Last Summer Boys(28)

The shapes under the cloud get sharper. I see spinning wheels and sleek metal frames. Faces above that gleaming wall of metal. Red bandanas snapping in the wind . . .

I watch, hypnotized, as Crash Callahan’s motorcycle riders disappear into a dip in the road. For an instant the riders are hidden, leaving just that cloud of dust and the roar of engines and whooping voices that I feel in my chest and behind my Adam’s apple to tell us they will soon be upon us.

“Jack, grab the dog!” Dad calls from the cab. His voice cuts through my trance like a knife through butter, and I grab hold of Butch’s collar right as the first rider rockets out of the dip.

I’d know him anywhere because it’s old Crash himself.

We’ve seen him every year at the autumn festival at Red Root Mountain. Crash is the closing act. As the crowds watch and cheer, he rides his motorbike down a cliff and crashes through a burning hay bale. The festival ain’t over until his performance.

Crash comes sailing out of that dip and stabs into the sky like a fallen angel clawing for heaven. Long hair streams back from his sunburned face, and his lips are pulled back over yellow teeth in a wild grin. His tires spin on empty air until he lands on the road, his bike bucking underneath him like a bronco. His riders come right behind him, howling like wolves.

They sweep down on us like lava.

“Boys, hold on!” Dad shouts.

Two riders pull up on our left, sunlight burning off the metal monsters between their knees. Another three slide up on our right. Then two more sweep in front of our Ford. Suddenly, we’re surrounded. Boxed in. More riders roll up—ten, fifteen, now twenty—and our Ford rushes on in a sea of snarling motorcycles.

Raw, leathery voices call out to us.

“Hey, fellas, where you off to?”

“Here doggie-doggie-doggie!”

Butch lunges toward the edge of our truck. I try holding him back, but the oak log I’m crouching on rolls under me and I go with him, swinging like a busted chain.

“Ride him, cowboy!” a rider shouts.

I taste something warm in my mouth and realize I’ve smashed my lip on the log. Arms around my chest lift me: Frankie pulls me up.

Butch leans over the edge, snapping at the rider. I can’t hold him so Pete clambers through the cab’s back window. With his blond hair snapping in the wind, he shouts at us to get down as he puts his arms around Butch and drags him back.

Crash Callahan has pulled up alongside Dad’s door. He leans over and raps his knuckles against it.

“Where to, pop?” he asks. “Going to the picture show?”

Dad stares straight over the steering wheel like he don’t even see him.

“You deaf, man? I’m talking at you!” Crash jams his fist into the door’s metal. Will jumps off his seat and shouts, but Dad shoves him back down and keeps right on ignoring Crash.

Crash don’t like that, so he spits a blob of white saliva that darts somewhere behind him into the cyclones of yellow dust. He lifts his hand and waves. Sunburned faces parade past us in a fresh scream of metal as the riders roll on.

Oak logs slide under me again. Dad is slowing us down. The last of the riders seem to fly on even faster, leaving us behind in their cloud of yellow dust.

We come to a stop in the middle of the road and listen as the roar of Crash’s horde grows fainter and fainter.

As fast as they appeared, the riders are gone.

Will is swearing up a storm in the cab.

In the back, Frankie’s sprawled over the logs, his glasses hanging from one ear. Butch barks, struggles against Pete to get loose, to chase the men on the motorcycles.

I run my tongue around the inside of my mouth, checking to make sure I’ve got all my teeth. I do, but I’ve cut my lower lip bad. I go to spit blood over the side of the truck. I miss and it dribbles down my shirt instead.

“They’re headed for Sam’s place,” Pete tells Dad.

My stomach turns over at that: Crash and his gang are off to torture lonely old Sam again.

But then I catch sight of my father in the rearview mirror. His eyes are icy blue.

“Hold on,” he says as he buries the gas pedal.





Five minutes later, we come up on old Sam standing in the road in front of his trailer, hatless, his curly hair blazing in afternoon sun like a silver halo around his square head. The .22 rifle gleams dully in his hands.

Dad gives a tap on the horn as we come rolling slowly up to him, leans out his window, and says in a soft voice, “Sam, you all right?”

“They took Myrtle’s mailbox.”

The massive head jerks to a dark hole at the road’s edge. A few clumps of dirt sit by it, fingers of green grass peeking out of them, waving in the breeze.

Dad puts a hand on his shoulder. At his touch, old Sam turns and we see his tomato-red cheeks and steel-wool beard are streaked with tears.

“They tore Myrtle’s mailbox right outta the ground,” he cries. He sways, and Dad’s hand tightens on his shoulder. “I been down with the hay fever. I didn’t hear them coming . . . I ain’t good for much when the hay fever gets me.”

Dad is silent.

“A man’s got his dignity,” Sam says. He looks skyward. “I’m sorry I let ’em take it, Myrtle. You know how I am when the hay fever gets me.”

“Better climb up here, Sam,” says Dad. “We’ll drive down a ways and take a look.”