Microfiction: Motorcycle Boys

   The sign outside is plain, in red letters against white. “Evan’s Place.” No lights in the square window, can’t even see inside. You have to open the door and walk in where everything is all right as long as you’re drinking steadily and when it starts to wear off you have a little more. Maker’s Mark, Absolute and cranberry juice, tequila, whatever. Keep them coming and keep me numb so I don’t have to think about my dead heart. And it’s always dark inside, always dark, with just a few lights. This is Evan’s Place.
   I don’t know how those guys that come in here keep riding. It’s a stunner, makes you stop and think when you see them, hear their stories, see their battle scars. I walked in with David, a sexy date who happens to ride as well.
   Gideon sits on a stool in the corner, wears a warm flannel, sips his drinks here every night, contemplates whether to go or stay. He walks to the doorway, looks up and over the railroad tracks, steps off the curb, lights a cigarette and disappears.
   Mark and Kathy are married but they’re not exactly all over each other. She plays pool with a few guys, kicks their asses while they check out her ass. One even smacks it. But she handles them well, puts them in their places. Nobody messes with Kathy and she smiles at me.
   “Hi, I remember you from the last date you had with my old acquaintance, my good friend. Break his heart and your name is mud,” she probably thinks.
   But I have not a heart to give, or to break, to take, for it’s dead. And if things were to work out with this one, I’d somehow find a way to screw it up—unintentionally of course.
But this doesn’t matter now, because Kathy is like sunshine in the dark in here. Her lips are lined way beyond the lip line in thick, baby pink and filled in with the same hue, contrasting sharply with her deep tan. Only a fool believes money buys a tan. Everyone knows sunshine is free, but we go on in the darkness.
   Kathy shakes her bleached blonde hair, spilling over an aqua tank top that hugs her ample curves. The fine lines around her mouth don’t matter. She lights another cigarette.
   I ask David to get me another drink, and he seems surprised. I haven ‘t even gone to the restroom yet. He went twice already. Perhaps I have a strong bladder, but ah, better if I had a backbone or a heart, or better yet, grew some balls.
   Kathy gets up to leave. She doesn’t want to hear about the fat redhead’s problems as she sits at the bar, ranting and raving, decked in black clothes that don’t fit, tits hanging over the bar. Kathy’s arms are flailing around her head, covering her hears, cigarette clasped between her fingertips. No more no more.
   Mark solemnly talks to David all night about motorcycles and things. He used to hang out in the Pennsylvania go-go bars years ago, met a few cutie country bumpkins up there and they took him for a night of partying, two or three of them. And why wouldn’t they want him with those sweet slate blue eyes, plain good country boy looks, straight, long brown hair and a look like he wants to get to know you better, sweetie pie. Like he wants to be your friend. He remembers his trysts with a smile, eyes shining.
    But that’s all over now, he reminds us. That was before Kathy. Now oysters and zinc make him horny, he tells David. Too bad David is not getting any tonight. Timing sucks and only women bleed, as Alice Cooper would say. 
    Mark and David talk about chrome, motorcycles they’ve had, crashed, painted bought and sold. I understand none of it. Two hot bikes sit outside, gleaming in the darkness, and Softtails in $30,000 worth of metallic fuschia sparkling.
    They belong to two people—sitting and staring at us from the corner. Rob took a step back when we initially walked in, assessing us, or me rather—an unfamiliar face, perhaps a pretty one, to him. He and his pal drink and finally come over to say hello.
   Rob’s hair is thick, black layers chopped randomly up to the shoulder, red bandana around his neck, sunglasses atop his head. His eyes are blue and so is the light around his silhouette. His pal is limping, decked in a pair of chaps over his jeans, and I’m in pain just looking at him. But I read no pain in his face. Rob is sexy.
    The motorcycle boys start talking about accidents. Rob lifts his jeans, my mouth drops open at the sight of his prosthetic legs from the knees down. All I can say is wow.
   “Let’s go outside and watch them take off on those hot bikes,” David says.
It’s cold and I left my leather jacket in his van, but it’s okay, the cold is exhilarating.
“You like motorcylces?” Rob asks me.
  I inch closer, watching them warm up the bikes. He smiles.
   I could tell he would have taken me for a ride, but would never ask, being polite to my date. I was already on the ride of my life, never turning back. The kick from the exhaust flirts with my deepest fears and I suddenly jump back. They ride on, take off in a huff. Ride on bad boys, go with the American flirt, while that shot, it burns, it burns in my chest in Johnny Walker Blue, makes me numb, keeps me alive, heart or no heart, and time just stands still tonight.
   Can it stand still like the one slow tender kiss before we parted? A kiss is more intimate than sex. A kiss implies more, takes you just to the edge before you take it over the cliff. Then it’s gone.