Bringing Her to Life

By the time the Panhead sat on the lift, Eli had grease in the crease of both thumbs and under one nail he’d already broken twice. The garage smelled like old oil, wet steel, and the vinegar sting of fresh battery acid.

Samuel stood by the bench in a clean shirt that didn’t stay clean long. He watched Eli with his hands behind his back, coat hanging open enough to show the old vest beneath. The red paint on the bike caught the single bulb overhead in dull strips.

“Don’t force the plug wire,” Samuel said.

Eli stopped. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir like I’m your school principal.”

Eli glanced up, then back down. “Yes, Mr. Hayes.”

Samuel made a sound through his nose. “Better.”

They had spent three afternoons on the bike already. New points. New lines. Clean tank. Brakes bled slow because the rear cylinder had fought them every inch. Eli had cursed it twice, and Samuel had corrected him twice with the kind of patience that made a man pay attention.

He fed the choke and set the timing one more notch back. “That’s too much,” Samuel said.

Eli wiped his hands on a rag. “You sure?”

“I’m sure enough.”

The kickstarter came down once. Nothing.

Eli looked at him. Samuel nodded at the carb.

Second kick. The engine coughed, spat, and died.

Eli grinned before he could help it. Samuel didn’t.

“Again,” he said.

The third try got a rough idle, then a harsh clatter that shook the whole frame. Eli held the throttle a hair open. The bike rattled, missed, then caught on one cylinder and coughed black smoke out the pipe.

Samuel stepped closer. His jaw went tight. He put one hand on the tank like he was checking a fever.

“Once more,” he said.

Eli kicked.

The Panhead barked awake.

Not a clean sound. Not yet. It came in a rough, deep roll that filled the garage and made the tools on the pegboard tremble. The sidecar bucket shivered on its mounts. Eli’s chest went tight. Samuel stood still enough to look carved out of the floor.

Then his eyes went wet. He turned his face a little, like the light had hit him wrong.

Eli killed the throttle before it got away from him. The engine settled to a hard, uneven idle.

Samuel reached over and shut the key off with two fingers.

For a second neither of them moved. The only sound was cooling metal ticking under the bench.

Eli cleared his throat. “You want me to try it again?”

Samuel looked at the bike, not at him. “Tomorrow.”

He reached into the inside pocket of his coat, pulled out a folded page, and held it out without a word.

Eli took it carefully. The paper was soft from being handled too many times.

On one side, in block letters, was Walter’s hand.

Six lines.

Eli read the first one, then the second, then all the way down. His jaw clenched. Then it loosened.

He looked up. “You kept this all this time?”

Samuel’s mouth moved once. “He wrote it for me.”

Outside, a truck rolled past on the road, loud for a second, then gone.

Samuel touched the bike’s tank with his palm. “We’ll finish it right.”

Eli folded the page back up and slipped it into his shirt pocket like it could get lost if he didn’t.

Tomorrow, then.