S a s h a M u l l i n s
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CACTUS Camaraderie When I hear the word Cactus now, I think of a scruffy, long-bearded, jovial, non-filter Camel smoking biker dressed in a black Harley-Davidson t-shirt and cap, and multi-day, road worn jeans. I think about camaraderie. My journey home from Sturgis was intended to be solo, as usual for me, hence my license plate: Soulo. I have a unique riding style, throttle cranked at cheating high digit speeds. Cranking along at high speeds against severe plain cross winds is a challenge and a head trip. The bike leans sideways as if in a tight 25 mph turn at 90 for endless miles. This was me all the way. Fun. I soared past many who were right in their conservative approach to riding. Like a linebacker, I like to tackle hard and this ate up miles and time...tackling wind, miles and hours. Out of nowhere, I noticed that an '84 H-D dresser kept the same beat as me and my ride. We rode together hard for 100 miles 'til gas break when we first met. When I hit the blinker to turn off 90, I was hoping my new road pal would follow because it was great fun riding hard with someone else. He did. I leaped off my ride with a grin as wide as the plain state and loudly declared..."Damn that was fun! What a blast!" With a Camel cigarette dangling unlit my fellow unknown rider agreed with a chuckle and announced in a Midwestern accent, "I'm Cactus." I obliged his greeting with a gloved hand shake and exchanged my name. "Nobody likes to ride with me too much 'cause I like to go fast," he said as he lit his butt. I grinned because I ride solo, so, in fact, I don't know who else would like to ride as hard except my dear heart, Manny, who taught me to love maximizing the speed limit (and then some). After gearing up against the night cold weather, Cactus and I mounted our rides and headed East again. We rode for many miles, his goal to reach Tomah, WI and mine, well I wasn't sure because I enjoy riding at night, except for the very live stock that prey slab, so I would stop when I got tired. My bike performs much better with the new Screaming Eagle mufflers, airfilter and re-jet carb, although, I had to sacrifice gas mileage for performance which really was a tough notion for me to comprehend. Therefore, somewhere in Minnesota, I ran out of gas between the long, impossible exits with only two short miles to go until the next gas station in Blue Earth. As I felt my Sporty bucking and coughing for engine juice, I rode at 85 mph alongside a trailering camarade and pointed to my gas tank as he looked over at this crazy broad speeding excessively. With that the last cough was delivered into the cross winds and I pulled over empty. Never have I run out of gas in my travels but I was so fooled by the sacrificed gas mileage, that I should have planned better, of course. The trailer-er figured out my dilemma and pulled along the shoulder behind us. I yelled "hello" into the open gas tank and an echo screamed back EMPTY, FOOL. "Only two more miles to go too," Cactus roared with laughter and began to dig through his many tools. A 409 glass cleaner bottle served as the gas catcher and Cactus siphoned gas out of the trailering motorists' resting scooter. He sucked through the tube and when the gas reached his hairy face he spit it out with a grin, wiped his mustached mouth with his back hand and let the fuel flow into the plastic bottle. "Ain't no big thing here, we'll getcha goin'" he said. Thank God, I met Cactus, I thought. I'm such a girly-girl rider that having to do any of this kind of creative nurturing to a machine just doesn't jive well with me, but I know I need to learn. After filling our tanks in Blue Earth, we stopped for coffee and got to know each other a little better, realizing that we shared humor as a personality trait which would serve us well as the ride continued. We finally reached LaCrosse, WI, just after midnight, only 50 miles from Tomah, to gas up at the Kwik Check. After filling the belly of my iron beast, I pulled over to pay. When I started up the bike again she replied with an unmusical series of clicking. Cactus looked at me and chuckled out an "Oh Sh&t!" I whined and danced to the clicking sound shouting, "Oh no! NOOO! What happened?" "Weeelllpp, could be any number of things here," he said gently as he lifted the front of his cap and adjusted it, "...dead battery, starter, we'll just have a look." He lit a cigarette, gathered all his tools and sat down next to my bike. It was time to let my friend Cactus continue on because I felt I had really held up his journey with my scooter snafoos. So, I decided that it would be wise to stay in LaCrosse now, only to find out that every available room was sold out. The closest hotel across from the gas station refused to let me sit in their lobby until dawn when I could finally purchase a battery or visit the local dealer. "It's against pall-us-e," said the little fat, wicked woman with a sneer. I told her that my scooter was D.O.A., I was travelling alone and I needed a place to wait other than the gas station. Each time I protested the stupid pall-us-e, she repeated it louder her tone curling into a snarl. No sympathy was found so I trudged back over to the vile gas station digs to watch the many drunken patrons stumble into the store to get day long cooked hot dogs and Hostess treats. Cactus narrowed down the problem to a dead battery, "Weellpp looks like you ain't gettin' battery juice." We combed the yellow pages for a dealer, a shop or an auto-store. Without luck finding anything open at the wee hour we were awake, I phoned the local police department who were absolutely no help either, offering a dirty Salvation Army bed to sleep amongst single, homeless men. I was insulted and appalled at the offer, considering that I was a single woman alone on the road. I decided that I would rather drink old, disgusting coffee and hang out at the gas station until a battery could be found. Dew began to collect on the bikes and us. The temperature dropped to a chilly, damp 40 degrees, so I put on all available clothing including my rainsuit. The amount of clothing underneath the rainsuit added about 60 lbs to my tiny 114 lb frame. The Michelin Tire Man and I could have passed for doubles. "I'm not leavin' ya here alone," Cactus said matter-of-factly while sitting on his bike, wild-eyed in thought. As a last resort I yelled out to anyone who would listen...."Hell, isn't there at least an all night Wal-Mart in this town." A patron replied "yup, 'bout a mile up the road some." Now why couldn't the local constables have shared that info with me? Cactus and I let out a wild hoop-la and pop-started my motorsickle so fast to get the hell out of that station four hours since we had arrived. I love Wal-Mart. I have a new found appreciation for Sam. Here's a good
riding tip....seek out a Wal-Mart, whatever breakdown happens and if you can't
find a hotel room, go to the seasonal department and rest in a lawn chair.
Wal-Mart lives up to their policy, indeed they do hire the nicest people to work
for them. The folks there were much obliged to help us out. One young gal
working the graveyard shift gave us Kit-Kat candy bars as we laid sprawled in
the parking lot waiting for the acid to fill the new battery. We wolfed the
sugar down like wildcats. Cactus took a snooze on the blacktop, the empty
battery box served as his pillow. I curled up in a green plastic lawnchair,
half-priced from the sale tent, my legs draped over the side arm. With the new battery pumping my bike's heartbeat, we headed East into the rising sun. Sleep was dangerously preying on our eyelids so I treated Cactus to a hearty breakfast at his Tomah turnoff. It was there that we learned more about each other's personal lives. He explained to me at great lengths about how bikers used to be and how Sturgis was before it became commercialized. I asked him why he chose to stay with me all night the way he did, knowing that he had plans to get home by one or two a.m. Dragging on his cigarette Cactus looked me in the eye and said, "Weeelllp, back when you'd never see a biker leave a brother or sister stranded. Plus it all comes back to ya one day. What goes 'round comes 'round. I figure I got me some good comin' back my way." Of course I had to ask why his name was Cactus. With a low rumble laugh, he referred to the PRICKliness of the plant, so I leave the name at that. As far as I'm concerned, his actions towards me are opposite the origins of his given nickname. To me, Cactus is the definition of rider camaraderie on the "rode", a new found "brother," and a gentleman hero to this girly-girl lady rider. Hey Cactus, thank you brother! May your actions be an example of camaraderie to us all. © 1999 - Iron Biker |
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