“Just… don’t go fast,” I say, hating the tremor in my voice. Frank doesn’t respond, just wheels a massive black motorcycle out from the back of the shop. It’s not the same one John rode—this one looks older, more imposing. He hands me a helmet. “It was John’s,” he says when I hesitate. “I kept…
I hated my father-in-law’s motorcycle more than anything in the world because it stole my husband from me. The day that old Harley crushed John beneath its weight was the day I swore I’d never forgive Frank for introducing his son to those death machines. We haven’t spoken since the funeral six years ago, where…
Caroline appeared beside us, sensing tension. “Everything okay here?” “Perfect,” I said, not breaking eye contact with Howard. “Just discussing neighborhood security with the HOA president.” Howard mumbled something about offering condolences to other guests and retreated, leaving his plate behind. “Dad,” Caroline sighed, “please don’t make enemies here. You need this community now that…
They vandalized my bike while I was at my wife’s funeral, and that too in the church parking lot. Just because they don’t want an old man in a leather vest who didn’t “fit” with their country club image. I’d parked my meticulously maintained Harley Electra Glide in the church lot during the service. But…
Not a single family member showed for my Biker Grandpa’s 80th birthday. Not even my father, his own son. I watched from across the street as Grandpa Jack sat alone at that long table, his weathered hands folded over the helmet he still carried everywhere, waiting for two hours while the waitstaff gave him pitying…
The next morning dawned clear and perfect for riding. I arrived at Grandpa’s house at 8:30 to find him already in the garage, his Harley gleaming under the lights. He’d clearly spent time getting it especially clean, the chrome catching the light like mirrors. He was dressed as requested – black jeans, polished riding boots,…
My son’s fiancée invited me to a fancy restaurant then deliberately disappeared when the $3,000 bill arrived. She wanted to embarrass me and get me arrested by the police. Just because I ruined her party by coming to meet my son on my bike in front of his friends. Actually, she never liked the fact…
I reached into my cut, past the inner pocket where I kept the folded adoption papers I’d carried every day for thirty years, to the hidden pocket sewn into the lining. From it, I withdrew something Jessica could never have anticipated: an American Express Centurion Card. The mythical black card. “Sir?” The waiter looked confused…
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking the day I put my Harley up for sale to pay off medical bills of my only daughter who was fighting cancer. But I have to make the hard choice. The “For Sale” sign I’d taped to the seat was like a knife in my chest, but Emma’s latest medical…
I was suspended one month before retirement, just because some parent spotted me at a motorcycle rally. Forty-two years I’d driven that yellow bus. Never had an accident. Never been late. Knew every child’s name, which ones needed a little extra encouragement in the morning, which ones needed a quiet word when their parents were…
“Sir, I’m going to need you to step away from the fence. Now.” The security guard’s hand hovered near his radio as I stood outside Fairfield Elementary, clutching a brown paper lunch bag. “Parents have complained,” he added, eyes avoiding mine. I’d fought in war, survived three motorcycle crashes that should’ve killed me, buried more…
The day my son refused to let me hold my own grandson was the day I finally understood what being a biker had cost me. I stood in the hospital hallway, still in my leather cut despite having washed the road grime from my hands until they were raw. My son David, looking like a…
Nobody steps up for the janitor’s kid. That’s what I learned watching from my Harley as the school emptied out that Tuesday afternoon. Through my visor, I could see young Tommy Reese backed against the chain-link fence, surrounded by four bigger boys. The same boys who’d been making his life hell since September. The same…
I found my daughter’s wedding invitation in the trash. My own flesh and blood didn’t want me walking her down the aisle because her fiancé’s family thought bikers were “dangerous criminals.” Thirty years I’d spent as a law-abiding citizen, twenty-five running a successful bike repair shop, nineteen paying for ballet lessons and college tuition. None…
Nobody expected fifty bikers at my son’s funeral. Least of all the four teenagers who put him there. I’m not a crier. Twenty-six years as a high school janitor taught me to keep my emotions locked down tight. But when that first Harley rumbled into the cemetery parking lot, followed by another, then another, until…
They laughed at my old Harley and faded leathers when I pulled into the Thunder Road Bar. “Look what rolled in from the nursing home,” one of them said, loud enough for everyone to hear. It wasn’t the first time. Won’t be the last. At 73, I’ve watched the world change around me. These days,…
The morning they tore down my clubhouse, I sat in the rain and wept. Forty years of memories crushed to dust. The wrecking ball swung. Again. Again. Each blow felt like it hit my chest. I was the last one left. Cancer took Diesel. Heart attack got Preacher. Knuckles and Wrench died in that crash…
They buried my bike with me. I know because I watched them do it. From wherever I am now, I could see everything—my mangled body on the rain-slicked asphalt, my crushed Harley Davidson Road King lying twenty feet away, oil and blood mingling in a dark pool. The paramedics didn’t even bother with CPR. One…
I always knew the road would take my father someday. Just didn’t figure it would happen on his Birthday, not half a mile from the shop he’d owned for thirty years. The police said a texting teenager drifted across the center line. Dad’s ancient Indian Chief couldn’t swerve fast enough. Seventy-two years on this earth,…