Five minutes later, the child stood.
Not because bravery had been summoned.
Because someone had given fear room.
The young man understood where he learned that.
The gray-bearded biker eventually stopped riding entirely.
His eyesight made night roads unsafe.
His knees objected to everything.
He sold most motorcycles.
Kept one.
Not the father’s.
That one had become wheelchairs years ago.
His own.
Black.
Old.
Too loud.
He parked it inside the workshop.
The young man visited one afternoon.
The biker was sitting beside it.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
The old man glared.
“That’s my line.”
The young man sat.
“You quitting?”
“Doctor.”
“Smart doctor.”
“Traitor.”
“You’re eighty-one.”
“Unnecessary information.”
They looked at the motorcycle.
The old biker said:
“I thought I’d die riding.”
The young man frowned.
“That sounds terrible.”
“Used to sound romantic.”
“What changed?”
“Age.”
Then:
“Your dad.”
The young man looked over.
“How?”
“He made me stop thinking death becomes better if you choose a dramatic location.”
The young man smiled.
“Dad died in a hospital.”
“Yes.”
“Very ordinary.”
“Most death is.”
The biker stared at his motorcycle.
“I think I wanted to control the ending.”
The young man nodded.
“Mom says Dad did too.”
“Probably.”
The biker smiled.
“Runs in men.”
The young man laughed.
They sold the old motorcycle a month later.
The biker kept the license plate.
Nobody understood why.
He did not explain.
At eighty-four, the gray-bearded biker became ill.
Lung disease.
Not cancer.
Years of welding fumes, road dust, smoking in his youth, luck, age—doctors could not reduce it to one cause.
The young man visited.
The roles reversed so completely that both noticed.
The old biker sat in a wheelchair near a rehabilitation center window.
The young man crouched.
The biker looked down.
“This feels familiar.”
The young man smiled.
“You’re uglier than I was.”
“Disrespectful.”
“Accurate.”
The biker’s breathing was shallow.
Oxygen ran beneath his nose.
The young man looked toward the window.
“Want one motorcycle?”
The biker stared.
Then laughed until he coughed.
“No.”
“Two hundred?”
“I will haunt you.”
The young man smiled.
“What do you want?”
The biker thought.
“Coffee.”
“Doctor says no.”
“Then why ask?”
“Good point.”
The young man handed him terrible decaffeinated hospital coffee.
The biker drank.
Made a face.
“This is abuse.”
The young man sat.
After several minutes, the old biker said:
“Did I do right by you?”
The question surprised him.
“What?”
“Your dad.”
“The promise.”
“All of it.”
The young man looked toward the old man.
“Mostly.”
The biker grunted.
“Fair.”
“You disappeared for four years.”
“Your mother wanted—”
“I know.”