Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 16:01:19 -0500 From: "Rich Limacher" THE UNLIKELY ADVENTURE OF KITSCHME SIOUXME AT THE SUPERIOR TRAIL 100 Part 6 What If They Gave a Banquet and Everybody Showed Up But the Food? "The dawn came late And the breakfast had to wait While gales of November came slashin' And when afternoon came It was freezin' rain In the face of the hurricane westwind "When suppertime came The old cook came on deck Sayin', 'Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya' At seven P.M. A main hatchway caved in He said, 'Fellas, it's been good to know ya!'" --Gordon Lightfoot "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" So who can think of food at a time like this? I'm sitting here on a Friday afternoon in TRAFFIC in rural Minnesota where the combined total population of residents and tourists alike is probably just 5,000 people and at this particular moment ALL OF THEM ARE DRIVING and ALL OF THEM ARE IN FRONT OF ME. (Except Butch, of course, who's in his van in our caravan following along behind.) AND WE'RE ALL STOPPED! AND I HAVE TO PEE!!! I try not to think about it. No, instead I do things like: count my empty (or nearly empty) half-gallon Gatorade jugs littering the floor since I started driving yesterday from home in Illinois (there's four and a half of 'em); pick more sticky stuff off my steering wheel; imagine all the food will be gone from the pre-race dinner by the time we get there; gaze at the scenery (the back of Schultzie's popsie's brown UPS truck in front of me); note our location (from the road sign: "Cook County"--no kidding? I LIVE in Cook County!); think about home, and taxes, in Cook County, Illinois; and maybe the slim chance I could leave this car for just a second and pee behind that steamroller over there. Maybe the guy driving it won't look. I also can't help but notice we're all traveling north along Lake Superior's supposed "north shore" on none other than Minnesota Highway 61. And anyone older than Cheese-zits should immediately recognize THAT significance. Who remembers this poignant little tune? "God told Abraham, 'Kill me a son.' Abe said, 'God, You must be puttin' me on.' God said, 'Well, next time you see me You'd better RUN!!!' Abe said, 'Where You want this killin' done?' God said, 'Out on Highway 61.'" --Bob Dylan "Highway 61 Revisited" I go, hmmm. Isn't his real name Robert Zimmerman? And didn't Robert Zimmerman grow up in Minnesota? Well? Was THIS the road he was singin' about? He should've included the following verse: "God said, 'Siouxme, I Need drivin' done.' Kitsch said, 'But... Sittin' in traffic ain't no fun.' God said, 'Well, after you drive You're gonna get ta RUN!' Kitsch said, 'Where You want this runnin' done?' God said, 'All on Highway 61.'" --Kitschme Siouxme "Highway Reconstruction Revisited" After I'm done making up about six more verses, which I can't remember, the road crew flags us ahead. This time when we drive by, single file, I see it's a whole bridge they're replacing. Over the Little Marais River, or Big Marais River, or something-like-that kind of river. What we're driving across NOW, I have no idea. Maybe it's a couple pieces of Ed Fitz flotsam, held together with duct tape. Well, glory be. We're moving again. I've got my left hand jammed in my crotch and both legs clamped around it like a pair of vice-grips, but, hey, we're getting closer to that parking lot in Grand Marais. Creeping ever slowly closer to that next inconvenient pee place. I remember reading in the pee-race (oops) booklet--before I flushed it where I can't find it--that part of our race course will actually traverse some of this very same highway. There's apparently some portion of the Superior Hiking Trail--or intended trail--where access has always been denied to runners on raceday. So, we have to "go around," which means slogging (or jogging) along the highway. And now that I'm helplessly bogging (or flogging) down on it, I can't help but wonder which portion it'll be. No doubt somewhere other than where I am right NOW. Somewhere easier to pee. Have you noticed how, as hard as I've tried to think of something ELSE, I can't? Can YOU? When YOU have to pee and YOU'RE stuck in a car in the middle of a caravan and YOU can't get out without totally ruining the cohesiveness of the caravan? This, I think, is the REAL reason why cell phones were invented. Of course, when