I pushed the garage door up to shoulder-height and peered inside the unlit space. What was left of a lifetime of accomplishments was shoehorned into a ten-foot-wide by twenty-foot-long storage facility.

After I surrendered to US Marshalls, my home – and a good part of what I owned – was sold by the men in my Motorcycle Club. Ironically, even though my father despised the men who forced him to move away from what he considered to be paradise, I’d become one of them.

A biker.

The proceeds from what was sold was used to pay attorney’s fees, fines, and provide me with a monthly income while in prison.

My remaining belongings were set aside and placed in storage. I wasn’t completely certain of what was left, because I hadn’t spoken to anyone in the MC for two and a half years. Short of my father and children, I’d chosen to separate myself from all friends and family while I was incarcerated. No phone calls, no visits, and no opened letters.

It allowed me to serve my sentence alone. Dragging anyone else into wide range of emotions that were associated with incarceration wasn’t something I cared to do.

Just inside the garage door, my chopper sat, covered in dust. Upon seeing it, a lump rose in my throat. I faced Teddy and swallowed heavily.

“You guys kept it?” I asked.

“Chico took out a loan against it so he could give your kids Christmas presents and buy ‘em clothes. He paid it off a couple of months ago.”

Beyond the motorcycle, my BMW M3 was parked. On either side of it, cardboard boxes were stacked to the ceiling.

“Kept the car, too?”

He chuckled. “Nobody wanted that ugly fucker.”

Often described as baby shit yellow, the Phoenix Yellow BMW was a love or hate color. I was colorblind, and I loved it. It seemed, however, that I was the only one.

“Want to take it out for a hundred and fifty mile an hour run?” he asked.

I traced my finger over the gas tank of the chopper, wiping the years of accumulated dust away from the purple flames that were painted over the underlying black paint.

“Not so much,” I said. “I need to ride.”

I doubted the motorcycle would start. After sitting for years, at minimum it would need a new battery and to have the carburetor rebuilt. Nonetheless, I was eager to start the process.

I lit a cigarette, admired the bike for a moment, and then looked at Teddy. “Wanna take me to get a battery for it?”

He stroked his beard and grinned. “Doesn’t need one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Chico put one in it a couple of months ago, when you were supposed to get out. Had the carb rebuilt, too.”

I was released from prison three months later than expected, because I wouldn’t sign a form that allowed me to accept a reduction in sentence for good behavior. In signing it, I had to admit guilt, and that was something I would never do.

“How’d he know when I was supposed to get out?”

“He called up there once a month to make sure you weren’t catching any new charges or doing anything stupid.” He wiped the dust from the motorcycle’s seat, and then looked at me. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to be in there, but it wasn’t easy for any of us, either. We missed ya, Brother.”

“Missed you fuckers, too.” I slapped my hand against his shoulder. “Where’s the key?”

He gestured toward the left side of the motorcycle and chuckled. “Hanging on the fucking coil wire.”

I laughed to myself.

I despised carrying anything in my pockets, keys included. As a result, I’d kept the key to the motorcycle attached to the coil wire for the ten years that I’d owned it. An invitation for theft, it was a miracle that the bike had never been stolen.

The club joked that the only reason no one had taken it over the years was because everyone in the Midwest knew it was mine.

I poked the key into the switch, turned on the ignition, and pressed the start button. After the high-compression engine turned over a few times, it started.

The exhaust echoed off the storage facility’s walls, filling the alleyway between the buildings with proof of its brutal power. I stretched my leg over the fender, sat down in the seat, and grinned.

Most men, upon being released from prison, had one thing on their mind.

Sex.

I’d never had meaningless sex with anyone in my life and wasn’t about to start. For me, the relationship came first. Being in a relationship with a woman was the farthest thing from my mind, and I doubted it would change any time soon.

My luck with finding a woman who had the ability to be loyal to me was nil. I was convinced I was going to spend the rest of my life married to the men in the MC, and to my motorcycle.

Oddly, I was okay with the concept.

I had one thing on my mind, and one thing only. I gestured toward Teddy’s truck. “Follow me back to your place so you can get your bike?”

He glanced at his watch. “The fellas are having a barbeque to celebrate your release. Everyone’s meeting at the clubhouse at six.”

“Gives us about eight hours,” I said. “I need to ride. And, I want a cheeseburger. A real cheeseburger.”

Teddy wasn’t much different than me. In the ten years that I’d known him, he hadn’t been in a single relationship. His lack of trust, however, didn’t stop with women. He simply didn’t trust mankind.

His free time was spent building motorcycles and riding them.

“Ride out to the airport in Benton and get a burger?” he asked. “Watch the planes do touch and goes?”

Stearman Field was a small biker-friendly airport an hour away. It often sponsored our MC’s poker run, and allowed us to park on the runway, away from the cars that often packed the parking lot. Many of the planes that flew to and from the airport were the bi-winged Boeing-Stearman, and the facility was named after them.

Because I didn’t drink, I preferred to patronize establishments whose focus was something other than drinking. The rest of the MC didn’t always agree with my suggestions for places to eat, but Teddy often did, as he didn’t drink, either.

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

I maneuvered the motorcycle out of the storage building and alongside Teddy’s truck. He pulled the door closed, locked it, and turned to face me.

“I’ll follow you,” he said.

I rode between the buildings slowly, getting a feel for the extended forks of the chopper. After a moment, muscle memory set in, and riding it became second nature.

When we reached the highway’s on-ramp, I glanced over my shoulder, checking for oncoming traffic. A long line of approaching cars acted as an invitation for me to accelerate rapidly to get out in front of them.

Instead, I waited for them to pass. I had a lifetime ahead of me, and I planned on enjoying every minute of it as if it were my last.