Then, about 5 minutes after taking the jacket off, I wiped out. I kid you not. Five minutes, tops. Were the powers that be saying, “Son, best not take that on-ramp.”?
It was on a wet bridge, construction zone, tight traffic. The truck in front of me jammed on its brakes. I put mine on and tried to steer it away to one side. But I fishtailed on the wet road and went flying off the bike. Exact sequence of events is a bit foggy, but I heard the bike scraping as [I think] I was in the air. What a mournful, horrible sound. My poor baby. Then I noticed vibrations and a similar deep grinding noise amplified all around my head. Noticed a very extreme close-up 3D-ish kind of concrete looking surface scraping at the other side of my visor. Hmm, oh, I guess that’s the road. My left hand was out, palm down hard on the road – still handily wrapped in its leather motorcycle glove. Luckily, I hadn't thrown all caution to the wind... My right arm skidded along on the very fashionable but leatherless forearm before buckling under, thankfully without any wonky twists or snaps. Just some good ol’ fashioned road rash.
When I came to a stop, I just lay there for a few minutes, kind of absorbing the pain in my left wrist and holding onto it with my other hand. There was also a bit of a process rolling through my head, going through what parts hurt and what parts didn’t. What parts moved, what parts didn’t. I was extremely happy when that last list came up empty. Then I noticed a woman’s voice off in the distance. I wear earplugs for the wind noise, so she sounded farther away… she was kneeling right beside my head, talking to me in between sentences to her cell phone. Uh-oh. That’s when I really realized what had happened. I mean, I never lost consciousness but, you know, sometimes when things happen fast, you just need a few seconds to put the whole picture together. In this case, the picture was me lying in the road with a lady calling 911. Awesome.
It took me a couple of tries to sit up straight. My wrist was throbbing like an sob and then all I could think about was that I can't ride my motorcycle and I can’t play guitar, that the whole summer trip is ruined.
But of course it could have been much worse.
So… I am thankful that I am not dead, even more so that I am not maimed or broken, that my x-rays were negative, that my right arm is just scraped and quite able to do most of the work on this blog post, that my guitar is in one piece (albeit with a cracked soundboard). I’m thankful to the lady who got out and stuck around, though your name did not stick with me, sorry. I’m thankful for the two fellows who helped me lift the bike up and roll it out of the way so traffic could get moving again. I’m thankful to the Cincinnati police, fire and ambulance lads who all arrived lickity split to make sure I was okay. I’m thankful for all the great smiling faces and silly senses of humour at The University Hospital ER who reminded me very much of St. John’s.
I can’t really say for sure that the trip is ruined. But it will be a lot different than planned. Certainly with far less guitar playing or motorcycle riding than I was counting on. It’ll take a week or so to get a handle on how little of those activities there will actually be. I was reminded on the phone by a friend a couple hours ago that I will just have to spend the first month focused on lyrics, not music, and on meeting people rather than playing open stages. And those are not bad things. At the moment, I'm still feeling sad but, like I said, it could be worse.
So, I’m temporarily stranded in Cincinnati. I’ll go see the bike at the garage in the morning. Please say a prayer or cross your fingers or send light or however you like to describe your sending of hopeful vibes. Monday is a holiday in Canada, so I likely won’t hear back from my insurance company until Tuesday. Not sure if I’ll stay here or head to Nashville somehow and deal with the bike later. Will think more about that tomorrow.
But now I must get some sleep in a not-so-fancy bed at this hotel, which I take thankfully instead of the fancier one at the hospital.
