The Mighty Viking

The light of the day drains into the west as the sun passes the horizon, taking with it the din of the visual world, the noise of the city, the highway and its traffic, and of the emerging beauty of rugged landscape as the bike and rider climbed the grade leaving the business of the day behind. The bike’s powerful rumble shifts from harmony to strong, purposeful melody. As the world of light shrinks and the day’s energy fades, the single headlamp slowly rises to its purpose, marking the grey track before it, calling attention to the single most important bit of information the rider needs to continue on. City lights fade in the southern distance as fast as they flicker on, and on the northern horizon nothing can be seen but the vague silhouette of the next distant mountain range, illuminated by a thin sliver of moon through the broken clouds. Soon, even that outline disappears, and the world is reduced to three – the road, the motorbike, and me. A voluminous sense of peace settles into its nightly rhythm, the only thing that can be heard over the sound of the motorbike’s engine drone. We ride alone together, we three, and the whispers of stories catch my ear. The bike and I do our best to get the road to tell us its stories.

The stories that emerge are but tales I already know, thoughts that have been stashed in pockets of my mind for the chance to give them their due when the time is right. The thoughts that have been drowned by the brilliance of the day, now sparkle from the shadows like gems in the pavement ahead of me. They are of a different stock than the thoughts of day, they are connected more closely in this smaller realm rolling through blackness held back by one shaft of light. These stories – of other riders that have passed this way, of truckers hauling their freight from dock to dock, men crossing the country to rejoin their family, of families with their children migrating, scurrying over this untamed wilderness to a new life – these are also my stories. This rhythm that I’ve settled into, after cresting the dark mountain pass’s twisting climb, settles into a long stretch across these highlands with slow, sweeping corners. The people in the stories of this road are individuals, not the throbbing masses of humanity of the city, I can see their faces sometimes, they look back at me with the recognition of one human to another. While the bike’s headlight searches for meaning ahead of me, my mind’s headlight does the same.

And so, the tales are told, the highway’s wind whistling past, the bike’s engine thrumming like a piper’s drones, and sometimes, like tonight, even the night itself stops what it’s doing and listens in.

Here, on this dimly lit night ferry, a group of truckers bask in the melancholy end of their day of work, relaxing from the work of navigating their rigs through this day. Each has a place to go yet tonight, a short leg of a much longer day’s journey, but they are nearly done. They have gathered around a table, playing dice and quietly joking with each other as if they’ve known each other forever, the bond of their profession bringing them together. Occasionally they erupt in laughter when the dice rolls. A biker sits in the corner with his arms folded over his road-stained leathers, content with his travel, seeming out of place for the well-kept cafeteria deck. The cafeteria has closed, the distant lights of the island hover above and below the blackness of the night across the water, and the smell of the Sea occasionally wafts in. The waters are still, but not the placid smoothness of a lazy summer day. This is the calm of a sea whose guts are still churning from the storm earlier, a sea spent and worn, that still smells of things dredged up by the wind and waves that beat it through the day. A storm has passed, the same storm these truckers and biker have passed through today.

This is not a pretty boat here in the deep of the night. Couples in love do not canoodle their way around the outer decks. Pairs of old ladies, friends from as far back as they can remember, do not sit in seats with their shopping bags from a day in the Big City gabbing about their neighbours. It is a boat of business tonight, of the serious deeds of life being done while others sleep.

In between the biker and the truckers sit a man and his grandson riding home to tell grandma of the wondrous things seen and done today. The little boy asking questions one after another – his energy fading faster than his curiosity. The grandpa answers about every third question, letting the boy walk himself through the others, and smiles at the animated joy that forces the weary child up and for a quick lap of the row seats when an answer dawns on him. Sometimes he winds up at the window, staring at the distant island lights. Sometimes he winds up underneath the seats, exploring for more questions. The questions the young boy asks of his Grandpa are of this new world of Industry. He wants to know about the trucks in the hold. He wants to know where they might be going, what they might contain. He wants to know why the smell of the tires and diesel excites him. He has caught a hint of the connection of his Grandpa, the man that up till now was just an old man who loved him, but now, in the context of this night, he realizes that this old man is part of this world too – and suddenly a knower of Manly Things.

The boy searches for more questions to ask of his Grandpa. He peers at the biker over the back of his chair 40 feet away and studies the leather-clad figure, covered in road-grime and mud and bugs and other short-”u” voweled Earth Words. When the biker’s eyes unexpectedly open, the boy ducks, turns around, and asks his Grandpa another question in low, urgent tones. A low chuckle is the only response. The lad sits in silence for a little while, then surreptitiously steals another glance. The biker’s eyes open again, and the sudden eye contact shocks the boy’s senses. He spins around again, and in the stillness of sitting, not wanting to be seen, the day suddenly overtakes him. His questions fade, the top of his head droops against his grandfather’s shoulder, and the dim lights of the island tiptoe closer without his knowledge.

The biker sits, watching the truckers, listening to the boy’s newfound silence, keeping track of the Ferry personnel and occasional other passengers that wander through the tables looking for something to do. Here, at the bow of the ship, an atmosphere has been created that makes others hurry along, feeling out of place here, looking to find refuge in another part of the ship. This place is for those who have done Deeds today. And this boy is in their midst. The grandfather has, by being here with him on this night amongst the truckers and the biker, shown this boy who he will become, where he belongs in this life, a Doer of deeds.

