Owen Bishop
Memphis, Tennessee
More than a decade ago
Owen Bishop was the second born child of Jesse and Rose Bishop and the grandson of Michael and Ivy. This, as you might have already guessed, made Owen an heir to the Bishop Motorcycle Company.
Motorcycles were a part of the very fabric of the Bishop family, which would explain why they were more likely to experience a tragedy involving one.
Owen was only ten years old when he and his older brother, Daniel, took a motorcycle without their parents' permission and got into a life-altering accident.
Owen didn’t remember anything about the collision.
He and his brother had taken one of their dad's motorcycles, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up in a hospital. Even the aftermath of it was hazy. He had snapshots of memories of his family members coming to his bedside while he was in the hospital. Owen remembered them smiling at him but it being obvious that they had been crying. He could still picture their red faces and eyes, and their fake smiles.
It was a doctor who told Owen they weren't able to save his foot. He was old man with a short white beard and absolutely no hair on the top of his head. Owen remembered staring at his shiny bald head when the man told him his right leg had been so severely injured that their only option was to amputate his foot and the lower part of his leg. The doctor had smiled after he said the knee was intact as if this news should come as a relief to Owen.
It had been nearly two years since then, and Owen was just now getting back to living a normal life. His family had the means to make sure he had the very latest prosthetic technologies, and Owen was an athletic kid, but putting on an artificial foot and learning to walk with it had proven to be a tricky feat that had taken Owen some time to master.
It wasn't just learning how to walk with a new foot, either. Owen had other healing to do. Neither he nor his brother had been wearing helmets during the accident, and Owen had taken quite a bit of damage to the right side of his face. He went through three rounds of plastic surgery to minimize the scaring and was left with a scar that ran down the side of his face from his eyebrow to his jaw. The scar was wider in some spots than it was in others, but even at it's widest, it was only about a centimeter, which was basically a miracle considering what the doctors had to work with.
Many of Owen's medical procedures required that he travel to Nashville or even further, so he was homeschooled for the better part of two years after the accident.
Summer break had just ended, and Owen was back at his regular school for the first time in what seemed like forever. He had just completed his first week of seventh grade. It was Friday afternoon, and his mom picked him up from school. They stopped by Bishop Motorcycles World Headquarters on their way home so that his mom could catch up on some paperwork.
His grandfather's motorcycle company had begun in a small garage that was originally an old body shop. It had grown and changed tremendously over the years, and now there were dealerships all over the United States. The original Memphis location was still the largest, though. It was huge now, with a showroom, factory, and garage.
Owen Bishop had basically grown up there and knew the place like the back of his hand. He and his mother parked near the garage and went in through one of the bay doors, thinking that Owen's dad, Jesse, would be in there working on a bike. There were several mechanics at work, but Jesse Bishop was not one of them.
"Come on in!" Elvis squawked when Rose and Owen came into the garage. "Rose-ella!" Elvis changed his mind and sang out Rose's name once he realized who it was that had come in. Elvis was a blue and gold macaw parrot who had been the shop mascot for nearly forty years. He had lost a step or two as he got older, but it was rare for him to miss someone's arrival, so neither Rose nor Owen was surprised that he was the first one to greet them.
"Where's Jesse?" Rose asked once she and Owen made their way further into the garage.
Her question was directed at Uncle Max who was somewhat close to the door working on a motorcycle. He actually had two of them parked at his station, but his efforts were focused on the old one with the candy apple red gas tank. Max wasn't any relation to the Bishops—they just called him Uncle Max because he had been around the family for so long. He was a friend of Owen's grandfather, Michael, and had been working at the shop since it's humble beginnings—even longer than Elvis.
Max glanced up with a smile. He had a dirty towel in one hand and a wrench in the other, which was a classic situation for him. "He's in his office, I believe. I think he and Michael had a conference call with some of the branch managers. They've been in there a while, though. I'm sure he's done by now."
"I'll find him," Rose said. "I've got to do a little work back there, anyway." She headed toward the other side of the garage so she could make her way through the door that led to the offices. She glanced at Owen who had hesitated near Max's station. "What are you doing?" she asked.
He shrugged. "I'll probably stay in here and watch Uncle Max," he said.
He glanced at Max who leveled Rose with a stare that said she should know better than to ask. "Of course he's gonna stay in here and help me," Max said. "I thought that's why y'all came in this way."
Rose smiled at them as she took off toward her office.
"Where are your brothers and Ivy?" Max asked as he went back to work tightening nuts on the motorcycle.
