Chapter 3 The Birth of the Sons of Doom
Frank’s POV
Nowhere, New Mexico — 1973
The son of a bitch had stripped another bolt.
I was halfway under a Chevy pickup, trying to get a wrench onto a bolt somebody had rounded off before it ever came into the garage, when a motorcycle pulled up outside. The engine kept running for a minute, followed by two sharp blasts of the horn.
I ignored it and shifted farther beneath the truck. My shoulder was already aching from fighting with the damn thing, and I wasn’t interested in crawling out every time somebody wanted an oil change.
The horn sounded again.
“Goddammit! We’re open!”
Somebody laughed outside.
I stopped turning the wrench.
I knew that laugh.
For a second, I lay there staring at the bottom of the truck, trying to decide whether I’d imagined it. Then a familiar voice carried through the open bay door.
“Frank! You gonna crawl out of there, or do I have to come drag your ugly ass out myself?”
I shoved myself out from under the Chevy so fast I nearly cracked my head on the frame.
Larry was standing beside an old Harley with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a duffel bag strapped behind the seat. His hair had grown out since I’d last seen him, and he had the beginnings of a beard that made him look like he’d been sleeping in a ditch for the last month.
He grinned when he saw me.
“Jesus Christ. They let you work on people’s cars?”
I stared at him for another second before I started laughing.
“You ugly son of a bitch.”
“Miss me?”
“Like a goddamn toothache.”
He dropped his cigarette, ground it beneath his boot, and came toward me with his hand out. I caught it, but he pulled me against him before I could say anything else, squeezing hard enough to make my back pop.
“Good to see you, brother,” he said against my shoulder.
I gripped the back of his shirt. “Yeah. You too.”
Then he shoved me away and looked down at his hands.
“Christ, Frank. You couldn’t wash up before touching me?”
“You’re the asshole who grabbed me.”
“Got grease all over my shirt.”
“Looks like it could use a washing anyway.”
He laughed and turned back toward his motorcycle.
I’d gotten two letters from him since we’d come home in March. The last one had mentioned he was thinking about heading west, but Larry was always thinking about doing something. Most of his plans changed before he got around to finishing a sentence.
I hadn’t expected him to ride into Nowhere.
“Where the hell did you come from?” I asked.
“Road.”
“No shit.”
“Long fucking road, too. My ass feels like somebody beat it with a shovel.”
I walked around the Harley, taking in the worn tires, scratched tank, and oil collecting beneath the engine.
“You get that old bastard running?”
“Wouldn’t be sitting here if I hadn’t.”
“Surprised it made it.”
“She’s a good bike.”
“She’s leaking.”
“Been doing that since I bought her.”
“You might want to fix it.”
Larry gave me a disgusted look. “I’ve been here two minutes, and you’re already criticizing my motorcycle. You got anything to eat around this miserable town?”
“There’s a diner down the road.”
“Good. I’m starving.”
I glanced toward the Chevy.
“Give me a minute. Gotta tell the boss I’m leaving.”
Larry looked past me into the garage. “You’re actually working for somebody?”
“Yeah.”
“Doing what?”
I pointed at the truck.
He looked at it, then back at me.
“Poor bastard. Does he know?”
“Get the fuck out of my garage.”
He laughed and followed me inside.
My boss was in his little office, arguing with a parts supplier over the telephone. I waited until he finished before telling him an old friend had come into town and I wanted to take lunch.
He looked through the window at Larry, who had already found my coffee and was drinking straight out of the cup.
“That friend of yours staying?”
“Haven’t asked him yet.”
“Well, tell him the coffee isn’t free.”
I looked over my shoulder.
“Larry! Put my goddamn coffee down!”
He took another drink.
My boss shook his head. “Go on. Just be back before three. I’ve got another truck coming in.”
I washed my hands as well as I could, changed out of my filthy work shirt, and followed Larry outside.
He was leaning against the Harley when I came out.
“Nice little place you got here.”
“Pays the bills.”
“You fixing that truck today?”
“If I can get that bastard bolt loose.”
“Want a hand later?”
I looked at him.
Larry shrugged. “What? I ain’t forgotten how to turn a wrench.”
“You forgot how to keep your mouth shut.”
“Never learned that in the first place.”
I grabbed my truck keys off the hook beside the door.
“Come on. I’ll buy you lunch.”
Larry stopped walking.
“Shit. You must really be glad to see me.”
“Keep talking, and you can buy your own.”
He hurried after me.
The waitress at the diner looked about ready to throw Larry out before we’d even ordered.
He’d asked whether the coffee was fresh, complained that the booth was too small, and wanted to know why a man couldn’t get breakfast after eleven in the morning.
“Because breakfast ends at eleven,” she told him.
Larry looked at the clock over the counter.
“It’s eleven-fifteen.”
“Then you’re fifteen minutes late.”
“Woman, I’ve been riding for days.”
“Then you should’ve gotten here sooner.”
I buried my face behind the menu.
Larry turned toward me. “You gonna let her talk to me like that?”
“She’s being nicer than you deserve.”
The waitress laughed and took my order first.
Larry eventually settled on a hamburger, fries, and a piece of apple pie. When she walked away, he leaned across the table and lowered his voice.
“She always that mean?”
“Only to assholes.”
“Hell of a way to run a business.”
“You’ll live.”
He sat back and looked around the diner while I watched him. He’d lost some weight since Vietnam, although he was still broad through the shoulders. There was a small scar near his chin I didn’t remember seeing before, and he’d gotten darker from being out in the sun.
He caught me looking.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Got something on my face?”
“Yeah. That ugly beard.”
He rubbed his chin. “Women love it.”
“Which women?”
“All of them.”
“Bullshit.”
“Jealousy looks terrible on you, Frank.”
I laughed and reached for my Coke.
We spent a while talking about the trip. He’d had trouble with the Harley twice, slept in a couple of cheap motels, and spent one night sitting outside a gas station because the owner wouldn’t let him stay inside after closing.
Somewhere along the way, he’d picked up a temporary job repairing farm equipment long enough to put more money in his pocket.
“Man offered me regular work,” he said, reaching for a fry when the waitress brought our food.
“Why didn’t you take it?”
“Didn’t want to stay there.”
“Where?”
“Didn’t matter. Didn’t like the place.”
I shook my head.
Larry took a huge bite of his hamburger and kept talking around it.
“Figured I’d come see what New Mexico had to offer. If it sucks, I’ll move on.”
“Nice to know I’m worth the trip.”
“You weren’t. Just happened to be on the way.”
“On the way to what?”
“Haven’t figured that part out.”
