Satan's Pony

by Robin Hathaway

  “I wasn’t going fast. Honest to God. It was dark. I didn’t see him!”

  The parents were staring at us. “You should go,” I said again. “I’ll call you if there’s any change.”

  He stumbled to his feet, sloshing coffee on the floor.

  “Where can I reach you?”

  He fumbled for a pen and paper and scribbled his phone number.

  “Try to get some sleep.” Sure. And turn into a pumpkin while you’re at it.

  I hung around all night, checking with the nurse for vital signs. Not very professional. But losing a child is hard on any doctor, and especially hard on me. Although this case was not similar in any way to the one that had led me to Bayfield, and certainly not my fault, the feelings about Sophie came rushing back.

  The boy—his name was Bobby Shoemaker—was still unconscious at 6:00 AM. I told his parents to go home. The hospital would call them if there was any change. When the morning shift arrived, I knew it was time for me to go, too. Way overtime.

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER 5

  When I got back to the motel I was not in a good mood. The sight of a bunch of tattooed, half-naked, muscle-bound bruisers milling around the lobby did nothing to improve it. For twelve hours I had forgotten they existed. Now, one stood between me and a much-needed cup of coffee.

  “Move!” I grunted.

  The assembled company turned and stared.

  “Anything left in that pot or have you lapped up the last drop?”

  In the beginning they had all looked alike, but little by little distinctive characteristics began to emerge, like with the Seven Dwarfs. You remember that crew—Sleepy, Happy, Grumpy, Dopey, Sneezy, Bashful, and Doc? Only the bikers’ nicknames should have been more like Sexy, Boozy, Randy, Sleazy—oh, Dopey would do—and Doc. I think “Doc” would suit their leader just fine. He was the only one who seemed to have any brains, and his eyes, when they were fully open—like now—were more than intelligent. They were an electric, magnetic … blue, exuding power. It was a second before I realized he was the same guy that had insulted my bike in the parking lot. But at that time he had been wearing shades, hiding his finest feature.

  He made a big deal of getting me a Styrofoam cup, filling it, and asking, “Milk or sugar, ma’am?”

  “Straight,” I muttered.

  He handed it to me with a mock bow. His cronies, who had been watching this performance, guffawed.

  Before he could offer the paper plate with two doughnuts, I moved to the other side of the room and collapsed on the end of the sofa. I had intended to go right to my room and crash, but I had a stubborn streak: I didn’t want these guys to think they could drive me away.

  A middle-aged couple occupied the rest of the sofa—the only nonbikers in residence. They had checked in before the horde arrived and I was surprised they were still here. She was pretty, in a plastic sort of way. Permed hairdo, too-bright makeup, good body, but too much of it on display. She wore a haltertop and short shorts, and when a biker glanced her way (which they often did) she demurely lowered her gaze. Her husband, a stubby, jowly, morose man, sat beside her, watching every move she made.

  “Are you the doctor?”

  Half-asleep, at first I didn’t realize she was speaking to me.

  “My husband has an upset stomach and I wondered—”

  “Fran, please, I’m fine,” the husband protested.

  “Well, you weren’t fine last night, Stan.” Her voice rose an octave.

  “These things pass,” he muttered.

  “Sorry.” She rolled her eyes, letting me in on the big secret—husbands can be a pain.

  They both gave me a royal pain. I gulped my coffee and glanced around for the trash can that was always next to the sofa. A biker had confiscated it, turned it upside down, and planted his fat butt on it. I looked for somewhere else to put my cup.

  “Let me.” A biker with a mop of dirty yellow hair reached for it, in an awkward imitation of Doc’s earlier, smoother performance.

  I held on.

  His hand stayed around the cup and my hand—a little too long. I pulled away, starting a tug-of-war.

  “Whatcha doin’, Sunny?” Doc came up.

  Sunny let go.

  “Just helpin’ the lady out.” He moved quickly away, landing in the space I had just vacated on the sofa.

