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Chapter Twenty-Two
Peyton
I sat on the hard fender with my hands at his waist and tilted my head back. Riding on the back of Navarro’s bike was like flying, and each time I did it, I grew a little fonder of it. While we rode along Mission Beach Boulevard looking for a place to eat, I thought of the phrase as free as a bird, and wondered if most bikers felt no differently than I did.
Riding was an unexplainable thrill, something that words couldn’t come close to accurately describing, but the word flying immediately came to mind. With the feeling of flight came a sense of freedom.
When I recognized the sense of freedom, it all made sense.
The outlaw biker really wanted nothing more than to be left to his own devices. The ride freed them from the clutch of whatever it was that brought them to drop their respective asses into the seat in the first place.
The satisfaction from riding seemed to be much different after the incident. Before, I enjoyed it immensely, but other than the thrill of being on the back of the bike, nothing else happened. After the incident, the ride seemed to rid me of all contamination, leaving me feeling cleansed of everything that was impure.
I couldn’t help but wonder if each and every hard-core biker had some underlying reason – some catastrophe in their life – that made riding more of a necessity, and not merely a simple desire.
We parked in front of a small taco shop. I adjusted my hair tie and reluctantly released Navarro’s waist. “I have a lot of questions to ask while we’re waiting on food.”
He stepped off the bike and steadied it for me to get off. “I thought you’d be done with that article by now.”
“Actually, I haven’t even started,” I said. “But this has nothing to do with the article. Not really.”
“Ask me anything you want,” Pee Bee said. “But prepare for the truth. I won’t bullshit you like Ol’ Crip.”
I climbed off the fender. “How did he get his name?”
Navarro shot me a look. I winked at him.
“Crip. Short for cripple. Because he’s an old man.”
I looked at Navarro. “True?”
He nodded. “That’s what it stands for, but I’m far from an old man.”
“What about yours,” I asked Pee Bee.
“P. B.,” Navarro said. “Pretty Boy. Because he looks like a bearded girl.”
I laughed. “Pretty Boy and Crip. I like it.”
“Come on,” Pee Bee said. “I’ve got to feed the machine.”
I followed them into the restaurant, feeling much better than when I was at work. Riding was therapeutic, and whether or not I wanted to admit it, I needed a little therapy in my life.
“Why do you ride?” I asked Navarro as we sat down.
“Me?”
I nodded. “Yes, you.”
“Big picture?”
“Sure.”
He folded his fingers together as if he was preparing to pray. I studied his tattooed knuckles. On his upper knuckles, the word STAY. On the lower, REAL. It was easy to get lost in admiring his tattoos, and I enjoyed doing it.
“It’s hard to explain,” he said. “I get a sense of freedom when I ride that I can’t seem to get anywhere else. Being in a cage makes me feel like I’m locked up. Like an animal. The difference between riding and driving is the difference between a tiger in the wild, and one in a zoo.”
“And by cage, you mean a car?”
