but i'll tell you in earnest, i'm a dangerous man

"That's a fine motorbike."

She wasn't wrong.

Sleek black and polished chrome. In spite of the shit ass gray skies of Europe, this bad mother fucker bowed the will of Mother Nature her goddamn self, attracting  enough sunlight to twinkle.

I dropped a knee in the soggy pavement, looking down the line of the frame. Straight as I was before prison.

"What's so special about this motorcycle, though?" She asked me.

I can't fault her for having no fucking clue what she was talking about. It ain't just the bike, it's the story that goes along with it.

"I mean, that one is sexier. Looks new, too." She nodded her head towards a late model Indian Scout across the showroom of Sarl KM59 Off Limits Motorcycles Vintage.

I don't blame you for knowing fuck all about the geography of France. I didn't either. For the PRIMEates who aren't FLAMBERGE, Sarl KM59 is in Peyriac-Minervois, France. This was about as far South as you could go and still be in France. But fuck, what's the point of making all this money if I can't enjoy it? A smart man once told me you can't take it with you when you die.

Bottom line up front, one of the road crew at ReVival 47 said he'd heard whispers some vintage shop in bumfuck South France. It took little more than the stinging humiliation of losing to Cancer Jiles for me to throw caution to the wind and abandon this tour. Next thing you know, we were standing in front of this fucking raw dogging sex machine.

"That," I said, pointing to the all black Indian Scout, "is a bad motherfucker, too. You got good taste, babe. But, that ain't got a soul like this fucking Vincent 1952."

I let my calloused hand slide across the gleaming gas tank. My fingers tooled the "Vincent" scripted across the banner image near the front of the tank.

"A soul?" She giggled. "I don't get it."

I sucked at my teeth, leaning back on my heels to give my knees a break. My knees fucking hurt. My back fucking hurt. Most of all, though, my fucking pride hurt. My body would heal, even at this age. The jury was still out on my pride.

"You ain't got to, babe. You just gotta look good riding on the back."

I turned to the ancient Frenchman showing us the bike. His hands told the story of years scraping his knuckles on unkind metal designed for looks and performance, not maintenance. If the fingertips of his index and middle fingers weren't enough of a tell that he preferred unfiltered cigarettes, the faint yellowish-brown tint around his bristly, gray mustache was a dead giveaway. This cocksucker knew what he was sitting on. This wasn't any bike. It wasn't an Indian or an old Pan Head. Nope, this was my fucking great white whale.

Since I was four or five I wanted one of these. There was a trailer round the end of my little mobile home park where a one-percenter lived and he had one of these fuck machines and he'd ride by with his old lady strapped on his back. No helmet, no shirt, and no fucking worries. He didn't have to fight the kids at school when they talked shit about the holes in his soles. I guarantee that motherfucker didn't cringe every time he heard the door slam late at night cause he knew his daddy was coming home to graciously share some of that hurt he kept inside. Nope, he was free.

"How much?" I asked in earnest, showing my full hand to this Frenchie.

If the old coot spoke English, he wasn't fucking letting on. He gave me that dumb, blank face like I was asking him how many candy bars Johnny had if he ate three and sold six. His smile was just below the surface of that stupid fucking look on his face. But, it was there, and I could feel it.

I rolled my head back to the gray sky. Boy, I hate a lot of shit, myself chief of all - but France was racing for the checkered flag on this one. You know what chapped my ass most of all about that shithole place? This pig fucking Frenchie fucking knew what I was saying and he knew I knew it, too, but he was just gonna fucking stand there and give me that goddamn invalid smile. That old bastard probably spoke better English than my uneducated ass. It weren't a fucking language barrier. Nope, this old coot just felt that pleasure he derived from breaking my balls by making me pull my stupid phone out like a fucking ape and type "How much" into Google Translate was a small draw on the pension his years of enduring this life had earned him.

His snicker when the robotic voice on my phone read out "Combien" told me everything.

"Pas à vendre." He replied with smirk.

We both stood there like fucking assholes as I punched that in my phone to see this cocksucker was trying to tell me that this bike wasn't for sale.

I was seeing fucking red.

"Well, shit, Little Sister. This old son of a bitch is saying we drove all the way here from Paris for fucking nothing."

I began pushing myself up, intent on bringing violence to this man's being.

Like two sides of the same coin, Little Sister wrapped an arm around me while the Father swooped in from whatever shadows he'd been hiding in to do the same with the old man. I'd love to tell you what the fuck the two of them talked about, but to me it all sounded like fucking two toddlers carrying on. The Father spoke to him like an old friend, though, gesturing with his free hand to the other motorcycles as he spoke. He had a way of doing this shit when he wanted, talking in all sorts of tongues and about shit that it just didn't seem he had any right knowing about.

"Tell me the story, babe." Little Sister looked in my soul with those fucking eyes. With that tiny, little gesture, she lowered the volume of the world. I felt my chest moving up with an inhale and caving with an exhale. I saw in Technicolor again. I'd stand in a burning building and read her fucking Shakespeare as the walls collapsed around me if she asked me to.

It made me feel really fucking dumb just telling her that I wanted this bike because of some song. I felt even more disarmed playing it for her.

