by Lucy Lambert
He winked at me. Then he let go of me and grabbed the helmets, handing one to me. We pulled them on.
Dash mounted the bike, swinging one leg over. He righted it beneath him and used his heel to pull up the kickstand.
Then he reared up and brought his thick-soled riding boot down on the kickstarter. The bike growled to life. My heart started racing.
“Come on, sit behind me,” Dash said, the visor of his helmet up so I could make out his eyes and nose.
I put my hand on his shoulder for support and climbed on behind him.
I thought for sure that we would fall, that we would topple over and the bike’s hot exhaust would sear my leg through my jeans.
But we didn’t fall. Even when I wrapped my arms around Dash’s waist and squeezed hard.
“The pegs. Put your feet on the pegs,” Dash said, and I saw him pointing down.
My feet dangled, swaying and shaking with the vibrations of the bike. I saw the pegs he was talking about poking out from the sides of the bike and I put my feet on them.
“Hang on as tight as you need,” he said. Then he flipped his visor down.
“What? Why? Oh!” I exclaimed.
Then he worked the controls with his hands and feet and we started off, the bike’s engine burbling and popping beneath us. Even with the helmet on, it was loud.
We glided out onto the street and Dash gave the beast some gas and we picked up speed.
My arms tightened around his waist like a slipknot. My heart pushed a lump up into my throat. I wanted to push my face into Dash’s shoulder, close my eyes, and wait it out.
I was certain we’d topple any moment. That my added and inexperienced weight would throw him from his balance and send us skidding along the blacktop.
But we didn’t. Not even when Dash leaned us into a turn. I figured we’d come to the end of my street.
This isn’t so bad, I thought. My initial fears had been unfounded, I guess.
Slowly, and with no small amount of willpower, I took my face up from Dash’s shoulder.
The world rushed around us in a blur while the bike ate up the road beneath us.
“Oh, my God!” I said.
It was so different from being in a car or a pickup or even an open-topped Jeep. It was all right there. The road, the swaying stalks of corn.
I could see how a person could become addicted to the freedom of this.
For the first time, my death grip around Dash’s waist loosened. He let one hand fall from the handlebar and gave my fingers a reassuring squeeze.
If I was going to run away, this is how I'd do it, I thought.
An adrenaline rush thrilled up and down through me in hot and cold tingles.
The wind rushed around our bodies. I wanted to pull my helmet off and feel it run through my hair. I wanted Dash to twist the throttle and send us hurtling forward so fast our pasts and our problems could no longer catch up with us.
If only we could leave them behind like this bike leaves the dust behind.
All my initial fears vanished with the thrill of the ride.
I leaned closer to Dash. “Faster!”
At first I thought the wind snatched my words away. I gathered my breath for another shout.
Then Dash looked a question over his shoulder at me. Really?
I nodded.
He touched one hand down to mine, still clasped over his stomach. He wanted me to hold on tighter. I did.
When he felt my grip strengthen, he opened up the throttle.
The bike roared beneath us. In the field to our right, a flock of crows exploded from the corn at the noise.
Every nerve in my body came alive at once. The acceleration pushed me back on the saddle. I gripped Dash harder.
For a second I thought we might actually take off.
We’re not in Kansas anymore! I thought giddily at the idea of taking off from the road.
Up ahead a dirt road split off from the blacktop of the county road. A farmer’s access to his field. The gate stood open, the dirt churned up into little wavelets and ruts from decades of tractors and harvesters going in and out there.
Dash pulled in, gearing the bike down as he went.
We came to a stop and he killed the engine. Without the rush of wind surrounding us, without the steady growl of that engine, the world became a silent, still place.
I missed the sensations of freedom almost immediately.
We got off the bike, which he leaned down against its kickstand. Dash pulled off his helmet and so did I. It left his long hair in inviting disarray.
“Why did you stop?” I said, somehow breathless, as though I had been the one running at such high speeds rather than riding on the bike.
“I couldn’t stand having you behind me anymore,” Dash said, “I couldn’t see you.”
I sat down on the bike’s saddle. Its engine pinged and ticked as it cooled. Its heat warmed the back of my legs. “Why’d you need to see me so badly?”
He pulled his gloves off and tossed them on the saddle beside me. Then he cupped my upturned face in his hands and kissed me.
It was long and deep and warm. Our mouths fit together perfectly. I tasted the hint of mint left by his toothpaste. Again, pleasant tingles ran up and down throughout my whole body.
He pulled back and I was happy I’d chosen to sit down. My legs had all the strength of a couple overcooked spaghetti noodles.
“Hard to kiss you when you’re behind me and wearing a helmet,” he said. “So, are you still terrified?”
I scoffed at that. “I was never terrified, just concerned for my own well-being And it was amazing. Almost as good as that kiss, actually.” I winked at him.
But then that mischievous glint appeared in his eyes again.
“What?” I asked. The bottom dropped out of my stomach.
“If you liked it so much I guess you won’t mind riding back into town at the controls.”
I lurched off the bike as though it wanted to bite my behind. “You want me to what?”
