100% AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
He was 21 that summer and proud as a pringle, as he zipped down the country road from Haderslev towards Kolding, on his new motorcycle that he'd sunk all his hard earned money into; a clean, sparkling white Suzuki GS 400. It spun and hummed like a sweet love song and what had been a beautiful sunny day had now turned into a dark night as he made his way to work for his usual 02:30 start. And a dark night means a dark night, especially on a deserted country road without any street lights. It was pitch black, like a coal miner's ass, and only the beam from his MC to light up a bit of the road for him.
Being less than fully alert - still sleepy is probably a better description - on a relatively warm summer night, he figured that getting a bit of fresh air in his face might do him some good, so he flipped up the visor on his helmet.
They'd threattened with a light drizzle on the forecast, so he'd donned his rubber pants over his jeans. The kind of rubber pants any Newfie fisherman would be proud to wear. The actual and appropriate MC boots and leather jacket he'd purchased at the same time he got his two wheels. He must have looked like a confused Newfoundlander, surely?
She'd zapped him of all his energy that night, so he was looking forward to make it to the bakery and get a good, strong cup of Joe to to wake him up, so in anticipation, he gave his right wrist an extra little crank, just enough to to reach the triple digits on the spedometre.
Out there on the country road, halfway between Haderslev and Kolding, there was nothing to catch your attention. No houses, no lights, no nothing. Nothing but an empty, dark void...and farmer's fields. Just lucky for him it wasn't time for farmer Bob to spread the manure yet. He could still smell fresh air, with the visor up, as he blinked rapidly to try to stay awake. Nothing but a deep, dark void. And then, like a lightning from a clear, blue sky...there it was. The horse head.
No time to react. Absolutely zero time to react. Then the impact...and then, it can hereby be confirmed, life appears to move into extreme slow motion mode. What takes a few second in real time, appears to last for hours. In retrospect, it's fascinating to realize how your brain can process all this information at lightning speed and still make it seem like it takes so long, long enough that you actually have time to, if not think about what to do, then at least react to what is already happening.
No warning, no prior indication. Just a snap with your fingers - a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky...and the horse head was face to face with yours and you could stare into each other's eyes while both of you thinking "what the hell are you doing here"? I still remember those big, dark eyes of his. He no longer remembers mine.
The impact? Well...I've never really felt anything like it before, and that's a good thing. And no real desire to feel it again. Ever! I just remember spending what appeared to be an eternity, sliding down the asphalt in my rubber pants, holding on to the handlebars of the bike while sparks were flying everywhere, thinking to myself, or telling myself: "let go of the fucking handlebars. Let go of those fucking handlebars before the sparks will catch the leaking gasoline fumes and the whole fucking thing will blow up". Finally, I got my shit together and let go and watched the bike veer into the middle of the road where I assume it came to a stop, because I was by now paying more attention to where I was going, myself.
My rubber pants, I would later find out, had - much to the chagrin of any Newfie fisherman - simply melted in big patches, from what must have been a fairly lengthy slide down the asphalt. Eventually, I would slide off the road and get another whack and a bump when I landed in the ditch at the side of the country road. I probably spend a few seconds in real time, trying to gather my thoughts: "What the hell just happened"? After my head cleared, I learnd the news: It wasn't "Houston, we have a problem". It was...Brian who had a problem: I couldn't move.
So I'm now lying there in the ditch, unable to move, listening to a horse, somewhere out there in the dark, whinning or screaming or crying or whatever it is horses do, and I figure, but naturally can't confirm, so it's more of an assumption than anything, that somewhere between me and the horse is my (equivalent of) $ 6.000 MC (mid 1980's prices), with a hefty road rash, and it probably doesn't look good, new, beautiful and pristine any longer.
I'm not sure how long I'm lying there. I'm not exactly running around looking for a clock. I'm not moving at all. Period! But on a dark country road in the middle of nowhere, there's not exactly a steady stream of traffic, to say the least.
Finally, after some time, I see two headlights. As they get closer, I see the taxi light on the roof. So I muster all the strength that I don't really have, and do my best to wave at him...from down in the ditch...in the hope that I can make him stop. And then he flies by me. Brian was a little pissed off at that point in time: "This is not good news, Brian". A second or two after he flew by me, I hear tires screeching on the asphalt: "Serves you right, you motherfucker. There's probably a motorcycle blocking your way, in the middle of the road, isn't there"? "Or a horse"? The horse? I can't hear the horse any longer. Then the familiar sound of a stick shift being jacked into reverse and I hear the engine come closer, stop basically right beside me and then...nothing.
After a moment or two, door opens and he comes out to me: "I called the ambulance. It's not pretty what I see up there" he says, and points to the area where I can only assume there's a horse and an MC lying.
After a few minutes, the ambulance arrives, and the lady checks her protocal... and Brian and then she gives me...something. Not sure what is was, but I'm out, stone cold.
When I wake up in hospital, it goes from bad to absurd. It turns out that I will be spending the next two months...learning how to walk again. And "you better learn to do everything with your left hand, now, until your right one heals and you will be able to use it again". "Oh ya, and by the way, police would like to have a word with you". "No shit, eh! What do they want to talk about"?
According to the police, to take the dramatic first, it turned out that the open visor on my helmet, had slit the horse's throat, severed the aorta and the horse had bled to death in the middle of the road. To make it even worse - for me - my bike was totalled and would never be driving again. "The good news is", as if there was any, "you are still alive". "Ya, that's wunderbar" I replied, using the German word for "wonderful" as German is commonly understood in that part of the country. "And what's the bad news"? "The bad new is that the farmer wants to sue you, because you were driving to fast under the circumstances and thereby caused the death of his horse". "Great! I'll counter-sue the bastard for my motorcycle".
Now, the Danish "road traffic act" has an absurd clause that states that you "are not allowed to drive any faster than you can come to a stop for any unforseen obstacles". Fuck "unforseen obstacles". Who the hell can possibly expect Pegasus to come flying across the road in the middle of the night, just as I pass by? Fuck you. Fuck the horse and fuck the farmer who almost caused my death and here is why:
Still according to the police, the farmer has set his harvested fields on fire as is common practice that time of year, to regnerate growth. The problem, still according to police, is that he had not ensured that the fires were completely out and at night, they had flared up again, causing his horses to panic and kick their way out of the pen...and then his beloved Pegasus decided to go hitch a ride on the first motorcycle that came by. Unfortunately, that was mine. So I was in an absolutely determined state of mind that if he was going to sue me for his horse because of the absurd Danish laws, I was sure as hell going to counter-sue the prick for bodily harm and endangering my life and he would be a lot worse off for wear than I would, because in the 80's, horses were "property damage"...a "thing" and I was human life.
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And still, 40-some years later, it still tears in me when I'm on the road and I see a "gang" of motorcycles coming at me in the opposite direction. It's like a drug addict with a view to a "fix" but knows very well he can't have it. I've never ridden a motorcycle again, since that day. But I've eaten horse meat and enjoyed every bite of it. "Revenge is a dish best served cold", they say. Cold or hot, I'm not picky. As long as it's revenge, and this was mine.
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