At Lake View, the overnight town, at one in the afternoon, Josh hobbled around locating his gear, claiming a site and pitching his tent. Walking like a cripple. And the more he walked the worse it got.
On Provigil he couldn’t sleep. But he could certainly space out. Which he proceeded to do for a chunk of the afternoon underneath the tarp erected by the charter service that transported his gear. Taking infrequent, lethargic but long sips from a can of beer, he began thinking of Alicia. Willful, vibrant, beautiful Alicia. How excited she was when he proposed to her. And how she left him six months later, after he developed the yet-to-be diagnosed fatigue. “It’s your reaction to me,” Alicia dejectedly stated. “It’s in your head.” She was half right. It showed up as bright dots in a later MRI scan.
A middle aged man, wearing a RAGBRAI XXX jersey, breathing like he just got off his bike, sat down beside him and wiped sweat off his forehead.
“So you use the same charter,” the man said. “Saw you zip past me outside of Kiron. Didn’t notice you in other years. This your first?”
“Yes,” Josh said. “My first.”
“Doing it by yourself?” the man asked. His rubbed his gray beard stubble.
“I’m all alone.”
“Thought so,” the man said. “I’m Ted. I’m waiting for a friend who won’t get in till 5 or so. But if you want someone to eat dinner with, you’re free to join us.”

Seven-thirty the next morning, fifteen miles east of Lake View, Josh stood in a line for pancakes, next to a sagging, abandoned barn. The professional pancake flippers the morning before had been equipped with batter dispensers on rollers above the grills that poured five perfectly formed pancakes with one press of a button. But today’s pancake breakfast was manned by members of a Christian youth group who poured each pancake by hand out of a pitcher one at a time. And burned a good third of them. Consequently, Josh had to stand in line for over 25 minutes, at the outer range of his walking legs’ performance envelope. Twelve months earlier Josh determined that his disease left him with two sets of legs - walking and biking. Without a break he could only count on his walking legs for 25 minutes.
Josh lurched with the plastic plate containing his pancakes to the nearest picnic table having an open seat. He sat down with a thud.
“You’re gonna have a long day,” a grizzled biker said.
“Just a little morning stiffness,” Josh said.
He apparently had stumbled into the middle of a conversation.
“I got a late start yesterday,” a young man at the table said, “and went down the big hill at one in the afternoon. The pavement at the bottom was still blood red.”
“I heard that a tandem bike hit the crack, spun around, and got broad sided by a semi coming from the other direction,” another young man stated.
The grizzled biker shook his head. “I got to the top of that hill at 9:30, the cops had shut the route down, and I got a good look. Five regular bikes smashed into each other, no tandems.”
A motherly looking female at the other end of the table perked up. “A friend of mine was there at 11:30, and the road was still closed.”
The grizzled biker grimly laughed. “She got there before 10. They restarted the ride then. It’s easy to loose track of time on the RAGBRAI.”

Her call nine months before he left for the RAGBRAI had been unexpected. “Alicia?” Josh asked. He hadn’t talked to her since she left him.
He heard her take a deep breath over the phone. “I just heard, just heard. I’m so sorry, so sorry Josh, it’s terrible, terrible,” she said in a gush, “is there anything I can do?”
“What’s so terrible?” he asked.
“Your multiple sclerosis! Sean offhandedly mentioned it last night, like he thought I knew. Why didn’t you call me?”
“And say what? ‘I’m sick. Can I have a sympathy fuck?”
“Damn you, Josh. What’s wrong with your head? I’m still here for you, why didn’t you call me? I’ll always be here for you. You know that!”
“Do I?”
There was a pause. “You’re living in that townhouse all by yourself, Sean says you’re dating no one, how are you taking care of yourself?”
“I am, and I will.”
“Are you busy Friday night? There’s a new Tuscan restaurant a few blocks from my loft.”
“I don’t want to see you just because you feel sorry for me.”

Determined to hear the music in downtown Fort Dodge, Josh stayed up too late, to 11:30, drinking beer. He decided before he left home that Fort Dodge was going to have the best bands - he liked loud guitar rock – but that night soon realized, given the effort it took to stay awake, that it was the only night he’d probably be able to participate in the fabled RAGBRAI parties.
The next morning confirmed it. He got up late - at 6 rather than 5 - then, after he’d been on his bike for 11 miles, his bowels demanded that he visit a K.Y.B.O. in the K.Y.B.O park in the first pass-through town. When he got out, the masses had caught up with him. He was surrounded by thousands, instead of hundreds, of other bicyclists.
They were biking in a flat, depopulated part of Iowa, lined with countless, infinite, uniform rows of corn. And the road they were on was filled horizon to horizon with bikers leaning over bike frames atop spinning bike wheels.
Josh took advantage of the opportunities he had to escape. He sped up as they approached turns and took the inside, leaning hard. On long straightaways with no opposing traffic he pulled out into the left lane and cranked. And he biked through the next pass-through town without stopping.
As he accelerated out of the town he heard one biker say to another as he passed them, “I heard five died.”

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