and if I should fall along the way
I've been kissed by a rose
been kissed by a rose on the grey
Eve could have called someone to pick her up, but Carby would still be there in the rain. She waited it out. Minutes became many minutes. She started to wonder. A road ninja playground: that's what he called it. The rain was coming down like it was being sprayed on the earth with an astronomical garden hose. She wasn't going anywhere, and the library was still open. Why not indulge? She would try the cinematic microfiche investigation.
Eve hurried back inside, excited about what she might find. The library no longer had a microfiche section: budget cuts dwindling usage, internet, etc. Most newspapers were "on pdf" now, though. The helpful person at the desk directed her to the computer section. She spent ten, well, twenty minutes mindlessly surfing. Then she got down to business. Newspaper in the area? She started by finding newspapers near Brenda's house. What, should she write down a list? This was pretty boring. She looked outside. Lightning flashed.
Forty-five minutes later the rain had increased from heavy to torrential and she was looking at a weather radar website. The really dark patch was right on top of the library. She flipped back to the newspaper websites and the many windows of unsearchable pdf files. Not a single newspaper contained the phrase "road ninja," not in that time period. Wait, what time period? Well, he was not terribly far from her age. Was he?
Eve took a mental step back. It could have been a coincidence that Dave and Biff had both used the phrase road ninja. People were always making jokes about ninjas and pirates and zombies, right? Dave's reference had been in the third person, Biff's in the first. Eve kept looking. It was sincerely tough to find information about something that wasn't readily available via something like a web search. How did people ever find out about stuff?
On a hunch, Eve checked obituaries. There was nothing really special. What was one car accident compared to another? Then she found something interesting. A small feel-good community type piece mentioning an unlicensed spotlight. Did those things really have to be licensed? It was installed in the back of an auto shop called Wilson's Tire Garage. It was turned on seemingly at random. One of the employees there claimed that he was summoning "the road ninja." The reporter also interviewed some cops and concluded that the "road ninja signal," which on cloudy nights put an orange circle in the sky with a blacked out R and a backwards N, was actually just an area wide signal for ill-advised weekend benders. One person quoted said that had to stop using it because the cops started showing up every time.
The article did mention some of the "road ninja story," just for fun. He was apparently a legend, credited with performing the most irresponsible and ridiculous stunts Eve had ever heard of in a "black muscle car" and for, allegedly, having such a thirst for mountain dew that Pepsi sent an entire truck to deliver the soda to Wilson's Tire Garage. Well, there was a giant clue. Was that his "bat cave?" She wanted to know more. She looked at the author of the article.
Christine Miller.
Eve had trouble finding a current address, then found a strange "blog" post claiming that "Miller now resides at 325 Oak Drive." Eve looked up from the computer. The library was closing. The rain had stopped a while ago. The desk clerk was asking her to leave. Embarrased, Eve quickly gathered up her things.
"You find what you're looking for?" the clerk asked.
"I found...something," Eve replied. Then she left.
The clerk watched her ride away in her pink jumpsuit.
Eve waited with impatience for the next day she had completely open. She didn't mention her trip to Dave; she hadn't mentioned any of her contact with Mr ninjapants to Dave.
It happened on a wednesday. She had far to go. She wore comfortable sweatpants inside her riding suit, and then stuck a washcloth in them for extra padding--that seat always made the inside of her legs throb after two or three hours. Come to think of it, her back also got kind of sore; the handlebars were too close to the seat. There was nothing she could do about that now. nside her top, Eve wore a slim vest with pockets. The pockets were for holding heat packs that she'd found at a camping store. She'd read one of her step-brother's (the nice one) boy scout manuals when she was little, and remembered this diagram of where heat was lost on the body: the chest, and the upper part of the legs. From experience, the back of her neck was also a big deal. Eve put on a hoodie, the slimmest one she could find, so that the hood would still fit in the helmet without giving her a headache. It worked. Eve took the helmet off and walked into the bathroom to look in the mirror. She felt like an astronaut. It was a good feeling.
She left in the darkness of 6:30 am, a time that most self-styled ninjas were never out because they always stayed out for the empty streets of 5 am and then went to bed. Going to bed a 9 and then getting up at 6 was probably something they'd never think of. Eve stopped at the coffee shop, as a customer, and drank a coffee.
"Where are you off too?" asked one of her coworkers.
"Research. Think maybe I'll try a hand at journalism. Maybe."
Traffic was already building up when she reached the highway, but she was outbound, and not in a terrible hurry. She had a long way to go and spending the entire time dodging cars would get real tiring, real fast.
