Twenty-Eight Miles
At 10:23 on a hot Saturday morning, a motorcycle that sounded more like loose farm equipment than a road machine coughed twice outside Apex Custom Choppers on Route 9 and died directly in front of the open service bay.
Everyone inside heard it.
Conversation stopped.
Then somebody laughed.
The old motorcycle rolled slowly through the doorway under the strength of a man who appeared almost as worn down as the machine itself.
The gas tank was brown with surface rust. The leather seat had cracked into a web of dark lines. Chrome had disappeared beneath years of oxidation. One exhaust pipe was held against its bracket with a piece of old steel wire.
The front tire was soft.
The headlamp sat crooked.
An oily stain darkened the lower engine case.
Behind the handlebars walked Arthur Bennett, seventy-five years old.
He was thin without appearing fragile, the kind of thin produced by decades of physical work. Deep lines crossed his weathered face. Long gray hair curled untidily above the collar of his torn brown work jacket.
He pushed the motorcycle beneath the fluorescent lights.
Then he stopped.
Four mechanics stared.
One whistled.
Another shook his head.
“That thing came here under its own power?”
Arthur wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Most of the way.”
A few men laughed.
Arthur lowered his eyes.
That was when Mason Cole noticed.
Mason was forty-eight, the senior mechanic and part owner of Apex Custom Choppers. Six-foot-two, broad-shouldered, covered in faded tattoos, he had the intimidating appearance of a man who could rebuild an engine with one hand and throw a refrigerator through a wall with the other.
But Mason had learned something over the years.
People sometimes laughed at things they didn't understand.
He stepped forward.
“You ride that here?”
Arthur nodded.
“Twenty-eight miles.”
Mason looked at the leaking engine.
“How?”
Arthur gave him a faint smile.
“Slowly.”
Mason almost laughed.
Instead, he asked, “What do you need?”
Arthur reached inside his jacket.
He pulled out a small bundle of crumpled bills held together by a rubber band.
“Hundred and eighty-seven dollars.”
Mason looked at the money.
Arthur swallowed.
“That’s what I’ve got after gas and breakfast.”
“What do you need done?”
Arthur rested one hand gently against the rusted tank.
“Just make her start.”
Mason frowned.
“That’s it?”
“I don't need paint.”
Arthur rubbed the tank with his thumb.
“Don't need chrome.”
He looked at the worn front tire.
“Don't even need her pretty enough for anybody to look twice.”
His voice became quieter.
“I just need her to run one more time.”