by Evie Nichole
"Do you like it?" he asked.
"Sure. It’s been good for me since..." I stopped myself from burdening him with stories of my dead fiance. That was at least a 5th date conversation, and I wasn’t even sure if I’d see Josh again after that night since he was just passing through... Although I could already tell that I wanted to.
He looked at me strangely for a second. I swear, it was as if he knew. There was a look of great sadness in his eyes. Just for a second, then he continued.
"It must be nice to have a steady job though, working in something you’re interested in," he said, almost immediately admitting that he didn’t have a job.
"What about you, Josh, how do you make ends meet?" I asked.
"Well, my life’s a bit different. I never fell into the nine to five thing. It just didn’t suit me. I move around a lot. Learned to be a mechanic in a few places; if I can’t get work doing that, I do anything to get me to the next destination. Clean plates, wait tables – not what you’d expect from a biker."
"Have you always done that?"
"Yeah, since I was 18. My dad left, and my mum passed away, so there wasn’t anything else for it but to hit the road."
"You never put your roots down anywhere?" I asked.
"Not really… Oh, and I write sometimes, but I keep that from my biker friends, they wouldn’t let me hear the end of it."
“Too artsy?”
He grinned, showing those white teeth again. “Yeah, something like that. I don’t know. Maybe one day I’ll do something with it.”
We moved on from the small talk and discussed a few things, music mostly. Turns out we were both big fans of The Doors, I laughed when he said it. Riders on the Storm, I thought. Of course he’d love that.
The date was going well. He had some great stories about the open road, and I enjoyed just listening to him. He had the type of voice you could just rest in, settling in for the night. It felt safe, experienced, yet full of kindness and compassion. I got lost in the sound for a moment and glazed over rather than listening to the words.
"I’m talking too much, aren’t I?" he asked.
"No, not at all. I love listening." The truth was I didn’t really want to talk about my own life. It had been so weighed down in everything which had happened to me that sitting there, listening to a life of freedom on the road, was a happy distraction from my own reality. Then I asked a question, one which I hadn’t planned on asking. It just sort of... Came out of me. In the aftermath, I realized that I was trying to piece it all together.
"What about motorbike gangs?" I said.
Josh looked at me strangely. His face drained of its color, and his smile slipped away into something more distant, yet worrisome.
"What about them, Maxine?" he said quietly.
"I’ve always wondered about them... What it would be like to be in one... How they make their money... Stuff like that."
"I wouldn’t know..." he said.
"Oh, so you’ve never been in a biker gang?"
Josh sipped at his drink. "No, I haven’t."
I have to say that I was disappointed. When I thought back to the night Daniel died, it was clear there were several bikers on that road. My first thought was that they must have been part of a gang. How I wanted to know who they were, what were they thinking when they ran us off the road? Did they even care? I wanted insight into the world which had taken away my own, although a first date was probably not the best place to try and find it.
"Have you ever known anyone in a biker gang?" I asked.
"A few... Here and there..."
The topic of conversation changed again, away from where I wanted it to be. Josh started telling me a disgusting story about a guy he’d travelled with for a while who seemed fine at first, but started acting strange the more they were around each other. One night, Josh came out into a parking lot and found the guy urinating into a car’s petrol tank.
"Oh my God!" I said, half laughing, half disgusted. "What did you do?"
"I sneaked by him, got on my bike and never looked back. That’s the thing with the open road, if you’re traveling with anyone you need to be able to trust them, and that guy was a bit of a freak." He laughed to himself and finished off his beer.
The food in the place was lovely. I had a carbonara, and he had a pizza. We had that silence, the pause where two people are enjoying eating so much that the conversation dies down. At that moment, I thought to myself how nice it was to be eating out with a man, on a date. More than that, I recognized that there was a comfort in being with Josh. Nothing felt forced. When we wanted to talk about something we did, when we wanted to enjoy our food and sit in silence for a moment, we did. All without there being any falseness, any pretense, any forced enjoyment.
Once we finished off our meal we sat for a while longer, a few more drinks loosening us up further. I was enjoying myself so much that I’d almost forgotten about the important question I needed to ask. I was quickly reminded when I put my hand in my pocket and felt it sitting there. The key. Daniel’s key. What was I waiting for? The alcohol had made me more forward.
"Josh, and I don’t want you thinking this is the reason I phoned you, but I do have something to ask."
It was strange. When I said that, it was as if he expected me to ask something else. I can’t explain it, just a look he gave me which said ‘finally.’ Like he’d been waiting on it and the anticipation had been killing him.
"What is it, Maxine?" His voice sounded nervous.
"I found a key a while ago. It belonged to my... To a friend of mine. Here." I placed the key on the table.
Josh just stared, looking at it with a puzzled look on his face.
"I think it’s a bike key, there’s a Harley Davidson emblem on it. I mean... I don’t know much about bikes, but I know that make. I was just wondering if you knew anything about it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, being a biker and all, I wondered if there was something you could tell me about it? If you look on the other side of the Harley Davidson pendant, there’s a strange inscription." I turned the key over and then flipped the silver pendant around so that it was no longer resting against the leather section of the keyring.