Then the sun came up. Dust in the air allowed the light to appear as enormous streaks through the air as the light bend down through the mountains. The mystery of the night slowly receded back to twilight and then the trees began to glow. The same reds, yellows, and browns danced all around her. It was glorious. Eve admitted to herself that she needed a new word, but could think of none that suited this visual.
Her destination was nearly twice the full range of her bike, which is quite heavily depended on how fast the rider likes to accelerate. Eve filled up three times. She'd nearly run out of gas once, coasting into a station on fumes (given away by the change in pitch of Carby's engine) and she never wanted to repeat the experience. Around midday she stopped for a quick lunch. Then she reached her destination: Wilson's Tire Garage.
It was situated on a back road, which really seemed like the only kind of road around here. There were twisty, hilly, two lane back roads, and there were slightly less twisty two lane roads with more traffic. The garage was a simple four bay affair with an office on the left and two soda machines (one unlit) out in front in the gravel lot. Eve still didn't like gravel. She coasted all the way inside the threshold of the open bay and turned off her engine. She'd entered a wall of heat, which was definitely spilling outside and wasting a ton of money.
A boy came out from a back room, rubbing his eyes. He was wearing nothing but beltless shorts and a hangover. "What can I do you f--" He stopped. "Woah." He started. His shorts were in a constant state of falling down, and despite his readjustment every thirty seconds they constantly revealed a bit more of his waist than Eve cared to see. "Lee!"
"I need an oil change." Eve said her line. She appeared to say it too early.
Sounds of another boy stirring came from the back. A boy--an asian looking boy--maybe half-asian--the kind that might deliver pizzas for the mafia in some dystopian future--came out wearing a floral-patterned bathrobe. He held in, in his hand, a coffee mug with a bottle of beer inside. He tipped the mug up carefully as he walked, trying to line up the beer properly with his mouth. Then he saw Eve. "Holy fuckshit."
"What are you boys staring at? Aint you ever seen a girl before, sugar?" Eve put her hands on her hips.
"Staring at a fucking ghost, man," said Lee.
Nearly-naked boy try to explain: "If you had black hair..."
"Blonde," said Lee.
"...blonde hair, you would look just like her."
"And a pink helmet," offered Lee.
"Yeah," the other boy agreed. "Well, and the bike, too. What is that a 250?"
"Uh huh. You boys mind fixing me up with some new oil, or are you just gonna stand there and drool all day." Eve didn't actually mind the attention..
"Sure thing boss. I'm Jason." Nearly naked kid stuck his hand out. Eve shook it, then regretted it. There was something sticky. Eve looked around, found a dirty rag, and scrubbed her hand with it.
Lee bent down and picked up an empty beer bottle. And a not so empty one. Then he started walking around the garage, picking up more of them. It was then that Eve noticed the incredible mess. Garages were normally messy, yes, but the cars and the dirt and the greese and the tools were all in the three other bays. Two cars were in various states of repair, and a third, way down on the end, looked like it had been set on a pike to rust away. In the bay were she was standing, the refuse of a wild party was strewn everywhere. Through the door to the office she could see a waist-high flat surface covered liquor bottles. Most of them were open. From the back room came the sounds of girls stirring.
Jason took Carby's kick stand up, and then pressed down on something next to the left exhaust pipe with his boot. Two black poles swung down. Jason rocked Carby back onto them until they locked in place and he stood there, straight up (unlike with the kick stand) with his rear tire off the ground. That was how Eve learned what a center stand was.
Shouldn't you buy me dinner first? asked Carby.
Jason went to the side and kicked a plastic tub, skidding it over until it was under Carby. "So what brings you to out this way?"
"Curiosity," said Eve. "I heard you guys have a helluva party thing going on..."
"Ya, you just missed one."
"...and a cool spot light."
The two boys stopped what they were doing and looked at her. "It's been a while since we had that thing on," said Lee.
"What's it for? Announcing your parties?"
Jason shook his head. "Lee, will you..."
"Yeah." Lee led Eve into the office. Behind her, Jason took a screw out of Carby, releasing a steady stream of pitch black oil.
Aaaahhhhh, said Carby.
Inside the office, Lee showed Eve the shrine: a wall of newspaper clippings and photographs. They were on the wall behind the liquor. Of course. "Meet Biff Becker, The Road Ninja," said Lee. Lee raised the empty glasses to the wall. Eve took it all in. The clippings were from The Bucktown Tribune, "Bucktown's best unsanctioned newspaper." Eve resisted the impulse to cross out "unsanctioned" and replace it with "unofficial." Eve was tempted to mention that she had met Biff, that she had a crush on h--no she didn't! No crush! No crushes here, move along. This is not the crush you are looking for.
