Hogs to Hornets:
A Crash, a Quest, and Unmapped Chaos
A novel by Paul Turner
A car wreck ended Chai’s Harley-riding days. He and his longtime buddies, Kay and Esto, make a questionable pledge to conquer the road to Sturgis one last time…on Vespas. A two-wheeled vehicle Chai can still ride. Planning for the worst, they’ve brought along a support RV driven by a juvenile stoner who would clearly rather be anywhere else.
Ricocheting from the Pacific Northwest toward the South Dakota plains, the group is joined by a lone-wolf, big-bike rider fueled by fearlessness and sarcasm; she fits right in. Together, this irreverent, prickly crew rattles across the American landscape, navigating mechanical mishaps, brutal weather, and the indignity of pit toilets.
Hogs to Hornets is a humorous, gritty look at aging out of lifelong passions and discovering how friendship navigates the jagged rocks of injury and mortality.
Excerpts
"His given name was Arnold. Arnold had a childhood fixation with Mr. T of the iconic TV show The A-Team. Arnold sported a 10-cent store plastic gold chain and pitied many a fool, but his mom drew the line at the mohawk. The translation didn’t go well when his mom struggled to explain Arnold’s Mr. T impersonation to his very traditional Chinese grandma. Granny Zhao thought Mr. T was Mr. Tea. In Chinese, “tea” is pronounced “chai,” and thus, the nickname that followed him for the rest of his life was coined. Chai.
After his first divorce, Chai’s ex-wife refused to return to her maiden name. His beloved grandmother giggled like a little girl when he took her last name: Zhao. He enjoyed having such an ethnic name since he looked like a good ol’ white boy pig farmer from a southern state. If you met him on the street, you would call him Mr. Zhao. If you worked with him, you called him Officer Zhao. If you were me, Esto, or Liz, you would be granted permission to call him Chai. And God help you if you tried to use his given name, Arnold. As far as I knew, only his grandma called him Arnold. I let it slip out so infrequently that I was allowed to live when I did."
"My tribe and I wandered the veins and arteries of this land. We rode bridges over many of Her waterways. We crawled through choking urban ugliness and did days of illegal speeds across Her deserts. We blew out the head gaskets of our old Harleys on mountain passes in the vicious summer heat, and we picked bugs out of our eyes after crossing wheat fields that sucked the sun from the sky and water from the earth. But the time came to set our sails westward. As much as I felt my soul was at home on the road, it was time to head back to the land where our houses and relationships were built."
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Paul Turner, a West Coast native and lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest, built a career operating arthouse cinemas he built himself. As a “gear-head,” Paul’s personality is highlighted by an obsession with anything mechanical that makes noise. Such nonsense translates into extensive motorcycle touring across the Western U.S. His six-year stint in college may not have ended with a diploma, but he learned most of the alphabet and how to make shit up. Usually found with an old film camera in his luggage and a movie review taking shape on his laptop or on ink-scribbled napkins, Paul continues to write about life inside and outside the projection booth. Also, he is hilarious. Just ask him.