Elephant in room, and on my chest

that nurse is trying to kill me
escape
some of us are decent people who want to stay out of the emergency room, but still blast through neo-gridlock traffic… for that we need fine machinery …

when the ducati turned up in my driveway, nobody knew what to do with it..  my lawyer said i should give myself up and enroll in the federal witness protection program …

the motorcycle business was the last straw. it had to be the work of my enemies, or people who wanted to hurt me. it was the vilest kind of bait, and they knew i would go for it.
dr hunter s thompson
she’s so fine there’s no telling where the money went
my hospital bed is upside on top of me
they grabbed him by the stack & swivel
 
my brother jay had been in an accident while racing on a motorcyle track, somewhere in west virginia. he was unconscious and in critical condition in a local hospital, and they were planning on transporting him to the level one “shock trauma” hospital in baltimore the next morning.
we drove through the night from new york city, and finally got to the hospital around 5 am.  this is when we learned the extent of his injuries.  the good news was there was no head or spinal injury, and there was no skin injury because jay was wearing his racing leathers.  the bad news, though, was he had two broken shoulders (one shattered), a punctured lung, and “probably most” of his ribs were broken.
and his condition was deteriorating under the multiple trauma, so he “crashed” during the night.  he stopped breathing and doctors couldn’t get his oxygen levels back up.  they gave him an emergency chest tube and put him on a ventilator, which saved his life — and stabilized him enough to be driven to shock trauma.  the family followed the ambulance in a small convoy of vehicles, in a surreal sunday morning drive through the beautiful virginia countryside.
jay ended up being in shock trauma for two weeks. he crashed one more time when his other lung collapsed, and it didn’t look so good for a while there.
jonathan mark davis, msci
 
they had to perform heroics twice . . . you were on a ventilator, no ventilator, no life . . . you made that promise to your mother . . . she was smart to extract it while you were sedated
guiseppe o’bruno
wish my back would let me be, just let me lie still
took a tree trunk to the head
guy to the right, gutshot . . .
guy to the left, shot gutshot guy . . .
2 doors down … cut in half by 2 trash trucks
shock-trauma baltimore city

     can we cut your leathers off?
emt, summit point raceway, west virginia
quartered like a november deer

if it was just you driving like a mad man and pushing the limit and taking the chance (again) of biting the big one; well hell, that’s life as usually…. but some of those people in your life, despite the strong outer appearance, would be screwed up with another go around like this.
guiseppe labruno, cpt, msci, mba, professor of military science
no flashing-life
 no tunnel of light
you ever see lonesome dove? 
robert duvall and tommy lee jones as former texas rangers, tried to settle down in lonesome dove, couldn’t do it, took off for montana with their cattle, some others’ cattle and their 2 pigs. 
well, down in the man-cave, it was them, me, mssrs oxy & contin, bag o’ peas, ms brasil’s ring on a chain, the family dog and my upper body.  
mssrs duvall and jones did their own stunts.   he broke the hell-bitch.  they crashed real horses into the real nueces river.  they dodged the water moccasins.
we signed up for summit school of the shenandoah.  we did our own stunts. 
egress
·   the radii for turn 1:
110′, 170′, 550′
·   the radius of turn 2:
460′
·   the radius of the unnumbered kink betweens turns 2 and 3:
1780′
·   the radius of turn: 
235′
·   the radius of the first unnumbered kink after turn 3:
660′
he’s a self-absorbed lad
why did we leave lonesome dove?
enlivenment
what do you want legs for anyway? you don’t like to do nothing but sit on the porch and drink whiskey!
·   1:30
·   1:24 
·   1:17
·   1:16
transponder
left shoulder hysterical and useless
… i helped her out of a jam i guess … but i must have used a little too much force.
”  
     b dylan, blood on the tracks 
after the early days of pain sweats


·   pneumothorax, ventilator, chest tube
·   broken right clavicle 
·   shattered right scapula
·   7x broken ribs & punctured lung
·   crash cart, intubation
winchester shock trauma
bicycle built for two

·   orif steel plate in left shoulder
·   $65,376
·   11 days
university of maryland shock trauma, bmd
ha!
i’d like to meet his tailor

three weeks out from lonesome dove;
sounds like a damn wilderness if you ask me. and we’re a shade old to start fightin’ indians all over again

i looked over, said
     “does this help you understand why we do this?”
     “yes.”
ma, me
she carried buckets of decision water

i didn’t see no line gus. i was just trying to get through the territory without getting scalped, that’s all.
jake spoon
confidently piloting a motorcycle around the track

went to see her yesterday.  she was tied to her hitching post, cud-chewing all non-chalant and all; looked sideways at me
made a good bike do a bad thing

all the muscles, tendons, ligaments attach to that part o the humerus
sabrina
thank you for not being all chicken-soup-for-the-xxx-soul