“Well, I mean, I’ll technically still be the one in control. But you can sit in front of me and see what’s it’s like with the handlebars,” Dash said.
“I really don’t think…” I started. I kept glancing at the bike. Before it looked beautiful, all shiny and chrome. Now it looked like a deathtrap. It doesn’t even have seat belts! I thought, in direct contradiction of my earlier exhilaration at the freedom riding the bike provided.
It was one thing to sit behind him. If things got too hairy I could just bury my face between his shoulder blades and block out the road. In front was a different matter entirely.
“Well, I guess you’re walking back to town then,” Dash said.
He hung his helmet off the handlebars and started walking towards the road.
“You can’t be serious!” I said. I took an uncertain step after him, glancing back at the bike.
“I can be, and I am,” Dash said, “It will be fun. I promise.”
He stopped at the open gate, just a few feet of dirt path left between him and the blacktop country road.
One corner of his mouth tugged up in a lopsided grin. He leaned again the gate post while the breeze tugged and pulled gently at his hair.
“I’ll crash us! We’ll be killed!” I insisted, still incredulous, “It’s been like fifteen years since I’ve even sat on a bicycle!”
He winked. “Don’t worry, there’s a reason people say ‘it’s just like riding a bike’ when it comes to memory. Also, I’ll be the one doing the driving. Don’t forget.”
“Yeah, they don’t know what they’re talking about!”
Dash watched the corn sway in the breeze for a little bit. He closed his eyes and let the air wash over him. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. The picture of calm.
I crossed my arms and huffed. “You aren’t serious, are you?”
He opened his eyes and looked at me. “So are we walking back to town or riding?”
I bristle
d. I could feel myself wanting to snap at him, wanting to retreat back to that safe place inside of myself.
I resisted that impulse. Take a risk, something inside me said.
I took a steadying breath, brushed my hair back out of my face, and said, “well, show me how to work this thing. But if we die, it’s your fault. I just want to make sure you know that.”
He grinned and started away from the post. “Oh, don't worry about it.”
He told me to sit on the bike. He started pointing everything out. “Squeeze this. That’s your clutch. This other one’s your front brake. If you push this it’s your rear brake, and this is the gear shift…”
“You expect me to do all this and remember to keep my balance? And why are there two brakes?”
“Want to try and start it? It can be kind of hard. It’s old.”
I waved him away, “I think I can manage.”
I first pushed the kickstand back with my heel and then righted the bike beneath me. It was heavier than I thought. It almost fell the other way before Dash caught it.
“Not one word,” I warned him.
He stepped back and showed his gloved palms in submission. I couldn’t help but notice the small smile he wore, though.
He doesn’t think I can do it. I also knew then that I had to do it myself.
I held in the clutch handle. Then I shoved down hard on the kickstarter. The bike coughed beneath me but the engine didn’t catch. I did it again, and a third time, with similar results.
Dash stepped forward again, “Let me do that…”
This time I let myself get angry. Not at him, but at the stupid bike. The anger burned inside me. I used it. I jumped up and slammed my foot down on the kickstarter.
The bike came to life between my thighs. I gave the throttle an experimental twist. The machine rewarded me with a roar. My heart pumped so hard I could feel my pulse all over my body.
Dash came and straddled the saddle right behind me. He put his hands on the handlebars, moving mine in so that I still held them but couldn’t work the clutch, brake, or throttle. “I knew you could do it,” he said. “If you like it I’ll teach you how to ride.”
We pulled on our helmets and wheeled the bike out past the gate. The road was clear.
Dash instructed me, his hands working the controls. He touched his helmet to mine and somehow that made the sound clearer, easier to hear and understand.
We went through the procedure of putting the bike into first gear. I knew how to drive stick; my dad taught me before I even got my license. But this was different.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to do it myself.
”It’s just like in a car. Let off the clutch after giving it some gas and you’ll get going.”
To demonstrate, he started releasing the clutch slowly. The bike bucked, threatening to stall. He gave the throttle a twist and it caught.
And then we started gliding down the road. I was stiff as a steel beam in my seat. Dash’s body made a reassuring wall behind me.
We started picking up speed. We went up a couple of gears, Dash narrating what he was doing as he did. The wind whistled past my helmet, caught in the loose flaps of the motorcycle jacket.
Again, it felt like we could just take off and leave the world behind us.
My cheeks hurt.
It took me a second to realize it was because I was grinning like an idiot.
Soon Pleasant came back into view, the standpipe looming high over everything else.
Except I didn’t want to stop in Pleasant. I want the bike to carry us on through the town and out the other side. I wanted it to keep carrying us until it ran out of gas. Then we could fill it up again and just keep going.
I’d never seen the Atlantic before, except in movies. If we kept going that direction, we’d end up at the ocean eventually.
Something about that idea just felt right. Sort of like how it felt right for our bodies to press together like this, sharing this experience.
Then we passed by the police Crown Vic cruiser that sat on the side of the road.
It took just an instant to go by, but from my quick glance I saw the unmistakable face of Sheriff Robert and his aviator sunglasses.
A moment later the cherries on top of the cruiser lit up and the siren howled. My heart skipped a beat. I panicked.
