No Way Out
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Frank would collect his final paycheck from the last bike rally of the riding season, pack up, and ride south in late fall. He liked to spend the winter months down on the Baja, a refugee from the freezing cold of a northern winter. Come spring, heâd head north and begin the bike rally work-cycle all over again.
He had a rude awakening early in the spring when his ride broke down only 70 miles north of the border. He ended up stranded in a small, desolate town by the Salton Sea. Following a chance meet-up in a motel parking lot, a woman took pity on Frank. Kelly invited him into her home for a dose of welcome home cooking that turned into some old-fashioned loving.
When his hostess pointed a loaded gun at his back and pulled back the hammer, Frank knew he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The woman took exception to the fact he had discovered five keys of cartel coca stashed in her closet. It put her on edge when she thought he was stealing it.
Frank stayed around only long enough to witness the cartel sicarios hard-hitting double tap response to their missing drugs. He double-timed it out of town with a reformed pole dancer named Tammi riding bitch on the back of his motorcycle.
The woman had been Kelly's friend and neighbor. When she learned that Kelly was into the cartel for five keys, she decided to join Frank in his hasty exit. A wise decision on her part made for bad karma for Frank, and now he was on the run with a woman intent on keeping her own secrets.
By the time he arrived in El Lay, Frank had just about given up hope of surviving, thanks to a Molotov tossed in his direction on the freeway. He didnât even drink. The fiery cocktail missed its mark, and Frank and his passenger rode on, only to become embroiled in multiple attempts at discovering who was out to kill them.
After a second firebombing failed to do its job, and following a murder committed by his girl of the minute, Frank knew he had to blow town in a hurry. He made good his escape for a third time, and now heâs back on the road, in a brand-new town, looking for work and a woman, not necessarily in that order.
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Peter Duke's gypsy spirit has taken him to some strange places in the world, but now he's content to limit his adventures to riding a motorcycle and whatever he might encounter when he's on the road. Consequently, he's worked in bike shops doing odd jobs from planning and putting on rides, taking care of computer networking and security, and to picking up and delivering motorcycles in the El Lay basin, among other things.
Pretty boring stuff, isnât it?
He's ridden over a lot of North America at one time or another from Canada to Mexico, and from Atlantic to Pacific. By far his favorite ride is up and down the length of the Baja Peninsula, where the people are friendly, the sun always shines and itâs warm in the winter.
Of everything that he has experienced in his all-too-brief life, Africa is perhaps the greatest enigma. It's a beautiful continent, rich in people, nature and resources, yet poor in all of those areas too.
There are some missing years in there, but a little mystery is good for the soul, wouldnât you say?
