Sealy, baby..

[pxmcc]

so i’m super done with being fat, which for me is 6'0 and 190, if that 190 isn't solid muscle. it's not lol. so did a ride to Brookshire- around 100 miles round trip-on my mountain bike a few days ago, but i was looking for that something a little extra. after about 20 miles i thought, what about Sealy? it was 5:30 pm by the time i got to Terry Hershey Park at Highway 6, but i needed something to get me motivated, cause i knew this was gonna be the ride from hell. so i Googled “spiciest restaurant in Sealy.” nothing really impressed me. so then i googled, “best restaurant in Sealy." something called Wolfpack Woodfired Tavern came up. sounded like a winner. checked the hours. open til 10. checked bike gps. eta 9:34pm. ok copy that. and i was off to see the wizard..

now Google Bike GPS comes up with some of the wackiest routes ever, so i was like, fuck it, i’m going to take my usual route to Sealy-Terry Hershey Park to Barker Cypress, Katy Freeway service road (don’t try this at home unless you know wtf you’re doing, please..) to S.H. 90, and finally FM 1428 all the way to Sealy-and when i finally get to Sealy, i’ll switch back to biking GPS.

now i was worried about my front headlight running out, so i set it on the lowest power setting, which meant i couldn’t see too well, but that was a hell of a lot better than trying to get home in pitch darkness, which is straight up suicide. all about choosing the lesser evil..

then i just went for a steady pace, til i got to Barker Cypress and the Katy Freeway. now at that point i faced a decision: ride on the road, or ride on the sidewalk and face getting pinned behind hurried right hand turners at every. damn. stoplight. if you choose the road and want to live to tell the tale, here are the requirements: you gotta be brightly lit, fast, big, strong, aggressive, situationally aware, precise, and lucky, or you’re gonna end up roadkill sure as you’re alive-well actually you won’t be alive anymore so you will have no worries-before the night is done..

i was feeling the vibe, so i chose the road. fortunately, since you’re reading this, i lived to tell the tale. my pace was fast all the way to highway 90, and at every stoplight, i split the right hand turning lane and the lane to its left. that’s the step where you gotta be brightly lit, big, strong, situationally aware, aggressive, precise, and lucky, or you’re gonna be roadkill; fast isn’t as crucial for that particular maneuver, but it is for running the gauntlet on the freeway service road from Barker Cypress to State Highway 90..

once i got off at 90 west, i breathed a couple sighs of relief. it’s still dangerous, but it no longer feels like your free soloing El Capitan just for shits and giggles..

no stop at El Mango Loko this time for one of their fantastic mango smoothies. i had to catch the Wolfpack before it stopped howling for the night..

the ride down 90 was pretty smooth. it was a weekend night and so the 18 wheelers that typically zoom up and down on their way to or from the warehouses at Amazon, Costco, and Domino’s weren’t out in force. the smell from the plastics at the Igloo Plant wasn’t suffocating like usual, and the canning operations at the Goya plant seem to be at idle. there was none of the usual outbound commuter traffic from h-town to the exurbs, as it wasn’t a workday..

made it to Brookshire faster than expected. i knew it was gonna be a long, hard night, so instead of getting 2 Gatorades at the Brookshire Brothers Grocery as usual, i got 4: 3 of my customary fave, Fierce Grape, but for the 4th, i decided to try something new: Strawberry. turned out to be a good choice. i knew the grocery store would be dead and gone by the time i got back, so there wasn't gonna be a 2nd chance to get more Gatorade there. i was right..

i didn’t want to waste time locking my bike up, so instead i wheeled it into the store. the cashier was a tall, friendly black guy. he smiled at me and said, “you’re back!”, because he was the same cashier who checked me out just a few nights prior when i did my earlier Brookshire ride, and i had told him that i had cycled from the h-town med center. i said cheerily with gallows humor, “ya, waddaya know, i’m still alive. who knew..” he laughed.

when he was checking me out-this part is really trippin-he said, “ya i was worried about you. i prayed for you til 1 am that night that you’d make it home in one piece.” “you prayed for me? that’s incredible. you don’t even know me. well tonight i’m doing 1 better. on my way to Sealy. but you don’t have to worry about me. for all intents and purposes, i’m unkillable, so rest easy.” and he said, “is that a fact?” and i said it was, because that’s the history of the matter. mathematically, there isn’t any way i should still be here, actually. but here i am, so that’s that, and it is what it is, for good or ill, as Gandalf would say..

plugged the Wolfpack Tavern into my gps. 17 miles, 1 hour, 22 minutes, eta improved to 9:26pm. all systems go. turn all my lights on and hop back on.

the Brookshire to Sealy leg started great. huge shoulder, pretty good lighting, smooth road, minimal detritus, and light traffic. but as that stage progressed, it got dicier and dicier. first, detritus started to pile up. then the shoulder narrowed. finally, the shoulder became just this foot-wide strip, with the solid white line covered with reflective rumble strips on the left and a steep dropoff into the grass or a nasty steel guardrail on the right. i had to focus in like a laser beam just to plough the narrow channel between a full-body vibration and a path to nowhere, or perdition, i couldn’t tell..

this seemed to go on forever, until finally i saw a steep climb ahead with closely spaced reflector poles and a widened shoulder marking the overpass for the broad, brawny Brazos River, which was a raging torrent of destruction during Hurricane Harvey but now appeared as a placid, peaceful broad waterway far down below. i downshifted and ascended the course standing up, while dodging abundant rubble that had settled on the shoulder of the overpass. easy to navigate in daylight, but treacherous at night..