I laughed, but he didn’t.
He put his hamburger down and wiped his hands on a napkin.
“How you been doing?”
“Working.”
“I can see that.”
“Found the job a couple weeks after I got back. Boss needed somebody who knew engines. Pay’s decent enough.”
“That all you’ve been doing?”
“Pretty much.”
Larry picked at his fries.
“You ever get that Triumph out?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“It’s sitting in the back of the garage.”
He stopped chewing.
“Frank, we spent half our goddamn time over there talking about motorcycles.”
“I remember.”
“And you’ve got one sitting in a garage?”
“Thing’s been sitting since before I went overseas, Larry. I got it back, checked it over, and found about six things that need fixing.”
“Only six?”
“That’s what I found before I quit looking.”
He laughed.
I took another bite of my hamburger.
The Triumph had been a pain in my ass before Vietnam, but I’d loved the old thing. I’d spent more weekends than I cared to remember fixing something on it, then riding until I found another problem. I still had the photograph I’d shown Larry overseas, the one with the motorcycle parked outside the garage.
It looked a whole lot better in that picture than it did now.
I’d gotten it back into my hands after coming home, but I hadn’t managed to make much progress beyond cleaning the worst of the dirt off and checking what needed replacing. Every time I thought I’d have an evening to work on it, something else came up.
Larry shook his head.
“You ought to have that thing running by now.”
“Been busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Trying to make enough money to eat.”
“Excuses.”
“You volunteering to fix it?”
“Hell, yeah.”
I looked across the table at him.
He reached for another fry.
“What?”
“You just got here.”
“So?”
“You don’t even have a place to sleep yet.”
“Worried about me?”
“Worried you’re gonna end up sleeping on my floor.”
“That’s what brothers are for.”
I laughed and threw a fry at him.
The waitress came back with more coffee, and Larry started flirting with her badly enough that I considered leaving him there. She gave him a look that would’ve stopped most sensible men.
Larry asked for her telephone number.
She told him she was married.
“Lucky bastard,” he said.
“He thinks so.”
She walked away smiling.
I shook my head. “You never change.”
“Why would I? I’m delightful.”
We were halfway through eating when he asked about Ray.
I told him I’d gotten a letter a couple of weeks earlier. Ray was still dealing with the damage to his thigh. The doctors had him working the leg, and he wasn’t happy about how slowly things were going.
Larry leaned back against the booth.
“He walking?”
“Some. Still needs help, from what he wrote.”
“Poor bastards taking care of him.”
“He said one of the nurses threatened to leave him in the hallway if he didn’t quit cussing.”
Larry started laughing.
“Sounds about right.”
“He wants to get out of there.”
“Course he does.”
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the folded letter I’d been carrying around. I’d read it enough times that the creases were starting to tear.
Larry wiped his hands and took it.
I finished eating while he read.
His mouth moved a little over a couple of the words. Ray’s handwriting had never been worth a damn, and it was worse now. Larry held the paper closer, turned it slightly, then snorted at something near the bottom.
“Still calling me an old prick.”
“Because you are.”
He ignored me and kept reading.
When he finished, he folded the letter carefully and pushed it back across the table.
“He’ll get there.”
“Hope so.”
Larry nodded and picked up his drink.
A couple of minutes passed before either of us said much. It wasn’t uncomfortable, and I didn’t feel any particular need to fill the silence.
Then Larry stole the last fry off my plate.
I slapped his hand.
“Get your own.”
“You’re done.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Too slow.”
I shook my head and reached for the check before he could order anything else.
Larry spent the afternoon at the garage.
He’d followed me back after lunch, claiming he wanted to look at the Triumph, but once he got a look at the Chevy, he couldn’t leave it alone.
“You still fighting that bolt?”
“Yeah.”
“Give me the wrench.”
“I’ve got it.”
“You’ve been fighting it since I got here.”
“Larry.”
“Frank.”
I slid out from under the truck and handed him the wrench.
“Go ahead.”
He disappeared beneath the Chevy, swore twice, asked for a different socket, and spent the next fifteen minutes doing exactly what I’d been doing.
I sat on my stool and drank the coffee he’d left me.
“Well?” I asked.
“Shut up.”
“Need some help?”
“Not from you.”
He finally got the bolt loose with a combination of penetrating oil, a better grip, and enough cussing to make my boss come out of his office.
The thing dropped onto the concrete, and Larry slid out from under the truck with a grin.
“Got it.”
“Took you long enough.”
“Ungrateful little shit.”
My boss picked up the bolt, looked at the damaged head, and shook his head.
“Which one of you rounded this off?”
“Customer brought it in like that,” I answered.
Larry pointed at me. “He made it worse.”
I nearly hit him.
By closing time, we’d gotten the Chevy running well enough to pull it out for a road test, and Larry had somehow talked my boss into giving him a little money for helping.
He was counting the bills when we headed toward the back of the garage.
“You know,” he said, “I could get used to this.”
“What?”
“Working somewhere I don’t have to listen to officers all damn day.”
“You’ve been here a few hours. Give the boss a chance.”
Larry laughed.
I switched on the light and pulled the old canvas cover off my Triumph.
Larry stopped beside me.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
I tossed the cover onto a nearby chair.
The motorcycle was dusty, the paint was scratched along one side of the tank, and the leather seat had a split I’d never gotten around to repairing. One of the grips was worn almost smooth. There were stains beneath the engine from the oil it’d been leaking before I went overseas, and the tires needed a closer look before I’d trust them on the road.
Larry walked around it slowly.
“Same one from that picture you had?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks worse in person.”
“Thanks.”
“What the hell happened to it?”
“Sat too long.”
He crouched beside the engine and ran a finger along the casing.
“Still got that leak?”
“Never got around to fixing it before I shipped out.”
“Carbs?”
“Need cleaning. Fuel’s been sitting too long, and I haven’t had time to go through everything.”
He rocked back on his heels and looked up at me.
“Battery any good?”
“Doubt it.”
“Points?”
“Haven’t checked them yet.”
Larry got to his feet, rubbing his chin.
“Hell, Frank. We can get this running.”
I folded my arms.
“We?”
He looked offended.
“Who the fuck else is gonna help you?”
“You got somewhere you need to be?”
“Nope.”
“A job?”
“Working on that.”
“A place to live?”
“Also working on that.”
I stared at him.
Larry grinned.
“Got plenty of time for your motorcycle.”
I laughed and shook my head.
We rolled the Triumph closer to the workbench and started going over it. Larry checked the wiring while I worked on getting the fuel system apart. Some of the old connections had corroded, and the carburetors needed more cleaning than I’d hoped.