  The plastic chick cast him a coy smile. Her husband looked on nervously. I had to get out of here. Succumbing to a mammoth yawn, I staggered toward the door.

  Doc was in my way again. “Long night?”

  I nodded.

  “Want to talk?”

  “No, thanks.” To my surprise, I was almost tempted to tell him about Bobby.

  “I owe you an apology,” he said.

  I looked at him.

  His gaze strayed over my shoulder. “Just a minute … .” He pushed past me toward the sofa and grabbed Sunny by the shirt, pulling him up.

  These guys are so damned physical.

  “What’s up?” Sunny looked outraged.

  The chick was pop-eyed.

  Doc gave Sunny a shove in the direction of the door and followed him out. Everyone was looking at them. An ultimate humiliation for Sunny. After the door closed behind them, there was a moment of silence. Through the half-open window, I could hear Doc chewing Sunny out, but his tone was more like a Dutch Uncle than a biker bully. Then the raucous shouts and laughter resumed, drowning him out.

  When Doc returned, he came back to me. “That’s a nice bike you have.” He continued to talk as if nothing had happened. “I shouldn’t have made fun of it. But you should keep it in better shape.”

  My eyebrows shot up and my mouth fell open.

  “Come on. I’ll show you what I mean.”

  Mesmerized by his magnetic gaze and commanding tone, I followed him into the parking lot.

  “If you’re going to own decent equipment, you’ve got to take care of it,” he scolded. “And don’t tell me you don’t have time. It needs a lube job. Your exhaust stinks. And it wouldn’t hurt to wash it now and then. I bet you’ve forgotten what color it is.”

  “I never knew,” I admitted.

  “It’s green. A cool shade of forest green.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I inspected it this morning. I scraped an inch of shit off with my thumbnail. Presto! Forest green.” We had reached my bike. “See?”

  I stared at the little patch of green.

  “Look here!” He squatted on the asphalt, pulling me down beside him.

  “Hey,” I protested, “I have—”

  “Nothing better to do,” he finished for me, and began pointing out more defects. He had produced a tool kit and began unscrewing various parts of my bike. Before I knew what was happening, it was lying on the asphalt, totally useless.

  “Hey! What if I have an emergency?”

  “You can use mine.”

  I almost wished for an emergency. A ride on that midnight blue hog would be a thrill.

  “Does this rice burner have a name?”

  “Rice burner?”

  “Jap bike.”

  “Linus,” I said.

  He frowned, puzzled.

  “As in Peanuts.”

  “Oh, yeah. He’s the smart one.”

  “The practical one.”

  “What’s practical about a bike?” He turned to look at me.

  I met his gaze. “It’s a mode of transportation. It gets me where I want to go. What’s the name of yours?”

  He sent me a wicked grin. “Satan’s Pony.”

  “Ah … .”

  “My bike is power, risk, danger, escape.” He sat up, pointing his wrench at me. “It’s freedom!” He went back to work. “By the way,” he muttered, “what’s practical about waiting around for ‘The Great Pumpkin’?”

  He was up on his Peanuts. I hadn’t expected that.

  While he worked he talked. He told me they had just had a big funeral for one of their buddies. “Crazy Freddy.
It rained the whole time.”

  “Did you have a tent?”

  He made a face. “Tents are for wusses. If it rains, you get wet. Rain is one of the four elements.”

  “Is that part of your Code?”

  He stopped working. “What?”

  “The Code. You have one, don’t you?”

  “What do you know about our Code?”

  “Nothing. I just know bikers always have one—like pirates.”

  He grabbed my wrist. “What d’you know about it?”

  “Hey, let go. I’m not one of your old ladies.” I tried to pry his fingers off my arm.

  “Answer me.”

  “I read about the Hells Angels’ Code in a magazine …”

  “You’re kiddin’.” He relaxed his grip.

  “ … and I thought the Satan’s Apostles must have one, too.”

  “I always knew the Angels were wusses.” He grinned.

  I rubbed the flesh above my wrist.

