Chapter 6 - THE COLONEL RIDES AGAIN
Arthur’s recovery came in small victories that nobody announced too loudly. First, he stopped gripping furniture when he crossed the living room. Then he walked to the mailbox without resting on the porch rail. His appetite returned with embarrassing enthusiasm. Maya began saving him a corner booth at the diner, but now he ordered breakfast—two eggs, wheat toast, potatoes, and coffee—while pretending not to notice that Grizz or Reed somehow appeared on most Tuesdays. The tremor in his hands never vanished completely, but it softened. Weight returned to his face. The hollow shadows beneath his eyes began to lift.
The greater change was harder to measure. Arthur started making choices. He chose curtains. He chose to reopen the bedroom he had shared with Evelyn rather than continue sleeping in the smaller back room Michael had assigned him. He chose to keep a bowl of hard candy on the porch for neighborhood children even though he complained they took too many. He chose a new bank PIN that no one else knew. He chose when to answer the phone and when to let it ring.
Choice, after long deprivation, felt almost luxurious. One morning Grizz arrived carrying a motorcycle helmet. Arthur eyed it suspiciously. “No.” “You don’t even know what I’m asking.” “I know that helmet.” “You’ve seen helmets before.” “I know your face when you’re planning something stupid.” Grizz looked offended. “My face always looks like this.”
Behind him, Reed pulled a cover from a custom sidecar attached to Grizz’s Harley. It was wider than the one Arthur had ridden home in, with a padded seat, high back, grab rails, lap belt, and a low windscreen. Someone had painted a tiny Marine Corps emblem on the side, beneath the word COLONEL in white lettering.
Arthur stared. For a few seconds he was silent enough that Grizz became nervous. “You hate it?” Arthur touched the lettering with two fingers. “You painted my rank wrong,” he said. Grizz frowned. “What?” “I was a corporal.” Reed grinned. “Too late. Promotion already filed.” Arthur laughed so hard he had to sit down.
The first recreational ride was only twelve miles. They took the county road past cornfields, then climbed a gentle ridge where the land opened toward low blue hills in the distance. Arthur wore jeans, a windbreaker, gloves, and the new helmet. Grizz rode slower than usual. Reed followed behind, along with Mack and Professor.
At first Arthur held the grab rail rigidly. Then the road straightened. Wind pressed against his chest. The smell of cut hay drifted from a field. A hawk circled above a power line. Arthur’s grip loosened. He had ridden motorcycles before, though not since the 1950s. Back then a friend owned an Indian that leaked oil and started only when kicked with religious conviction. Arthur and Evelyn once rode it twenty miles to a lake before they were married. She spent the trip terrified and later told him it was the happiest she had ever been to feel ground beneath her shoes.
That memory came back so vividly Arthur could almost hear her laughing. He began laughing too. Grizz glanced toward the sidecar at a stop sign. “You okay?” Arthur lifted one thumb. They rode another thirty miles. Word spread through the club that the Colonel liked road trips. Soon Arthur became an unofficial mascot, though anyone who used that word within hearing distance was immediately corrected. He was not a mascot. He was a rider with more winter campaigns behind him than most men had birthdays.
They took him to a veterans memorial two counties over. They stopped at diners where strangers stared at the frail old man traveling with leather-clad bikers and tried to guess the story. Arthur enjoyed not explaining. Mystery had its pleasures. At the memorial, he stood before a granite wall engraved with Korean War dead. His fingers traced one name.
David Mercer. Grizz kept his distance. After several minutes Arthur said, “He had the harmonica.” “The one-song guy?” Arthur nodded. “Only knew ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ Played it badly.” Grizz waited. “He was twenty.” Arthur removed his Marine cap. “I’ve been old so long I forgot they stayed young.” That sentence silenced everyone nearby.
They stood with him until he replaced the cap. On the ride home, Arthur was quieter. Grizz worried the trip had been too much, but halfway back Arthur tapped his shoulder at a red light. “Next month,” he said, raising his voice over the idling engine, “we go east.” “East where?” “Doesn’t matter. Just east.”
Grizz grinned. “Copy that, Colonel.” Arthur’s eighty-sixth birthday arrived in October. He expected maybe ten people. Fifty-three came. The backyard filled with folding tables, smoke from barbecue grills, motorcycle jackets, veterans caps, children, spouses, neighbors, and enough food to feed a company. Maya brought a cake shaped like a highway sign that read ARTHUR — 86 MILES AND STILL RUNNING.
Arthur pretended to hate it. He ate two slices. Near sunset, Grizz called for quiet. “We got one more thing.” A large package was rolled from the garage. Inside was a restored footlocker, green, with Arthur’s name stenciled across the top. Veterans services had helped recover copies of his service records, unit citations, and several photographs from archives. Reed had built a display tray inside for Arthur’s medals.
May you like
Arthur opened the lid. For once, no joke came. He sat with both hands resting on the old wood. “I lost most of this,” he whispered. “Not anymore,” Grizz said. Arthur looked around the yard. The people blurred slightly. “Neither did I,” he said. No one needed him to explain. The sun went down beyond the fence, catching chrome in orange light.
Someone started a motorcycle. A child laughed. Maya cut another slice of cake. Arthur leaned back in his chair beneath a string of porch lights and understood, perhaps for the first time, that survival was not the same thing as living. He had survived war. He had survived loneliness. Now, at eighty-six, surrounded by people the world had warned him to fear, he had somehow been given a second life.