It was a cool spring morning in the spring of 1911. Well, to be honest, I don’t know what the weather was like. I don’t even know if it was spring. No one still living knows. But sometime in that year, my great-grandpa Keller made a decision that has echoed through 4 generations. He took a job. Not just any job, he was only thirteen, and the job he found was one of the only ones available to his circumstances. He became a messenger for Western Union in Indianapolis, Indiana.

 Delivering messages across that sprawling city required speed, and to give him that speed, they gave him one of the newest ways of getting around quickly in a crowded city. They put him on a Thor motorcycle. In doing so, the company set in motion a chain of events that would span 4 generations of riders. Just last week, I came face to face with the legendary bike that started it all.

The event was the Coos Art Museum Exhibit in Coos Bay, Oregon. For 45 days in June and July, they exhibited some of the rarest motorcycles in existence, including a 1909 Thor similar to my Great-Grandpa’s. And this last week, with my father riding down from Tillamook, we went together to take a step back into our own personal history, and the history of the world of motorized cycling itself.

Man, it was an awesome exhibit! The 1909 Thor, was, according to my dad, the same kind of bike that my great-grandpa rode as a western union messenger in the early 1900′s, but it was in rough shape. There was a lot of rust, and I doubt if it ran. I wanted to take that poor forgotten thing home and give it some decent treatment. It had curiously long, tall cylinders, very straight, with very simple heads. I thought that seemed kinda odd compared to the strangely shaped heads and the tapered cooling fins on all the other bikes on display. 



Across the museum floor from it, a 1914 Cyclone (featured in the promotional online video for the exhibit) had the coolest engine, with external valves, and levers, and tubes going to the strangest places. There were parts that looked more like saxaphone components than an engine. I felt like if I could just get that machine into my garage, I could watch those valves – that machine, clicking and clacking all day long, puttering along with its guts out on display. I’d probably sit there with an antique oil can, poinking away periodically just to feel helpful. The leaf springs were absolutely whacky, it almost looked like they had taken a model T’s springs, cut them into segments, and placed the sections strategically around the bike – a spot up front for the front forks, another spot vertically in back for the swing arm, and what seemed to be the center section wedged under the saddle. There were a few mechanical curiosities I couldn’t figure out, such as the apparent pump knob on one of the openings on top of the tank. I finally realized it was a pressurizing pump and cap, kind of like Coleman camp stoves, to pressurize the dry sump oil system. 



In addition to the Thor and Cyclone, there was a 1920 Indian of the same era as my Grandpa (Great-grandpa Keller’s son) first rode as a teenager and fell in love with the wind. I had a chance to sit with my Grandpa just two months ago, stopping by to visit while returning from a cross-country ride to Quebec. I asked him how he got started in motorcycling. It seems he had a friend whose dad had a car dealership, and they wound up with this Indian one day. His friend asked if he wanted to ride it, so they went out into the country, and the friend set him up, told him how to steer, and sent him off. What he didn’t tell him was how to use the clutch, so Grandpa was free to ride – but couldn’t stop completely. So he rode for miles until he found a wide place on that country lane where he could turn around without stopping. And he was hooked on the wind from that day on. Even at 90, my grandpa’s face still reflects that moment of joy like it was yesterday.

They had a fine collection of Harleys across a long span of years, starting with the first motorcycle we saw as we paid for our admission, a grey 1911 with leather belt and a ratcheting lever for a clutch. My dad and I spent some time re-living the heady times when this idea of engaging a motor to push you along the ground with a lever – it was like being kids again. I decided at some point that my dad and I would have been awfully good friends if we’d been kids at the same time. A couple other guys were walking through and sort of got caught up in our time-warp conversation. Pretty soon there were 5 or 6 guys imagining themselves with elbow-long gauntleted gloves and leather overcoats gadding about the streets of a city without traffic lights. I know that if truth were told, at some point every one of us flinched our left arm pulling that imaginary lever. Just a lever – and yet so much behind it.



And then there was the ’42 Flathead that my dad said was one of the models Grandpa had when my dad was a kid (again, not great-grandpa, but grandpa). My dad recalled that his sister always got to sit on the outside of the sidecar because she was older, and his mom sat on the back, so he was stuck up against the engine unable to see anything. His only revenge was winter, when he was the only warm one of the bunch. I looked hard at the area by the motor there between the back tire and the seat, where he would have been up against as a little boy, and could feel the pain of being so close – and yet so far – from the summer wind whistling through the Indiana countryside. And I glared at my aunt in my mind, for being so lucky – and so oblivious to her fortune. 


The 1920-ish Harley with double headlights was one of my favorites. As we were looking at it, it struck me that the only gauge was an ammeter, which read, left to right, from -10 to 0 to +10 amps. I said to my dad, “Ah, gone are the days when the single most important piece of information needed to be given to the rider by the machine was not just whether or not amperage was being produced, but how much, and in which polarity”. Apparently there was no speed possible that warranted an indicator to tell the rider of his accomplishment. That would have to wait a few more years.

My dad nudged me a couple bikes down from there, at the 1930′s Harley track bike. My Great-Grandpa Sutton had gotten his start in racing on just such a bike. He went on to be a prominent Sprint car builder in Indianapolis, and even built an Indy-car once. But motorcycles was where he started.



