Grizzly blinked.
“What am I supposed to look like?”
Tucker studied him.
“You look like…”
He thought.
“Bear.”
Another silence.
Mason started laughing.
Big Ron slapped the table.
“Kid renamed you.”
Grizzly pointed.
“No.”
Tucker smiled fully now.
“Bear.”
Little Jack nodded.
“That's it.”
Dean raised his coffee.
“To Bear.”
Grizzly looked betrayed.
His road name had survived bar fights, cross-country rallies, mechanical disasters, and one memorable night in Arkansas involving a sheriff’s deputy and three goats.
A five-year-old had destroyed it in ninety seconds.
Tucker pointed at the money.
“So you’ll do it?”
Grizzly looked down.
Seven dollars and forty cents.
“Your doctors fight the cancer.”
He pushed the money gently back toward Tucker.
“We fight everything around it.”
Tucker considered.
“That means you're my team?”
Grizzly stopped breathing for half a second.
Sarah had once asked almost the same thing.
During one of her first hospital stays, she had looked around at nurses, doctors, relatives, and Grizzly and whispered:
“Is everybody on my team?”
He had promised yes.
He had not been able to save her.
The memory still hurt as sharply as broken glass.
Grizzly looked at Tucker.
Then he nodded.
“Yeah, little man.”
“We’re your team.”
Angie finally walked toward them.
She wiped her cheeks quickly before Tucker could notice.
“I’m sorry.”
Grizzly stood.
“For what?”
“He shouldn’t bother you.”
Tucker looked offended.
“I’m hiring them.”
Big Ron picked up one quarter.
“We haven't negotiated benefits yet.”
Angie laughed despite herself.
It surprised her so much that another tear escaped.
She wiped it away.
“My name is Angie.”
“Bear,” Tucker said.
Grizzly closed his eyes.
The bikers laughed again.
Angie smiled.
“Bear?”
“It’s a hostile takeover.”
Grizzly pointed toward Tucker.
“Apparently.”
Angie looked at the money.
“You were really going to give them everything?”
Tucker nodded.
“To fight the monster.”
Grizzly noticed the wording.
“What monster?”
Tucker reached inside the pocket of his hoodie.
He pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
Crayon marks showed through.
He opened it across the table.
A creature filled most of the page.
Black body.
Huge red eyes.
Jagged white teeth.
Long arms.
Inside its stomach was a tiny stick figure.
The bikers became quiet again.
Grizzly pointed carefully.
“Who's that?”
“Me.”
Angie’s eyes closed.
Tucker touched the black monster.
“Mom says medicine goes inside and fights it.”
Grizzly looked at Angie.
She shook her head slightly.
She had never described cancer as a monster.
That had been Tucker’s interpretation.
“What kind of cancer?”
Grizzly asked quietly.
Angie hesitated.
“Neuroblastoma.”
“How bad?”
She glanced at Tucker.
Grizzly understood.
Not here.
Not in detail.