They shoot horses don't they?
The Legend of Crunchy
I didn’t know Crunchy real good. But he was a regular at the local Biker Bar the “Gang Plank Bar”. The place got its name because the bar was 4 wrecked Hardley Davidsons with 3 two foot wide planks running about twenty foot apiece forming a horseshoe with the bartender/owner Jake running the middle ground. I didn’t go there often, but enough that they all seemed to know me and tolerate my non Harley bikes. I also had pitched a guy called Tate across the floor and called everyone in the joint out if they had a problem with that my first night. Tate decided he was gonna use my change to play some pool. Some punk stood up loudly, I glared at him and he left after realizing nobody was gonna back him up. I found out later that Tate had that done to him on a monthly basis anyway. But this is Crunchy’s story……..
Crunchy got his name from having bad teeth and he was a jaw grinder something fierce. He was also one big bad doood. Having all those rotten teeth in his mouth and dutiful grinding the pearlies meant he was in constant pain and if he was not popping handfuls of Vicodan he was a dangerous entity. As soon as you walked into the bar you saw how Crunchy was. A good night was when he just sat in the corner and motioned for drinks. A bad night was when he was standing at the bar.
I walked into the bar and there was Crunchy staring at me from the bar and his hand fisted around a bottle of beer. From the look of the bar in front of him he was also full of Tequila. Dead shots filled the bar and Crunchy was emitting a green gaseous cloud of pissatude. Now normally I would walk back out and go night flying on my bike but today had been a little long and my irritation quotient was in double digits. I was replacing a water pump on my 4 wheeler and think I busted my ring finger on the radiator mount. It was swollen twisted and a funny color. So it finally looked normal for me but I was not happy with the throbbing uselessness of it. A few Cuervo shots would calm it and me down but there was Crunchy. He never took his eyes from me as I walked to the bar and ordered Jake to “Make it Jake”. Jake seemed like he came with the bar and quickly drew a beer and placed 2 shots of Cuervo next to it all the time keeping his good eye on Crunchy.
I had intentionally walked up next to Crunchy to show him I had him by at least 4 inches and about 20 pounds if my figuring was any good and to show no fear. In the back of my mind I hear my alter ego say “Yeah you got him by those small insignificant numbers but he has at least 20 more miles of crazy in him than all of the people in this bar including you put together!”. I heard him snort once and then I guess he relaxed because I heard the famous Crunchy squeak of his jaws rubbing together.
We both stood there looking straight ahead and putting out our fires with gasoline. I had three shots and two beers when Crunchy finally looked at me and said, ” You know these pukes want us to fight. I think we should clear the bar.”. There was no slur in his words and as I looked around I realized he was right. The bar was quiet and everyone was watching us from the corners of their eyes. Even Schlem and the town drunk was watching us from the far leg of the bar. Dinner Man, the fat leech had stopped his game of disk bowling mid game and sat down to watch us and the ugly waitress who was usually useless was even more so.
So I looked over at Crunchy and held up my purple bent finger and said “Can’t…. I got a boo boo!”. Crunchy’s lips unsheathed his worn to the nubs teeth and he bellowed out a little schoolgirl high pitched laugh that caught me so totally off guard that I burst out laughing. The big ape had a laugh like Shirley Temple. Even to this day I can’t help but smile to think of the one and only time anyone ever heard Crunchy laugh.
Anyway we closed the place and by that time we were stinkin drunk. He wasn’t a bad guy but I could tell by the way he let his beer get warm before drinking and the way he would pour his beer past his choppers his only real problem was those teeth. Well he did have a certain smell to him too. The only way I can describe it as if you have ever been near a salt marsh at low tide and had the wind change. There are many smells worse and some think that smell is the true smell of the ocean. It does have one good feature. After about five minutes you can’t smell it anymore. It’s like your sensors shut down to it.
Fact is we crashed on the beach that night when Crunchy drove his bike off the road and in to a mud flat. Next morning we was hung over something terrible. I was gonna help him pull his bike out of the mud when he did something so Crunchy and unexpected I just about fell in the mud. He muttered something about it was not his favorite bike anyway, first he pulled on a pair of surgical gloves he had in his pocket and then he pulled out a 45 auto and emptied the clip into his bike. Now it was not a great bike by any means, in fact it needed a ladder to reach the lowest class of Ratbike. But it did seem to run OK even if it did look beat. Once he slid the empty clip out and his backup back in he turned and looked at me. “I need a ride.” was all he said and right there I thought he was going to off me and take my bike, but he put the cannon away and I relaxed.
Crunchy waded into the mud and got his plate off the dead bike. Then I rode him to his tiny trailer over by the Desmona’s Docks. I made up some lame excuse of how I had to be somewhere and rode away hearing Crunchy say we should have torched the place last night. He had two other bikes next to his trailer and next to his shot up refrigerator/fish smoker. Neither one of them looked to be any better than the one he executed back on the mud.
I’d see Crunchy here and there in the small town and didn’t think of him too much until the Highway Patrol came to my place asking about Crunchy and Charlie Cooks.
Charlie Cooks who was a regular at the Gang Plank disappeared a few weeks later. His wife Cindy said he just didn’t come home one night. But I knew Charlie and knew he had a big mouth and knew he was there in the bar that night. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think of Charlie telling the bar about Crunchy’s little schoolgirl laugh to get a few laughs or a free drink for hamming it up. Not a real bright idea if he did. Actually it could have been any one of a dozen things that Cookie did or people he done bad that resulted in his getting gone. But the Crunchy thing rings clear in my mind as well as any thing.
Wasn’t long and Cindy was having a ball and painting the town. Rumor was she was seen a few times talking to Crunchy but I never saw it. Bent Peterson said he saw her riding with Crunchy one night but Bent sees little green pojama people and purple giant elephants at least once a month. Besides, Charlie had just about wore out his welcome by the time he disappeared and no one looked too hard for him. Highway Patrol just went through the motions. Truth be told people was always breezin’ into town and breezin’ right back out. Not always the nicest of people either. It was a good place to disappear by either need, luck or accident.
Crunchy remained Crunchy and rumors and legend hounded him whether deserved or not. I saw him a few times at the Gang Plank but made sure I’d have just one and hit the road for more sane establishments.
I heard that he lost his job later (net mending) and cleared a bar in
I headed back north a couple of years later as I’d had enough fun and sun. Turns out the winter is a good thing in that it makes you slow down and not live so fast. I remember a Jimmy Buffett song about living in the land of the sun. Its title was “Living and Dying in ¾ Time” and I always thought it should be 1 ¾ time or even double time.
Oh yeah… my finger was broke. It’s still twisted and big ugly today. There are people who could identify that finger and one was Crunchy.
