cash out one more second.
Then he nodded slowly. He folded the roll back into his vest. He didn’t
push again. He just looked at Brandon. The way a man studies a tool he
didn’t expect to find in his hand.
All right, he said. All right. Brandon pushed himself up off the curb
slowly. His left arm hung stiff at his side. He started to walk past
Hank toward the road, toward home.
He passed the pan head. He stopped. His eyes went to the tank, the
pinstripe work, the handlaid pattern around the gas cap, the little
brass badge on the seat hump. He’d seen this bike in a library book on
his bedside table. Cherry red 1959 pan head.
Henry Iron Hank Callaway. Callaway Custom Cycles found her. Brandon’s
mouth opened slightly, then closed. He didn’t say a word. He just looked
at the bike, then at Hank, then at the bike again.
Hank watched him put it together. Didn’t confirm, didn’t deny, just
lifted one corner of his mouth, the closest thing to a smile he’d shown
all afternoon. Brandon swallowed, turned, started walking again. Behind
him, Hank’s voice was quiet. “Son,” Brandon stopped.
“We don’t forget.” Brandon turned back to ask what that meant, but Hank
was already pulling his helmet down. The pan head started up with a
sound like distant thunder rolling over the hills. He gave Brandon one
small nod, kicked the stand, and rolled out of the gas station onto
Fifth Street. Brandon stood there alone, holding his bandaged arm,
watching the cherry red tank disappear down the road. Then he started
walking home.
Inside the Senoko, the clerk waited until the bike was gone, until
Brandon had turned the corner, until the parking lot was empty. Then he
picked up the phone, dialed a number he had not dialed in many years.
When someone answered, he kept his voice low. It was him. Yeah, the one
from the magazine.
Some kid pulled him out. Black kid, skinny. Hartman’s auto, I think. He
hung up. Brandon got home at 6: 40.
Meen was at the kitchen table with her notebook and a glass of water.
She looked up. She saw the bandana on his arm, the dirt on his jeans,
the way he was favoring his right leg. She set her pen down. Brandon
caught on a fence on the way home.
Grandma, it’s fine. She looked at him for a long, slow moment. She did
not believe him. He could see her not believing him, but she was tired.
The numbers in her notebook were wrong again, and he was home.
Sit down. Let me see it. he said. She unwrapped the bandana, looked at
the bruise, cleaned it gently, rewrapped it with gauze from the medicine
cabinet. The blue bandana she folded carefully and sat on the table
beside her notebook. She didn’t ask again.
He didn’t offer. That night, Brandon lay in his bed, staring at the
water stain on the ceiling. His arm throbbed, his shoulder throbbed.
Three words kept circling through his head over and over. We don’t
forget.
We don’t forget. We don’t forget. By the next morning, three things had
already started moving. Brandon didn’t know about any of them. The first
was a black SUV winding up a private road into the hills outside town.
Wyatt Donovan was in the passenger seat. Everyone called him preacher.
He was on the phone. He was not smiling. Yeah, he’s fine.
Two cracked ribs, maybe. Won’t say. You know him. No, some kid pulled
him out. Black kid, 18, skinny, from the east side.
Yeah, I know. I know. Hank wants the whole table at the shop tomorrow.
Whole table? And bring the photographer.
He hung up. The SUV climbed the hill, past the gate, past the dogs. The
second thing was happening downtown. Linda Brennan, a reporter at the
local news station, frowned at the voicemail on her desk phone. She
listened to it twice.
Then she walked to the records room, pulled an old manila folder from a
low cabinet nobody had opened in years. The tab read Callaway Henry
Custom Cycles 1995 to present. She opened it. The first photo was a man
in his 30s standing in front of a small shop. Cherry red pan head behind
him.
She picked up her phone, dialed. Hey, it’s Linda. I think I have
something. The third thing was inside the chapter clubhouse on the edge
of town. Wood walls, leather chairs, a long oak table.
The wall behind Hank’s seat was covered floor to ceiling in framed
photographs of bikes and the men who had built them. Hank sat at the
head. 10 other men sat down the table. Nobody touched their coffee. He
spoke quietly.
He didn’t need to be loud either. There’s a kid, Hartman’s Auto, on the
east side. I want to know everything about him. Family, school, medical,
bills, trouble, friends, everything. One of the older men spoke up.
What are we doing with this, Hank? Hank looked at him a long moment. 25
years I’ve sat at this table. We’ve spent 25 years remembering. Now I
want to know if it’s time to start passing it on.
Nobody said anything to that. Hank tapped the table once with his ring.
The steel compass made a small clean sound on the oak. Find me
everything. Nobody approaches him.
Not yet. Across town, Brandon got to work early. He’d slept badly. His
arm achd. Cole looked up from a tire iron and raised an eyebrow.
What happened to your arm? Walked into a fence? Cole grunted, went back
to the tire iron. On the way home that afternoon, Brandon noticed a man
across the street pretending to read a newspaper. Not doing a great job
of it.
Brandon didn’t think much of it. He was tired. He had no idea 40
motorcycles were already pointed at his street. Brandon was changing the
oil on a Honda Civic when he heard it. He thought it was thunder at
first.
He stood up, wiped his hands on a rag, listened harder. Then he started
counting engines. 5 10 15 20 He stopped counting at 20 because the sound