the downslope i took in 24th gear, being careful to dodge the many small rocks that stood as potentially dicey threats to my tires when hiding the occasional screw or nail. i knew i was close to Sealy by then but a flat at this hour would still be damn near catastrophic.

i came up to the San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site building commemorating Stephen F. Austin’s colony and had to take a piss. the parking lot was kind of dark and creepy, but at least it was totally empty; if there had been 1 car there with its engine cut off, it would have been downright spooky. i cut all my lights off before i found a good bush to relieve myself in.

i knew i was close to Sealy now and i should switch on my cycling gps to the Wolfpack Tavern. only 5.4 miles! eta 9:30, right on time! hop skip and a jump! glad i did-or so i thought-cause it had me make an immediate right turn toward Stephen F. Austin State Park on Park Road 38 for 1.3 miles.

the road was dark as fuck, but i had a tailwind, there was no traffic, and it was downhill, so totally smooth sailing. then sharp left at Peach, which i couldn’t even see, for .7 miles. this road was pitch black, uphill, and out of nowhere, a huge headwind appeared. then, right on Sealy Rd., for 1.1 miles. i’m thinking, Sealy Rd., this must be the main drag! i’m almost here!

uh, fuck no. this road is nothing but inky blackness with nothing on it but the occasional forlorn and lonely farmhouse. the road is straight uphill, upwind, bumpy, and straight up bone-chilling. i’m beginning to think Google Gps is leading me to a lonely doghouse housing wild black wolves in the middle of nowhere. my drink options will be two bowls of unknown pungent liquids, and my food fare would be pounds of raw horsemeat in a giant bowl, if i had the gumption to get past the pack of black wolves guarding it like its their sacred feast that their brothers-in-arms died for, getting nasty kicks in the face that broke all their bones before the wolfpack was finally able to bring the angry stallion to heel and take him down to his final damnation..

these thoughts bring an audible laugh to my vocal cords, but i look ahead, and my smile quickly fades. wolves. 4 of them. 2 o'clock. fuck you Google gps. i’m going to sue your sorry ass if i even make it out of this clusterfook alive..

ok, they weren’t wolves, but might as well have been. 2 pitts-i hate fucking pitts-one that looked like a rott, and one that looked like a German shepherd. now they’re still in this farmhouse yard, so this adds another element of fuckery. i can’t really go on offense until they’re in the street, so i make a split second decision: i whirl around in a 180 and come to a full stop about 100 yards down the road, and turn again to face my nemeses. i wait until they come for me, down the middle of the road, barking like i am the Prince of Darkness ready to emerge from the Gates of Hell..

turns out, they were exactly right. i am the fucking Prince of Darkness about to fly out of the Gates of Hell. i couldn’t tell who was their alpha, but it seemed to be the rottweiler, plus he was in front. i blasted my front light to the Blazar-you know, one of those supermassive black holes pigging out on galactic gas thereby outshining entire galaxies-setting to fucking blind their sorry asses, stood up to my full height, upshifted to 24th gear and made a beeline at about 30 mph straight at his ugly ass rottweiler face, while delivering the Rebel Yell from the Prince of Darkness himself..

it took a second or two for the stocky canine to register what was about to transpire, but, fortunately for both of us actually-fyi a cyclist doesn’t really “run over” a rottweiler per se-he had a “moment of clarity”. just before i was about to wreck his face [and prolly win a perfectly flat tire too]-remember i’m still in my fat phase and i’ve always been a crazy SOB, which suddenly became quite apparent to this poor wolfie-type chap-he let out a shrill whine and leaped out of the way. his move was so sudden and awkward that the other 3 dogs behind him kinda lost their balance. i aimed for the shepherd next but he scrambled out of the way at the last second. the 2 pitts were so frightened that each one did a beeline longjump to their front yard like they were canine Carl Lewises. after i passed them, i turned to make sure none was giving chase-they were too busy shitting their doggie pants tho-so i gave them one solid lion roar from the Prince of Darkness and sailed off into the opaque inky black firmament of continued fuckery..

FUCK. GOOGLE. BICYCLE. NAVIGATION. MAPS. it’s not the first time they’ve done this to me, either. they think this shit is funny. that was a technique developed and necessitated by previous other lovely Google gps “bike routes”, usually through one of the wards. someone needs to sue their sorry asses..

i kid you not, the wards, Gunspoint, and Sharpstown have like these roving packs of wild dogs, mostly pitts, that are just waiting for some sorry cyclist to stray into “their” gang territory. the cyclist’s motion sets off their predatory hunting instincts, and as soon as you pass them, it’s definitely “game on.” but after i developed my “technique”, they never really got the hang of me, and probably would have given me a wider berth, in retrospect, if they knew what was about to happen in each case..

any of you who grew up in the hood know exactly what i’m talking about..

but win, lose, or draw, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, i reassure myself, weakly. so there’s that..

after i get a safe distance away, i pull over, turn my lights off, chug an entire 28 fl. oz. bottle of Gatorade, and take one of the longest pisses of my life. i have come to believe that that "situation" back there was the Wolfpack Tavern. Google Maps, go. fuck. yourself. bitches..

to be continued..

[DEAR_JOHN]

Hinze's bbq is really good and every time I worked in Sealy or Wharton, I had some beef and links.