I'm smiling as I step back into the empty cafeteria, already looking forward to my session with little Alexandria Perez, a one-year-old with a severe case of congenital torticollis. I'm passing by the garbage cans, glancing toward he windows, when I see a mirage from my past: Juan and Emanuel, eleven and twelve year olds the last time I saw them. What the heck are they doing here in Guadalupe Victoria.
I don't get to ask.
Light engulfs the room, and a sonic boom throws me back toward the wall.
CHAPTER THREE
Without Suri’s Land Rover, I'll have to ride one of my motorcycles. No big deal, I tell myself as I unlock the heavy metal door between the showroom and the garage. I've been putting it off, yeah, but once I'm straddling one of my favorite hybrid bikes, it'll feel like old times. Has to. I've been riding since I was fifteen. Haven't owned a car in four years, since I dropped out of Cal at nineteen and sold my Beamer to buy a 1963 BSA Rocket Gold Star Spitfire Scrambler.
I step from the glossy urban expanse of the showroom into the dingier garage, inhaling the familiar scent of gasoline and metal, then turn around to lock the door between the garage and the showroom. I set the alarm for the whole place, giving myself a generous eight minutes to be out the garage doors on the back of the building, and I jiggle my key ring until I find the electronic key to the security system I keep for my favorite Cross Hybrid, the first prototype of my custom Anomaly job, with an engine that runs on part gasoline, part water.
She's a beauty. Started out as a 1974 Kawasaki H2 B 750 Mach IV MK4, but I’ve changed her a lot. Gave her steel frame a sea blue and black paint job, emblazing my “CH” symbol on the tank. Added a slightly roomier, gel-filled seat, so both Lizzy and I could fit on it in a bind. Put on some Sunrim 6000 series aluminum rims with Dunlop Arrowmax tires. And of course, I re-worked her insides so she’s hybrid.
I bought her two years ago off a seventy-something-year-old collector in Laguna Beach. My plan was to sell her at one of the shows I do each quarter—in either New York or L.A.—but once I rode my renovated, gas-and-water powered Mach, I knew I couldn't part with her.
These old Kawasaki Triples make for a comfy ride. Lots of leg room. Easy turns. It'll be like getting on a nine-year-old roan after being thrown from a stallion, I tell myself as I wrap my hands around the handles. I try to wrap my hands around the handles, but I'm going on muscle memory, and the muscles of my left hand don't do shit. I look down at my half-curled fingers.
“Fuck.”
Chill out, dude.
I grit my teeth, then pull a small steel bar up from the spot where it’s locked against the left side of the Mach’s neck. On the end of the bar is a black leather band, sized just right to slide about halfway up my left forearm. My fingers don’t work, but if I’m right about this, I can jam my forearm into the band, and since the steel bar holding it is welded in two spots between the left handlebar and the dash board, I can effectively hold the handle by using the weight of my left shoulder to press against it. My right hand will be doing most of the work, so it’s risky business, but it’s the best that I can do.
I lock the steel bar into place, curl the fingers of my left hand, and push my wrist into the thick leather band, sliding it halfway up my forearm as I lean down over the bike's handles. Usually I'd push a bike out of the garage before mounting, but I need to be on the bike to be sure I’ve got my arm in place.
With a deep breath, I throw my right leg over. It feels awkward as shit, because I'm a leftie and I used to get on with my left leg first.
Now it's wobble time. I get up on the tips of my toes, scuffing up my old John Lobbs, and hit a button on my key chain that makes one of the garage doors open. I barely make it down the slight incline leading onto the cement slab behind the building. I scoot, on my toes, over the oil-stained cement, over the spot where I've worked on so many bikes along with Wil and Napo, the other two members of Team Cross Hybrids.
Guilt nags me. I've heard from both of them and I know they'd like their old jobs back, but I haven't offered. Shop's closed—for now, at least.
I'm scowling as I balance on my left arm, using the fingers of my right hand to poke at the garage remote attached to my key chain. I can hear the warning beeps of the alarm, telling me I've almost taken too long. Nearly eight minutes to get a bike out of the garage. This is why the shop's still closed.
I stare out at the field that stretches behind my building, then turn to my right to look at the backside of the row of shops next door to my freestanding building. Downtown Napa, California, is quiet and peaceful, which makes me want to f**king scream. My neck is tight and my hand feels weird and the panic is just below the surface. I remember when Napa used to seem to tame to me. I could do anything. The roads and the shops all seemed so small. Even the vast vineyards in Napa Valley seemed small. I wonder how long it would take me to get down to the valley now, driving the Mach one-handed. Probably forever.
The garage door closes behind me, and there's nothing else between me and the road. I look down at the band around my left forearm and suck back a few deep breaths. Like this is the f**king Sturgis Rally. Like I'm green as grass.
I don't have a watch, but I can tell I'm late already, and I'm annoyed that it bugs me.
I hear my phone ring. “Satisfaction” by the Stones. Lizzy. Great. I look down at myself, and I feel like such a helpless freak. There's no way I can answer the phone in my pocket. Not if I want to keep this bike upright.
I wonder why the hell she's calling and I tell myself I don't care. I can worry about Suri and Lizzy later—and I know I will, when I get back to the shop tonight. I wait another second for another burst of the tingling pain that starts in my neck and shoots down my arm. Neuralgia, they call it. Otherwise known as a ‘suicide headache’. But at the moment, I feel okay.
I bite down on my lip and jam my forearm as tightly as I can into the little leather band, straightening out my elbow so I can lean into the band with the full weight of my left shoulder. Without anymore stalling, I white-knuckle the handle with my right hand and ease my thumb onto the accelerator.
The ride to my parents’ house is short and heart-pumping enough to make me worry that in addition to all the other shit, maybe I lost my balls in the accident as well. By the time I glide through the massive, black iron gates and slow the Mach in their tree-lined, semi-circle drive, I'm drenched with sweat and gritting my teeth.
I wobble a little as I try to balance the bike using my toes. I hiss another curse as I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing I was the kind of guy who could just let things lie. But I refuse to let them off so easy. I refuse to let my father get away with what he did. I refuse to be complicit any longer.