Whiskey Psychosis
I break up with my cheating girlfriend after Christmas. A couple of days into the New Year a car rear ends the truck I drive. The doctor diagnoses second degree whiplash and sentences me to three months purgatory in physiotherapy. In the spring after recovering, I seek out another relationship. Casual dating with a Starbucks princess misfires. Rejection before I could buy another pumpkin spiced latte. I found company in a recurring bottle of whiskey and a loose woman. I knock boots with her for a while, but drunk lust isn’t love — a motorcycle offers better companionship.
In July and August I self-prescribe sobriety, and abstinence follows suit. Soon I have enough of my self-doubt and in September I start consuming again. Before summer’s stack of poker chips dwindled down, I escape on my motorcycle — a black and red Triumph Bonnieville. She is a high octane fuel drinking mistress with accents of chrome.
Hard kilometers diminish the importance of the destination after a couple of days. The motorcycle mission becomes less of an escape and more of a self-examination; a chance to reset my psyche. I’m left alone without the distraction of status updates, the music from a car’s radio, or the witty banter with comrades on a road trip — a motorcycle grants solitude. When alone on my motorcycle I think and perform mental filing. My mind races along with the revolutions of the pistons. Riding is a gift of loneliness to sort through a stack of thoughts and consider my losses.
My first two evenings of the trip in Calgary, Alberta, and Missoula, Montana, are about the party. The third night in Twin Falls, Idaho, I attempt to take it easy; but lying alone in a cigarette stained motel room I’m unable to fall asleep. My thoughts carry on as if the wheels of my motorcycle are still turning. I leave briefly and return to my room with whiskey. Jack Daniel shorts out the ignition of my conscious and I fall into an alcohol induced coma.
Riding through the Nevada desert is a mission against the heat of Hades. The sun’s fire shows no remorse and blowing desert sand erodes my soul. Each stop is just another speck along the map. The other travelers, burnt out as I am, ignore my presence. One down and four up; I shift through another on-ramp. I’m traveling into an endless horizon. Exhaustion causes my vision to fall out of focus like a damaged film projection. All I want is the ability to rewind, but motorcycles aren’t equipped with a reverse gear. The interstate 80 doesn’t twist, bend, or climb — it’s a flat stretch leading to the gates of Hell.
It’s the fourth night and I’m riding into Reno. I believed I would be riding triumphantly into the city having the electricity of the nightlife and the magical lights of the casinos upon me. My reality, however, is streets paved in filth, rundown buildings, and abandoned strip clubs. Reno is a city vomiting in a perpetual hangover, choking on the stench of bankruptcy, and clutching the last of its chips waiting for the next throw of the dice.
It’s late when I check into the Triple Seven Motel. Within the room I am just another wretched smell. The carpet is the same color of cigarette ash and the cinder block walls show greasy fingerprints — evidence of the previous tenants. The room has no towels, no soap, and no toilet paper; only an ashtray. At least the T.V. works, and with the volume down low I watch Bugs Bunny in black and white. I smoke a Marlboro on my sleeping bag that is rolled out over the bed. I don’t want to sleep with a disease, be here, or on the trip anymore. Sand follows me into the sleeping bag and is a raspy reminder of the desert as I being to drown myself to sleep.
In the morning I’m — pondering the nightmare — while smoking a cigarette outside and leaning against the wall of the motel. The cigarette smoke leaves my lips like smoke from an exit wound. My boots show the scuffs of my morale; I just want to click my heels and arrive back home — like Dorothy. My motorcycle sits lifeless against its kickstand, like a slot machine whose reels aren’t spinning. Without a rider a motorcycle is nothing. So I keep riding to keep life in my Bonneville and myself.
As I ride over the state line California instantly delivers peace. The scenery is tranquil compared to the interstate across Nevada’s barren desert. Friendly folk offer assistance from the window of their at a crossroad when my map is out — the ocean unreachable. Riding through California and into Oregon my faith in the trip recharges. The trees, the lakes, and the mountains are all part of the windings of a natural alternator.
But later, locked away from the scenery, in a motel room in Burns, Oregon, sleep is still illusive. I converse with Jack Daniel until no more of my thoughts fire. The whiskey psychosis remains unbroken like the chain on my motorcycle. This is my reality again in Colfax, Washington, and in Cranbrook, British Columbia.
Everyone is flipping the pages of their calendars to October as I arrive back in Alberta. The weather reflects my disposition, sour and grey. Too weary to ride all the way home from Cranbrook, I take refuge with a friend for a night in Calgary. The company isn’t enough to quiet my thoughts. A bottle of whiskey closes my eyes.
Home is within a day’s ride. But in the morning hard weather chills my exterior and then my interior. My thoughts slow with the cold soak of the rain. The last stretch of the ride is like being dragged into a grave — with a still beating heat. Against the odds I arrive safely and home frees my soul from the pull of the marionette strings. Sleep finally comes without the need of oak barrel aged company.
Eight nights and fifty-five hundred kilometers of travel showed no respite and I have no regrets from the ride or otherwise. I didn’t forget about the ex, the injury, the princess, or the loose woman. I still drink Jack Daniel’s Old Number 7 Brand and I’m glad for the teardrop I can trace on the map.
Originally published in the Agora: Red Deer College Undergraduate Journal, Vol 6:1, 2015.
