He walked toward his motorcycle.
Stopped beside the little pink bicycle.
And stared at the cardboard sign folded across its seat.
FOR SALE.
He picked it up.
Ran his thumb over the crooked letters.
Then whispered something only he could hear.
"Not again."
Seven years earlier, the old biker had been a very different man.
He was still strong.
Still confident.
Still the president of the motorcycle club.
And so certain that loyalty meant obeying the rules he had written that he had begun confusing leadership with ownership.
The club had existed for almost twenty years.
He helped build it from a handful of riders who met behind a repair shop on Friday evenings into a large brotherhood with dozens of members and a reputation that stretched across several counties.
They organized long-distance rides.
Attended motorcycle rallies.
Helped members through injuries.
Raised money when someone lost a home in a fire.
And stood beside one another at funerals.
The old biker believed in those traditions deeply.
But success had made him protective.
Protective of the club's money.
Protective of its reputation.
Protective of the authority he had earned.
Sometimes too protective.
His best friend had never been afraid to tell him that.
The younger rider had joined the club as a nineteen-year-old apprentice mechanic.
He was lean, quick to laugh, and possessed an extraordinary ability to repair engines other mechanics had given up on.
He could listen to a motorcycle idle for ten seconds and identify a failing bearing.
He could rebuild a carburetor while carrying on a conversation.
He could turn a miserable roadside breakdown into an evening everyone remembered fondly.
But his greatest talent had nothing to do with machinery.
He noticed people.
The tired waitress serving coffee at midnight.
The stranded motorist standing beside an overheated car.
The elderly neighbor struggling to bring groceries up her steps.
The quiet club member who had stopped attending meetings after losing his job.
The younger rider noticed.
And more often than not, he did something.
Sometimes small.
Sometimes inconvenient.
Often without telling anyone.
The old biker had loved him like a brother.
They rode together for years.