I wouldn’t say that I felt completely better the next day, but it would’ve been worse if the rest of the guys hadn’t intervened. There was the hangover to contend with, of course, but it was a relief to be back at work, in my mechanic’s shop, with tasks to distract myself.
It wasn’t a glamorous job. I was usually so busy that I only had the energy at the end of the work day to stop by the bar for a beer or two before riding home, walking through the shower, and dropping into bed to pass out before the next full work day. Much of the time, I wondered what the use of scrubbing all the oil from my hands every day was if I was just going to coat them again the following day. I daydreamed over the sudsy, filthy sink in the shop about buying an all-black wardrobe, black furniture, and, most importantly, black bedsheets. Of course, there was the small concern of shaking hands and touching other people who probably wouldn’t be as relieved as I was that I wasn’t spending twenty minutes making sure my hands were free of oil and grease.
So definitely not glamorous, but there was something strangely soothing about it if I was a religious man, I’d even say it was spiritual work. I understood intimately the inner workings of each engine I came across. They sang to me about their troubles and I was able to get them back in key again with just a little bit of hard work. Nothing pleased me more than to be faced with a hunk of metal and moving parts that someone didn’t think would ever work properly again. I made them run smoother than when they’d first been new.
This kind of work was something that I had picked up along the way. I hadn’t started out wanting to be a mechanic. It was something of a hobby, something I was passionate about. I never minded to change the oil in my mom and dad’s vehicles, and I’d even made a little pocket cash by undercutting my hometown mechanic shop’s pricing plan for such procedures. I even liked to prowl through the junkyard located just beyond city limits, filled to the brim with forgotten treasures bearing the particular patina of what could have been.
Perhaps, given all that tinkering, I should’ve started out as a mechanic instead of being a police officer, but I doubted that much would’ve changed if I’d gone that route. Being a full-time mechanic at the time of my sister’s death might have ruined me on my passion for the rest of my life, like it had done with police work. There were the small things to be thankful for, I supposed, because I would still much rather be making a living as a mechanic than a cop. There were just too many bad memories I happened to associate with the badge.
“What are you doing, lazing around in here?”
I turned around, dragged back to reality from my reveries, to find Jack standing out in the sun, squinting into the shaded garage at me. I checked the wall clock to see if I’d worked too long again, but blinked back at Jack in confusion. It was barely noon.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked, wiping my hands on a rag as best I could before shading my eyes to study Jack.
“Can’t come visit you at work?” he asked, fidgeting.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“Okay, I’m a terrible liar,” Jack agreed. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Besides the hangover?”
“Besides the hangover.”
I shrugged. “Well enough. Lot of work to do today. Good to stay busy.”
“That’s good.”
I laughed at him, aware that it was more than a little terrible to be enjoying his struggle this much. “But that’s not why you’re here, either, is it?”
Jack sighed. “No. You’re right.”
“Then out with it. What do you need?”
“See for yourself.” I followed Jack out to a battered pickup truck in the parking lot.
“Pickup giving you trouble?” I asked.
“Not yet.” He whipped a blue tarp off the bed of the truck. “This is, though.”
Laying on its side in the bed of the pickup was a motorcycle that was, if possible, even more battered than the truck it had ridden in. It shouldn’t have been on its side like that. It was as unnatural as seeing a horse reclining for too long on its side. You were afraid it was sick, or there was something really wrong with it. But I supposed that there was nothing worse that could happen to it in that position, given the state it was in.
“Who mangled this bike?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Jack said. “Should I just sell it for scrap? Put it out of its misery?”
“Are you serious?”
“You’re the expert.”
I exhaled heavily. “It’s a nice bike, though.”
“I know.”
“Granted, not a very nice condition to find it in, but a nice bike all the same.” I looked at him. “Where’d you get this?”
“It’s been in my storage unit for a while,” he said. “I’ve been going through the shit in there, bit by bit, but this has always sort of been bothering me.”
I had to sympathize with Jack, even if I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around his situation. How could he simply not know who he was? It did something to the back of my throatclosed it a little to imagine him holed up in a musty storage unit, pawing through papers and boxes and belongings, trying to find some holy grail in all of it that would give him a memory to work with, a memory to serve as the cornerstone for recovering the rest of his identity, his understanding of himself. I wished I could volunteer to go with him the next time he felt the need to dig through belongings he didn’t even remember, but I wasn’t sure that we were friends like that. Maybe I’d bring it up to Ace.
“It’s been in this condition?” I asked, coughing a little as I tried to focus on the task at hand, tried not to think about what it would be like to forget my own self. Would it make it easier, dealing with my losses? Would I rather not remember anything about Chelsea, completely erase her from my heart and mind? Would that work? Or would I simply be aware of the hole inside me and never be sure what had caused it?
“Yeah.” Jack toyed with the back wheel of the motorcycle, which looked like it had been crushed in the jaws of something that had an appetite for rubber and spokes. “I’ve done a little research, but you’re the one who knows what’s best. What do you think I should do with it?”
