Broken
Down
in BC

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© 1995-2007 Carla King | All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

I looked down the street. The end of the town was two blocks away.

I stared at the leak again. I wasn't going to get a welder in this town, and even if I did, how would I keep it from leaking again? I wasn't going to patch it with goop, either. The whole thing -- gas and engine heat, hot weather, sparks -- was too frightening. Anything else would be okay. I'd limp along and at least not worry about an explosive, fiery death at 50 miles an hour.

Thank goodness the bike came with a warranty. Now Randy would have to come and fix it.

The gas would probably flow faster if I opened the tank and let the gas come out of one of the hoses to the carbs. I knelt down to do that, and one of the men who had been sitting outside a café, a fattish young man with long, thin, white-blond hair, knelt down beside me and introduced himself.

"I'm Sam," he said, and held out his hand. I held up my hand, covered with gas and black grease. "I hope you have a nice time in our city," he said.

"Thank you," I replied, and turned back to the gas leak. The sun beat mercilessly on my back, and I was sweating from the heat and the adrenaline rush from realizing that the tank had cracked again.

"I know you're having a bad day," Sam continued, "but all the same, I hope you have a nice time in our city."

I adjusted the bucket so it would catch most of the gas and left Sam. I walked into the only saloon to use their phone. Sam followed me.

"If there is anything I can do," he continued, " let me know, because I want you to have a nice time in our city."

Sam's lower lip drooped, and his eyes were pale blue with a shallow, glassy look to them.

"Even though you're not having such a good time so far, I mean," he went on, weakly, as I fixed my gaze beyond him and for the third time mumbled a quick "thanks."

I looked around in the cool darkness. Three men sitting near the jukebox turned around and stared. The bartender wiped glasses and hung them up.

He let me use his phone, and poured me a cold draft.

Sam stared, and told the bartender about my dilemma.

Randy answered the phone. As I began talking, I realized that everyone in the bar was listening intently to my conversation.

"Hey, sorry I was gone. I took a ferry to Vancouver Island," Randy said. He was in a good mood. It had been his last trip before his kids came to live with him.

"How would you like to take another trip?" I asked.

"I'm on my way. So where the hell are you?" He didn't sound too upset. He even sounded happy about it.

"I'm in Greenwood. The smallest city in British Columbia."

At the turn of the century, Greenwood was a mining town. There were around 2,500 people living there, and it had an entire street dedicated to bordellos. The town was incorporated and declared a city.

When copper was no longer profitable, the prostitutes left. So did everyone else. But once a city, always a city.

The old smelter chimney stands proudly at the east end of town. You can buy a postcard of it at the visitor center, where a teenage girl greets the few travelers who pass through -- the ones who've had car trouble, and the occasional busload of tourists who need a pee brake between Ossoyos and Grand Forks.

Randy said he would arrive about 9:00 or 10:00 that night. I was ridiculously happy that he was coming, not only because I knew that he would fix my bike, but also because I hadn't seen anyone I knew for a week. I went to the store and bought cookies and bananas and a chocolate-coated ice cream bar.

Greenwood was hotter than California. "It'll be 110 tomorrow," the bartender called out as I left the saloon.

I set up my tent at the free Greenwood Visitor's Campground by the creek and warned the retired couple in the trailer next to me that a guy on a really loud Harley would be showing up after dark.

"Great!" the man said. "Bring him over for a drink."

Norm, originally from Manchester, England, and Maggie, a Canadian, sat under the awning of their trailer in lawn chairs overlooking the grass-infested public tennis courts.

"Some kids came by the other day and said we'd probably want to move because they were having a dance on the courts over there," said Norm.

"We didn't want to move," Maggie added. "They had so much fun. It was very nice to watch them."

Maggie and Norm live in their trailer and move whenever they feel like it. They are very tan and healthy-looking. They spend winters in Yuma, where they have a sand-rail, which is a kind of dune buggy that races across the desert and up and down sand dunes.

"You have to be strong," Norm said. "There's a lot of old guys who do it, but they're in shape... and smart! I'm telling you, when things go wrong, you're an hour from nowhere, and there isn't a mechanical problem these guys can't solve."

He told me about using starter fluid and a match to blow the big tires back onto their rims, and rows of clamps to secure a crowbar onto a broken frame. "One guy rode all day like that, and it was just as strong as anything."