Larry held up a cracked piece of rubber he’d pulled loose.
“There’s one of your problems.”
“One of them.”
He turned it over in his hand.
“Christ. You ride this thing before the war?”
“Every chance I got.”
“Explains a lot about why it’s falling apart.”
I grabbed the part from him.
“Keep running your mouth, and I’m putting you to work cleaning the floor.”
“Thought I was a guest.”
“Guest would’ve left by now.”
He laughed and reached for another wrench.
By the time my boss came out to lock up, we’d gotten half the motorcycle apart and covered the workbench with pieces I was going to have to figure out how to put back together.
He looked at the mess.
“You planning on getting that thing out of here sometime this year?”
“Working on it.”
Larry nodded solemnly.
“It’s a difficult case.”
My boss looked at him.
“You’re still here?”
“Starting to like the place.”
“Christ help me.”
He went back toward his office while Larry laughed.
I started gathering the parts we’d taken off and laying them out where they wouldn’t get lost.
Larry leaned against the bench.
“You hungry?”
“Didn’t we just eat?”
“That was hours ago.”
I looked at the clock.
He had a point.
“There’s a place down the road.”
“Good. I’m buying.”
I stopped what I was doing.
“You sick?”
“Why?”
“You offering to pay for something.”
He grabbed a dirty rag and threw it at me.
The first time we tried starting the Triumph, it ran for eleven seconds.
Larry was standing beside me with a cigarette between his lips while I worked the kickstarter.
The engine caught, coughed, rattled hard enough to shake the handlebars, and died.
Larry stared at it.
“Well, that sounded like shit.”
“Thank you for your expert opinion.”
“Anytime.”
I checked the fuel, made another adjustment, and tried again.
Nothing.
We’d spent the better part of a week working on it after hours. Larry had found regular work helping a local man repair tractors and farm equipment, but he still showed up at the garage most evenings. Sometimes he’d bring something to eat. Other nights, we’d grab hamburgers before going back to work.
He complained constantly about the Triumph.
He also refused to leave it alone.
One night, while I was bent over the engine, I asked him for a screwdriver.
He handed me the wrong one.
“Phillips, Larry.”
“That is a screwdriver.”
“Phillips.”
He dug around in the toolbox and slapped another one into my hand.
“Goddamn picky.”
I got the cover loose and reached inside.
Larry leaned over my shoulder.
“You check that wire?”
“Yeah.”
“Check it again.”
“I did.”
“Then humor me.”
I looked at him.
He grinned.
“Come on, Frank. I’m older. Respect your elders.”
“You’re gonna be older with a screwdriver shoved up your ass.”
“Long as it’s a Phillips.”
I laughed and shoved him away.
We found a bad connection that had been giving us trouble, cleaned up the contacts, and went back through the ignition. I’d already replaced the battery and fixed what I could of the old wiring. The carburetors had taken longer, mostly because every time we thought we’d finished cleaning them, the engine found another reason to complain.
My boss came out one evening to find us sitting on the concrete with motorcycle parts spread between our boots.
“You boys ever planning on finishing that thing?”
“Working on it,” I told him.
“Looks like you’re taking it apart faster than you put it together.”
Larry pointed at me. “That’s his fault.”
My boss laughed and went home.
A couple of nights later, we finally got the Triumph to stay running.
I was holding the throttle open just enough to keep the engine from dying, listening to the motor settle down as Larry crouched beside it.
“Easy,” he said. “Don’t flood the bastard.”
“I know.”
“Then quit giving it so much gas.”
“Larry, I’ll knock your teeth out.”
He backed away laughing.
The engine kept running.
I eased off the throttle and listened to it idle. It wasn’t perfect, and there were still a few things I wanted to check before taking it very far, but it sounded a hell of a lot better than it had when we’d pulled off the cover.
Larry looked at me.
I looked at him.
Then he started laughing.
“Son of a bitch! We actually fixed it!”
I reached over and slapped his shoulder.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Frank, I’ve seen what you do to engines.”
“Get fucked.”
He leaned closer, listening to the motor.
I let it run another minute before shutting it down.
The garage was suddenly quiet except for Larry laughing and the ticking of hot metal.
“Take her out Saturday?” he asked.
“Gotta finish checking a few things first.”
“Christ, Frank.”
“You want me breaking down twenty miles from town?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
I pointed at him.
“You’d better be there to push.”
He grinned.
“Brother, I’ll be there to laugh.”
I picked up the rag from the workbench and threw it at him.
He ducked just as my boss appeared in the office doorway wearing his coat.
“You two done playing with that damn thing?”
“Almost,” I answered.
“Good. Because I’ve got paying customers in the morning.”
Larry straightened up.
“We’ll have her out of here Saturday.”
My boss looked from him to me.
“You better.”
He disappeared into the office.
Larry started laughing again.
I looked down at the Triumph, wiped a streak of grease off the tank, and reached for my tools.
We took the motorcycles out that Saturday.
I’d barely slept the night before. Every time I started getting comfortable, I’d think about something else that might go wrong with the Triumph. By morning, I’d checked the oil twice, gone over the brakes, and made sure nothing we’d worked on had come loose.
Larry showed up while I was crouched beside the rear wheel.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Checking something.”
“You checked it yesterday.”
“I’m checking it again.”
“Frank, if you keep messing with that motorcycle, you’re gonna break something.”
I got to my feet.
“Ready?”
“Been ready.”
He looked over the Triumph one more time.
“Still can’t believe that’s the same bike you had before you shipped out.”
“Why?”
“Thought for sure you’d have blown the damn thing up by now.”
“Keep talking.”
Larry laughed and swung onto his Harley.
We headed out of town with him riding ahead of me. He’d been telling me for days that he knew a good stretch of road where there wasn’t much traffic, and I figured it was as good a place as any to find out whether the Triumph was going to behave.
The first few miles, I listened to every noise the engine made.
It had the same vibration I remembered from before Vietnam, and the clutch took a little getting used to after so long away from it. I kept expecting the motor to cough or lose power whenever I opened the throttle.
It didn’t.
Larry slowed down at an intersection and glanced over his shoulder. I gave him a thumbs-up, and he took off again.
We rode past the last of the businesses, then out where the road stretched between patches of scrub and dry dirt. The wind pushed against my chest, and the sun was hot enough that I could feel it through my shirt.
I opened the throttle a little farther.
The Triumph pulled ahead without complaining.
I laughed inside my helmet.
Larry looked back again when I came up beside him. He gave me a ridiculous grin and twisted the throttle on his Harley.
I followed.
