So where did the insanity come in?Sure I told you about the beatin’s Yosh received at the hands of his father. But those were the same hands that taught him how to cut and weld. The samehands that taught him the difference between right and wrong. The same handsthat helped to repair the old tractors that kept us farmin’. I say kept. The farmin’  

is long gone. After grandpa passed there wasn’t much grandma could do but selloff piece by piece until there was nigh left. Sure Megafarms Inc. or one of their subsidiaries ended up with most of it. But here we stood at the remains of a oncehappy place. Homestead and outbuildings situated on about twenty acres or so. Road up front. West River down back. That’s where Ronny thought he could take advantage of us when we were just kids. On those lazy summer days wewould go fishin’ and campin’. I told Ronny to fuck off. I’m wonderin’ now if maybe Yosh wasn’t st rong enough. Maybe I didn’t do all I could have. Did  Ronny breach Yosh’s soul? Penetrate Yosh’s being if you will? Sickmotherfucker, that Ronny was. What happened to him? You’ re not just born that way. Are ya? Standard answer, “Don’t know” . Yosh never said boo. Never said 

boo about the beatin’s. Never said boo about his mother. Never said boo about his pop’s drinkin’ . Never said boo period. I could never understand that. You got somethin’ to say you better say it. No sense in keepin’ it in. It’ll only destroy ya.You know it. I know it. Nope. Now that I think about it Ronny had it comin’. Don’t suppose Miss Clark would approve? No I don’t think so. But once weburied Ronny out back things changed. The blood of another on your hands isnothin’  you want. No sirree. That’s nothin’ you talk about either . We didn’t talk

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Two Bro’s Tale – Peace Brother  3

about it. Add that to Yosh’s list. Add that to my list. So here we stood motor screamin’. Minds screamin’ . Souls blackened beyond recognition. By what? Evil?That f uckin’ bitch? Did she get us? Did we get us? Now what? Where the fuck dowe go from here? Aye? We had it all. Or so we thought. Runnin’ head to head .Yosh in his Mustang. Me in the “Z”. We’d race each other all over the county.

 Laughin’. Hollerin’. Runnin’ . Yosh’s Mustang ran good but not good enough. Hecould never catch that Camaro. LT1. 350/360 horse. Right out of the box. So eachday we’d work for  my grandfather and each night we’d go down to Orville’sservice station for a dose of 103. Hundred and three octane. At the pump. Thosewere the days. Long gone. Sure we’d sip the squeezin’s a little too. Not verymuch though. And the weed, well that just grew down by the river. Neither of them made for a big part of our lives. Not then anyways. We were more intoracin’ and wrenchin’ . Yea there were women too. Yosh and I both came close tomarryin’ a couple of girls from over in the next county . That was until the girlsstarted talkin’ shit. ” W e’re gonna this” and “ W e’re gonna that ” . Yea. Right. Adios sweetheart. Somewhere in that mix we picked up a couple of Sporsters.Both nine hundreds. Both maxed out with race cams and stroke. Front endsslammed. Straights of course. Man them Sportsters took over quick. You could  pick em’ up cheap. That is once HD started producin’ factory customs. Everybody wanted the Glides. That made for an over abundance of Sportsters.Chromed. Black lacquer. Yee-fuckin’ - ha! Not r ealizin’ it the bikes became our center of the universe. We began not just fixin’ ours but also wrenchin’ on just about everyone else’s in the county. Like I said grandpa had passed. The farmin’ had passed. And the bikes just happened. Don’t ask me how. Y ou know theanswer. “Don’t know” . But we made a good livin’ doin’ somethin’ we loved todo. Bikes. Buildin’ . Wrenchin’. Ridin’. It wasn’t work. It was play.  Before goin’ 

into the nursin’ home grandma conveyed the remains of the farm to me. She passed it on according to what the lawyer told her. “Yep, you just sign right heremam.” “Your grandson gets title to the farm, subject to your life use of course”. Fucking lawyers. What the cocksucker didn’t tell us was that “ life use” istangible. Meanin’ the nur sin’ home treated it as equity. What the cocksucker also didn’t tell us was that the nursin’ home was one of his biggest clients. Fucking lawyers. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful that grandma conveyed the farm to me. It gave Yosh and me a place to stay. Not only to run a shop out of but also to call home. Grandma took care of us from day one. She took care of Yosh just as she took care of me. As one of her own. But time marches on. There’sno stoppin’ it. Along with time the body and mind fail. Slowly. Surely. The body

 gives out. It’s a natural process. No doubt. Grandma’s sunset was nearing. Her time here was a runnin’ out. But that’s ok. Grandma said it’s ok. “Don’t worryson.” “Everything will be alright”. And in those old tired eyes I could feelnothing but love. Grandma never passed judgment. She never questioned your existence. She just accepted life for all it gave. Good and bad. She always said,“It’s your choice”. So here we stood today having to make choices. Or should I say I had to make choices. Ronny’s gone. He’s buried out back. As soon as

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Two Bro’s Tale – Peace Brother   4

 grandma passes t he nursin’ home’ s gonna foreclose their lien on this place. Fucking lawyers. And Yosh and I are gonna be out of a place to call home.Coulda. Shoulda. Woulda. No sense in kickin’ myself in the ass. If we don’t move Ronny’s remains someone else is gonna find him. If we do move Ronny’s remains someone else is gonna find him. We’re f ucked either way. It is what it is. Face the

 piper. It’s f irst things first though. Let’s get Yosh to shut this motherfucker down. Or better yet… I grabbed a hold of the plug wires and yanked. You would think I would know better. Suppose maybe the smoke, the dust, has begun totake its toll. Standard answer, “Don’t know”. I do know this. Man did I get spanked by the voltage pulsing through those old wires. Actually felt kinda good. The jolt kept me right here in this reality. Right here in this insanity. Thebike sputtered, spurted and continued to run from the overheated cylinders. PupPa. PupPa. PupPa. The motor sputtered one last time, PupPa, and then fellinto a deafening silence. Yosh looked at me dumbfounded. As if to say “  Nowwhy did ya go n’ do that ?” . Remember Yosh doesn’t say boo about anything. Not anything. But for some reason it all came pouring out. We sat for hours. Yoshtold me how his mother had left. How his father had eventually drank himself todeath. How he and his father had made their peace. How Ronny had in fact messed with him down by the river. How he had loved that girl from over inTillmorrow County. The whole time we sat and talked Yosh did all the sharin’. He talked about me savin’ his life. I asked him about that. Yosh told me that I saved his life on more than one occasion by just being there. We talked about  Ronny. We talked about Ronny’s remains. We talked about that stupid bitchand her pegged leg old man. We talked. And Yosh shared his deepest thoughts. All of them bar none. So did I. We talked until the sunrise began to peak its wayinto morning. And we made resolves.

……….to be continued.