… looks like a pile o pick-em-up sticks
i tried to stand, fell over on my side

your insurance doesn’t kick in until day 61
     state farm real-live-human
i have seen the moment of my greatness flicker
no skin grafts, still got fingers, toes and teeth
my life as a pop-tart
this little piggy
yer right about ma.  still hasn’t made up her mind
adhesions

days 12 à 40:
every 3 hour mark, the pain sweats, turn on the fans, the soaked t-shirts, the waiting for the 3 ½ hour mark and its next promised oxycodone … the stabbing effort of rolling out of bed w ribs in best knot possible … of trying to wipe my ass w the pre-arranged shite paper … for the l shoulder hysterical and useless[1] … the r shoulder just a capsule of broken-glass pain, fingers doing the walking down my r buttock, the arm unsure of its place in time and space … trying to shit out the rabbit turds that the oxy* give you, so abso no satisfying, but the medicines’ mustard-metal stink of dirty diaper constantly up my nose and the perilous pulling-up of pajamas while rising from the one-holer
this is not cancer survival

is every ride a suicide?  
lives of quiet desperation

 … when i walk into a public restroom and hear crippled men whispering about the terrifying kawasaki triple… i have visions of compound femur-fractures and large black men in white hospital suits holding me down on a gurney while a nurse called “bess” sews the flaps of my scalp together with a stitching drill …
being shot out of a cannon …
not everybody who buys a high-dollar torque-brute yearns to go out in a ball of fire on a public street in l.a. …
unless you’re ready to go straight down the centerline with your nuts on fire and a silent scream in your throat …
when we ride very fast motorcycles, we ride with immaculate sanity
dr hst, ssc
we take a manageable endeavor to its falling-off cliff-edge

she’s philosophical … but she doesn’t watch anymore
mike, of robin at spr
charlie don’t surf

1st visit by my daughter where i could drive us

why do we leave lonesome dove?
back to the scene of the crime

this behavior not sanctioned by national need
airborne ranger
parents to bury a child
13 years like walt whitman
max preload
pressure to 30#
front/rear
bessie got one o her eyes put out when she let her backbone slip
this must never happen again, i can’t do this another time
ma
pass with authority
“the deadbeat club”
f schneider
next time you’re on your own

“nothing lasts”
m sweet
severe concussion

it wasn’t the same w ray … it wasn’t a first child
mother of my daughter
do versus be?

e-c-n-a-l-u-b-m-a
i failed to dodge the water moccasin
¿
the search for the edge of pain
?
i lost my dog in an 18 mos fever o bad dreams and rshp meltdowns and job disasters, churning under my resume w a rented tiller
sunning one’s lizard self on the deck … burn in the sutures

mad max helmet no longer sea-worthy
·   walking without steadying
·   non-rabbit turds
·   ex the oxy*
·   reaching overhead
·   opening the dishwasher
·   wiping my ass
·   shave
·   reach for seatbelt, close the car door
·   sit in a restaurant
·   put on a t-shirt
and i have seen the eternal footman hold my coat

brother 1 bet the family farm
which one’s the good son?

3y ex post facto  . . . penniless w 3 concussions under my belt and 11 arthritis seeds fingered into the soil
good times

smokey twitching & hovering outside the waiting room … big black mother called into the chapel … wailing … won’t it ever stop?
fuck,
i don’t have any of my oxycontin

me and the turds on the urine-soaked deck
lacking advance directives

brother 2 red bull & vodka at the halloween parade
choose yer poison

¿
what it would take to git back on the track
?
9% rain-soaked grade

¿
and why not killed that day on the track
?
keeloids stiff every morning
big deal of the day, washed my hair
daring young man on the flying trapeze
that summer 2006 i rode bessie lane-splittingly down 295
i think i need to lie down

grocery shopped for the first time in 6 months
he broke his upper body

back on the horse, an r6 at a buck-thirty
didn’t vomit
damaged child w/o advanced directives
never did take my dog to walter reed
the salvage company came by to pick up big boned bessie
they paid the storage fee but……there are  still 2 outstanding estimates, 1 complete and the other road worthy.
the road worthy one is your responsibility and the other should be covered by insurance.
give your adjuster a call so that we can finalize this. 
this aint no disco, this aint no party
ah yes,  the joy of being a rider when surrounded by those that are convinced you are out of your mind.  recent injury only reinforces their perspective.  i feel your pain
david
no temper tantrums, no lovey-dovey
headshrinker …
counter-conditioning  or
other corrective shoes
i do not fear death i will however, do all possible to avoid death prematurely. fear is the enemy, not death, fear on the road leads to death, therefore i will not let fear be my master, i will master it.
a ventilator tube takes a little persuasion to git to where it’s goin’
no more mister glee club

don’t run the over-sized tires, 180s on those 5″ rims
like a bird without a beak

swings a leg over a motorcycle to compete in anger is dancing with fate
fred
you saw brigadoon

clara allen: sometimes it seems like grave digging is all we do around here, don’t it cholo? what do you think happens when we die?
cholo: not much. you are just dead.
clara allen: maybe it’s not as big a change as we think. maybe you just go back to where you lived or near your family, or wherever you were the happiest. only you’re just a spirit now… and you don’t have the troubles the living have.
stay on the gas until you see god
hell, boys. i’d damn sight rather be hung by my friends
jake spoon
there was a setback
i loved augustus mcrae, but i wasn’t willing to share him with you every time you decided to ride off on some adventure. i despised you for what you were then, captain call; and i despise you for what you’re doing!
clara allen


[1] T Yorke, Radiohead

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