We stopped for gas later that afternoon at a little station along the highway. My hands were stiff from gripping the handlebars, and my backside was starting to hurt, but I was still grinning when I climbed off.
Larry noticed immediately.
“Look at your dumb ass.”
“What?”
“You been smiling for twenty miles.”
“Shut up.”
He laughed and went inside to pay for his gas.
I leaned against the Triumph while the attendant finished with another customer’s truck. The engine was hot, and I could smell oil and dust coming off it. There was a smear of grease across my jeans where I’d wiped my hands that morning.
Larry came back carrying two cold bottles of Coke.
He handed one to me.
“Thought you were buying.”
“I bought lunch the day you got here.”
“That was weeks ago.”
“Still counts.”
We sat on a low concrete wall beside the station while the bikes cooled.
Larry drank half his Coke in one swallow.
“Worth all that work?”
I glanced over at the Triumph.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Because I’m not helping you tear it apart again next week.”
“Bullshit. You’ll be there before I get the tools out.”
“Probably.”
He lit a cigarette and leaned back on one hand.
A truck passed on the road, kicking dust across the shoulder. Larry waited until it was gone before he spoke again.
“Been thinking about writing Curtis.”
“Do it.”
“Told him about the Harley in my last letter. He wanted to know if I’d finally found somebody stupid enough to ride with me.”
“Tell him you did.”
“Already planning on it.”
I took another drink.
“Maybe he’ll come out sometime.”
“Hope he does.”
Larry rubbed at a spot of dirt on his jeans.
“Wouldn’t mind seeing Ray out here, either. Once he’s able.”
“He’s got a ways to go.”
“I know.”
He looked toward the motorcycles.
“Hell, we could find him something comfortable. Doesn’t have to be the fastest goddamn bike in the state.”
I smiled a little.
“Ray’ll want the fastest.”
“Yeah, and then he’ll cuss us when his leg hurts.”
I laughed because I could picture it.
Larry finished his cigarette, ground it out, and got to his feet.
“Come on. We got another stretch of road before dark.”
I followed him toward the motorcycles.
He was already pulling on his gloves when he looked over.
“Hey, Frank.”
“What?”
“Glad I came out here.”
I looked at him for a second.
“Yeah. Me too.”
He nodded, swung onto his Harley, and started it.
I climbed onto the Triumph and followed him back onto the highway.
A few weeks later, we weren’t riding alone anymore.
It started with a fellow who worked construction and owned an old Harley he’d rebuilt himself. He stopped by the garage one afternoon after seeing Larry’s bike parked out front. They got to talking, and by the time I finished changing the brakes on a customer’s car, Larry had invited him to come riding with us.
The following Saturday, the man brought a friend.
Then another rider started showing up.
I didn’t have anything against the company, although it meant Larry had more people encouraging his bullshit. He’d stand around telling stories while the rest of us got ready, making everybody laugh and occasionally forgetting what he was supposed to be doing.
We usually ended up at the same roadside diner or one of the small places outside town where nobody cared if we sat around for a couple of hours.
One afternoon, we were on our way back when the fellow riding near the rear started having trouble.
His motorcycle jerked hard enough that I saw it from where I was riding. He managed to get it onto the shoulder before the engine quit altogether.
I slowed, pulled over, and turned around.
Larry was already beside him when I got there.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Damn thing started missing. Thought I could make it back, but it just quit.”
I got off the Triumph and crouched beside the engine.
The other two riders pulled in behind us.
One of them looked at the sun, then at the road.
“We’ve still got a good ride home.”
“Yeah,” I said, reaching for the fuel line. “We do.”
“You think you can fix it?”
“Gonna find out.”
Larry handed me a wrench from his tool roll.
We went through the obvious things first. The man insisted it wasn’t the ignition because he’d replaced parts the month before. Larry argued that replacing something didn’t mean he’d done it right.
The two of them were still going at it when I found a loose connection.
“Would you two shut the hell up a minute?”
Larry leaned over.
“What’d you find?”
“Give me that screwdriver.”
We spent the better part of an hour getting the motorcycle running again. By the time the engine finally caught, my shirt was soaked with sweat and all of us were covered in dust.
The man who’d been worried about getting home kept checking his watch.
“Next time, maybe we ought to bring a tow rope.”
Larry looked at him.
“Next time, maybe you ought to learn how to fix a motorcycle.”
I laughed and closed the tool roll.
We followed the man all the way back to town in case the engine quit again. It didn’t, although Larry kept an eye on him whenever the road opened up.
By the time we pulled into the garage, the sun was almost down.
I expected everybody to head home.
Instead, they parked their motorcycles and came inside.
One of the men sat on an overturned bucket while another leaned against the workbench. Larry found the last of the cold sodas in the little refrigerator my boss kept in the back and helped himself without asking.
I told him he’d better replace them.
He told me to quit bitching.
We were still there an hour later.
My boss came out of his office, looked at the motorcycles lined up outside, and stopped in the doorway.
“You boys planning on moving in?”
Larry grinned.
“Depends. You got room?”
“Not for you.”
Everybody laughed.
My boss looked at me.
“Frank, I don’t mind you working on your bike after hours, but I need the bays cleared by morning. Got customers coming in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And tell your friends to quit leaving their garbage all over the place.”
I looked toward the pile of empty bottles beside Larry’s stool.
Larry suddenly became very interested in the floor.
I shook my head.
“Everybody clean up before you leave.”
The others got moving, although Larry waited until I kicked the leg of his stool.
“Jesus, Frank. I’m getting up.”
“Good. Start with those bottles.”
“Bossy little bastard.”
“Keep talking.”
He grinned and started collecting them.
It was nearly ten before the last motorcycle pulled out of the lot.
Larry stayed behind while I swept up.
“You know,” he said, “we ought to find somewhere of our own.”
I pushed a pile of dirt toward the door.
“For what?”
“So we don’t have to listen to your boss bitch every time we get together.”
“He’s got a point. We can’t keep taking over his shop.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“You got money for a place?”
“Some.”
“How much?”
He told me.
I stopped sweeping and stared at him.
“Larry, that won’t even pay the first month’s rent.”
“Then we’ll find something cheap.”
“Where?”
“Hell if I know.”
I went back to sweeping.
Larry grabbed another broom and started working beside me.
“Come on, Frank. Think about it. We got the bikes, got the guys. We keep ending up here anyway.”
“Because the garage has tools.”
“Then we’ll get our own tools.”
“With what money?”
“Christ, you’re a miserable bastard when you start talking about money.”
“That’s because I like having enough to eat.”
Larry laughed, but he didn’t drop it.