There were a couple of very interesting Royal Enfields, including the “Flying Flea”. This bike was made for wartime, and came with its own steel tube crate, and parachute. We got a kick out of the name. The exhaust manifold pipe, where it left the exhaust port, bulged curiously, and we thought hard about the reason for that for a few minutes. As near as we could deduce, it bulged to give extra room for the quickly exhausting gases, sort of a buffer zone for extra capacity. Honestly, we didn’t really know, but the 5 minutes spent bantering about the possibilities was a lot of fun. Sometime, years from now, I’m going to find out just out of the blue somewhere, and I’m going to call my dad up at that very moment and let him know. I hope he’s still around to take my call.



In the very back there was a 1958 BMW with its sideways-rotating left-side kick start, and a lever that had to be a gear shift, down under the rider’s right leg. I imagined myself having to hang on and clutch with the left hand, while reaching around below my right leg to shift. It would have been a challenge. To be honest, the rear seat on that one looked as comfortable as anything we saw. I love the shape of the boxer engine, and there was nothing hiding its glory.



In addition to the truly antique, quite a few of the classics from across the years were present. One of my favorites was the ’79 Honda CBX. A friend of mine had one of those up at Walla Walla where I went to college. He’d let me go riding through the rural roads through the Wheat Country on weekends. Dang, those were good times. Six cylinders and rolling hills of farmland. Oh…MAN!! What a blast that bike was.

After we’d seen everything, we stood near the entrance, not really wanting to leave, but not having anything more to see either. So I turned to my dad, and said, “Ok, I’ve got a shoe box with all the keys to all these bikes in it. You get to pick out two. Which ones?”

It was clearly a struggle for him, but in the end, it came down to the ’48 Indian, with the wrap-around fringe treatment on everything, bright yellow paint, and full wheel fenders, and the 1911 Harley with its belt-clutch. Then he reversed the question on me.

I went with the Thor.

And the 1920 Harley with its twin headlights and ammeter.

And maybe…well, maybe the ’58 BMW…
But that 1914 Cyclone that would entertain me just sitting in the garage running…
and the ’42 Harley Flathead. I would always make sure every kid got to sit in the wind…
But that ’50-something Vincent, with its knobs and levers and the sheer mechanical-ness of it, oh yes! I live for something to adjust, and that thing would let me adjust EVERYTHING!



So which did I come away with?

All of them. All of them, wrapped up in my head. Every time I look in the mirror of my ’08 Road King, all those bikes are looking back at me, just above where the print says, “objects may be closer than they appear”. When I grasp the handles of my ’77 BMW R100/7, and push it off the center stand, out of the garage, and out around the 10-mile country loop I use to test adjustments, they will be there following me, making sure I remember that it’s ok to be broken down sometimes, that there’s something normal about the quiet side of a back road, with the breezes blowing through the grass and the faint whine of cars on the distant highway, and the clank of an unexpected drop of a wrench to punctuate the silence. That hand lever will stick in my mind in that place where “things I should grab to engage the engine” sits. The low, swept-back handlebars will always seem right somehow, regardless of how many times I reach for my own raised bars. If I sit very quiet on my stool in front of the workbench and look out at the empty space in my garage, a Cyclone will always be pumping its valves up and down. In his place in my heart, my 13-year old Great-Grandpa Keller, desperate to grow up and make a living, will be making these mechanical marvels become practical. Grandpa Keller, with his love of the wind, will always be whispering in my ear to get rid of the windscreen and throw it in the corner. Great-Grandpa Sutton will always be pushing my bike to be faster, and better, to tinker with it until I figure it out – and then tinker just a little more. And my dad, whom I learned to lean with in the corners when I was just a child riding with him on the back of a Honda 350 scrambler on the back roads of southern California – he and I will always hold a special scorn for those who don’t appreciate the outside seat in the summer.

Once, years ago, my dad made a statement that really took me aback. He was telling me about his Harley, and a particular ride along the coast that he enjoyed nearly daily, and told me how he found happiness in that ride. Well, being the young, audacious, and spiritually superior man that I was, and not having a shiny Harley myself, but an old beat up BMW, I saw a challenge to be made there. It saddened me a little bit that he should be stuck in a place where happiness was to be found on an expensive piece of machinery.

So I challenged him. I said, “But, could you drive that particular drive in a 1973 orange Datsun B210 with Automatic transmission, and still be happy?”

I might as well have squirted 20,000-mile old axle grease into his breakfast bowl. Either the juice from a thousand lemons had reached into his psyche somehow, or… there was not going to be any happiness found in a 1973 orange Datsun B210 anywhere, any way, any how.

Now, you must understand, a 1973 Orange Datsun B210 with Automatic Transmission is much more than a machine. It is an evil, swirling cosmos of fast-food refuse infused indelibly into the smell of cheap plastic upholstery, mold, grease (in addition to the burger grease on the steering wheel) and Unnamed Evils worked into the carpet, wrapped into possibly the most inept application of transportational machinery ever contrived, wrapped in the most gaudy, hideously offensive, in-your-face look-at-me-I’m-a-poverty-stricken-idiot-who-not-only-can’t-but-wouldn’t-if-I-could-afford-a-more-decent-conveyance acts of aggressive stupidity ever foisted upon humankind. Yes, it’s that bad.

And that’s coming from a guy who owns three old VW’s, all of which have, somewhere on them, holes connecting the cockpit to the outside formed by rust.

And in my mind, I was at once sad, and smug in the knowledge that I had a Deeper Peace, that I could find happiness in an orange Datsun B210 if I had to.

A couple months ago, however, as has happened far too often over the span of years, my illusions of philosophical superiority over my father were shattered. And it started at the refrigerator.

