Big Red

Lucas, John and me was coming up Highway 99 after one hell of a weekend in L.A. where we celebrated Lucas’s getting off parole after doing twenty months in Chino for nearly killing a man in a bar fight. Good time though we’d had, before we started north we told Lucas this was our last ride with him. John and me realized the time has come to quit being One-Percenters with all the hard drugs and fighting and busts that come with the territory. The three of us had become bros in a club not as famous as the Angels or Mongols but just as wild. We knew Lucas would never quit.

Lucas looked semi- human with hair growing in mats over his big shoulders, nasty long braids whipped straight back by the wind, hulk of a body hunched forward over the bars like he was looking for something to attack. It was hotter than a muther. Lucas wanted to ride naked. We talked him out of it and it’s a good thing we did because the three of us got held up behind a line of cars directed by a cop and past a real bad scene: A sheet- covered body was being loaded into an ambulance. A van leaking fluids sat sideways, the front smashed back toward a curtain of deflated airbags, the windshield a crystal web. Underneath the van and sticking halfway out was what was left of a chopper that was a pile of twisted chrome and a flattened frame surrounded by pieces of busted plastic. From the short skid mark it was pretty easy to tell the van driver had drifted over and barely had time to hit the brakes. The only part of the bike that was still in one piece was the big oval tank which got torn from the top tube and sat scarred and dented but somehow upright on the road dribbling gas. A lot of people like to put art on their rides and this bike had something painted on the tank. I thought it was the white hair and bashed up face of an old man or maybe snow on a mountain. John thought it was a white flower.

“I call that a shame,” Lucas said as we started past the scene.

“Yeah,” John said as he pulled alongside him. “That dude didn’t stand a chance.”

“I’m talking about the chopper.” Lucas let go with a big wet laugh and bipped the throttle.

…

A little while later John slowed and signaled for me to pull closer. “Ax,” he yelled over the noise of two engines, “I just hit something. Does the fork look tweaked to you?”

I shook my head and gave him a thumbs up. John doesn’t look like a One Percenter. He don't have an ounce of fat on his belly, is clean shaven with short brown hair, a total splinter of a dude who looks about twelve years old and probably will look about the same when he’s fifty. His ride is a Flathead 45 His money went into his bike and I knew he’d be half dying inside wondering what damage he’d done to his baby. “I’m losing air up front for sure.”

“Can you make the next grade?”

“Think so. But let’s go real slow.”

John nursed his Flathead to the top of the hill and we stopped together in the gravel where he got down on one knee to inspect the damage. “That’s luck. Everything looks good except for the tire.”

“Not that lucky,” I said. Neither of us has a patch kit left. " You can’t be running on a flat.”

We heard Lucas’s bike coming back down the hill. “What the hell’s the matter with you two dog asses?”

“I blew a tube,” John said.

“Aw, Christ.”

I asked Lucas if he had any patches left. Lucas threw his big black bearded head back and let his eyes roll down in that weird way of his so he was still looking at us though his chin pointed to the sky. “Hell no."

We rolled our bikes off the gravel and through some brush, then onto a slope of dried grass at the top of which stood a single tree that threw fingers of shade along the rise. Lucas fired up a joint and took a humungous hit before passing it to John. “Last doob,” he said on the inhale. Below us we could see practically the whole road as it snaked up through the yellow hills from the Central Valley.

“We gotta find a service station or a bike shop,” I told John. But John wasn’t listening to me. He cocked his head first one way and then the other sorta dog- like, and looked back up the knoll behind us.

“You hear something?”

“Nothing,” I said. But I gotta add this about John: The bro has the best damn ears of anyone I know.

“Someone’s hammering.”

Lucas spat on a trail of ants. “Aw, bullshit, there ain’t nobody within ten miles of us.”

John pushed his wiry body off the ground and loped up the knoll with his head still at an angle, boots mashing a trail through the dry grass, and then he disappeared over the top.

After a few minutes he reappeared at the top of the rise and shouted, “we got company.” I got up and headed to the top of the hill, then followed John down into a dog-leg ravine. At the bottom of the ravine was a flat roofed wood n’ stone hut nearly hidden from view, and right along the side of it was a big Husky 400 dirt bike. I noticed the bike was real clean, Red and polished, the chrome wheels flashing sunlight back at us.

John cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hello!”