"See, there," I said, pointing. "There are some letters and something else which I can’t make out. I’ve looked online and can’t find anything similar, and so I just thought maybe you’d know about it?" I waited for a response, but none came immediately. I pushed on. “My friend… He would never own a bike, that’s why it’s strange that he had this, you know?”
All of the laughter and fun had left Josh’s face. He looked deadly serious. "Is this why you wanted to go on a date?" he asked.
I realized I had offended him. Leaning over, I touched his hand on the table. I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I did it, and it felt nice. "Josh, I like you, that’s why I wanted to go out on a date with you. Believe me when I say this, this is the first date I’ve been on in a very long time. Three years to be precise, so it took a lot for me to phone you. I just thought you might know something about this, but if you don’t it’s no big deal."
Josh smiled at me, and then winked cheekily. "Let me take a look." He picked up the pendant and keyring, studying it carefully.
"Do you see this here?" he asked, pointing at something on the keyring.
I tried to lean over, but the table was too large
"Hold on," said Josh. He then stood up and walked around to my side of the booth, sliding alongside me.
His leg touched mine inadvertently. That felt good. Deep down I felt a flutter of excitement. He smelled good, his aftershave strong and pronounced.
"Look here," he said.
I could now see that he was pointing at the inscription.
"I don’t know what the letters stand for, but this is gang related. The letters are probably the name of the gang and that engraving below it, it’s hard to tell what it is..."
"It looks like a half moon or something," I said
.
"Possibly..."
"What do you think the RBH stands for?" I asked, hopefully.
"I’m not sure, I’m not into the biker gang scene. All I can say is that I think it’s the name of the gang, I have seen similar pendants for other groups before," he said.
"But not this one?" I was a little disappointed, but it wasn’t Josh’s fault.
"I’m afraid not, Maxine."
While I was disappointed, the pendant had done one thing, it had let the two of us sit close together. Our bodies just slightly touching side by side. We stared at each other and in that moment I wanted him to kiss me. I’d forgotten how good that felt. If I’d been sitting there much longer with him I would have kissed him myself.
But something changed, suddenly.
"Listen, Maxine, it’s been a lovely night, but I think I better go," he said, standing up suddenly.
"Oh..." I was a bit surprised. I thought we were getting on well, and if I’m honest, I felt a little rejected. Of course, I tried not to show it. All I did was smile: "Sure, Josh, I had a lovely night, thanks."
"My pleasure, goodnight." He then walked away.
I watched him, wondering what I’d done wrong. Had I said something to offend him? Feeling that rejection on top of the fact that it had been my first date in years, I knew that night I would feel lonelier than ever. It felt horrible.
But then something strange happened. Just as Josh was about to leave the restaurant, he stopped at the exit. He stood for a moment, shook his head as if talking to himself, and then turned and came back to the table.
"Hey…" he said.
"Hey," I replied. "Did you forget something?"
"Yeah, I did. To ask you on a second date, tomorrow."
I had that feeling again, like I was a teenager. There were flutters in my stomach, but I tried not to show too much excitement. "That would be great," I said.
"Cool. I’ll give you a phone tomorrow?" he asked.
"That would be nice."
"Okay... I don’t want you to think I’m not a gentleman, I’d walk you home, but I have to meet someone about a job tonight. I should have told you earlier."
"You’re meeting someone about a job at ten o’clock at night?"
He looked a little flustered. "Yeah, a mechanic’s life is never easy. You have to take the work when you can."
He said goodbye, and this time he walked out of the door without coming back.
When I got home, I felt exhilarated. Sure, the evening had ended on a strange note, but I was going on a second date the next night. I went to bed. While I lay there, I stared at my nightstand, and a picture of Daniel stared back. There was guilt, no doubt about that, but looking at his smiling face in that photo, I knew he wouldn’t want me to stay like this for the rest of my life. He would want me to move on, find someone else and be happy. Not that I expected Josh to be the one, if anything I knew his way of life and mine were completely incompatible. I needed to put roots down, but he needed the open road. That didn’t matter though, for the next day or two I was just going to enjoy myself spending time with a man I was attracted to, that was what was most important. Moving forward. One step at a time.
As I drifted off to sleep, my mind still raced. The image of the nightmare I’d had about Daniel came to me. He’d seemed so frightening. Then, for the first time in two years, my thoughts turned to something else – someone else – other than Daniel. I thought about Josh, his rugged good looks, his voice, his smile, his smell. I also thought about one other thing which had became apparent to me during that first date – Josh was hiding something. I was certain he’d lied to me about where he was going, but then, I didn’t have the right to question it truly, after all, it was just a first date.
When I left Maxine and the restaurant, the night air hit my face. I walked around the corner to a small alley and there I tried to compose myself. Panic. That was what was in my mind. She knew. Maxine knew that something was wrong with me, that I was holding something back. And what the hell was the deal with the keyring? It was quite clear it belonged to someone from the Rip Bay Hornets. There was no doubt about that.
Could it all have been a coincidence? It seemed a stretch, but then so did meeting Maxine in the first place. I had to breathe deeply to calm myself.