Over the next couple of weeks, he kept bringing up the idea whenever the men got together. Somebody suggested renting an old shed. Somebody else knew a fellow with a vacant building. Another wanted us to put our money together and buy a place, which started an argument that lasted half the evening.
I wasn’t against finding somewhere.
I just wasn’t interested in getting stuck paying for something everybody else would use and then forget about when the bills came due.
Larry finally got tired of hearing me complain.
“Then quit bitching and help me figure it out.”
I threw my empty soda bottle at the trash can.
It missed.
Larry pointed at it.
“There’s your first job when we get a place. Janitor.”
We found the building behind the garage.
My boss had been using it to store tires and old equipment, but most of the things inside hadn’t been touched in years. When I asked whether he’d consider renting it, he stared at me for a moment before asking how many motorcycles we were planning on putting in there.
“Depends how many we can fit.”
“Christ, Frank.”
I followed him outside while he dug through his keys.
The building was smaller than the garage, with a wide front door and a narrow window along one wall. The roof had leaked enough to leave dark stains on the ceiling, and there were boards stacked against the back where mice had been nesting.
My boss shoved the door open with his shoulder.
“Forty-five dollars a month. You boys fix anything you break, and I don’t want people coming over here at all hours raising hell.”
I looked around.
It needed work, but the roof could be patched, and most of the junk could be hauled out. There was enough space for a table, some chairs, and a few motorcycles if we moved things around.
Larry walked in behind us.
He stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips.
“Well, shit. This’ll work.”
I looked at him.
“You haven’t even seen the back.”
“Don’t need to.”
“There’s a hole in the roof.”
“Fix it.”
“Floor’s cracked.”
“Ain’t gonna fall through.”
Something moved behind the stack of boards.
I turned just as a mouse darted along the wall.
Larry looked down at it.
“Already got company.”
My boss laughed.
“You want it or not?”
I told him we’d need to talk to the others first.
Larry looked like he wanted to argue, but he waited until we were outside.
“What the hell are we talking about?”
“Forty-five dollars every month, Larry. You planning on paying that by yourself?”
“No.”
“Then we need to know who’s serious before we agree to anything.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“All right. Ask them.”
We got together that evening in the garage after closing.
There were five of us around the workbench, with Larry sitting on a stool and the others drinking soda while I explained what the building would cost.
One fellow wanted to know whether we could keep motorcycles inside.
“Yeah, if we clean it out,” I told him.
Another asked whether we could put in a refrigerator.
“Not unless somebody buys one.”
Larry raised his hand.
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Can we put a couch in there?”
“Larry, for fuck’s sake.”
“What? Man ought to have somewhere to sit.”
“You’ve got a stool.”
“Stool’s uncomfortable.”
The others laughed.
We went back and forth over the money. One man didn’t think it was worth paying rent when we could meet somewhere for free. Another pointed out that none of the places we’d been using belonged to us, and we were already getting on people’s nerves.
That led to a discussion about what we actually wanted.
Some of the men were happy just meeting up to ride. They weren’t interested in paying dues or being responsible for a building.
I didn’t blame them.
But the ones who wanted something more permanent agreed to split the rent and help with repairs. We settled on collecting a little extra each month to cover electricity and whatever else needed fixing.
I got a piece of paper and wrote down the amounts.
Larry leaned over my shoulder.
“Look at you. Got yourself a whole business.”
“You wanna handle the money?”
“Fuck no.”
“Then quit breathing down my neck.”
He moved away laughing.
We went back to my boss the following morning and worked out the arrangement.
The next Saturday, everybody showed up ready to clean.
Well, almost everybody.
Larry arrived carrying a battered couch he’d bought from somebody for five dollars.
I was standing outside with a hammer in my hand when he pulled up in a borrowed truck.
“What the fuck is that?”
He climbed out, looking pleased with himself.
“Our furniture.”
“That thing looks like somebody died on it.”
“Guy said it was comfortable.”
“Did he tell you what happened to the arm?”
Larry looked toward the torn upholstery.
“Dog.”
“Bullshit.”
“Big dog.”
I shook my head and helped him unload it.
The springs complained when we carried it through the door. One cushion had a stain I didn’t want to identify, and the stuffing was coming out along the back.
We put it against the wall.
Larry sat down.
Something cracked beneath him.
I turned around.
He slowly got back to his feet.
“Needs a little work.”
I started laughing and couldn’t stop.
“Five dollars, huh?”
“Shut up.”
“Think you paid too much.”
“Frank, I’m gonna throw you through that goddamn window.”
He spent the next hour fixing the broken support while I patched a hole in the wall.
By the end of the day, the place was full of dust, sweat, and men arguing about where everything ought to go.
We built a long table out of lumber somebody had brought from a job site. It wasn’t particularly pretty, but it was sturdy enough to hold our tools and whatever else we dragged in. We collected mismatched chairs, hung a couple of shelves, and found an old refrigerator that still ran once we cleaned out the inside.
Larry spent most of one afternoon on the roof while I worked below him, handing up materials.
Every few minutes, he’d complain about the heat.
“Goddamn sun’s trying to kill me!”
“Then quit standing up there talking and finish the roof!”
“Come up here and say that!”
“I’ve got work to do!”
“Lazy bastard!”
I laughed and handed him another piece of material.
It took us a couple of weekends to get everything into decent shape.
We still had plenty to do, but when we finished cleaning up one Sunday afternoon, the building looked a hell of a lot better than it had when we’d first opened the door.
Larry walked over to the old refrigerator, took out a soda, and sat on his ugly couch.
“See? Told you it’d work.”
I dropped into a chair across from him.
“Still think that couch ought to be burned.”
“You keep your hands off my furniture.”
I laughed and stretched my legs beneath the table.
Outside, the motorcycles were parked together in the dirt. The others had gone home an hour earlier, and I was ready to head out myself, but Larry didn’t seem in any hurry.
He tipped his bottle toward the door.
“Be nice having somewhere everybody can come.”
“Long as they pay their share.”
“Jesus, Frank.”
“What?”
“You ever think about anything besides money?”
“Yeah. How I’m gonna get you to shut up.”
He laughed and took another drink.
The trouble started a month later.
We’d been riding most of the afternoon and stopped at a little bar on the way back. A couple of the men were hungry, and Larry wanted something cold to drink before we finished the ride.
I’d had one beer with my food, then switched to Coke. Larry was drinking soda too, although that didn’t stop him from giving the bartender hell about the peanuts sitting in a bowl on the counter.
One of the newer riders had been drinking since we arrived.