If she had mentioned Biff at that time, things would have been completely different, for everyone. Eve pointed to a picture dead center. "What happened here?" It was a picture of a cliff.
Lee pointed at another one. "Her." The picture showed a clearly femenine form on a motorcycle. "Biff, that old cat, he was in love with her." Eve read the clipping.
Jason popped his head in. "Hey. I'm gunna give you the lower viscosity, for the winter." He had put a shirt on. Thank the angels.
"Sounds good," said Eve. Then, "she died?"
"Yeah," said Lee. "I don't know how it happened. Biff does. He saw it. He didn't stick around for the coppers. Fuckin...everyone else there was a part of it. Fucking lying weedwackers. This girl, man...." Lee paused. "She slammed neck first into an oncoming minivan. Biff said she died on impact. That's really all he said." Lee pointed at the center picture. "Then he drove his Boss 429 off a cliff and they never found the body."
Eve gasped.
"I like to think they are in car heaven together making babies," interjected Jason. Behind him, the funnel-quart-bottle contraption he had set up in order to join the conversation collapsed, spilling oil on the ground. Jason returned to it and was forced to start guessing how much more to put in to make it show up just right on the gauge. Eve watched him. She watched both of them. They were, basically, people who started their lives immediately after high school. Eve felt like she was still waiting to start hers--her new one.
"Wanna see the spotlight?" asked Lee.
Eve shrugged. "Sure." She felt like a superhero's secret girlfriend, being shown all of his secret toys. Lee took her through the back, past some just-waking girls that regarded her coolly, past the bbq equipment, down and short hill and to a large spotlight that was still plugged in. Beer bottles were lined up in strange circular formations, some kind of drinking game Eve had never heard of.
Lee flipped the switch. "Yeah, its still busted. I think the bulb burned out." Eve touched the metal letters. "It never really worked that often anyway...you kind of had to have some low cumulus formations, or the thing just scattered too much, you know?" Eve didn't know, but she nodded. Then Lee touched her shoulder--woah. Eve grabbed his hand, ready to break his fingers, so he just pointed. "You have a small tear in the shoulder."
Eve let go of his hand and felt herself. He was right. There was a small tear right below the sholder pad. She looked at Lee.
"I don't know how to say this, and I know you won't believe me...I think you have her suit."
"Whose?"
"The pink riders. The dead one." Lee motioned at the garage with his thumb.
"Well, it was on sale." Eve didn't say anything else.
"It was a swordfight."
"Really." Eve looked at him for a bit, then turned back for the garage. Now he was just bullshitting her.
Back inside, she had a beer or two with them. I mean why not, right? The girls were awake, and another boy. They all sat in a circle of folding chairs. Lee, whose first name was apparently Lawrence but he was called Lee, and Jason regaled them with stories of grandeur that increased just as the credibility decreased.
"And remember the Knight Rider?"
"That was the best one-"
"Totally!"
"You see Biff was doing the cannonball run-"
"We all were."
"Well I wasn't there."
"You don't count anyway."
"Fuck you and your rice burner."
"-and the cops in one of the flyover states caught on, and they did the roadblock thing, but Biff, well he wasn't really doing the cannonball run."
"I heard he tipped them off himself."
"We don't know that."
"Whatever."
"So he makes friends with this tow trucker guy-"
"That was Snow Monkey."
"No, snow monkey was the pilot."
"Not that time. They never pulled off the airlift before the...uh..."
A moment of silence.
"Yeah, so whoever, and he had the truck, and they spent like a week."
"It only took like 16 hours. Two days, tops."
"Yeah but with the tools and the problems and stuff it stretched out to a week."
"Fuck it, come on."
"So they door the doors off, and put on this door that swung down, like a ramp."
"Have you seen knight rider?"
"Yes," said Eve.
"So you know what we're talking about."
"So they did while moving."
"Only like 30 miles an-"
"They were moving. It was awesome. The cops let them right through."
"Then he finished the race."
"Yeah, I think Biff just wanted to play with blockades, but he finished the race."
"Set the record"
"No he didn't."
"There's no proof, but he did get there like...fucking fast, dude." Whoever spoke took another swallow of light beer.
"They were gonna try it again, but have a helicopter pick up the container from the truck, while it was fucking movinig."
"Fucking badass, man."
"Yeah, Snow Monkey was our pilot. He was having trouble getting a big enough helicopter. Apparently they can't carry much-"
"Helos can't carry shit, man, and if they bump that tail into anything they just fall out of the sky."