“Well, with a little work…okay, a lot of work, you could have a pretty incredible machine on your hands,” I said. “I’m going to tell you up front, though, that no matter who you take it to, it’s going to be incredibly expensive to refurbish.”
“More expensive than buying a new bike?”
“Depends on the bike, of course.” I dragged my eyes away from the travesty of that motorcycle. It literally looked like someone had decided a little too late that they wanted to save the machine from getting crushed at a junkyard.
“You know what, fuck it,” Jack sighed, his shoulders sagging. “Just scrap it. Sell it to the highest buyer, or, you know what? The lowest. The first person who wants to buy this fucking piece of shit.”
“Hey, relax, man,” I said. “The bike didn’t do anything.”
“That I know of,” he muttered darkly.
“If it would make you feel better, I’ll take it off your hands,” I said, rubbing my chin, thinking about everything that fixing up this machine would entail. It almost wouldn’t be worth it, unless it really meant something to Jack; and he was upset right now, if I was reading the situation correctly, that he didn’t know whether it meant something or not.
“Would you?” He sounded almost relieved. It was out of sight, out of mind for him, maybe, and he apparently went to the storage facility often enough for the motorcycle to bother him.
“I would, if it would help you out,” I said. “You don’t really want it to be sold for scrap, though, do you?”
“I’m kind of just tired of puzzling over it,” he admitted. “It seems like a shame to sell it for scrap.”
“I can fix it up,” I said. “I’m just saying, though”
He waved his hand at me. “Money’s not really an object.”
I snorted. “Must be nice.”
“Nice that I’ve got something to show for not remembering anything, sure,” he said, with a half-shrug.
Wincing, I shook my head. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to be flippant about it. Guess I’m a little jealous.”
“Of the money?”
“As bad as it sounds, of the lack of memories. I wish there were some things I could pick and choose to forget about.”
Jack studied me for a long moment before patting me on the shoulder. “You don’t want to forget about your sister.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because something’s better than nothing. That’s what I’ve decided.”
“You know better than me,” I allowed.
“I do.”
“I’ll get a dolly and some man power over here for this wreck.”
“You talking about me or the bike?”
“I’ll plead the fifth on that one,” I threw over my shoulder, chuckling.
Jack watched as I got the machine into the garage and examined it as if it was a patient in dire need of my help and I was the only doctor who could help it. I even took notes on a clipboard, thinking, as I went along, of all the parts I’d have to order, calling in favors at specialty shops. The bike itself was an antique. It might be hard to track down everything I’d need to restore it to its former glory, but it was a project I could really throw myself into, a project I welcomed.
“I don’t suppose you’ve even tried to start it, have you?” I asked, running my hand over the battered throttle.
“No way. Not in this condition.”
“Help me stand it up.”
“Chuck…”
“Jack, I’m not going to hurt it any more than it already is. I just want to see something.”
He steadied the machinethe kickstand had been snapped off at some point, maybe by whatever monster had smashed it up in the first place and I added a few key ingredients that included gas, oil, and a little prayer that something might happen if only to give Jack a little hope and faith in the process.
It was good to have hope. Even in the darkest of times, the hope that things could get better, or at least not any worse, kept me going. I felt for Jack. I really did. I wanted this bike to bring him some happiness.
Both of us were astounded to hear the engine cough to life, then sputter out just as quickly.
“Did you hear that?” I asked Jack, beaming.
“What the hell was that?”
“That, my friend, was the sound of hope.” I was in a better mood than I had been in days. “You have to be patient, and you have to have a little faith in me, but this bike is a problem ready and waiting to be solved.”
“Thanks, Chuck.” Jack sagged with relief so suddenly that I grabbed at him, afraid he was about to fall on his ass, then passed it off as a quick hug.
“You headed to the bar after this?” I asked him, patting his shoulder a little awkwardly. He’d frightened me with the way he’d gone completely lax, but he didn’t seem any worse for wear.
“You know it,” he said. “You swinging by after you close this place up?”
“Of course. See you later.”
“Later.”
“Hey, Jack?”
He turned, eyebrows raised in question. He looked fine, like he hadn’t almost just crashed to the ground in my garage.
“Never mind,” I said, waving him away, feeling silly. “Later.”
“Later.”
I watched him get into the pickup truck and pull out of the lot, puzzled, before turning back to the mangled heap of metal on my floor.
The bike was trashed. There was no doubt about it. But the thing about being a good mechanic was that I could see the fix in everything that was wrong with it. Of course, it would’ve been easier just to get a whole new bike, but that wasn’t the point. The point was preserving, the best I could, the bike that could provide Jack to a link in the past he was trying so desperately to recapture.
It was selfish, but I was honestly grateful for the distraction, not to mention more than a little touched that Jack was trusting me with something this big. True, there wasn’t another guy in the MC who could fix up bikes and everything like I could, but he could’ve sent it elsewhere, if he’d really wanted something done. Focusing on this for Jack was just one more way I could distract myself. Well, that and drinking, and I had to wait until after five to start toward the club, a long list of projects to complete before I could have my fun.