Dash was there. He guided the bike onto the shoulder. The bike and the cruiser kicked up big clouds of dust that drifted slowly over the swaying stalks of corn.
Once more the bike died beneath us. We dismounted and stood. Dash took off his helmet so I did too.
The sheriff turned off the engine and the siren but left the lights on the car on. They strobed red spots against the field. He sat behind the wheel for too long, considering us.
“Dash…” I said.
He held out a warning hand. “Don’t worry.”
But I did. Things had been so quiet for us these past few weeks. There had been that night, now crystal clear in my mind’s eye, when the sheriff parked his cruiser in front of my house, but other than that nothing.
I knew that the peace and quiet couldn’t last forever. But I wanted it to last longer than this.
My heart skipped another beat when the sheriff finally swung his door open and one booted foot landed on the shoulder, kicking up another little cloud of dust.
He levered himself out of the car and pulled his hat on. He kept one hand on the butt of his pistol. His glasses glared the sunlight back at us.
The two men watched each other, waiting.
The sheriff broke first, a twitch of his cheek the only sign irritation on his otherwise stony face.
“Those plates on your bike are bogus,” the sheriff said.
That’s what took him so long, I realized, he was checking the plates on the cruiser’s computer.
“They’re out of state,” Dash said, “They’re probably just not in your system.”
From where the sheriff stood, I knew he couldn’t see, but I did. Dash’s body went rigid, coiled tight like a spring.
“That so?” The sheriff said, “We both know that’s a load. I’ll bet if I ask to see your license it won’t turn up in the system, either. If you even have one, which I’m doubting. And I know for certain Ellie here doesn’t have no motorcycle license, either. Yet I saw her operating a motorcycle, your motorcycle, just a few moments ago, plain as day.”
This is bad, I kept thinking, This is really, really bad.
First I blamed Dash for insisting on going for a ride today. Then I blamed myself. No, I just had to have a thrill. This is what happens when I leave Pleasant. Bad things. Stupid, stupid…
“We have an understanding,” Dash said. I saw his hands squeeze into fists, heard his leather gloves creak with the force of that squeeze. “Or do you think that’s bogus, too?”
When the sheriff smiled my heart constricted. Everything was going wrong in front of me. I could feel it all slipping away, like loose gravel on a steep hill. And we were both about to fall down that slope.
“We did have one,” the sheriff said. He walked forward, one hand still resting on the pistol, until he stood a couple feet away from Dash. I could see Dash’s reflection in the sheriff’s glasses. “But now we don’t. Because now I have you. You and Ellie both, actually. Funny how that works.”
“No, how it works is if you choose to arrest us or shake us down or whatever it is you’re thinking of doing now I bring a world of trouble down on you. You and Bobby Junior.”
The sheriff cocked his head to the side, like a hawk sitting on a utility pole considering a field mouse.
“Dash…” I started. This was all so wrong. I knew Robert, and I knew Bobby. While Bobby might be rash enough to act out of impulse, the sheriff wasn’t. He wouldn’t play his hand unless it was stacked heavily in his favor.
“It’s okay, Ellie,” Dash said without looking at me.
“No, she’s right, it isn’t all right,” Robert said. “I know you have some leverage, boy, bu
t so do I. So the terms of our arrangement are changing.
“Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to arrest Ellie here for operating a motorcycle without a license. I think maybe something about operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol might slip into the report, too. You’re then going to be out of Pleasant by sunset or I’m going to make a call to the FBI, because I think they’re interested in mysterious fellas such as yourself and we don’t need your sort in this town. And if I catch even a hint of that trouble you’re talking up, Ellie’s going to see just how much of that stuff from that orange and black show is true.”
I went cold. He knows about Dash.
Some of that chill left when I thought a little more about it. He couldn’t know about Dash. If he did, he wouldn’t just threaten to call the FBI, or risk telling us he knew. There was a half million dollars in reward money on the line.
No, if Robert knew, the first we'd hear about it would be the FBI knocking down the door to Dash’s little apartment over Brutus’s bar.
“Are we clear?” The sheriff said, “Or do you need to get your hearing checked?” He smiled smugly at throwing Dash’s insult back at him.
Dash turned to me. His face was tight, his jaw muscles clenching and unclenching. His eyes were hard and sharp.
He spoke so that Robert couldn’t hear him.
“Ellie, come with me. Right now.”
I looked from Dash to the sheriff and back again. “What? What do you mean?”
He swallowed. The swell of his Adam’s apple rose and fell. “You know what I mean. Get on my bike. I can get away from the sheriff here. We can leave Pleasant behind. Not stop until we hit the coast. Just the two of us.”
My back and arms prickled with goosebumps. Exactly what I’d wanted.
His eyes searched me.
“What’s it going to be, mystery man?” The sheriff said. He took another step forward.
“It’s now or never, Ellie,” Dash said through gritted teeth.
I wanted to go, really wanted to. But I also knew right away that I couldn’t.
I’d never been able to leave Pleasant before. Whenever I even thought about it something bad happened, to me or to someone I cared for.
I wasn’t strong enough to go.