There, in the dark confines of the fridge, there abode a carton of Egg Nog, waiting to contribute to the sumptuous satisfaction of Morning Coffee. Egg Nog Coffee is a seasonal delicacy around here, and its season is welcomed with rejoicing. It is a celebration of home and family, the comforts of settling in from a raucous, wild, hilarity-filled summer to the quiet comforts of inside voices. It is the celebration of impending visitation from the children, and grandchildren, and the chaos of family coming together cooking, eating, making merry with one another in a way only possible when a group that big is compressed into the confines of a winter-storm-sheltered home. Egg Nog Coffee brings its own aroma, but somehow also conjures the baking of pastries, the long-simmering savory-ness of large birds cooking in the oven, of cinnamon rolls baked late at night by the visiting sons and daughters each vying to prove they have the Best Recipes. Egg Nog Coffee, wherever you drink it, it takes you to your front window, where you look out the window early in the morning, at the evidence of cold – frost-patterned windows, icicles, gloomy days of coastal rain, with the warmth of the fireplace at your back, radiating inward through something woolen. Egg Nog Coffee, on any cold, miserable, lonely, semi-conscious morning, is Magic.

And on this morning, having poured the coffee, I reached into the darkened cavern that lights up at my approach, but its lamp did not shine on the Egg Nog. Because the Egg Nog was not there.

It would have been one thing to simply be out of Egg Nog, to be denied the joy for one day. But there, one shelf down, was the 1973-orange-Datsun-B210-with-automatic-transmission of creamers. I was staring at my own private horror, and nothing I could do was going to avert the spiritual train-wreck about to happen.

I suddenly, with horrification washing over me, found myself standing alone, in the kitchen, with a bottle of Vanilla Caramel non-dairy in my hand.

And all I could think of was a Datsun, with Automatic Transmission, with rust-highlighted colors.

It had been a long time since I have sported a wan smile. I don’t know how well I did at it, as there was no one but the dog to judge, and he just looked at me with lips that have virtually no muscle control, and said, “Hey.” That’s all he ever says. I then tried a sheepish grin, and since it had dual application in realizing the folly of my philosophy, and the folly of expecting a dog to judge me by appearance, I think I probably did well at that.

As I poured the vile substance into my equally vile cheap coffee, I realized that I, like most of us probably, am made up of a lot of illusions, and that quite frankly, illusions aren’t bad things in and of themselves. But if we cling too tightly to them, that’s where we get ourselves into trouble. Vanilla Caramel creamer is vile, so…why did I even have it in the fridge? Well, I didn’t, it was someone else’s choice. But why am I writing this essay with coffee flavored with vile substance in my cup at my side? I do it because writing in the winter, without coffee no matter how vile steaming at my side, would seem wrong somehow in this cold autumn season.

I don’t know if it was the Evil of the coffee concoction or what, but pretty soon I was thinking in spiritual terms. The funny thing about the things God has told us to do – they don’t just pertain to how to “behave”. They aren’t things that, if we could hide our other deeds, would really matter if we only did them in His presence. They seem, often, to be principles that work best when employed throughout our daily life. I wonder if my dad hasn’t discovered in his own way an application for the concept “Ye shall have no other gods before me”. Perhaps what God wanted us to learn was not to accept miserable engineering, or cheap imitation substitutes. Perhaps He wanted us to hold out for the best, and in doing so not to encumber ourselves with those things that only satisfy our illusions, and allow us to only dream about the reality that lies behind them. Egg Nog coffee? It has nothing to do with frosted windows, or woolen things. Those pleasures, if I want to experience them, are just a closet door and front door away from me, should I need them. Egg Nog is a reminder of those times, something that keeps me close to them. When it becomes a substitute, then I have a problem. And when I’m prepared to ingest Vanilla Caramel as a substitute to the substitute, then I have a dependency problem.

I wonder if my dad will be able to fully appreciate my sheepish grin over the phone? Maybe I should ride the Harley up to see him this afternoon.

The rain drums down outside, washing down the sides of our commuter train, and fogging up the windows. Without being able to watch the Christmas-colored city whooshing by, my attention is turned to my fellow passengers. To my left, there is a girl scrunched down, sleeping, covered up by a ball cap and a huge wool coat, with only a dangly earring sticking out to identify her. Her unwillingness to share anything more than her textile exterior make me want to know what stories she has to tell. Two business men sit opposite each other in the “facing seat” section, looking so similar I want to reach out and rearrange one of them, just to be assured one isn’t the image of the other. My mind plays with the idea of changing one of them, making one the “business” version, and one the “sports” version. From the way they hold themselves, I doubt they’d notice me. The newspapers in front of each draw that all-important divider between them, that international symbol of “don’t bother me, and I won’t bother you”. I resist the urge to introduce them to each other, and look further.

Down the aisle, in the “side by side seats” section with the open spot for wheelchairs by the door, sit a couple, they appear to be of Hispanic descent. They sit on opposite sides of the aisle, with their young son reclined in a stroller between them, though the father has hold of the stroller, and occasionally pulls it over to his side as people come in or get off of the train. They are both actively engaged in a conversation with someone whose back is to me, on the wife’s side of the aisle. Something about them has attracted my attention, and so I’ve been watching them periodically, sort of subconsciously gathering information. Just moments ago my reason for interest in them came to my awareness. It’s the father.

