Storied By Josh

“We should go on a ride sometime.”
Dave looks at me with his bright blue eyes.
“We should go.”
“I know.” I say to him. The evening stretches our shadows, our shapes grow and reach for eternity. The night will be here soon and they long to get away. Dave stands by his bike. It’s a roadster and beautiful steel, chrome and black. “I don’t really ride anymore, Dave.”
“I know. I just miss how it was before it all.”
“Me too.” He perks up at me, in that fake way we always do when it’s time to say goodbye and our hearts are breaking.
“Tell your wife I say hello.”
“I will.” And I’m back in my car and he’s driving away. I miss the way it was before it all.
I miss Dave. I miss his kid. I miss his wife. We used to ride together. His kid was his pride and joy. We saved up for three years, took a flight to Spain and rented a couple of Ducati’s. We rode the best streets in the world together. We rubbed shoulders with Ferraris Lambos and Porsches. It was the best of his life. The roads wind up mountains and down valleys. “Tell me, he asked me once, “tell me that we will always ride when the sun shines like it does in Spain.”

Madrid was always warm when we were there. The music of the café’s and the love for God’s mountains, food and people danced through us and he told me Spain was the only place. But the universe will always plot and even in our joy we knew this so it couldn’t always be this way.

Two years later his son died from a heroin overdose. Dave’s wife walked in to their son’s room and his son was white and bleeding but not anymore. The needle was in his arm. The belt wrapped around his bicep. There was no pulse. His wife held her son. The memories of a little boy who peed on her when she changed his diaper. The memories of a little boy kissing his mother on the lips and dancing in the rain. The memories of a high schooler trying on the best clothes, playing basketball and being the most beautiful thing in the world. The boy who was the most handsome boy at prom. Who laughed the best out of all the creatures. Who cried when his heart was broken by a girl and held his mother until he fell asleep as she sang to him. The boy who stared at the ceiling now with forever unseeing eyes. And his wife couldn’t take it anymore. She had a nervous breakdown. She committed suicide a week after the funeral.
Now Dave rides and it seems he never stops but I wonder if he dares. I held his hand and him while he sobbed. Now I run into him at the store. His eyes are hollow. I hug him. Before we never hugged. He would shake my hand when I saw him.

“I saw Dave today.” I told my wife as I climbed in bed that night.
“How is he?”
“Broken.”
“I’ll invite him to dinner soon.”

I wonder how now. I wonder how we all expect to do these things soon. Soon is forever away to me. Only now is what I have and you have and we all have. All these things we think we’ll do, we never do and then the world stops for us one day. It lets us off. That is when we run out of soon or later. That is when Spain is no longer there and our shadows can never run away from the sun again.
I called Dave a few days later. He said it was sunny enough to ride. I told him I would.
“Leave that crotch rocket at home. You can use my wife’s.”
“Alright.”
We met at his house and he handed me a helmet. “Where are we going?”
“That never matters.” He started his bike.
And we rode.

The road turned and shifted for us. When you ride, it is like you are stationary and the road moves itself. You merely lean this way and that to match how the road wants you to be. You feel the asphalt in the vibrations through your feet. You feel the wind against you. You feel the bike under you and you feel the sun on your leather. You feel free.

We stopped on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Dave always felt better here. We get off and walked over to the edge. He smokes a cigarette and watches the waves love the shore like they do. They pull against it and then the ocean pulls them away. Not yet, it says. The sand longs to be felt by the water again. It can only say no for so long. But the waves were never meant to be land and the land will always be apart from it. It is a sad and beautiful thing.

Dave says some things and we do things where you start to talk about memories. We talked about Spain and the way the tourists were mostly British and boring but how the people didn’t mind so we went and watched them dance like they do with the most beautiful dresses in the world. The men pretend to be in charge but the woman is everything in the dance. Without her the man would be silly and alone.

Dave told me a story about how his wife used to sing songs to his son when the boy was scared at night. The boy loved Long Time Traveler. His wife would sing it soft and low. Her fingers would ruffle the boys hair. His son would roll over and she would scratch his back until he slept.
“He was everything to us. I mean, we loved each other, but you see, she never could be happy again after it all.”
“I miss her too Dave.”
“Her most proud moment was a million of them together when she was with her boy.” His voice cracked. “I wish I had been strong enough to keep her and him. I never even knew. I didn’t know about the drugs and it didn’t matter if I did, because I would have helped him. I meant to pay more attention to both of them…sooner or later.”

“It’s not your fault.”
“It’ll always be my fault in my soul. No matter what anyone says I will always feel this. She used to know what to do in every situation, you know? I’d pretend that I did, but really if the chips were down she would know how to handle it. But after this. I am alone. I don’t think she meant to leave me. I think she meant to fix it the only way she knew how to. And I don’t hate her. I’m not angry with her like I was at first. Now I just miss her every morning when I make coffee. Sometimes I make too much because I expect her to want some. The only way to get back to things for me is to ride. I think maybe I’m hoping I’ll find both of them on the road sometime. And they’ll ask me to bring them home again.”
“Is there anything I can do?” I didn’t know what else to say.
Dave stopped and shrugged. “No. Talking to you like this helps. I am learning to live again. Every day for me is a small victory and I figure maybe enough of those victories will add up for the loss, you know? I just miss my life and now I know how it must be for others.” He stared toward the horizon and past it. He searched to the end of the universe. When he was finished searching he looked at me and smiled. Then we stood for a little and he bent over. He picked up some gravel and ran it through his fingers. He let it go and the wind took it to where the sand longed for the waves.