#42 In Roads-Bonding
Billy is a very responsible young man who could be my kid, I swear. If I had a son, that is. Employed by a major tire company since high school, the 25-year old member of a MC says he had a bike waiting for him when he was born. Reared in the dirt, he learned to handle a motorcycle the right way early on.
He’s not married but says he’d like to have children some day. “I’d like to teach them the right way to do things, not like I did.” I ask if it scares him that they might be like him. “No. They’d be mine, of course they’ll be like me. Difference is, I know me so I think I’d know how to deal with them.” I smile.
He says he just took his mother for her first run over the weekend, which I find surprising. “She had only been on the back like, to the store and back. I took her out and she had a blast.”
I ask if he gets hassled a lot, now that he wears a patch. “Oh yeah, I get pulled over a lot. LOTS of tickets.” We find common ground discussing our various traffic infractions and laughing at the scathing form letters the California Department of Vehicles sends out to their unruly riders.
“I have a DMV wall at my house,” Billy tells me. “An entire wall dedicated to the stuff I’ve gotten from them. How many letters do you have?” he challenges me. I admit to just one while he brags of three. We discuss the time frame before our licenses are clear. His will be sooner than mine. I find it interesting that we think alike in terms of what will happen if we’re ticketed again, whether we will be eligible for traffic school and what our various tickets are for. A wave of shame passes over me. Here I am, 33 years older than he is and I’m still in DMV hell. I like him, and secretly hope he grows up quicker than me. He exits the parking lot with his club brothers by leaving a thick layer of tread across the blacktop. He’s got another 32 years to figure it out.