He laughs a little, talks with a fair amount of animation, he seems like a happy man, in general. He’s interested in whatever they’re talking about, and obviously has a fair amount to say. But periodically, he looks down to check on his son. There, he’s doing it again. The look to his son lasts perhaps at most five seconds. But something happens, something transpires during that short span that interests me. The features on the father’s face change. His whole being seems to change. He softens, quiets, and focuses. His facial features reflect what can only be described, from my vantage point, as complete devotion to the sleeping child. He doesn’t just look at the boy’s outsides. You can almost hear the thoughts going through his mind, thoughts that have nothing to do with the conversation going on in his absence on the other side of the train. His mouth changes shape, it quiets, loses it’s readiness to say the next phrase. His eyes lose the detachment that a person in a group has when talking to everyone, and to no one in particular. They focus, keen yet gently, both taking in and sending out messages between his son and himself.

But I’m not privy to that communication. It is public, anyone who turns their gaze to him can see something going on. But only he, and perhaps his sleeping son, know what it is. All I can do is let the moment call back to my own mind thoughts that I had when my own children were lost in sleep after an adventurous day. And something else, something unclear to me, lurks in the mist of distant recall. Could it be I remember my own father’s gaze? Could it be that even through my dreams, I could feel his love directed toward me as I lay sleeping?

I don’t know. But what is it that draws such attention from a father, and particularly this one before me, so as to draw him so completely out of his social activities? Is it just what it seems at first, a general concern for his son’s welfare, to make sure he’s still breathing, is comfortable, has everything he needs? Is it the remembrance of a specific event that they shared that day? Perhaps they went to see the Christmas lights in the city, and the young boy exhausted himself with excitement. These memories grow fonder with time in the minds of fathers, and perhaps this father is tucking this memory away. Perhaps he introduced his son to a family tradition that was handed down to him by his father in the same manner, and this look of his is a way of passing the torch. Or maybe…maybe they just had a really good time today, and this father knows that time is short, and to be savored when raising children.

The son, for his part, seems completely oblivious to anything and everything around him. If he were any more relaxed I’m sure he would seep out of his clothes, through a seam in the stroller, and into a puddle on the floor. It would seem this young lad has absorbed all he’s going to today. He has given himself over to that blissful task of committing the day over to his dreams, perhaps for use later on in life. I wonder. I wonder if he senses, even in his dreams, the gaze of his father upon him? Does it penetrate his dreams, and season his memories of this day with love? Will he, when he’s 25, and sitting on another train, perhaps in another city, feel the bond between he and his father, and for reasons not entirely clear to him feel compelled to reach down and pull a stroller closer to him? Is this, after all, what has caused this 5-second pause in his father’s conversation?

So short a space of time, and yet, perhaps it lasts for generations.

A friend of mine saw an oddity today, and posted a challenge on facebook to come up with a fun backstory to it.  I might have gotten a little carried away, I don’t know.  This is still pretty raw, but thought I’d throw it out there…

Ann climbed the concrete slope under the bridge one more time, making sure her little girl still was safely tucked in blankets and cardboard, and then ventured out with her present. She had finished sorting through the bag of clothes donated to the women’s’ shelter and given to her, finding what fit, what didn’t fit – and what she could not wear. Much of what she had received had been usable in some way. But there were a few articles that made no sense – a man’s pair of jeans, a coat that could have fit two of her, 3 dresses that didn’t fit at all and probably were beyond wearing by anyone.

And a pair of fabulous shoes.

The shoes fit perfectly. It was almost as if they had been made for her. But bright red, with 4” heels – she had put them on, dreamed with them, walked a few awkward steps in them – but they were not her. She could not wear something so out of place with her situation in life. She set them in the “donations” pile hesitantly, wishing and dreaming. But these shoes did not fit into her life.

The “donations” pile was a pile she always made each time she got a box. She would take the articles in that pile, and put them in places where people who needed just that sort of article would be most likely to find them. She had earlier taken the jeans and coat to the opposite corner of the onramp, across the onramp’s road and placed them lightly on the fence that kept animals – and people – from accidentally wandering onto the busy freeway above. She knew there were men there that would find them.

The dresses she set another block away, behind a tree where another woman would probably pass, walking through the park there where she frequently patrolled. And then Ann returned to her bridge, laid her little girl down to sleep in the nooks formed by the bridge girders, and looked again at the shoes, thinking hard.

Charlotte twitched with the eager energy of someone absolutely bored to tears, anxious to do something, anything, ready for a good excuse for something crazy. She had never been especially good at long-term relationships, because of this boredom of hers. It had landed her in hot water with the law occasionally, but her reputation as a scientist had gotten her out of anything serious. People would often say, “oh, that’s just Charlotte”, and try to pretend nothing serious had ever happened. Brilliance in her profession had excused things before, but had never explained them. And explanation was all she had ever wanted. She could not understand why she could not stick with anyone, why everything in her near-celebrity life made her so restless, why she sought for something new constantly. And it sometimes hurt. It hurt to know people didn’t understand. It hurt to know there was something wrong inside. But it did not hurt nearly as bad to leave a relationship as it did to stay in it.

On this morning, a brutal fog made her glad she had a driver. She often felt silly, having a car come for her that was not hers, and a chauffeur open the door for her. It made her feel even more isolated, and something unreal always lurked inside the gaping maw of the open limousine door. But on this day she was glad not to be the one at the controls. She stared intently at the passing road, trying to guess if she was able to see further than the driver. But it was the road, precisely, that she watched, and not the traffic. Suddenly, out of nowhere she yelled, “Stop the car!” The driver’s sudden lurch to the shoulder only helped the door open faster.