I wished one of those guys were here now. But Randy would arrive in a few hours, and I'd be back on the road the next day.

But he didn't make it.

At 11:00 the next morning I made some calls. No one knew where he was, so I decided to be really worried. There was no message with my parents. There was no message at Ural.

When you're stuck somewhere with nothing to do, waiting for someone to show up, every minute they are late is either an irritation or something to worry about. I was trying hard not to worry, but a whole night and half a day late was something that would nag at anyone.

I started thinking about his motorcycle, about accidents, cliffs, his being tired, riding at night, a deer jumping in front of him. I imagined him lying dead in a ravine after being run off the road by a logging truck. And I thought about how he'd been coming to rescue me, and if he hadn't had to do that he wouldn't have been killed.

I called Ural again. Bobette had promised to call the Washington State Patrol, and I wanted to know what they'd said. Tom answered.

"No, we didn't call." he said. "If he's in trouble, he'll call us." I couldn't understand why he wasn't as worried as I was.

"If he's fallen down a ravine, I don't think he'll be able to call," I said peevishly. "So will you call?"

"Well, I wouldn't know who to call," Tom said blandly.

God! What was this guy thinking? He said okay, finally, but I didn't believe him. So I called Allen Noren at GNN, who listened to the story and offered to call around for me. Then I called my dad and cried.

"If he's killed it's my fault," I said. "I know it's not my fault, but it seems like it right now."

Then, for lack of anything else to do, I removed the gas tank and epoxied the leak, and tried to decide when I was really going to break down. At 1:00, I thought; then I'll epoxy the tank and bungee-cord it to the bike, then backtrack along the road and try to find Randy.

If he comes happily riding up and nothing is wrong, I thought, I'm going to kill him myself.

As I waited at my picnic table, a reporter from the local newspaper came over to interview me. And the owner of the bed and breakfast came by to ask if I wanted to use their shower. The bartender came by to see what was up. And Sam joined us, too. He wanted to know if I was having a nice time in their city, despite my problems.

By then it was evening. I wasn't going to get on a bike with a leaky gas tank and look for Randy in the dark, so I went to bed and tried not to think about it.

When he showed up the next afternoon, I forgot that I was supposed to kill him. I threw my arms around him and kissed him. He was a little surprised.

He stared at me in disbelief as I told him I'd thought he was dead. "Don't think that," he said, and turned away. "You know I'm always okay."

Yeah, I guess I do. But he could have called.

He had a good excuse for being late. But not for not calling. In fact, he'd had a hell of a couple of days. His bike had been wrecked by someone who'd tried to ride it after consuming more than the legal limit of alcohol. By the time he fixed it, it was early in the morning, so he slept a little. Then he rode to Canada and they wouldn't let him pass, because it turns out he doesn't have a motorcycle permit.

"I forgot all about that," he said. "I just never got around to it." He laughed and shrugged.

So he'd gone back to a friend's house to borrow a truck.

"You knew I'd be here," he added. "Don't even think anything bad happened."

I hadn't known he'd be there, but at the moment I really didn't care. At least he wasn't dead.

The problem was with the frame. I handed him bolts as he taped the bracket over so the securing holes would line up. "We haven't had any problems with this," he told me. "It must just be your frame."

We put in the bolts. They lined up perfectly.

"You know what I'd do?" said Randy. "If it happens again, I'd just put some rubber between the bracket and the tank, and set the tank on top, then bungee it down, in case the bracket gets skewed again."

"It's not going to happen again, is it?" I asked.

"Nah," he said. "The bolt holes lined up perfectly."

"I wish I could ride with you for a while," he said. "But I have to go back to work."

He left immediately, and I was left with silence and a feeling of being as stuck as I was before he'd come.

I sat at the picnic table between the Ural and my tent and spread out a map of the Northwestern United States and Canada. As I looked at it, a couple of people drove by honking their horns and waving. I waved back. It was funny how quickly I seemed to be getting to know people. And so wonderful that everyone I met seemed to be anxious to help. It had been the same in Ossoyos. I wondered if this would continue to be a trend, and if my fears about traveling in America would be unfounded.

I looked at the map. I had an awfully long way to go. And though I knew I wouldn't, I wondered if I should head home instead.