  His laugh erupted from somewhere below his diaphragm and rolled across the parking lot. Stopping abruptly, he looked at me. “You’d never read about the Apostles’ Code in a magazine,” he said.

  I changed the subject. “Tell me about Freddy’s funeral.”

  “It was in York, PA. About a hundred of us rode in. I went there from Wyoming.”

  “Wyoming?” He made it sound like Camden.

  “Freddy was crazy as hell. We all take chances, but Freddy outdid us all. He’d slide under riggers and make U-turns on 1-95. Nobody could touch Freddy for stunts.”

  “I guess he tried one stunt too many, huh?”

  “Nah. Some drunk clipped him on a back road and he rammed into a tree.” He looked somber.

  “I’m … sorry.”

  “Yeah. Well, when the word got out we rode in from seventeen states and gave him a hell of a send-off. It took us two days to dig the hole. It had to be big enough for both of them.” He was working on my bike again.

  “Both of them?”

  “Sure. You wouldn’t want to part Freddy from his bike. That would be heresy. He’d come back and haunt you.” He was applying grease now. “We sat him on the seat, leaning way over the bars, the way he always rode. No helmet. He never wore one. We had two bands playin’. One rock and one heavy metal. They took turns playin’ his favorites while we covered him up and drank. A couple of the boys fell in but we pulled ’em out. After the ceremony we gave him a thunderhead.”

  “Thunderhead?”

  “Over a hundred of us roared through the town at top speed. It’s our finest tribute. You should of heard it.”

  The sun was bearing down on us. It felt more like July than May. We were both sweating, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Who are all these guys?” I asked. “Where do your gang members come from?”

  “Club members,” he said sternly.

  “Sorry. Club members.”

  “They come from all over. See this rocker.” He pointed to a patch on his vest, under the one with the club logo. It read: NOMADS. “That means we have no home base. We’re always on the road.” He tackled another bolt. “Sunny, the one with the mop of yellow hair, was an actor in the Big Apple. But he couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants. He’s a good kid, but those starlets were too much for him. One was underage and he ended up having to leave town. You saw the way he was hitting up that married chick in the lobby this morning. I had to throw him out. He promised me he’d stick to single chicks over eighteen. It’s less messy.”

  “So much for Sunny. What about the others?” I prodded.

  “Jingles, the guy with the red beard, he was a card counter. Used to work a blackjack table in Vegas. But he had itchy fingers. Couldn’t keep his hand out of the till. Mickey, he’s a comic book artist from Dallas. Boy, can he draw. Still sends stuff out freelance. Hash Brown was a short-order cook in Louisville. Sawhorse was in construction in Chicago. These guys still pick up work here and there when we’re not on the road. In the winter. Honey’s the sweetest. He’d do anything for you as long as you don’t mention his mother—”

  “What’s wrong with his mother?”

  “Nothin’. She was raped by a robber when he was a kid. He still feels guilty because he didn’t stop the guy. He was only six years old for Christ’s sake.”

  I tried to call up faces to match these anecdotes, but the only one I’d met, if you could call it that, was Sunny.

  “Stars and Stripes is a Marine. Here, hold this.”

  I held the wrench while he stretched out on his belly reaching for an especially awkward nut. When he sat up he said, “Who did I forget?”

  I shook my head. “I lost count.”

  “Hammerhead. He’s a real dunce, but he can lift or bust anything. A good man to have around when you’re wrecking a bar. Then there’s Foxhole—our old man. He was in ’Nam. And Orpheus …”

  “Orpheus? That’s a fancy tag for a biker,” I said rudely.

  He ignored me. “Orph plays the guitar. Then there’s Lightning. No one can beat him for speed. Used to be into race cars but switched to bikes. Said he didn’t like all that cage around him. I think that’s the lot.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a beefy arm.

  “What about you? What’s your tag?” I asked.

  “Pi.”

  “As in apple or three point one four?”

  He gave me an enigmatic smile.

