Elijah stepped back, wiped his hands on a rag. "She'll hold for the 200 miles, sir. Probably more. You'll want a proper sleeve within a couple thousand miles." Hank looked up.
His eyes were red. His voice was rough. "Son, you just resurrected a 1965 Panhead with a lawnmower coil and a Buick sleeve in the middle of a thunderstorm by lantern light."
"That ain't mechanic work." He swallowed. "That's a calling." Elijah just looked at the floor.
He had never been good at being praised. "It's what my daddy taught me, sir. Nothing more." Hank stared at him a long, long time.
"Then your daddy was a damn good man, Elijah Sanders. A damn good man." The old biker reached into his vest and pulled out the roll of cash again. This time it wasn't crumpled. This time it was a thick banded stack.
Hundreds. The kind of money no broke biker carries. Elijah noticed.
He didn't say anything. "How much, son? "$20 for the labor. The scrap was just sitting in the pile. Hank laughed once.
Short.
"$20? I'd have paid $2,000 and called it a bargain." He counted out five crisp $100 bills, pressed them into Elijah's palm. "Take it. For the work."
Elijah pulled his hand back. "Sir, that ain't honest." Hank's voice got softer. "Then take it for your grandmother, for the shop. I saw the foreclosure notice on the door, son."
The whole bay went quiet. Elijah stared down at the bills. $500. He knew exactly what that could be.
It was the Georgia Tech enrollment deposit. Two more months of electricity. Groceries for Mama Lo through the spring. $500 was a door.
And this man was holding it open. Elijah's hands were shaking. He wanted to take it. God, he wanted to take it.
But then he heard his daddy's voice again. Not from a memory, from somewhere deeper. "If you take what you didn't earn, son, you spend the rest of your life paying interest on it." Elijah closed Hank's fingers back around the cash. $20.
And the coffee my grandma made you. That's what's honest, sir. Loretta stood in the doorway. She didn't speak.
But Elijah could feel her loving him for it. Hank stared a long beat. Then he peeled a single 20 off the roll, laid it on the bench. "What's your name, son?"