Chapter 1
“You have to move on,” he ordered, or that was what he wanted his passenger to hear. In this traffic, it’s surprising that anyone could hear their own screaming thoughts. Scooting down the busy streets was a tiny red moped. To tell the truth, to call it a moped would almost be an insult to all of the latest models that hit the streets mere weeks ago. The sleek red tiny motorcycles bustled on the roads with a speed and power that made many wonder if moped was an accurate word anymore, but not this particular model. No, the red bike plunked along between a van and a semi-truck wasn’t a moped. It was a Noped, as in “No Pedal to the Metal” or “Not a Pedestrian but Might as Well be One.” This sorry machine, dull in the bright sun, balanced between racing into the van and being crushed by the semi, even in this slower flow of traffic.
The driver wore a black helmet which matched his torn leather jacket. To the untrained eye, he looked the part of the tough roadster, a man that only a fool would cross paths with. To anyone who knew the first thing about motor boys and gals, they knew that everything he wore was dug out of the nearest garbage can. Across his arms were various patches, symbols, marks of gangs from the Eastern Seaboard all the way to the West Coast. There was not a man alive that could acquire them all. By the time he had a fourth of them, at least two gangs would rip his body apart and scatter the remains in three states.
That did not worry Lenny. Besides, when would he run into any of those groups, he didn’t have a single patch from one gang within the city limits. Despite initial appearances, Lenny was not a fool. By the young age of nineteen, he had a wisdom beyond his years, or at least his friends thought so. That doesn’t say much considering the sorry state of the ones he called companions.
Driving along, he hung his left leg off the side, dangling it mere inches off the ground, which moved underneath. If this bike had a brake at one point, it broke a long time ago and with the older models, it was impossible to fix them. Parts were hard to find and the guys who had them didn’t want to sell them to anyone, except for outrageous prices that most couldn’t afford.
Believe it or not, Lenny was not the principal actor in this story, where all of the cast waited in the wings to take center stage for their brief instances in the spotlight. The key character of this story sat behind him on the back seat, with one hand on the driver’s stomach and the other held a hat tight on his head.
As they rode down the road, Angus could not hear much of what his chauffer said. It was as if every other word was missing. “You to on. Gone I’m but need go.” The wind that day was terrible, rising to a howl at some points. He was glad that he didn’t know what his friend exactly said. Lenny had this way of putting things. How was the best way to put it? He cut through all of the fluff and stuff, going straight to the heart of matters, and forced everyone around him to face it. That was something that Angus could not deal with. Not now, just as he had for the last few years.
Besides, he had too much on his mind as it was. He didn’t need his friend to push other concerns onto his already extensive list of worries. Today was the most important day of the year. Performance Survey, a day of dread. It could doom his career. A decade of work cast aside as if it didn’t matter.
At last, the Noped pulled out of the traffic and began rolling down an empty alley. Lenny drug his foot on the ground, grinding them to a stop. As soon as they stopped moving, he raised his foot, inspecting his shoe. No matter how durable the leather was, it could not stand up against hot asphalt’s friction. He’d have to replace them in a few weeks.
Angus climbed off the bike, straightening his shirt and tie. The pair could not look any more different. While Lenny towered over his companion with his biker gang look, Angus looked as if he worked at the local university. Just like his Noped friend, all was not what it seemed with this clean-cut man.
Today was the first time that he had a shaven face in months. The cleaners had to take special care with this suit. He had to pay out the nose to get all of the grim off it. They could do nothing about the wrinkles, which they said kept reappearing, as if the manufacturer made the clothes to wrinkle on purpose. If the ten people who knew him saw him now, their feet would glue to the ground as their jaws dropped. All would stare at him in absolute confusion.
“Remember what I said,” Lenny warned. His friend didn’t understand what the warning was. As far as he knew, Lenny told him don’t talk to strangers and run with scissors. The common rule when being part of a conversation one didn’t pay attention to is to pretend that they know what was said earlier. A general method is to use vague responses that keep the second party from catching on to the other’s inattention. The second method is to answer in a timely fashion, where the conversation does not lose a natural flow.
“Of course,” Angus agreed, perhaps a bit too quick. As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew that he was caught.
Lenny’s helmet came off with a clean, quick motion. Brown hair fluffed out and curled in various directions. Light brown eyes glared at Angus, who shuffled from one foot to the other in discomfort. He hated to admit it but there were only three things in this world that scared him. The first was when this man, more than a decade his junior, had his anger flare up. It was in those moments where the patches on the jacket didn’t seem like a show, but a legitimate threat. If there was a two by four nearby, it would find itself embedded into Angus’s poor skull.
“You didn’t listen to a word I said,” he said, his voice lowering to an icy whisper.
To most, this would be all it took to stun them to silence. That tone coming from a man with that jacket could only mean one thing: death. Angus blew it off, knowing that he had nothing to worry about. “I listened,” he started.
“Don’t lie, you worthless sack of flesh,” Lenny spat, his voice deepening to a roar.
This got Angus’s attention and he backed up a step, with a hand tugging at his collar, which felt tight all of a sudden. “Maybe I only heard every other word,” he admitted.
Lenny huffed, but he said nothing else. Instead, he let this awkward silence surround them. Nervous sweat dripped down Angus’s brow. Though Lenny was a single man, it was as if an audience surrounded him, their judgment glaring into him. In the end, he shook his head and put his helmet back on. Perhaps if Angus listened, he would share a few more words of wisdom, but Lenny knew when he wasted his breathe. As of this moment, Angus was a lost cause. Better to leave him to find that out on his own.
“Don’t forget to pick me up in an hour,” he reminded the young man. Lenny spat on the asphalt before driving off. Angus knew he would come back. After knowing each other for a decade and a half, he knew how solid of a friend this lad could be. It was not in his nature to turn his back on a friend. Still, it was possible that the pickup time would be accidentally delayed by a few hours.
Without saying anything more, Lenny motored away as fast as the Noped would allow. Angus waved as his young friend drove away. “He’ll come back,” he reassured himself, turning to the task at hand.