The pounding stopped and a moment later a big man—the size of Lucas but more solid—stepped outside and came toward us. He swung the hammer in his hand back and forth. ‘Course John and me had our knives, but a man this size would get one or both of us even if we managed to stick him along the way. As he got closer I was glad to see that below a tangle of long red hair and a beard the color of fire the dude’s blue eyes crinkled in friendly fashion. “Howdy bros.”

“I’m Ax and this is John,” I said.

“Call me Red.”

“Didn’t figure to find anybody living way out here,” I said and nodded at the dirt bike. “Nice looking ride.”

Red reversed the hammer so the handle pointed at the Husky. “Belongs to my woman. She rides it pretty hard, figured I’d get it cleaned up for her as a surprise.”

"John said, "You live here?"

“Yup. We been living here for two years now. Was an old mining shack. We fixed it up…still fixing it up as a matter of fact."

The hut looked better inside than I thought it would. It had a real bed, a nice table with chairs, a butane stove and refrigerator and a big metal cupboard stacked with cups and dishes and silverware. Red had been nailing boards to add a shelf. Just down the hill to the right was an old pump and a big cement catch basin half filled with fresh water which I figured made it the bath house and likely also was used to wet down a big raised planter box just beside it. Red opened the refrigerator and pulled out three frosty brews. “So what brings you up this way?” John told him about the tire problem.

“Well, I got extra patch kits in my saddle bag. Just cold patches, but I reckon one’ll hold you till you get back down into the valley.” Red rummaged through a big leather pouch thrown over one of the chairs until he found a kit. After the beers was finished all of us headed back up the ravine and over the knoll.

Lucas had come out of his half snooze. At his best, Lucas isn’t sociable. With strangers he can be downright hostile. Red introduced himself and held out his hand. Lucas just stared and grunted. “Where the hell you been all this time?” he asked John and me like Red wasn’t even there.

“I was showing the bros my place,” Red answered for us.

Lucas gave another grunt. “Can’t believe anyone would want to live out here.”

“We like the quiet,” said Red as he turned down the hill toward the bikes.

Lucas of course didn’t move, but we trailed behind and watched as Red did an expert repair job on the tube. John reached into his chaps and pulled out a twenty, but the big dude waved the money away. “ My lady’s gone for a couple of days and it feels good to have someone to talk to . That’s pay enough." Then he said, “If you boys aren’t in no rush, you’re welcome to spread your bedrolls at my place for the night."

You got too many flies around here,” Lucas said as he swatted at another.

“They go away at night,” Red said, then shifted to John and me. “And you never seen a sunset till you seen one from up here. Most beautiful thing in the world."

“Got any weed?” Asked Lucas.

“Fraid not.”

Lucas grunted. “A sunset ain’t worth shit without some weed.”

Lucas and John got their bikes and followed Red, pushing them on a slow roll toward the shack while I went the other way. There’s no cell towers in the hills so I had to ride down toward the highway and make my call from the flatlands to an amigo. I got back before the sun went down with a finger baggie of sinsemilla. Naturally Lucas grumbled about the price.

It was getting on to dusk and the three of us took turns hitting on a fresh rolled joint while Red opened a can of beans-and-bacon, sliced some bread and pulled more beers from the fridge. Like he promised, the sunset was something. The sky went orange then deep blue and then purple. Way below the lights from the closest farm buildings began to wink like fireflies while further up the valley Modesto glowed through the dusk. “So your old lady’s gone for a couple of days,” Lucas said, combing his beard with his fingers. “Where’d she go?"

I looked hard at Lucas, but once he starts nobody is gonna stop him.

“Tonight she’s staying at her sister’s house,” Red said as he collected our plates and spoons and dropped them in a bucket to soak.

“How long you two been together?” I asked trying to head Lucas off.

Red lit a lantern and sat down again. “Six years, near seven. I was back from service, riding, getting drunk and fighting pretty regular. Then one day I was coming up the valley when I saw a bunch of Husky freaks tearing up the dirt, and one of them was her. When she took that helmet off I knew I was flat out hooked. Green eyes, long black hair. She was living with her sister in ‘Desto"

“So you got laid,” said Lucas.

Red shook his head. "We talked and we laughed and we talked some more. No rush. All got left of family is her sis and she was up front, told me if she was even thinking of leaving for any man she knew it had to be for keeps. She’s one real smart and real determined woman.” Red grinned. “They’re close, she and her sis, but different. My woman loves her bike and me and flowers and pool—maybe not in that order, least I hope not. Her sister is a kinda modern hippy. Head bands, loose dresses and drives an old V.W. van painted rainbow colors. Won’t even get on a bike. But she’s good people, loans us the van whenever we need to move stuff up here from town.”