"That's fucking sad." She said after soaking in the weight of '1952 Vincent Black Lightning'.

"What the fuck? No it ain't. That shit is beautiful."

She ran her nimble fingers through my graying hair carefully. "Mmmm you know, that's what I find so sexy about you?"

"My great taste?" I whipped back with a smirk.

Her hand clenched like a vice around my beautiful, flowing locks and she gracefully pulled my ear close to her mouth as she hissed, "No, silly. There's a deep, dark sadness in you. Something fierce most haven't seen before, like Vantablack."

She must've realized that one didn't land as intended. I just couldn't help wearing my heart on my sleeve with this one and, although I fancy myself a remarkable poker player, I was told by the way my head dropped to look at my snakeskin cowboy boots. The leather showed cracks from the constant pressure applied at the seams and the lack of regular maintenance. Covered in dirt and mud and who knows what the fuck else. They had more miles in them, but they didn't look as pretty as boots that had been well cared for. Rode hard and put away wet. Sometimes I felt like them and in that moment, with my pride taking volley after volley, I ain't sure I could've related to them any less.

Little Sister carefully placed a hand on my chin and gave enough pressure for me to lift my head.

"It's beautiful."

That was the first time she kissed me.

"Leave room for Christ," The Father interjected with a sarcastic laugh. "Glad to see you two are "getting on" well, as our kinsmen in this part of the world may say. Robert, I've secured the acquisition of the bike. That fine man will sell you the motorcycle and he is prepared to give you a phenomenal deal on it. Everything is factory, all original. Even the paint."

There was a but coming. I could smell it.

"Uh huh." I said, making it clear I wasn't drinking from the cup of his sweet words.

He smiled at me, putting his hands on his hips.

"Well, there is one" the Father pantomimed a made up measurement that he meant to say near miniscule with his thumb and index finger, "tiny little catch."

"Get on with it, then."

If you had told me when I started with this PRIME outfit that a year or so later I would be bartering for a motorcycle with some old crouton fuck in the scenic beauty of some French town I can't fucking pronounce, I wouldn't have believed you. Yet, here I was, about to agree to whatever ludicrous shit this was. It just had to be that motorcycle.

"See, Sébastien..." he pointed to the old whiteflagger, "his name is Sébastien, well Sébastien was given that motorcycle as a wedding gift by his late wife's father. Alain always wanted to travel the world. Unfortunately, he never got the chance. He died right here in Peyriac-Minervois running this shop."

"Who the fuck is Alain?" I asked, perplexed by where the hell this shit might be going.

"Alain is, well, was, Sébastien's late father-in-law. Original owner of the bike."

At the time I couldn't see where all these fucking dots connected despite it being plain as day.

"And what the fuck does that have to do with this Vincent?" I scratched at my beard.

"Sébastien is willing to sell you the Vincent if you agree to carry Alain's ashes on your journey."

I couldn't have fucking heards that right.

"You said what now?"

The Father nodded with his freshly shaved chin and when I turned my attention I saw, with whatever deity you buy into as my witness, Chef Boyardee standing there with a goddamn urn. Now look, man, I know I'd said I'd do whatever it was, but seeing this son of a bitch standing there with some dead Frenchie's remains is where I began to discover boundaries I didn't know I had.

Picture it now. Me and Little Sister zooming across Europe with old Alain strapped to the back of the Vincent. Me with my great, big fucking sadness and some Frenchman's ashes traversing the European continent on a journey of self discovery. Remains smuggling and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

I don't know if my life is a comedy or a tragedy.

Fuck it.

"Alright, fine. We'll drag ol' Alain across the rest of the European leg of this tour." I sighed in my usual dramatic fashion.

Truth be told, I didn't hate the idea. Somewhere, in a very dark fucking corner full of scary shadows and an unyielding thirst for substance, it felt kind of good. I was going to help fulfill somebody's last wishes. Maybe one day I'd be so lucky.

"Excellent!" The Father said with a resounding clap, moving back to his station beside Sébastien. I climbed on the Vincent and felt that raw power between my legs, biting my bottom lip and raising my eyebrows at Little Sister.

"You're not half bad, you know?" Little Sister teased me with a little poke in my ribs.

"Don't start. Come on, get your sweet ass on this thing."

We sorted the rest of the specifics in no time and the key to this fucking unicorn was in my hands. With Alain strapped to the back and Little Sister as my backpack, I revved the V-twin just like that fucker at the end of my block used to and we tore off into the great wide open.

The next few days were probably the best days of my life.

We rode shirtless through the French countryside. We didn't give a shit that our hair was wild from the miles and towns' worth of wind in our faces. We had picnics in vineyards, a landscape of picturesque mountains our backdrop as we drank from the wells of one another's souls. Our conversations were intense, but also playful. Alain sat between us at each meal. I told her about the guy on my block who rode the Vincent and how he looked like the whole world was just a loose t-shirt he wore. She looked in my eyes deep and often. We created inside jokes and we made Alain promise to never tell anyone the things we spoke of.

I left my shield and sword behind in that little motorcycle lot for those few days that we traveled to ReVival 48. There wasn't a single thought about losing or where the fuck I was going next.

We wore the world like a loose t-shirt.

It was beautiful.