When the idea first hit Ann’s mind, she nearly clapped with glee at the though of the scene that would unfold. It was almost a wicked thought, and she checked herself. It was an unchristian thought, she told herself, to tap into the vanity of the privileged ones, and tempered her image into a kinder way of thinking of it. And then she stole away from her sleeping child, on a mission of joy only she would ever understand.

She had waited until the wee hours, because being out where she could be seen was too risky. She furtively dashed up the onramp until she reached the top, and measured herself up against the “Merging Traffic” sign before counting off 20 paces beyond it. And there, 20 diminutive paces beyond the 82^nd street onramp “Merging Traffic” sign, she delivered her payload. Two minutes later she lay beside her daughter, snickering in her mind at the vain but happy discovery some rich lady would have the next morning, one pair of bright red fabulous pumps found on the side of the freeway, free for the taking. The sound of an early morning motorcycle accelerating onto the freeway more than covered the quiet laughter.

Charlotte was already back up the freeway before the car completely stopped. The chauffeur tumbled out as fast as he safely could, already knowing the only thing he could do is follow and hope for the best. He caught up with Charlotte 200 yards up the freeway. She was holding a red pair of shoes, and repeating over and over, “This is so weird! This is so weird”, twirling around as if she expected a fairy godmother to pop into existence at any moment.

“What, precisely, is so weird?” came a man’s voice that was not any of the ones she expected.

She looked around her, and realized it was not the chauffeur who had spoken. Both she and the chauffeur realized with a shock that raised the hair on their necks that the voice was from a very large biker crouched next to his machine, shrouded in the fog on the onramp. His motorcycle sat silent, and he had a screwdriver in his hand, still held up to the bike. He spoke into his machine, as if the question were not intended for her. But since neither the bike nor Charlotte responded, he repeated his question, this time looking over his shoulder, his hands still held to the machine, “What, I said, is so weird about standing on the side of this freeway in the fog in what I can only refer to as your Sunday best?” The question had a slight sense of irritation to it, as if she’d interrupted him from a meditation. In a way she had, but she did not know this about him yet. All she knew was that the leather jacket tossed over the seat could have clothed her, the chauffeur, her best friend Kim and possibly a large dog, all at the same time. She had to stop herself from the fleeting question of whether it was one cow’s hide that clothed many such men, or many cows who clothed this one. It was one of those types of questions that came to her in times of stress, and one of those that had gotten her in trouble more than once for asking out loud. To her own surprise, she actually answered the question.

“These shoes. They were sitting here on the freeway.”

“Yes. I see a fair number of shoes on the freeway”, said the biker, in a way that made her think this moment beside his bike was one he was very familiar with. “It’s not as weird as you might think”

“But these shoes are mine”, she wheedled, as if talking to her mother explaining her way out of possession of the neighbor’s pie plate. The act fell flat, and she was suddenly brought back to the reason she was standing, in the fog, on the freeway in early morning traffic, with an anxious chauffeur and a really big, broken down biker. The gravity of the situation dawned on her in a way the chauffeur had thought about 50 yards ago. She took a step towards the chauffeur, which was conveniently a step further away from the biker. It occurred to her that a good explanation might protect her. “These shoes – I saw them as we went past. They are mine! Well, they were mine, until I gave them away last week. And then I changed my mind, but I went to the donation center and they were already gone and…” her words were gushing out so fast they crashed into one another, and it was evident that the sound of them disturbed his meditation.

The biker rose slowly, and turned in a way that can only have the proper effect in a fog. She stopped talking, feeling suddenly like a little girl nattering about her tea yesterday with Ms. Matilda, the doll in the corner, and all the news that dolls like Ms. Matilda’s were prone to have, cares about the state of the stuffed animals, and worrying about whether Darjeeling was really any better than Earl Grey on a day like this and didn’t she think the curtains would be better served trying to match with a different bed cover…

He carefully set his tools down inside the roll unfolded on the tank, picked up the rag laying next to it, and began meticulously wiping his hands, looking at her with his head turned just a little aside, as if listening to a curiousity at the county fair. It made her feel uncomfortable, as if she were about to be examined for broken parts as well, and she decided to stop sounding like something broken. She stepped a little to one side, then back clutching and glancing at the bizarre discovery in her hands, unsure whether the next gesture from him would be helpful or dangerous.

His face was a cross between the Ghost of Christmas Present and Captain Ahab. Sun, wind, and miles had done a lot of work to create lines on his face, but they had formed in laughter, and he bore the look of an old man smiling regardless of what he wanted to look like. She decided perhaps he was trying to look serious now, and without him actually asking the question, she held the shoes aloft as evidence.

“Interesting”, he intoned, and looked back down the onramp as if a thought had stuck its head out from around the corner, beckoning. He sniffed the air, and thought hard for a moment, as if in a trance, and neither of the two people before him thought to interrupt him. A minute passed and his thinking was clearly of something or someone so entirely different than them that Charlotte began to feel as if she were intruding just to be standing there.

He stirred, began to say something, changed suddenly and addressed the chauffeur instead, “Who, precisely, are you?”

“Jeffrey, Sir”, the chauffeur responded stiffly. “ I am Ms. Charlotte’s driver, and am here at her service”, the last part aimed at nudging her to recall the car, the destination, and perhaps a thought for their mutual safety. Charlotte blithely ignored all three. The biker looked the driver up and down, glancing twice at Charlotte and back again, apparently assessing his worthiness for such service.