I noticed him getting louder while we ate, but he wasn’t bothering anybody until he started arguing with another man over something stupid. By the time we were ready to leave, he was swaying when he stood up.
Larry looked at me from the other end of the table.
I set my drink down.
The man headed toward the door, digging through his pockets for his keys.
“Hey,” I called.
He kept walking.
I caught up with him outside as he reached his motorcycle.
“Hold up a minute.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“What?”
“Give me your keys.”
His face tightened.
“The fuck for?”
“Because you’re not riding like that.”
He laughed and turned back toward his bike.
I stepped in front of him.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Get out of my way.”
“Not happening.”
He moved closer, breathing beer into my face.
“You ain’t my goddamn father.”
“Never said I was.”
“Then quit telling me what to do.”
He tried to move around me.
I caught his arm before he could swing his leg over the seat.
“Don’t.”
He jerked free and shoved me.
I took a step back, more surprised than anything.
Larry came through the door behind us.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“Your buddy here thinks he’s gonna tell me whether I can ride,” the man snapped.
Larry looked at me, then at him.
“He’s right. You’re drunk.”
“Fuck both of you.”
He grabbed for his handlebars.
I got there first.
He tried pulling the motorcycle toward himself, and I held it steady. He was angry enough to do something stupid, and there were people coming out of the bar now, stopping to see what the shouting was about.
“Let go of my bike!”
“Then hand over the keys.”
He swung at me.
I moved back just enough that his fist missed, caught his wrist, and shoved him away from the motorcycle.
Larry stepped between us before he could try again.
“Enough of that shit.”
The man glared at both of us, breathing hard.
For a minute, I thought we were going to end up rolling around in the dirt.
Then he dug into his pocket and threw the keys at Larry.
“There. Happy?”
Larry caught them.
“Thrilled.”
The man turned toward the bar, muttering about a bunch of controlling assholes.
I watched him walk away.
Larry came over and handed me the keys.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Could’ve let him hit you. Might’ve knocked some sense into that thick skull.”
“Would’ve hurt his hand.”
Larry laughed.
We arranged to get the man home and left his motorcycle where it was until he could come back sober.
The following morning, he showed up at the building while I was tightening a bolt on the Triumph.
He stood in the doorway for a minute before coming inside.
“You got my keys?”
I kept working.
“Larry’s got them.”
He shuffled his feet.
“Look, about yesterday—”
I set the wrench down.
“You remember trying to hit me?”
He stared at the floor.
“Yeah.”
“You do it again, we’re gonna have a bigger problem.”
“I was drunk.”
“No shit.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Wasn’t trying to start anything.”
“Then don’t.”
He nodded.
I went back to tightening the bolt.
After a minute, he asked whether I needed a hand.
I pointed toward the other side of the motorcycle.
“Hold that steady.”
He crouched down and did as I asked.
We worked for another twenty minutes before Larry arrived.
He walked through the door, saw the two of us bent over the Triumph, and stopped.
“Well, hell. Everybody friends again?”
I looked up.
“Got his keys?”
Larry reached into his pocket and tossed them over.
The man caught them.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
Larry nodded and headed for the refrigerator.
The subject didn’t come up again that morning, but it started a different argument at our next gathering.
Some of the men thought I should’ve let the rider leave. It wasn’t my business if a grown man wanted to ride drunk.
I wasn’t having that.
“He could barely stand,” I said. “You want him riding down the highway with the rest of us?”
“He’s responsible for himself.”
“Until he hits somebody.”
One of the men leaned forward.
“So what happens next time? Somebody gonna be in charge of telling everybody what they can do?”
Larry was sitting beside me, listening.
I looked around the table.
“If we’re riding together, then yeah, we’re gonna have to agree on some things. I’m not interested in picking somebody up off the road because the rest of us couldn’t be bothered to stop him from doing something stupid.”
Nobody answered immediately.
Then one of the older riders nodded.
“Got a point.”
That started another argument about rules.
I let them go at it for a while before reaching for the notebook where I’d been keeping track of the rent.
“Look,” I said. “You want to ride by yourself, nobody’s stopping you. But we’re sharing a building, putting money into it, and going places together. Somebody breaks down, we stop. Somebody needs a hand, we help. And if a man starts trouble, the rest of us don’t need to get dragged into it because he can’t control himself.”
Larry leaned back in his chair.
“Sounds reasonable to me.”
One of the men laughed.
“That’s a first.”
“Fuck you,” Larry answered.
We spent the rest of the evening figuring out a few things everybody could agree on.
Nothing complicated.
Nobody wanted a pile of rules longer than the ones we’d dealt with in the Army. We wanted to ride motorcycles, work on them, and have somewhere to get together without people telling us to move along.
By the time we finished, somebody asked what we were going to call ourselves.
Larry’s head came up.
“About goddamn time.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“We’ve got a building. We’ve got bikes. We’re collecting money. Might as well make it official.”
“Official how?”
“A motorcycle club.”
The others started talking at once.
One of them wanted to know whether we’d wear patches. Another asked about getting a sign made for the building. Larry was already talking about designs before anybody had agreed on a name.
I shut the notebook.
“Can we figure out what we’re calling ourselves before you start buying shit?”
Larry pointed at me.
“See? That’s why we need you around. Always ruining the fun.”
“Somebody has to.”
He grinned.
Naming the club took most of another Saturday.
Larry showed up with a list he’d written on an old envelope.
I knew we were in trouble as soon as he started reading.
“The Road Kings.”
“No.”
“The Black Riders.”
One of the men shook his head.
“The Highway Devils.”
I looked at Larry.
“Where the fuck did you get these?”
“Been working on them all week.”
“You ought to get your money back.”
He threw the envelope at me.
“Then you come up with something, asshole.”
I caught it and read through the rest.
Every name sounded worse than the one before.
“Jesus Christ, Larry. Were you drunk when you wrote these?”
“Some of them.”
“Explains a lot.”
The others started making suggestions, which only made things worse.
We argued over names involving eagles, highways, outlaws, and just about every animal anybody could think of.
One man wanted something that sounded respectable.
Larry told him to join a church.
Another suggested a name so ridiculous that everybody started laughing before he’d even finished saying it.
By the time we got through the list, I was ready to give up.
Larry took the envelope back and sat down on the couch.
“Fine. Sons of Doom.”
I looked over.
“What?”
“Sons of Doom.”
“Where’d that come from?”
He shrugged.
“Thought of it the other night.”
One of the men repeated the name.
Larry leaned forward.
“What? You don’t like it?”
“I didn’t say that,” the man answered.
I sat back and looked around the room.
Sons of Doom.
