Josh leaned against the plastic mesh fence strung along the metal posts staked around the perimeter of Maquoketa’s beer garden, nursing the beer in his plastic cup. The first band of the evening was doing its sound check, and Josh was thinking of Oxford Junction, a near ghost town two towns past Olin. Oxford Junction looked like it once was a prosperous, bourgeoisie place. The buildings in the town center were solidly constructed, several with thick limestone blocks and Corinthian columns. But almost all of them had been abandoned. Josh asked the local man collecting cash at the entrance to that town’s beer garden about the building right behind him, the most unusual structure in the entire town. It was a dark brown three story brick building, the third story extending only a quarter of the way to the back, with almost no windows and a steeply pitched green tile roof. The man said that when he was young it was used as a movie theater. Josh could see that for himself, given the sixtyish marquee protruding above the building’s entrance. “But what about before?” Josh asked. “What was it built for?”
“I don’t know,” the man said.
The town’s history had been lost, even to its own citizens. I’m more transient than the building, Josh thought. I’ll leave even less an impression.

Josh was still pondering his cosmic insignificance when he noticed a young woman leaning against the mesh fence ten feet away. A buff male cyclist, still in his Pearl Izumi jersey and black eight panel bicycling shorts, was slowly pacing from her right to her left then back to her right, his shoulders slightly hunched, his face tilted down towards hers, his eyes fixed.
“I dote know where my frienz went,” the young woman was saying, with a weary, distracted but somehow warm smile. She obliviously tipped her beer cup, and several gulps poured to the beer garden floor.
“I’m your friend,” the man said, as he stopped his slow pacing and slid his left hand over her right shoulder to the mesh fence behind her.
Josh’s immediate assumption had been that the two already knew each other, but he now realized the assumption was wrong.
The young woman loosely placed her cup hand on buffman’s shoulder, and spilled more of her beer down his back. Josh didn’t like the gleam in his eyes.
“Where are you from, baby?” buffman asked.
“Chicago,” the woman said. She was pretty, with hazel eyes and brunette hair. “But I atten’ Luther durin’ the school year.”
So the woman attended an exclusive college. She had brains, even if right how they were soaked in alcohol. Josh could not let a leech like buffman take advantage of an attractive, smart young woman just because she happened to be drunk.
_
Josh walked up to them, thought he remembered buffman from the third day of the ride, and took a gamble. He looked at buffman, rather than the young woman. “Are the guy who rides the Litespeed Ghisallo?” Josh asked.
Buffman took the bait. “Yeah, that’s me. On the titanium bike.”
“How much does a bike like that cost?” Josh knew exactly how much, but feigned ignorance.
Buffman smiled like he thought Josh was helping him look good. “Almost eight thousand smackeroos.”
In his peripheral vision Josh saw the young woman spill more of her beer. He took a big gulp out of his own cup, and made sure he looked impressed. “You pay cash for that?”
“Of course.”
“What do you have for derailluers?”
“Campy Records.”
Josh looked at the woman. Her plastic cup was nearly empty. “He’s got the very best,” Josh told her. He looked back at buffman. “Wow. How do you like ‘em?” Josh took another gulp.
“They’re great,” buffman said. “Light, smooth, instantaneous. You click your shifter, and they’re right there. I also have Mavic Ksyrium SL wheels.”
“I only have a cheap Giant with Shimano 105s,” Josh said with disappointment. He actually rode a Trek carbon fiber, Shimano Dura-Ace bike. “It’s too slow.” He slumped against the metal post behind him and, seemingly absentmindedly, dribbled the remainder of his beer onto the ground.
“You need more beer, man,” buffman said.
“So does your woman,” Josh said.
“Do you want another one, baby?” buffman asked.
“Pleaze,” the woman said.
“I’ll get you one, too,” buffman told Josh.
The beer lines were starting to lengthen, and Josh estimated he had about two minutes to do what he had to do.