"Boom."
Eve looked at her watch. Enough time had passed for her to process the beer. "Alright, boys, I gotta go."
"Wait, no, one more story."
"You gotta hear this one."
"Yeah, tell her the one about Snow Monkey."
"Fuckszzzyouoff, no"
"No, its about her. The...man you're pink too."
"Whatever. She's still the pink rider. Just because you put on a pink pantieszz doesn'ts make you the pink rider."
Eve raised an eyebrow.
"Dude, would you shut up?
"Fuckoff"
"You're still drunk."
"Am not"
"You drank all of my vanilla rum last night."
"And you were so wasted you probably didn't taste it."
"Can we get to the story, boys?" asked Eve.
"This was how they met."
"At a bar."
"Outside a bar. And it was a lounge, my friend." They could stay open til 2:30."
"There ain't no fucking lounges around here."
"Just...go fall in a hole and die, will you?"
"And bring back a bottle of rum for me."
"So Biff got into a fight with this guy."
"Three guys."
"No, that was just exagerationness."
"It was at least two."
"Well, yeah, if you count the guy with a knife."
"Who brings a knife to a bar fight? I mean, seriouslyz."
"Its 'knife to a gunfight,' dumbass."
"Biff used to get in fights a lot. Like, all the time. Well, occasionally."
"He beat this guy with a beer bottle. Your not supposed to take them, out, but good thing he did."
"Don't worry, he was gonna walk home."
"Fuck no, snow monkey was driving."
"So this guy...well Biff had slept with his girlfriend. Like, twice."
"Oh it was way more than that."
"No, before the fight."
"Biff beat the guy, he had him on the ground, but he didn't see his buddy with the knife."
"Yeah. Like a 6 inch blade."
"I kid you not."
"Biff wasn't a great, like, fighter."
"Not back then."
"No, he was gunna get sliced up."
"Knife boy was just standing there, grinning, and then this girl-"
"No then he sees ths headlight behind the guy."
"Oh stop trying to make it all dramatic. You take too long."
"Fuck you." He turned to Eve. "Am I taking too long?"
Eve shook her head. "No sir, keep going."
Well, this is inefficient.
From what Eve could gather, the pink rider had, on her motorcycle, ridden up behind the guy with a knife, then braked her front tire, hard, and swung the back of her bike around, knocking over the guy with the knife. Then she had ridden off with barely a nodd to Biff. One of them claimed that Biff and this girl had never actually spoken to each other. Allegedly, the pink rider had saved him one other time. This time the person was holding a gun to Biff's head, and the pink rider had shot in like a bullet, and then font-braked so hard that the bike flipped over her and went flying, end over end, until it hit the man with the gun and killed him.
So. Biff's secret hideout was not a waterfalled caved under a billionare's mansion, but a...garage where boys drank constantly, told stories, and pulled pranks that inspired more stories.
Eve thanked the boys and left. Her next destination was Christine Miller's place. Eve reached into her suit. It was awkward getting the maps out of her sweatpants pocket but she did it. There was tape too. She taped the directions onto her arm. Crude, but effective. Motorcycle GPS units were too expensive.
Perhaps she could have used one. The directions she printed out took her to a cemetery. The address on the gate matched hers. Was it a joke? Was Miller dead? The gate was open. Eve coasted up to it, kicked it wider, and continued on inside. The cemetery was not one of the small, block or two affairs. Gravestones extended behind rolling hills where the eye couldn't see its borders. This cemetery was old.
In the zombie version of this story, the gate creeks, and there is a gust of wind, and Eve happens to have a belt with 3 extra 9mm clips.
Eve rode down, up, down, a little up the path with no particular destination. Carby's motor purred softly. In a small cemetery, despite the chances of Christine Miller being there so small, Eve might have been convinced to look at each grave just to see. If she had some ice cream or something. Not in a place like this. That's something...that is something Biff would do. She wasn't sure how she knew it, but she did. The day was not warm. The place was not small. She was a long way from home. Eve did not leave, though. She saw something that made her stop abruptly, then back up a little, then a lot, trying to find a place where she could leave Carby on the side stand without him tipping over.
Hey man, at least you can brake and shift me at the same time, said Carby.
It was a rose. A bright red rose. Somewhere...she walked down along the road, caught another glimpse of it, then took a path. Then she heard someone else there.
Zombie version: she held her gun up for no good reason and cocked it.
Eve unzipped her suit, took off her inner hoodie, and then put it back on over the suit, hoping she would look more normal. She didn't.