  “I’ll give you a better one,” I said. “Doc.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “I don’t get it.”

  “From the Seven Dwarfs. He was their leader. By the way, how did you get to be the leader?”

  He shrugged.

  “You’re not the biggest.”

  “Nope.”

  “Or the prettiest.”

  “Aw gee … .”

  “The smartest?”

  He was intent on resetting his ratchet wrench.

  “Yeah. That’s it,” I said, catching on. “You’re the brains of the family.”

  “Shhh.”

  “Brains is a dirty word?”

  Another shrug.

  “Where did you go to school?”

  “MIT,” he muttered.

  “What happened?”

  “That’s a long story.”

  “Give me the short version.”

  “Ran outta dough.”

  I glanced at his gleaming Harley. “That hog of yours would pay for a couple of semesters.”

  He looked up from my bike and fixed his disconcerting blue gaze on me. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

  I stared.

  “Archie Hammond. Paper boy?”

  Ohmygod.

  He smiled. “I recognized you right away. For a kid, I had a man-sized crush on you.”

  Archie Hammond. It all came back. The scrawny kid down the street who delivered our paper. He was fourteen when I was seventeen. He used to hang around our front porch on long summer evenings. If it was hot, I’d give him a Coke. And if I was really bored I’d even shoot the breeze with him or play gin rummy. He was smart for his age. Then I went off to college and never saw him again. Later, Dad told me, “You know that kid, Archie, from down the street? Turns out he won a scholarship to MIT!” And still later, “That kid, Archie—you remember him—he got into some bad trouble and had to drop out of school. His parents are taking it hard.”

  “Now you remember,” he interrupted my reverie. “Local boy makes good. Local boy makes bad. End of story.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you, Archie—”

  “Pi. That name went in the Dumpster years ago.”

  “Pi. But you’re so different …”

  “Bodybuilding does wonders.” He flexed his biceps.

  “Not just that. Your whole …” I couldn’t find the word.

  “Persona?” His eyes twinkled. “Yeah. I can see how you might have been fooled. I was quite a wimp in those days.”

  “No, you were a nice kid—”

  “As for you—your persona was fore
ver etched on my boyish brain. First loves don’t erase easily.”

  I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. When I knew Archie, there was a three-year gap in our ages—an ocean, when you’re still in school—eliminating the possibility of any relationship, other than casual friendship. Time had a way of narrowing such gaps. “So, why did you drop out of college?” I asked.

  He blinked, as if splashed with cold water, and returned to my bike. I knew our conversation was over.

  CHAPTER 6

  As I watched Pi put my bike back together, I couldn’t help thinking about Archie. What had happened to him? Could he possibly still be buried under that mass of muscle and tattoos? He worked with incredible skill and speed. I liked to watch skilled people work with their hands. My dad had been skilled with his printing tools until everything went electronic: he would set type, fix the presses, prepare the press for a run, with incredible dexterity. And, of course, I never tired of watching the surgeons’ hands when I was in training.

  Pi stood up and stretched. His hands were coated with black, oily grease. “Boogie, boogie, boogie!” He wiggled his fingers at me.

  I cringed, laughing.

  “Have you got a hose in this godforsaken hole?”

  “You’re speaking of my home.” I feigned indignation.

  His eyes widened. “You live in this dump?”

  “I provide medical services to the guests of this motel and others in the area. It’s convenient to live on-site.”

  “A motel doctor!” He cut through the shit.

  No matter in what fancy terms I couched my occupation, it always came down to that. I nodded.

  “What d’ya know. And I thought you were headed for the big-time hospitals. Columbia or Cornell.”

  I winced. “Things happen … .” I said, feebly

  “Don’t they, though,” he agreed with complete understanding. “But, you’re still an M.D., right?”

  I nodded.

  “Would you take a look at this rash on my tummy?” He jerked up his tattered, grease-stained T-shirt, revealing a few pimples—probably poison ivy.

  “If you want my professional opinion, you can come to my office,” I said stiffly, pulling a card from my pocket.