you rent a car, you don't get a cell phone. Of course, I don't own one anyway. I've never driven in a caravan before. And, naturally, never had to pee in one either. All of a sudden, I see a sign and we're in Grand Marais. I feel like leaping out of my seat. Quick, too, before it gets any soggier. We make the planned-for turn and head back up some weird road outside the back part of town toward the high school (Cook County High School, natch) and it's a long, long road and I can't hold out much longer and I'm frantically looking for ANYTHING resembling ANYWHERE I can stop the car, ditch the caravan, and dive into a clump of trees and relieve myself. But no, there is no such place. We're all proceeding towards the school. This is killing me. I'm about to explode and owe National Car Rental for a new front seat. Boom. Schultz suddenly turns. Voila! A parking lot. A school. A football field. A building. NO TREES!!! Bang. I stop the car. I don't care where the hell it is. I shut it OFF and I'm out running. I figure the rest of "the caravan" can take care of itself. I see a delivery guy come out of the school building. I SPRINT LIKE KHALID KHANNOUCHI TO CATCH THE DOOR BEFORE IT SLAMS SHUT AND LOCKS. (I had no way of knowing, because I'm too stupid, that this is Friday afternoon during a normal work week for the entire rest of the universe and, therefore, school's open.) I miss the door. (I'm not as fast as Khalid.) It slams shut. But... Miracle of blessed miracles!!! Sweet Loving Jesus! Lord Most High be praised! There really and truly IS a God!!!! When I tug on the door, it opens! Oh my goodness. Now I'm in a hallway. I'm in a public school. (Smell the pee smell?) Quick. Which way? How old's the kids? Do I look for a "mens room" or a "boys room"? NO TIME!!! Pick a direction. OK, left. I race down the hallway left. Dead end. Band room. No john. Wrong direction. I SCREAM back down the hallway right. I stop. Another hallway. An office. The front office? NO TIME!!! I zoom left down the new hallway....Blessed Savior!!! The boys room. Inside. First urinal. Unzip. Go. FOUR AND A HALF GALLONS of nearly clear, although just a tad tinted, liquid pre-race Gatorade comes roaring out of me. To the kid in the first stall taking a dumper, I must've sounded like Niagara Falls. Oh such blessed relief. Now what can I tell you? Show's over, folks. Ain't nothing anymore funny after an episode like that. I come back outside and Medium-Sized-Running-Little-Bare and Schultzie and Butch are hovering around my rental car. I left the driver's door open and they're trying to quiet the damn buzzer. Apparently, they found spots among all the students' Porsches and the teachers' Geos to park their truck and van. "Hey, if anybody's gotta pee," I say, "it's inside and to the right. Then take the first left." I look at Little Bare. "Uh, of course, I dunno where the girls room is." "Don't worry," she says. "I'll just go down the corridor till I smell smoke." They WALK inside. Apparently, they're either not hydrating or they have bigger bladders. Maybe those 48-ounce camelbacks you hear about. When they return, they stuff all the stuff from their trunks into my trunk. Then they go through the socialized gyrations of picking their pecking order on the seats inside my car. "First question," I say when they're all comfortably seated. "Do you have your keys?" "Oh yeah," Schultz says. "It's our only way out of here tomorrow night, or, uh, Sunday morning." Butch says he has his, so we take off. I offer everyone a beverage of their choice from my cooler--so long as their choice is lemonade. Everyone declines. Well, I think, this is why they don't have to pee. So then we had a very pleasant ride to...uh, oh, I think it was the first stoplight. "Hey, Kitsch." It was Little Bare. "Yeah?" "Would you mind if we stopped at a grocery store? I need to pick up a few things. For the camp tonight." I looked at my still-sticky watch and calculated. "No, I don't mind," I said, between clenched teeth, of course. My calculations told me we'd be arriving back at the Re-Union Hall about fifteen minutes after the dropbag deadline. "We have time," I lied. So I turn in after the stoplight and Butch and I wait in the front seat, tapping our watches. In, oh, twenty to twenty-five minutes, Little and Schultzie stroll out of the store with a couple shopping bags full of provisions. They are now prepared, I