“That doesn’t mean it’s happy.”
Sully killed the engine.
Leo placed one hand against the motor.
Waited.
Closed his eyes.
Sully watched.
“Patrick teach you that?”
“Yes.”
“What’s wrong?”
Leo opened his eyes.
“Compression isn’t balanced.”
“Expensive?”
“Probably.”
Sully sighed.
“Can you fix it?”
Leo looked at him.
“Maybe.”
Sully appeared offended.
“Maybe?”
“Depends how much damage you created by refusing to stop when it started sounding wrong.”
“I barely noticed.”
“You drove sixty miles.”
“Fifty-eight.”
“That helps.”
Sully laughed.
Leo rolled the motorcycle into bay two.
For a moment, while sunlight reflected from the black tank, Leo saw another room.
Broken windows.
Sand.
Scrap.
A seventeen-year-old boy hiding from everything.
A wounded stranger pushing a motorcycle toward a dead gas station.
The memory no longer hurt in quite the same way.
That evening, after everyone left, Leo sat alone in the shop.
He opened the desk drawer.
The Zippo lay inside.
He still carried it sometimes.
Other days he kept it safe.
The lighter barely worked now.
He could repair it easily.
He never did.
Its purpose had changed.
Leo turned it in his hand.
For years, people told the story of the 247 motorcycles.
That was the part everyone loved.
The impossible arrival.
The engines over the ridge.
Hank’s terrified face.
Sully returning a silver Zippo.
A sea of leather and chrome surrounding a boy who had believed nobody was coming.
It made a good story.
It just was not the entire truth.
The motorcycles had stopped Hank that afternoon.
They had not built Leo’s life.