Its like I waited my whole life
all for this one night
Carl swaggered into the bar, proud but unsure what to do with his helmet. He would later learn that hanging it from one of Carby's mirrors would do just fine, unless you were worried about theft, in which case you had to wait for Carby's twin exhaust pipes to cool down before locking the helmet in the poorly placed D-ring. Carl sat down and the bar and looked around. Typical bar crowd, at least for this area. Maybe there were a couple extra guys wearing riding leather. He couldn't tell. Carl had yet to go out and buy all of the special biker clothes, although he did know exactly what kind of armor he wanted: the super sexy space marine armor. That wasn't the brand name, just the name Carl made up in his head. The bartender shot him a glance and Carl asked for a beer. Then someone leaned against the bar next to him.
"Let me guess, a 250?" the stranger asked.
Carl looked at the guy. Dressed in mostly black, extra shadowy five o'lock shadow, and eyes like lightning. There was also a couple scars on his neck. Despite all this Carl would completely forget the face ten minutes later. Carl responded, "Yup! Its awesome."
"Two-fifties always are." The stranger stuck out his hand. "Biff."
"Carl. Do you ride?"
Biff turned aside for a second and caught a can of mountain dew that the bartender threw at him. He cracked it open and took a long sip before answered. "Pretty much all the time. It's all I really do now." Biff's tone made Carl curious, but before Carl could speak again, Biff was walking away. "See you around," he said, over his shoulder.
An hour later, Carl left and rode. He rode every night, exploring the city, tearing up the highways. Then Carby's clutch cable broke.
The guy that showed up to tow him was Terry. But Terry did not tow the motorcycle, because Terry had brought a normal tow truck for cars. Terry left, and then Jack showed up. Jack had a flatbed, and asked if Carl needed a ride. Carl didn't. He was just gonna walk home. That was fine with Jack. Jack gave Carl a card and said to call on Monday.
Jack's route back to the cycle shop took him through a mountain pass. Strange, I know. I don't know how it happened either. Maybe he took a wrong turn. I mean, it was late. Like 1am. That's late for a guy like Jack. So Jack is driving along with Carby all tied down in the back, and despite all the air whipping over his farings he's feeling a bit claustrophobic from all the racheting cables holding him down to the bed.
Jack pulled over when he saw someone walking and offered him a ride. The guy was wearing a tattered air force uniform. Jack was briefly worried that he had just picked up a bum, but the man didn't smell, and he carried himself with a certain amount of pride. They started small talking, and Jack mentioned he was getting married tomorrow. His passenger gave him a long, hard look and asked why he was still taking calls the night before his wedding.
"Gotta make ends meet, you know?" Jack explained, and cringed a little when he thought about the deposit and the check that were racing each other in the mail.
"Oh I understand," said his passenger, "sometimes you're flying on fumes and you still can't see whats ahead." Then the guy changed the subject. Started asking Jack questions. Some of them were a little too personal. Sometimes it looked like the man was sizing him up. Jack finally started getting annoyed and asked the guy where he was headed.
"Just up that street, if you don't mind. Its only half a mile." Jack knew the street--his bride-to-be Lisa had grown up in a house on that street--so he knew he wouldn't have any trouble with the flat bed. He made the turn, wordlessly. His passenger pointed, "that house right there."
Jack flipped the left blinker on and looked. It was Lisa's old house. "There?" he asked, looking back at the front seat. The man was gone. Jack slammed on the brakes in surprise. Both cabin doors were shut and the windows were rolled up. There was no way the guy could have gotten out without him knowing, but he was most definitely not in the cab. Jack checked the motorcycle. It was still there, untouched. Nobody in any of the mirrors. Jack slid his butterfly knife out of his jacket and just sat there for a minute opening it half an inch, feeling for the cutting edge, and then snapping it back together. It was a nervous habit of his.
The street itself was quiet, with nothing amiss except for a flatbed tow truck just sitting there in the middle of it with its brakelights on and turns signals flashing on the left side. Jack opened his door slowly, holding the knife in his right pocket. If there was trouble, he could have that thing open and in somebody's neck in less than a second. But there was no trouble, and no graybearded air force vet on either side or under the flatbed. Jack got back in the truck and shrugged it off. Must be wedding exhaustion. He checked the motorcycle again. It was fine. All he had to do was get that to the shop, safely, get to bed, and up for the wedding on four hours of sleep. He could do it. He didn't know how, but he always managed.
The next day Jack was in a church wearing a tux. He was shaking, slightly, from overdoing the coffee, and from seeing Lisa. Someone was playing something gay on the piano, and half of his friends were staring, but as far as Jack cared the damn place was empty and it was just him and her. Lisa walked towards him, alone. Her father has passed away years ago and to her family's dismay, Jack had suggested she walk down the aisle alone. He didn't care; most of her family already hated him anyway.
Lisa was not walking down the center of the aisle. No one else seemed to notice, but Jack did. When she got closer, he saw what looked like footprints in the rug. They were right next to her. Lisa approached him and so did the creepy ass footprints. Jack felt chills run down his back. Lisa offered her hand and Jack took it automatically. Then he watched the footprints back away. They were there; they were totally there. Didn't anyone else see them?
"Is something wrong?" Lisa asked.
Jack jerked his head up and smiled. "Nope. You look amazing." The feeling of creepiness had passed.
The ceremony was a blur. Love is always patient, and long, and drones for quite a while and then BAM! "I do." Kiss. Dip, kiss again, with tongue, make sure her entire family gets an eyeful. Then pictures, the reception, talking, eating. It was mostly a blur for Jack, but the one steady constant was Lisa's beaming face. That didn't change. The only remarkable thing that happened was when Jack and Lisa were doing the rounds to go say hi to every table for like 12 seconds and they stopped near where Terry was sitting.
"Dude, I think you left this in the flatbed last night." Terry had something shiny in his hand.
Lisa snatched it out of Terry's grasp. "These are my father's wings! From his uniform. Where did you get these?"
Suddenly the previous night made a lot more sense to Jack. He half-assed an explanation and looked around, expecting the ghost to appear. But the air force vet never appeared again; he had gotten all he came for.
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