"Wes had football practice after school, and Ivy had gymnastics. Daniel's with his friends."
"Slide me that pan, if you don't mind," Max said, gesturing to the dirty metal pan near Owen's feet. Owen pushed it toward Max who took it with his foot and placed it under the motorcycle before continuing the conversation without skipping a beat. "Your dad told me you had a good first week at school," he said.
"Yes sir," Owen said. "We played football during P.E., and I was just as good as those other boys. Coach Sutherland said I should go out for the team."
Max glanced at Owen, trying not to show his surprise. "He did?"
"Yeah, but Mom said I couldn't. She said she doesn’t even want Wes playing. She only let him try out because Dad talked her into it."
Max stared at Owen for several long seconds. He was taken aback by how happy the boy was. There he was, going back to school after an almost two-year break, and now he was being told he couldn’t try out for football. He had such an easy-going personality. He was in the middle of difficult adolescent years, anyway, and when you factor in the new prosthetic leg and all the limitations it created, you would think Owen Bishop would have a chip on his shoulder. The opposite was true, though. He was smiling like he didn't have a care in the world as he watched Max work on that motorcycle.
Max knew Owen well enough to know what a happy go lucky young man he was, but he didn't know that Owen's exceptionally good mood on this particular day had to do with a young lady named Darcy Meyers. Owen's heart raced as he stared blankly at the motorcycle, remembering the encounter he had with Darcy earlier that day.
They had been paired up as partners in science class on Monday, and Darcy had been smiling at him and sitting right next to him since then. On Tuesday, she wrote him a note that said she was glad he was back at school and was all healed up from the accident. On Wednesday, she yelled at someone in the hall for mentioning his leg, and then she touched his hand when it wasn't even necessary. She smiled and brushed up against him on Thursday. And today, the best day of all, she told Owen she liked him and then she leaned over when everybody else was on their way out of the classroom and kissed him on the cheek. It was really brief, but she kissed him, and she did it right on the side of his face near his scar like she didn't even notice it was there. She smiled at him afterward, and her big, beautiful brown eyes made him feel all crazy inside. Darcy Meyers liked Owen, and he liked her back. He smiled just thinking about it.
"I wouldn't worry about it," Max said. "Maybe you can try track, or even baseball. You've got a lot of years to figure out what sports you want to play. You're only in…" he hesitated, looking at Owen as if trying to gauge how tall he was. "What grade are you in?"
"Seventh," Owen said.
"Yeah, seventh. You've still got plenty of time to figure out what sports you like."
Owen almost said that he could play any sports like the other kids if his mom wouldn't be so protective of him, but he changed his mind and kept quiet. He was busy thinking of other things like science class anyway.
Max worked on the bike for the next little while. He explained some things to Owen and asked him for help when he couldn't reach one of his tools, but mostly the two gentleman kept quiet. Nearly an hour had passed when Max asked, "So, do you like all your teachers?"
"Yes sir, school's fun."
"I figured you'd be ahead of all those other kids after taking school at home. Mark Mitchell's grandkids get homeschooled, and they all moved up a grade or two because of that concentrated learning." Max glanced at Owen who smiled and nodded.
"Yes sir, all my classes are pretty easy so far."
"What's your favorite subject?"
"Science."
"Science?"
"Yes sir."
"I thought you were gonna say art or P.E. I didn't know you liked science."
Owen nodded. "We're gonna do experiments, and we have partners. We already partnered up."
"Who's your partner?"
"Just some girl," Owen said. He could feel the blood rise to his face at the mention of Darcy, and he looked down and absentmindedly kicked the pan on the floor just to distract Max.
"What girl?" Max asked with a teasing smile.
"Just some girl named Darcy."
"Not Darcy Meyers, I hope," Max said.
Owen glanced at him curiously. "Why? How do you know Darcy Meyers?"
"Is that the Darcy you're talking about? Is Darcy Meyers your science partner? I thought she was Daniel's age."
"She's my age," Owen said, still feeling confused and maybe even a little disappointed by the concerned look on Uncle Max's face. "How do you know her?"
"Please tell me you don't fancy Darcy Meyers."
"What's fancy her mean?"
"Like her," Max said. "Please tell me you don't like that little girl. I didn't realize y'all were the same age." Max shook his head and took a deep breath, looking at Owen like he was really upset about something. "In fact," he said. "If we're talking about the same Darcy Meyers, your mom needs to talk to your science teacher and see about getting you moved. You don't even need to be sitting by that girl."