think, to ward off the moose and wolves that might attack their teepee--or they themselves should they have to crawl outside in the night in their tees and pee. They climbed back in and we had another very pleasant ride to...uh, oh, I think it was the second stoplight. "Hey, Kitsch." It was Little Bare. Again. "Yeah?" "Would you mind if we stopped at the Super 8? I need to cancel a reservation. For tomorrow night." I looked at my still-sticky watch and calculated. "No, I don't mind," I said, between clenched teeth, of course. My calculations told me that now we'd be arriving back at the Re-Union Hall about forty-five minutes after the dropbag deadline. "We have time," I lied. I pull in to the Super 8 and Little Bare jumps out. Hmmm, I think. Maybe she no longer thinks she can do this race in 18 or 19 hours. But now, of course, they have the truck to sleep in no matter what time they finish. It's a big truck. I figure, without any packages cluttering up the inside, there ought to be enough room in there to sleep a whole Marine platoon. Or, maybe just a small re-con party. In a few minutes she was back out, hopped-in, seat-belted, and regaling us with yet another wild story of the wiles of feminine ways. "He wasn't gonna gimme my money back," she laughed, "until I winked and grinned." HMMM! We all three males thought to ourselves in unison. WONDER WHAT **THAT** MEANT! Of course, we all had a wonderful time chit-chatting and laughing and carrying on all the way back to the Silver Bay Re-Union Union Repeating Meeting Hall, stopping only about three times this time for road repairs with me having to pee again since crossing the half-bridge at Little Marais. Of course, now the socialized gyration was for me to be too embarrassed to ASK if we could stop and pee--and, worse, I had to pretend my own gyrating was being caused by something else. "I, uh, must have an itch or something," I said. "Right." We finally pull into the pre-race meeting and banquet place about five-sixths of an hour later than we should have and I still don't have my dropbags packed and right now I NEED to pee again. So I wheel across all the broken glass into the last empty spot on the lot, throw the sticky shifter into "Park," and bail. "Gotta GO!" I holler. "Meetcha all inside!" I charge, as is my custom, at the very first door I see. It's locked. I try the one next to it. It's open. But the bar inside is closed. (Huh? What "bar"? Certainly not in an American union hall! And what the hell bar is ever closed on a Friday during "happy hour"?) "Hey!" I holler to the bartender. "You got a john in here?" "Sorry. We're closed." "THERE'S GOTTA BE A BATHROOM IN THIS BUILDING!!!" "Don't get your knickers in a twist, pal. Try upstairs. Outside. Front door." "Right." I race back around the outside of the building and climb all the outside "stairs" to the front of the building. Then climb all the stairs to the front of the front door. (Oh, maybe there's two. But I'm entitled to exaggerate now because of my condition.) "WHERE'S THE BATHROOM???" I scream. "Right there, buddy." "THANKS!!!" "You got a problem?" "YEAH!!!" I barge in there and do what the Blessed Savior once taught us all to do to those who make change inside synagogues: Bowl everybody the hell over. Ah, yes. Once again I find the sweetest relief in the smelliest room. There really is a God after all. When I finally come back out into the main remaining reassembling assembly, I find myself staring in silent wonder. I scratch. And scratch again. (My HEAD, not what you think.) For what do I see there in the big meeting and banquet pre-race repeating meeting room? Lotsa chairs. Lotsa runners. Lotsa dropbags. One guy up there on a platform behind a microphone. And...not...one...table. So. What are we, Chinamen? They expect us to eat on the floor??? Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll... Has our hero, in fact, arrived too late? Is the big promised pre-race pasta pig-out meal already over with? Are they already into their after-dinner program? Will they begin the barn dance even before our cowboy and his riders have been slopped their slumgullion and beans??? Stay tuned next time! Same (or close) Fat-time! Same (not really) Lean-ration! And if you'll all promise to be real good and praise Cheeses, "The Further Adventures of Starvedman and Crabbin" will return shortly with Part 7. Kitsch Limacher TheTroubadour@prodigy.net