It had a rough sound to it. Different from the other names we’d spent all evening arguing about.
Larry was watching me.
“Well?”
I picked up my Coke.
“Say it again.”
He grinned.
“Sons of Doom Motorcycle Club.”
One of the men nodded.
“Hell, I like it.”
Another agreed.
I took a drink and thought about it a little longer.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’ll work.”
Larry slapped his knee.
“Finally! Christ, I thought we were gonna be sitting here till Christmas.”
He grabbed a pencil and wrote the name across the back of the envelope in big letters.
Then he held it up.
The writing was crooked.
I started laughing.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re looking at it funny.”
“Just admiring your handwriting.”
“Fuck you. Looks good.”
He turned the envelope around, studied it, and frowned.
“Maybe the letters need to be bigger.”
“Maybe you need somebody else to paint the sign.”
Larry threw the pencil at me.
We kept the envelope.
Deciding who was going to run the Sons of Doom wasn’t nearly as entertaining.
That came up the following week when we were sitting around the table trying to figure out what we needed before we started having patches made.
A couple of the men had been asking questions about other motorcycle clubs, how they handled membership, and what kind of officers they had.
Larry had been reading up on some of it.
He brought the subject up while I was counting the money in our box.
“We need a president.”
I kept writing.
“Then pick one.”
“Already got somebody in mind.”
“Good.”
Larry didn’t say anything else.
I looked up.
He was staring at me.
“No.”
He grinned.
I pointed the pencil at him.
“Don’t even start.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not doing it.”
One of the other men laughed.
“You already do half the work.”
“That’s because none of you bastards can remember when rent’s due.”
Larry leaned forward.
“Exactly.”
I put the pencil down.
“Larry.”
“Frank.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He looked around the table.
“Anybody got a problem with Frank running things?”
I stared at him.
“You can’t just—”
“I’m asking them.”
The others started talking.
One of the men pointed out that I’d been keeping track of the money since we’d rented the building. Another mentioned the work I’d done getting the place fixed up. Somebody brought up the trouble with the drunk rider, which started another argument because the man in question was sitting at the table looking embarrassed.
I rubbed my forehead.
“Christ. We’re not doing this because I took somebody’s keys away.”
Larry leaned toward me.
“No, we’re doing it because somebody needs to take responsibility for this place. And you’ve been doing that whether you like it or not.”
“Then why don’t you do it?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
I stared at him.
He grinned.
“At least I’m telling you the truth.”
That got a laugh out of everybody.
I leaned back in my chair.
I’d spent the last couple of months working during the day and helping with the building whenever I had time. Most of the money I had left after paying my bills went toward keeping the Triumph running. I was still trying to figure out how to make everything stretch until the next payday.
Now Larry wanted to add running a motorcycle club to the pile.
“You realize I don’t know what the hell I’m doing?” I asked him.
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.”
“Neither do the rest of us.”
One of the men reached for the notebook.
“Why don’t we vote on it?”
I looked around the table.
Everybody seemed to think that was a good idea.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Vote.”
Larry sat up straight and looked more pleased with himself than I’d seen him since the day we’d gotten the Triumph running.
He put my name forward.
The men who’d committed to starting the club agreed.
I looked at the raised hands and shook my head.
“You’re all a bunch of idiots.”
Larry started laughing.
“Congratulations, President.”
I reached for my Coke.
“Fuck off.”
“That’s no way to address your loyal members.”
“You want to be the first one I throw out?”
“Can’t. I helped start this miserable thing.”
The others were laughing now, and one of them reached across the table to shake my hand.
I took it.
Then another man did the same.
By the time they finished, Larry was still grinning like the asshole he was.
He shoved the notebook toward me.
“Better write it down.”
I looked at the blank page.
The top of the notebook already had our rent and expenses written out in my handwriting. I flipped to a clean sheet, took the pencil, and wrote the date.
Underneath it, I wrote the club’s name.
Sons of Doom MC.
I hesitated before putting my name beneath it.
Larry leaned over.
“Come on, Frank. Don’t take all goddamn night.”
I elbowed him away and finished writing.
Frank — President.
Larry read it over my shoulder.
“Looks good.”
“Still think you ought to be doing this.”
“Too late now.”
I shut the notebook and pushed it toward the center of the table.
“All right. If we’re gonna do this, we’ve got work to do. I’m not having everybody running around wearing patches until we figure out what they’re supposed to look like and who’s paying for them.”
One of the men groaned.
“Jesus, here we go.”
I looked at him.
“You volunteering to pay?”
He shook his head.
“Then quit complaining.”
Larry laughed and reached for another soda.
We spent another hour going over things, arguing about money, and talking about what needed to happen before we could call ourselves a proper motorcycle club.
By the time everybody started leaving, my head hurt.
Larry stayed behind to help clean up.
He carried a couple of empty bottles toward the trash while I wiped down the table.
“You pissed at me?” he asked.
I looked up.
“For what?”
“Putting you up for president.”
“Little late to worry about that, ain’t it?”
He shrugged.
I tossed the rag onto the table.
“You could’ve told me first.”
“Would’ve told me no.”
“I did tell you no.”
“Didn’t work.”
I shook my head and went back to cleaning.
Larry stood there for a minute.
“You remember how you used to get on my ass over there when I didn’t do something right?”
I looked at him.
“You usually didn’t.”
“Yeah, well, somebody had to keep me entertained.”
I laughed.
He set the bottles down and leaned against the table.
“We’re not asking you to do all this shit by yourself, Frank.”
“Then don’t disappear when something needs fixing.”
“Have I yet?”
“No.”
“Then quit worrying about it.”
He picked the bottles up again.
I watched him carry them toward the trash.
He was right about one thing. Since he’d come to New Mexico, he’d shown up every time I needed another pair of hands. Sometimes I hadn’t even asked him. He’d just appear at the garage with something to eat, tell me what I was doing wrong, and get to work.
I folded the rag and set it beside the sink.
“Hey, Larry.”
He turned around.
“What?”
“Thanks.”
He looked at me for a moment, then grinned.
“Don’t get all sentimental on me, asshole.”
I laughed and threw the rag at him.
He caught it against his chest.
“That’s more like it.”
The sign showed up two weeks later.
I’d finished at the garage early that afternoon and was out back replacing a broken latch on the clubhouse door when Larry came around the corner carrying a long board beneath his arm.
He had paint on both hands and a streak of black across one cheek.
I stopped working.
“What’d you get into?”
“Got something.”
“I can see that.”
“Open the door.”
I stepped aside.
He carried the board inside and turned it around.