"...so leave me at the road side
hang me up and out to dry
and I don't think
you see
the places inside me that I find you..."
Someone was singing. He was only a few rows away. Eve didn't look. Leave the survivors to their grief. Eve spotted the rose. Three rows down hill. She walked between the graves, knowing some people at a problem with that. Like the dead care. The tombstone was ornate, marble. The rose was fresh. Someone had just been here.
"Is this some kind of joke?" It was a man's voice.
Eve turned and put her hand on her hip. "Well I ain't laughing."
The man was tall, old. Yet, a little boy, far to young to be his child in any normal family. The man had a brown overcoat, untied at the waist. The little boy, well he was too far away to tell but the little boy had dark eyes. "Are you one of her friends?" the old man asked. That might explain the riding gear.
Eve looked at the tombstone. Christine Miller. "No, I'm sorry."
"Then what are you doing at my daughters grave?"
"I...this...it said this was her address. I wanted to ask her some questions."
"About."
"The Road N--" Shit. Yeah, great journalism there.
The man spun around and walked away. The boy ran around him and up to her. He looked up at her with wonder. The man barked for the kid. "You look just like her. Sorta," said the little boy. "She was beautiful."
"Was she your mommy?"
"Not exactly," he answered. The old man barked for him again, more harshly. The kid knelt down to a stone and tapped it with his entire hand. "For you," he said, then ran away. Eve watched them leave, unsure what to do. She sat down next to the grave. She was unsure what to make of all this. Here she was, chasing down a strange story surrounding a strange person that faked (or poorly attempted?) his own death, possibly wearing the suit of a girl who was allegedly the town hero of this...area. Hey sugar, it was on sale.
Eve sat and thought for a while. She felt like she was caught up in, or perhaps on the edge of, something interesting. Not incredible, or great, just interesting. Thrilling. She most definitely loved motorcycles, and she loved the thrills, and she loved the suit. Was she in some sick way trying to fill the shoes of some dead girl?
No.
She didn't know anything about Christine Miller. She wanted to. She wished she did. It sounded like who Miller really was, was a mystery to almost every one except maybe that old man and the kid. To everyone else, she was the pink rider. That's probably how Miller liked it. Eve knew that's how she liked it. Who Christine could have become, and whether they would have been friends, and would Eve have been part of her possee...no one could know now.
Out of curiosity, Eve leaned forward and pressed the stone. Nothing happened. She was almost expecting the stones to fold down into a secret entrance, some secret lair of the pink rider. It didn't. The stone did wiggle though. Eve leaned forward on her knees and lifted it. There was a secret compartment, sort of. It was really more of a thin hole which the stone fit over like a manhole cover. Inside was a sealed brown bag. Eve unsealed it. It was a sword. What? A sword. It seemed a bit small though.
That's what she said.
The blade and handle, the entire thing, was about as long as her forearm, including her fingers. It was a straight blade, looked like one edge was sharp and one was not. The handle was brown and black, not fancy. The hilt hand guard thing was thin, almost not even there. At the bottom of the grip was a stone. A dirty stone. Eve rubbed it. It looked like a diamond, but the dirt wasn't coming off. It was inside the gem. The strangeness of it reminded her of the necklace she was wearing, that Dave gave her. Had she asked him about the sword, he would have told her it was an industrial grade diamond. One thing she could tell just from looking at it was that if you hit someone in the temple with the butt of that sword, they would bleed a lot. Eve felt the tiny rip in her suit below the left shoulder. Maybe there was truth to some of those stories.
Eve replaced the stone but kept the sword. Apparently grave robbing was now one of her new skills. Then again, the kid did sort of give it to her. Why was a sword buried here like this anyway, and not in her casket? Then Eve saw the initials R and a backwards N carved into the stone. Eve looked at the diamond on the butt of the sword. Yeah. That's how he did it. She pressed the sword to the stone to see if it worked, and then realized she had nothing to write. She had no calling card, or symbol, or initials, or fancy name that she wanted to leave behind. She had no identity, and she liked it that way. She drew a heart around the initials of Biff's alias. Then she said goodbye to Christine Miller and walked away.
Getting the sword home would be a problem. Motorcycles did not come with sword holders. She didn't want to sacrifice her map tape; if she got lost here that would be an interesting call for Dave. She tried sticking it in her suit, but it wouldn't fit in the leg, or her back, and sticking it in front made her too nervous that she would lose something valuable, no matter which way the sword was pointed. She ended up wrapping it in the brown material and holding it against the gas tank with her right leg. It would be all stopping on the left one from here to home.
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