Page 25 of Sprog
"I'm betting he's faster than you think."
"Done." Cash holds out his hand and they shake and I look at my son on my bike making engine noises and I think I might be in trouble with this kid.
EJ looks up at me with both hands tight on the bars. "Can we go fast, Dad?"
"Not yet, buddy." I crouch down so I'm level with him. "We've got time."
He considers this with the seriousness of someone who is four years old and has decided that speed is the point of everything. "How much time?"
"Enough."
He thinks about that and apparently decides it's an acceptable answer, because he goes back to his engine noises. Cash and Ramsey are still arguing about the terms of their bet. Pops is watching EJ with that look on his face, the warm one he doesn't dial down the way the other brothers do.
I stay crouched next to the bike and I watch my son and I think about the fact that I didn't plan any of this and it's the best thing in my life. All of it. The kid, the club, the house with the knocking hot water heater. None of it was the plan, but all of it is mine.
Knuckles comes out of the side door of the garage and stops when he sees the scene. He looks at EJ on the bike, at Cash and Ramsey arguing, at Pops, at me. Something passes across his face that on anyone else I'd call fond. On Knuckles it's a slight reduction in the default level of menace and that's enough.
"How old?" he says.
"Four."
He nods slowly. "My old man put me on a bike at three. I fell off."
"What happened?"
"Got back on." He looks at EJ again. "Make sure he knows that part. The getting back on part. That's the only part that matters."
He goes back inside without another word and that's Knuckles delivering the most complete piece of parenting advice I'm likely to get from him, and I'm going to take it seriously because he meant every syllable.
EJ has progressed from engine noises to also doing the handlebars, turning them back and forth like he's navigating something I can't see. The brothers have started placing additional bets on the side, something about whether he'll ask to go on a real ride before his birthday. Shadow has appeared from somewhere and put five dollars on yes before this afternoon.
"EJ," I say.
He looks at me.
"You like it?"
He looks back at the handlebars. He looks at the tank. He looks at the exhaust pipes and the forks and the mirrors. He does a full survey of the bike with the thoroughness of someone who wants to get his answer right.
"Yeah," he says finally. "It's mine too, right?"
I look at him for a second.
"Yeah," I say. "It's yours too."
Cash loses five dollars to Ramsey on a side bet about whether EJ would claim the bike before noon. He pays up grinning.
I'm not going to tell Cash and Ramsey, but I think Ramsey's going to win the big bet too.
The Annual Ride
6 Years Later
I don't tell anyone where I go.
Every year on the same date I get on the bike before the sun's up and I ride out of town and I don't come back until I'm ready. I take the highway east until the town is gone and then I open it up and I ride until the speedometer hits something that would get me arrested and I hold it there until my head goes quiet. Then I come back.
It's not healthy. I know that. I'm not doing it because it's healthy.