“How long have you been here?” she asked, holding the shoes up at him again as if the question was supposed to answer more than a quantity of time.

“Oh, I don’t know. Tune-ups are less a matter of time and more a matter of sound” he said slowly, as if all three were standing in a brick garage somewhere safe and sheltered from the elements, and a philosophical discourse on harmony with one’s machine was the most pertinent topic available. He started to disengage, to return to the work at hand.

“And you just come here on the freeway to tune up your bike?” she asked incredulously, completely forgetting the shoes.

“Well…” he said, pondering, “I want the bike to smell where it’s going, to be in the mood it will be in while on the highway” He said, and at first she thought he was serious, until she caught the tail end of his eyes rolling as he was turning away, chuckling silently.

“wait!” She cried, losing her sense of intimidation. “Did you see anyone while you were here?”

“Did I see someone stop by, and drop off a pair of shoes for you? No!” he said, mildly amused. “They said they were for a miss Amelia Earhart, and if I were to see her, would I please see to it that she notices and receives them.” “But…” and he paused himself, almost getting caught in another thought again, “…I have only seen one person today, and she was down there” he nudged his head back down the onramp. “I wouldn’t expect her to have anything to do with those shoes though. I think she was homeless, she’d have picked them up if she knew about them, I expect.” And with that he reached back in to his bike’s mechanicals. Charlotte was already gone, running down the onramp. Jeffrey stood, watching her disappear, watching the biker return to his work, and wondered if he shouldn’t just return to the car for all the good he seemed to be doing.

Ann’s sleep had been more disturbed than even usual this morning. Amongst the various highway sounds that always kept her sleep light, something else she couldn’t quite finger gnawed at her efforts at unconsciousness. Something was thinking about her. It made her uneasy – she had felt this feeling before, in fact, it was a recurrent thought that formed the main reason she was living under this bridge. She knew, in her head, that it was just the paranoia, that nothing was really there. But that sense in her heart that Something knew about her, and wanted to know more – was after her – kept her on the run. She had moved from house to house, from man to man, until eventually she had given up on houses, and given up on men, because the Something always found her, always came sniffing around, never showing itself, just thinking…just seeking her, and driving her insane.  She had a child to think about now, and didn’t want the insanity to return.  But now, in this early morning, she felt it again. Something wasn’t quite as it was usually. And she felt afraid.

Daylight was driving back the shadows, and Ann knew it was time to move on to the shelter for something to eat. Her young daughter stirred, and woke, and that made it necessary to move on with her day. She gathered the two bags she allowed herself, and her daughter, checked for cars so no one would see her descend, and began to shuffle down the slope to the sidewalk. Her kind thoughts of secret generosity had disappeared, and she was on the run again. As she reached the bottom, a woman’s voice startled her from behind.

“Excuse me!”, called the woman. Ann wanted to run back up to the girders, but she knew it was useless. She heard the woman’s running and turned, ready to be ashamed. The woman had stopped running, and now stood with mouth agape, staring. Ann’s gaze hung near the ground, heavy with expectation.

Charlotte rounded the corner of the offramp, and saw a mother furtively descending from the girders of the bridge. She flailed the shoes towards the woman, and bounded towards her, hoping to catch up before the woman reached the bottom. They arrived at the same time, and she called to the woman twice, “excuse me…EXCUSE ME!” As the woman stopped and turned, whatever Charlotte was going to say fled her mind, as yet another shock sprung itself upon her.

The woman was exactly the same height as Charlotte. Her stance was not so upright, and her face was worn with cares and fears Charlotte could not imagine. But it was Charlotte’s own face. Her stance bore the same underlying strength, her face, beneath the lines of worry bore the same radiance and intelligence. They looked more than just sisters. They looked like the same person. Charlottes shocked stare lasted long enough for Ann to look up and return the gaze.

“Ann?” Was the only word spoken. It had been so long since Ann had heard that name used that it took a moment to sink in and process, an another moment to sink in that this person knew her name. She looked again, squinting to get a clearer view of this unknown Someone that knew her name. The eighteen years since their last meeting had been a lot longer for her than for Charlotte, and it took a lot longer for her mind to traverse that span of time before she could comprehend what was happening. But when she did, she dropped her two bags, nearly dropped her child, and dropped herself to her knees, caught only at the last minute by her twin sister.  The red shoes, still held in Charlotte’s hand, were soon stained with tears of joy shared between them on the fog-dampened sidewalk.

(Author’s note: Not sure how I feel about this piece. I wrote it several years ago, and I have held on to it except to show a very select few here and there. My wife has fallen in charge of one of the local food banks, and it was well-received there, but I don’t know how well it reads to someone who isn’t involved with one. Please – do comment and let me know how it seemed to you)

Sam was my keeper. He would spritz me, wash me, put me at the top of the pile, and watch out for me. I noticed just yesterday, as a woman came near with her cart and toddler, that he was suddenly busy, right there beside me, pretending to look over the peaches. I knew why he was there. He wanted the woman to keep an eye on her child, to prevent the mischievous lad from causing me grief. I was grateful, because that boy had his eye on me from way over by the potatoes. He had it in for me, but his mother, noticing Sam, was careful to keep the cart beyond arms reach of me. It felt wonderful to be so well taken care of.