As Red talked my eyes slid to Lucas and I knew. I just knew. His hands was twitching and the crooked grin on his face I’d seen many times before meant the opposite of what it should. Without intention, Red was walking into it. Lucas had problems, none worse than with women and their men.

“Anyway,” Red went on, “she worked on my bike with me, got greasy with me and cut her fingers on metal like me. But what I really liked best was the way she kept me out of trouble and hosed down my temper. She said, ‘Babe, you’re rough around the edges but deep at the center you’re a diamond.’ “ Red fell real quiet, like he was hearing her speak the words as he stared down at the valley.

Lucas’s eyes, on the other hand, were slits and not just from the grass and beer. “Y’know,” he started, “I bet she’s got something else on her mind.”

“ Right on,” Big Red said softly. “She’s got my bike, gone down to her doctor’s appointment. My ride is a lot more comfortable than the Husky.”

“What do you ride?” John asked.

“Honda Rebel. Metallic purple.” Replied Red.

“She sick?” I asked

“Nope. We’re gonna have a baby.”

“Oh well now that’s special,” Lucas said . “You sure it’s yours?”

I believe Lucas could have called Red anything and the man would have taken it in stride, but that particular insult made Red square his shoulders and level his eyes at Lucas. Though he didn’t say nothing his mouth tightened and his hands dropped down to his sides, like he was getting ready to push himself to his feet.

And then Lucas-- being Lucas-- invited him to the dance: “ If I was you, Red-man, I’d check real close when she gets back here to see just how bad her lipstick is smeared. Check her pants, too.”

At that, up got Red.

The night was still warm as the two big dudes circled each other outside the shack. These were the only times I ever seen Lucas really happy-- A bar fight or fights between club associates or fights in backyards after he’d downed a twelve-

pack. He was grinning, taking his time. Lucas never backed away from nothing and he closed on Red now as he had a lot of others, pretending to throw a left but letting go that big right fist that shattered jaws.

Only it didn’t work this time.

Red was faster. He blocked the shot and hit Lucas twice, the first a jackhammer punch up behind the ear and then another that sorta exploded right over Lucas’s heart and we heard a bone crack. Lucas’s eyes rolled half way back in his head, then he kinda gurgled and thudded to a sitting position. He had a look that said he knew, he really knew, that he finally met a man who could kill him.

For a moment I thought Red might. “Naw,” Red said looking at John and me. He shook his head, looked down at Lucas and said ‘naw’ again and then his fist opened and his palm went down to pull Lucas to his feet. “Hell, I promised her I was gonna be that damned diamond she thinks I am."

John and me helped Lucas back into the shack. He coughed up a little blood and groaned in his sleep that night but didn't say nothing. In the morning we had biscuits and coffee and then John checked his tire which was holding air. Seeing as Lucas wasn’t in no condition to push his big bike himself Red it it for him. “Might meet you on a run one of these days,” Red said as he bumped fists with John and me and nodded at Lucas. “But a family is gonna take some getting used to and I’ll be off the road awhile.”

John’s head turned like radar. “ I hear a bike coming up.”

Sure enough, a minute later a lone rider dressed in a woman’s two-piece leather came jamming around one of the sharp switchbacks way below us. We could make out the flag of long dark hair flying out from under her helmet. As she got closer it was real clear this was someone who knew what she was doing on that big machine, anticipating the twists and leaning into the turns, without letting up on the throttle. As she got closer I saw her biuke was a purple Honda Rebel.

“Well looks like we’ll get to meet her after all,” I said to Red .

I was surprised when Red said, “I don’t think so,” and a moment later the rider roared past us and up toward the next sharp turn without so much as looking in our direction.

“How did you know?" John asked.

Red grinned. " Model and color match. But you seen the flower bed besides our place? Guess what she’s planted? Roses. She’s crazy about them. ‘Specially white roses. I had one painted on the tank in her honor. I can spot that a long way off.”

I didn’t say nothing as I got on my bike. John likewise. To his credit--- for whatever it’s worth-- for once even Lucas kept his mouth shut.

We were almost back down to where the northern leg of the two lane meets Highway 99 when a camper passed us going the other way. It was an old V.W. painted wild colors You could make out the person behind the wheel: She had long brown hair that was blowing sideways, her face white as chalk, eyes all puffed up. Lucas slowed and turned in his seat as the van passed us and for a moment I thought he was gonna say something. But he didn’t. He just bipped the throttle and roared north on 99.