When I’d stared at the keyring, I nearly ran out of there. Here was this beautiful woman; a woman whose face had haunted me for two years. Staring at me with a keyring in hand asking about the biker gang which caused her fiance’s death.
It was fucked up. The entire situation was ridiculous. It was even more ridiculous that I’d told her the engraving was a gang name. Why had I done that? Deep down I think I knew. Part of me wanted to be caught. Part of me wanted to say, Yes, I was there that night! I’m the reason you lost your fiance, lost the life you deserved. I should go to jail… Guilt is indeed a terrible thing. I was so flustered at the sight of the keyring that I’d searched for an answer to her question, the only thing I could say was a half-truth, because that’s exactly what I am. A half-truth. Caught between living my life on the road, and facing up to what I’ve done.
I was broken from my anxieties by a sound – high heeled footsteps walking on the sidewalk towards where I was. Stepping back into the shadow further so that I couldn’t be seen, I saw her again. Maxine was walking home. She was so beautiful, the dress she was wearing holding on tight to curved hips and a firm petite body. I watched, and as I did I felt a yearning. To walk beside her, to hold her hand, to take her home and to make love to her.
Christ, Josh, what are you doing!?
I was in, deep. I wanted her, and the worst part of it was that I thought she wanted me too. Waiting for a while, I left the alley once Maxine was long gone, and started to make my way back to my hotel. Along the way I tried to rationalize it.
She never saw your face.
How could she possibly identify me, or even suspect that I was on that road that night?
She saw your bike...
That was true, but it was in the dark. She said herself that she didn’t know much about bikes.
She knows... Run, Josh, ride away to somewhere new...
No, I had another couple of days before I had to meet up with Drake and the rest. For the first time in my life, I’d come up against something uncomfortable, but chosen to stay.
Why did she have such a pull on me?
You feel guilty...
It was more than that. Sure, part of the reason I went on the first date was that I wanted to know she was okay. That, even after that night, she’d been able to get on with her life. That we hadn’t ruined her happiness forever. But beyond that, once I saw her in the flesh I felt drawn to her like a moth to a flame. There was something intoxicatingly sweet about Maxine. After our date, my head told me to run for the hills, but my heart wanted to know more.
By the time I’d returned to my hotel room, I had cautiously convinced myself that she didn’t know that I was involved in the crash. I had to know for certain though that she wasn’t going to finger me.
That’s why I asked for a second date, to make sure it was just a coincidence.
No, you want more than that.
Maybe, maybe I do. But I can’t have it. As soon as I know she’s not onto me, I’m gone.
Chapter 8
I woke up the next day feeling excited. I glanced at my phone throughout the morning waiting for Josh’s phone call. Waiting for him to arrange our second date. I was also excited because he’d helped me figure out a piece of the puzzle. The RBH on Daniel’s keyring was the name of a gang. Most likely an abbreviation.
I sat there in my tiny kitchen, at my even tinier kitchen table, and plugged away at a laptop. A steaming pot of coffee sat next to me. I hadn’t changed, sitting as I was in my pajamas, I searched for "RBH biker gang."
It took me a while, filtering through a long list of sites. There didn’t seem to be any record online, until I came across an entry in an online forum where someone had had a run in wit
h a few bikers. The posts went as follows:
Harlequin: Does anyone know a biker gang starting with the initial R?
DemonEdge: You’ll need to be more specific.
Harlequin: I was run off the damned road the other day by a group of bikers, totaled my car. I was lucky I got out alive and that there was no one else with me at the time. One of them shouted a name at me, began with ‘R’ but I was still in shock. It was on the East Coast, just south of New York if that’s any help?
DemonEdge: There are a bunch of biker gangs with that initial. Plus, you’ll find they move around the country, so even though it was near New York that doesn’t mean that’s where they operate, could have come from anywhere, sorry.
The conversation went back and forth, several forum lurkers chipped in, and no one could identify the gang. That’s when a post caught my eye:
MDW: OP, I hate to say it, but it’s almost impossible to track down the biker gang you’re looking for with just one initial. There was probably more to it than just an ‘R’. May I suggest checking out Charles O’Malley’s book - ‘Hard Riders: The Biker Gang’s of the East Coast.’ That has a pretty thorough listing of the gangs who operate in that part of the country. You might be able to find the gang you’re looking for there.
For the first time, the internet had failed me. I couldn’t find anything about an RBH biker gang, but that book sounded like a step in the right direction. I quickly got changed and headed to the local library. When the woman who worked there searched for the title, she said they didn’t have it. I asked her if she could find out if any other libraries in the city had a copy, but I came home empty handed.
So, now it was to Amazon. Whenever I shopped for anything online, I usually found it there.
Nope.
It was time to turn to my second port of call when trying to order something a bit niche – Ebay. Again, nothing.
It turns out that the book was out of print, and hadn’t done all that well so there weren’t that many copies in circulation. No surprise really, it was a bit of a strange subject to me: The Biker Gangs of the East Coast. There didn’t seem to be any hook to it, if it was written by Hunter S. Thompson and was an intimate look at how these gangs function, then I’m sure it would have sold. But a kind of encyclopedia of biker gangs?