But it was all for naught. Just a few hours later a lady with far, far too much perfume wafted into the aisle and saw an apple she wanted at the bottom of the pile. With complete disregard for the rest of us she dove for it, knocking us hither and yon. I found myself bouncing, bouncing down the side of the pile of fellow apples, and then suddenly, not bouncing anymore, but floating free. In that one fleeting, horrific moment my life past before my eyes, and I knew that this was the end. I bounced again, but this time with a sickening squishing sound, as my side was bruised by the carefully waxed tile floor. I felt the life go out of me, I knew inside that this was the end. She frantically picked me and the others up, hoping no one would notice her carelessness. She hastily shoved me back into the pile, smothering me in her perfumed hands, holding me against the precarious balance, hoping gravity would suspend itself long enough for her to make it over to the meat department. A couple of my brothers dropped again, spilling around her awkward, outstretched fingers, and she scooted them into a pile, one with her shoe, then the other with her left hand while she held me up with the right hand. I choked, I gasped under the smothering fragrance of her fat, bejeweled fingers. Then, as suddenly as she had come, she was gone. Quiet peered around the corner, and tiptoed back to us, afraid lest it be broken by her again.

The shock faded, and my bruise began to complain. Water seeped into the squishy mess, and I knew then that I was doomed, doomed to never nourish a young child, or an aging man. Doomed never to be packed in an Elmo lunchbox, sliced with love by a mother who dreams of her grown child, intelligent, strong, all because of a lunchtime apple, and hundreds more like me. This was it. This was the end. No one would buy me now.

Sam is a good man. He cares for his produce, and wants the best for each of us. He is proud of our reputation, and works hard to inspire people to live healthfully. I wanted to be part of that. But this morning, as he culled the old, the sick, the dying fruits, I knew what he must do, and I knew it meant the end of my hope. He picked me up, turned me over, inspecting me with keen eyes, and he saw what I already knew, that I was damaged. I wanted to scream out, to tell him I was still healthy, that I could still be a good apple, but I knew even as he placed me in the box that I had to go. Fruits and vegetables piled up on top of me, blocking out the light. There was a bunch of old bananas, some limp spinach, dying artichokes. We all sat in silence, mourning our fate, sad that we had failed in our purpose in life – to feed people. And so we stayed, languishing, until we should be dumped into the garbage.

But something very different happened, as we sat there this morning, awaiting our fate in the back room. A voice, far cheerier than it had the right to be, burst through the swinging doors, and greeted Sam. They spoke, Sam and this joyful stranger, and suddenly our box moved. It opened, and a vibrant, sweet-smelling hand wrapped her vibrant fingers around me. I was moved to another box, with other apples. These, too, were bruised apples, but it seemed doubtful, somehow, that this was going to be a trip to the garbage. The voice was joined by another, deeper voice, and my new box was hoisted into a cart by strong arms. The cart moved, not out the back door towards the garbage, but into the store and towards the front. I reeled with an unknown excitement. I had no idea where I was going, but the farewell Sam delivered to these cheery people sent a ripple of hope down to my core. Perhaps all was not lost! But who? Where? Why was I, the unwanted apple, being transported to a car in the FRONT of the building? What had I done to deserve this salvation?

I was lifted into the waiting van, where the smell of other boxes of food filled the atmosphere. And there was something else in the air too, a sense of something, of common purpose, of a mission that I could only stab at wildly with my imagination. A ride through town, turning this way and that. Oh, to be a potato, with eyes to see as we weaved through the streets, to see our destination. But soon enough the ride was over, and the strong arms once again hoisted our box – and my spirits – into the air. I was delivered with a flourish onto a table, and the box lid lifted. A kind hand reached into the box, and plucked us out, one by one. My turn finally came, and I was delivered to a waiting basket. What was I to do? What was my purpose here? As I gradually became accustomed to my new surroundings, I could sense that this was to be some sort of outdoor market. But why? What had I done to deserve the honor of an outdoor market? Only the finest, most healthy produce was brought to such places.

Cars began to pull into the parking lot where we were, and I became aware that the lot belonged to a church. The first customer came. She was an old lady, nearly crippled. She had over one arm a sack, and not a very nice-looking sack at that. I trembled, not knowing whether I wanted to offer myself to her or not. But she passed by. A few moments later another woman came, younger but obviously destitute. Two little children slunk behind her, afraid to show their faces even (and perhaps especially) to the Cheery People. A greeting crossed over me from behind the table, it was the voice that had greeted Sam in the store. She welcomed them, and then I felt myself gripped, lifted…and offered to one of those frightened children. No, I thought, they couldn’t pay. This woman was poor; she wouldn’t be able to buy any fruit! The child ducked behind her mother’s dirty dress, but moments later her curious eyes peered out, darting between her mother’s eyes, the Cheery Woman’s eyes – and to me. The mother’s hand extended, maybe trembling a bit, I could never be sure, but extended nonetheless, and I was dropped into her palm. She thanked the Cheery Woman, a thank you that was somehow much, much more than a courtesy, something truly heartfelt. I was passed on to the timid girl, who reached up with both hands, grasping me at first gently, and then more firmly as she opened her mouth. Joy flood into me even as her tiny teeth pierced my skin. Because I had not been bought, I had been given. Given to a girl who desperately needed me. A girl whose body could use every ounce of health I could give, and more. I was lucky. No, more than that, I was honored to have been bruised. How else could I have come to such a noble ending, to be given away at a Food Bank to the very person who needed me most? A noble ending, indeed! Or should I say… beginning?

Glenn Keller