Across the front, painted in thick black letters, were the words:
SONS OF DOOM MC
I stared at it.
Larry stood there waiting.
“Well?”
“You make that?”
“Yeah.”
I moved closer.
The paint was still a little tacky near one corner. He’d sanded the wood, rounded off the roughest edges, and taken his time with the lettering.
It wasn’t perfect. One word sat slightly lower than the others, and the border he’d painted around the outside was thicker on the left.
But he’d done a hell of a job.
“Looks good,” I told him.
He smiled.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He turned it around to check the front himself.
“Figured we’d put it over the door.”
“Better than looking at that ugly wall.”
“Was thinking we could add our patch design later, once we settle on it.”
I nodded.
“Good idea.”
Larry set the board against the wall and reached for the ladder.
I took the other end.
We spent the next half hour arguing about where to hang it.
Every time Larry climbed down, I’d notice one side was crooked. He’d swear at me, climb back up, and move it another inch.
Finally, he came down and stood beside me.
We both looked up.
The sign hung straight above the entrance.
Larry crossed his arms.
“There. Happy?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, because I’m not moving the bastard again.”
I laughed and went inside to wash the paint off my hands.
A couple of the men showed up a little later, followed by the others. Nobody had planned anything special, but once they saw the sign, everybody wanted to stand outside looking at it.
One man complained that the lettering should’ve been red.
Larry told him he could paint his own goddamn sign.
Another wanted to know when we were getting patches.
I told him we’d talk about it at the next meeting.
That started an argument about whether we really needed another meeting.
We ended up sitting around the table with food somebody had brought from town, talking about motorcycles and trying to figure out where we were riding the following weekend.
Larry kept getting up to look at the sign through the open door.
I gave him hell about it.
“It’s still there.”
“Checking.”
“For what?”
“Make sure nobody steals it.”
“Who the fuck’s gonna steal a wooden sign?”
“People steal all kinds of shit.”
I shook my head.
He went outside again anyway.
By the time the others headed home, it was well past dark. I was putting the chairs back around the table when Larry came inside carrying the last of the empty bottles.
He set them beside the trash and looked around.
“Not bad, huh?”
I glanced toward the old couch, the workbench covered in tools, and the table we’d built out of scrap lumber.
The refrigerator was humming against the wall. Somebody had left a greasy handprint on the door, and one of the chairs had a broken rung that needed fixing.
“Could use a better couch.”
Larry pointed at me.
“Don’t start that shit again.”
I laughed.
He went over and dropped onto it, stretching his legs out in front of him.
I sat down at the table and pulled the notebook closer. We had another month’s rent coming due, and I wanted to make sure everybody had paid before I handed the money over.
Larry watched me for a minute.
“You gonna spend all night doing that?”
“Just checking something.”
“You’ve been checking that goddamn book all week.”
“Because somebody’s short on his dues.”
He sat up.
“Who?”
I looked at him.
He frowned.
“Me?”
“Five dollars.”
“Bullshit.”
I turned the notebook around and pointed.
Larry leaned forward, read the entry, and swore.
“Forgot.”
“No kidding.”
He dug into his pocket, counted out the money, and slapped it onto the table.
“There. You happy?”
“Thrilled.”
He shook his head and leaned back against the couch.
“President’s a greedy bastard.”
“President’s gotta pay the rent.”
Larry laughed and closed his eyes for a minute.
I finished counting, put the money back in the box, and locked it away.
When I looked over again, Larry was still sitting there.
“You heading home?” I asked.
“In a minute.”
I started gathering the remaining tools from the table.
Larry got up and helped without being asked.
We worked quietly for a while, putting things away and straightening up the mess everybody had left behind.
I found a loose screw near one of the chairs and checked the legs before dropping it into the toolbox. Larry was at the sink, rinsing out a couple of glasses.
He’d rolled his sleeves up, and I could see the old marks on his forearms.
I looked down at my own hands.
There was a scar across one knuckle from Vietnam that still pulled when I bent my finger a certain way. I’d gotten used to it, just like I’d gotten used to the small noises engines made when something needed attention.
I picked up the last wrench.
Behind me, Larry shut off the water.
“You hear anything else from Ray?”
“Not since that last letter.”
“Need to write him.”
“Yeah.”
“Curtis, too. Tell him what we’ve been doing.”
I closed the toolbox.
“He’ll think we’ve lost our damn minds.”
Larry laughed.
“Probably.”
I leaned against the workbench while he dried his hands.
For a minute, I could hear the sound of motorcycles passing somewhere down the road. Somebody was laughing outside one of the nearby buildings, and a car door slammed.
Larry glanced toward the open door.
“Remember how much we used to talk about getting bikes?”
“Hard to forget. You wouldn’t shut up about it.”
“Still don’t.”
“No kidding.”
He chuckled and tossed the towel aside.
I thought about the nights overseas when we’d sit around after work, making plans for what we’d do when we got home. Larry used to talk about riding across the country, finding women, and never having to listen to another officer yell at him.
I rubbed my thumb over the old scar.
Larry had gone quiet.
When I looked up, he was watching me.
He didn’t ask what I was thinking about.
He just came over, picked up the toolbox, and carried it to the shelf.
“Come on,” he said. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“Growing boy.”
“Growing sideways, maybe.”
He laughed and headed for the door.
I turned off the lights and followed him outside.
Our motorcycles were parked beneath the new sign. The Harley had another small oil spot underneath it, and the Triumph was dusty from the ride we’d taken the day before.
Larry pulled his gloves on while I locked the building.
“Where you wanna eat?” he asked.
“Diner’s probably still open.”
“Good. That waitress likes me.”
“She told you to leave her alone.”
“Playing hard to get.”
“She’s married, Larry.”
“Didn’t say I was gonna marry her.”
I laughed and tossed him the keys he’d left on the windowsill earlier.
He caught them, swung onto his Harley, and started the engine.
I climbed onto the Triumph.
The first kick didn’t do a damn thing.
Larry looked over.
I tried again.
Nothing.
He started laughing.
“Come on, President! Some of us would like to eat tonight!”
“Shut the fuck up!”
I gave the kickstarter another hard push.
The engine coughed, caught, and settled into a rough idle.
Larry was still laughing when he pulled out of the lot.
I followed him, shaking my head.
We had a sign hanging above a building we could barely afford, a handful of men who argued about everything, and enough work waiting for us to keep everybody busy for months.
Larry was already slowing down at the corner, waving impatiently for me to catch up.
I twisted the throttle and pulled alongside him.
He shouted something I couldn’t hear over the engines, then pointed toward the diner.
I nodded, and we turned down the road together.