Two minutes later Josh had Naomi, the young woman, out of the beer garden, and, two minutes after that, into the bar of a restaurant several blocks away.
They both were drinking Red Bulls spiked with vodka. She said she was having a rough time, and insisted on alcohol.
Naomi tearfully eyed her drink. “I act’tly know where my so-called frienz are. They’ve ditch’t me. They think I’ve become too morose.”
“Why? What happened?” Josh asked.
“I know getting sloshed all by myself iz an invitation for creeps to take advantage of me,” Naomi said.
“That guy was a creep.”
She looked at Josh. “How do I know you’re not?”
“You don’t. Not for sure.”
“’My frienz,’” Naomi put quotations around those words by raising two fingers on both hands, “weren’t really my frienz. They were just college classmates I found this spring through a campus ad. I waz looking for people who planned to do the RAGBRAI. I bike lot back in Chicago and got a bug to do the RAGBRAI before I grad’ated and left Iowa for good. So why are you doing this?”
“For the challenge,” Josh said. “I had become a couch potato, too much TV, my legs got weak, I wanted a challenge that would force me to get them back in shape.”
Naomi quietly laughed. “That’s the first time I’ve laughed since Wednesday night.” Then she started to cry. Josh almost said something, but Naomi immediately raised her right hand.
“Sorry,” Naomi eventually said.
“It’s really none of my business.”
Naomi sighed. “I met a guy at the ope’nen party at Onawa Saturday night. Got along with him. He waz smart, nice, just broke up with his girlfriend, and on impulse decided about ten days ago to do the ride all by himself. As a kind of ‘help me get over her’ therapy. Did’en know anyone else doing it. He liked to get up earlier than me, but said he’d wait for me on Sunday in Schleswig. When I got to Schleswig I searched the crowd but did’en see im. I wrote it off. But then, on Wednesday eve’nen, I read the paper, and learn that he was the one who died in that crack at the bottom of the big hill. I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t. He died all alone, Josh. All alone. In the middle of thousands of people.” She started to sob.

Josh checked in with Ted at five the next morning. “My wife just called,” Ted said, “and she should be here by eight to pick us up.” They both looked at the tent next to Ted’s, Naomi’s tent. They had relocated her from the other side of the campground late in the evening, when Naomi was very drunk, after all three of them decided that she should skip the last day of the ride, hitch a ride back to Chicago with Ted, and go directly home.
“You could have had your way with her last night,” Ted said.
Josh smiled and said nothing.
“Do you have her number?” Ted asked.
“I have her e-mail address.”
“You’ve got mine, too,” Ted said.
“You’ll hear from me,” Josh replied.

Josh got on his bike before sunrise, when there was just enough rose tint to backlight the thick fingers of fog hanging in the moisture-laden air. The terrain east of Maquoketa quickly turned hilly, and as the sun peeked above the horizon the fog collected in the hollows, turned into lace and drifted into the sky. Josh had a long climb up to bluffs above a river, then plunged to a bridge, and had enough speed to zip up the bluffs on the other side. The ride then turned into a roller coaster - you climbed a hill, went down a hill, and the next hill was right in front of you. Josh felt strong, and tried to hit 35 or 40 mph at the bottoms so he could shoot up to the next top. The cornfields disappeared and were replaced by cattle pastures interspersed with woods where the slopes were steep. The number of riders began to thin out. When he reached the first pass-through town the pancake vendor was just setting up, and wasn’t ready to serve.
So Josh had to ride all the way to Goose Lake to get his morning carbohydrates. The number of riders continued to thin out, but the Goose Lake American Legion was ready to serve the early birds. Josh ate with an old timer who claimed he had done all 32 RAGBRAIS, except for a few days of RABRAI XIV that he skipped in order to attend his daughter’s wedding.
Josh soon got back on his bike, and, after another round of roller coaster hills, dropped into a low, flat plain where he had the road almost to himself. When he climbed out of the plain up to a hill occupied by a hamlet called Elvira, he heard the familiar backfire of Beckman’s Homemade Ice Cream and stopped. He sat at the top of the hill and stared for an hour and a half as the road below him filled with bicyclists, and the dribble of riders turned into a thick stream. She was out of his head. Life was surging through him.

This story © 2006 Doug Kempf all rights reserved.

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