CHAPTER 6

MOTORBIKE

Dad was poking the juniper bush with the jack handle again.

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Don’t know.”

“You sure do like that bush.”

He tossed the jack handle into the dirt. “What’s on the agenda today?”

“Fixing a window.”

There was a broken window in the granary. It wouldn’t be hard to repair. Find a piece of glass, cut it to size, pop it in the frame.

We walked to the granary. A granary is similar to a barn. A barn is a big wooden building where you store cows and hay. A granary is a slightly less-big wooden building where you store grain. Used to store. With the invention of grain bins, the granary lost its original purpose. Out with the grain and in with the miscellaneous farm junk.

The granary was the last original building still standing on the farm. It and the well house. The granary was older, though, and its contents held the greatest archeological significance. Harnesses from the pre-tractor era hung on nails, their leather stiff with age. There was a license plate collection from back when Colorado plates had a picture of a skier on them, and before. And lots of junk. Tires, scrap wood, boxes of glass insulators from old-time telephone poles. Lots and lots of dust.

A white barn owl used to nest in the ceiling of that granary. It was gone and dead by now, but for years that bird would scare the shit out of me. As a kid, I’d walk into the granary with the intention of finding a piece of whittling pine and that owl would glide out of its perch with wings wider than I was tall. Pass right over my head and circle out thru whatever secret hole in the ceiling it used for comings and goings.

I clapped my hands a couple of times to see if I could scare up an owl, just in case. Nothing.

As we made our way toward the cracked window, I had to step over an old bicycle frame lying in the middle of the dusty floor. Pa had modified it to hold a Briggs & Stratton washing machine engine. Homebuilt motorcycle. He did this when he was ten years old. He rode it seven miles to school each day until he got his driver’s license.

At some point after he graduated, he’d dismantled the bike. Now it was in pieces with most of the parts stuffed into a wooden milk crate.

The hell with the window. “Hey, Pa, you think we could put that thing back together?”

“What thing?”

“That bike of yours. The one you turned into a motorcycle.” I pointed. “It’s right there.”

He didn’t recognize it. His eyes couldn’t assemble shapes like they used to. I recognized it. I wanted to put it together and go for a ride.

We hauled the disassembled bike to the shed and spread the pieces on the cement floor. We had the original bike frame, a clutch assembly that Pa had built out of angle iron and wood, and a bunch of parts that could presumably be turned into an engine. The flywheel cover was decorated with hand-painted racing stripes. I laid the components of the bike out in more or less their original shape. It looked like a horse skeleton.

“That’s my old bike,” said Pa. “I put an engine on it.”

“We’re gonna put it back together.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know about that.”

“It’ll be a father-and-son project.”

“I don’t know.”

“Everything’s here. All we gotta do is put it all back together. Patch the tires. Nothing to it.”

“That’s a big job.”

“It’ll be more fun than fixing a window.”

I sent him psychic messages: Stick with me. Trust me. I’m your son. I can do things. You and I.

He said, “I gotta take a leak.” He walked away.

I squatted on the concrete floor and moved the bike parts around.

A red car pulled into the driveway. A woman wearing gigantic sunglasses stepped out. Clarissa McPhail with a movie-star scarf on her head. “You boys look like you’re up to no good.”

Dad appeared from behind the shed. His pants were unzipped. He said, “Why, hello!”

I said, “Dad. Barn door.” He zipped up.

I said to Clarissa, “Shouldn’t you be at the bank?”

“Hooky.” She tilted her head.

Pa couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Clarissa said, “You remember me, dontcha, Emmett?”

She lifted her sunglasses, winked.

“I wouldn’t forget someone like you.”

I said, “So you drove out here.”

“Seeing how the bachelors are doing.”

“You look like a movie star,” said Dad.

Clarissa patted the back of her ear. “Oh, Emmett.”

Dad continued, “You were in the TV, I think.”

Clarissa looked to me for help. I shrugged.

She poked her toe toward the pile of bike parts. “Whatcha makin’?”

Dad strutted a little. “We could tell you, but then we’d have to kill you.”

“A motorcycle,” I said. “Actually, it’s a bicycle that Pa turned into a motorcycle back in the fifties. He took it apart in the seventies and now I’m trying to get him to help me resurrect it.”

“Neat. You coming to the softball games this week?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t worry about them things D.J. was yelling. He’s a drunk.”

“Maybe.”

“You know what you oughta do? Haul Vaughn out of that cave he’s living in. Bring him with you. I know you been hanging out with him. You drank all his mom’s beer.”

Dad’s eyes popped comic-style. “You did what?!?”

“It’s true, Pa. I drank some beers.” I turned to Clarissa. “How the Christ does this stuff get out?”

“Vaughn’s mom works in a liquor store. I work in the bank. We pretty much got it all covered right there.”

Creepy. “Well. I ain’t coming.”

“I can tell you things.”

“No, thanks.”

She said, “I can tell you things about airplanes.”

Dad said, “I used to have a plane.”

I said, “Maybe I’ll see you there.”