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 Panhead 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 Sunoco, 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. Maylene 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 sat.
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 set 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.