Some Collected Works by Victor Kane
An Interactive Chapbook
Desert Rider in Gray
Short Story
word count 1341
Riding with the power the broken asphalt of the desert highway, the vibration of the bike knifes me through my thighs and my pelvis and my guts and I feel hungry. But I'm tired. How much longer can I ride? It could be forever and it could be that I can't last another second. The impossibility of continuing chops at me, senses at me, sniffs at me until the cloak of the night can hide me no longer. I stop the bike just anywhere right now and realize that there are stars in the desert. It's that since leaving LA I haven't stopped. I have only smelled the highway and I have been alone. The stars are many. You know. The stars that hide above the smell of the city. The stars of the child campfires. The stars in the eyes of wild animals. I'm hungry but penniless and I've stopped by some lights. So I haven't really looked at all the stars. Where can I get food? Or should I drop down now to the snake floor of the desert by the side of the road, hoping no-one will hit me and my bike; hoping no snake will bite me. Better to move on. For some reason I wheel my bike silently into the bowling alley parking lot. There are lights on inside, there's a coffee shop, there are people come out of the night. I can hear that flat giggling like the background music to a horror movie: it always sounds exaggerated. I left my bike by the door of the coffee shop and walked in, it was like a saloon door. I was like a saloon boy. I was a boy. I was a hungry boy. I was hungry but penniless in a saloon coffee shop in a bowling alley in the middle of the desert without having gazed properly at the stars. Bereft but hungry. I slouched unnoticed into a booth. Everyone was watching me. I moved to the bar, and slid into a seat. I was hungry and penniless and observed. The waitress gazed at me and smiled. I could see she had just been giggling. --What'll it be? I was hungry and penniless in the Amsterdam of the LA desert, but could think of no answer, since I could pay for nothing. No light of food illuminated in my head. I was too guilty to think. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see a chunk of chocolate meringue pie under a glass cover. --Pie. --Sure you don't want dinner? You've been traveling. I could fix a sandwich. --No, just pie. I ate the pie slowly, the pseudo chocolate making my ears buzz in a sugar high which I knew would last such a short time. Why hadn't I settled for a sandwich. How am I going to get out of here without paying. Why am I here. Why didn't I stop in the middle of nowhere and suck on a cactus. Which is greater, the form or the content of the glass reflection of rainbow sucking at me from the corner of my eyes. Would it feel nice to have the cactus suck on me... --More coffee. Smile of teeth like the moon. --No, er, yes, fine. The pseudo-coffee buzzed me not but momentarily warmed my heart. The frightening hospitality of the giggling waitress would otherwise invite me even though she was as untouchable as a roman priestess (were roman priestesses untouchable?) with her arms outstretched bearing ostrich meat and turquoise drinks in star trek glasses... The waitress went back into the kitchen, and muttering some bullshit to myself I got up, slouched in the direction of the bathroom, then expertly slid out the saloon doors. I was free. Actually, it made no difference, no-one was watching me by this time. The rush out of the saloon coffee shop of the bright bowling alley made me feel conspicuous as well as tired, and there were four cars parked in the parking lot, one further away, an unchromed 54 Chevy. I opened the rear right door and lay down on the unleathery plastic, invisible and relieved, hugging the night as if it were mother. I slept for a while, but I could not understand why the stars twinkled still and I was inviting an ugly scene if the owner came out now. Was the owner the waitress. Should I stay here comfortable as I am with the door against my foot, the bastion chassis retaining me, destiny breathing down my neck with the smells of the car, the oil, the gas, the cigarette lighter, the clock still worked... I've got to wake up and get out. I stood by the side of the car. Was this some sort of game? I stood unseen, unfelt, unwatched, dirty and penniless on a desert journey. I must find some place to sleep, unnoticed and unkempt in the night. I walked away, penniless and alone in the desert stormless, towards some buildings that were unlit, further away. There was a bank, a supermarket, a post-office and a church. A church! I slid towards the holy comfort of the unlit porch, the crickets chirping silently. If the church were open, I could sleep on its stone floor, or linoleum floor, or cement floor, or floor, bone bled but hungry in the morning, invisible with the sleep still in my eyes, unstretched, the daylight hiding the stars, I could go unseen on my way, return to the murmur of the bike between my legs, the suitcases piled back rack high between me and yesterday far from the kissing ground. There were still some crumbs of pie on my lips for which I was grateful. I spied the church, what the community should be: how could a church ever be closed, must never be closed, must let me in and ask no questions, I need sleep, it was beginning to be very cold. The stone of the steps where I was lying was beginning to be very cold. The door was of wood, sort of a poor man's richly carved oak, but watered down by waves and generations of puritan refugees' anti-baroque vengeance, blood letting of the unpassions, only the thin American lip remains. The simplest hate filled American with that vacant look in his eyes is actually remembering something, remembering his survival from the battle. He's getting his own back this time. Behold the spoils of battle: the vacant look in his eyes, the thin lip, the sense of humor, the always newly planted trees with the leaves inverted in the wind, chalky green. That is, if I am like my enemy, invisible as a hungry bike rider in a bowling alley under the spider woven lace cloak of the night, if i kill my enemy i will survive if i love my enemy if i be my enemy then the peace is assured and the moon light is let through the lace though it unface the stars. And the last thing I want is a rich carving I can't understand, something else to look at, i want something simple. The door was locked with a heavy iron padlock, see?, right out of the consciousness of revenge, the bitter joke of retribution. With the heavy chains it weighed down pendulous. I embraced the unmother wooden door with its simple carving, or tried to, the padlock grinding against my heart. How could the church door be locked closed and refuse me unnoticed and unstarlit its floor. I guess I slept three or four hours on the pseudo stone cement steps, and then woke up. There were splinters in my hands. There was still the 54 Chevy in the parking lot. The lights were out and the morning was gray. I got on my bike and rode away roughly in the general direction of new york. I hoped the waitress would not have to pay for the piece of pie out of her own money.
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About Victor Kane
Victor Kane was born and raised in London, England and dutifully ran around the lakes at Hampstead Heath in grey vest and running shorts with his classmates.
Victor Kane was born and raised in San Diego at the age of 12 and in Los Angeles at the age of 16 and in New York at the age of 21, where he arrived on a motorbike dressed in gray jeans and parked a couple blocks from Columbia University in what was gonna be ’68.
Moving right along and skipping a bit here and there (his first novel planned to come out in serial form one day soon in the coming months will tell you more), he was born and raised in Buenos Aires at the age of 27, where he taught English as a second language, and his eyes and mind were opened wide by the literary workshops there and the activists that populated them.
Still is.
And he’s been writing all the time.
Now he’s looking to publish what he’s written.
Then he’s looking to publish what he’s writing.
And he’s seeing about writing and publishing as a practice. Sort of like a legal practice. Or a medical practice. But no, as a writing practice.
Victor Kane is excited and eager to let you know what that will look like.
Then he’ll know and be in the thick of it.
Hoping we’re all in this together.