Chapter 54

It had been two months since Gus died, and I had been in a deep funk almost all of it. I hadn't talked to Lucas about the cameras in my cabin, because I just didn't care. The business ran well on autopilot. I realized that there was nothing that I needed to do. Even so, I went to the office every day, just to go through the motions. Sticking with the routine was good for depression. It kept me from laying in bed feeling sorry for myself all day.

I even found time, during one of my wasted time periods, to have a bike rack put on the van. Soon thereafter, I had the bike, I inherited from Gus, reconditioned. The preacher was trying to impress someone, but I don't think it was me. His mechanics went through the bike completely. When I got it back from his shop, it was twice as good as the day it rolled off the Chinese assembly line.

The mechanic understood the concept of the totally removable engine. He replaced a few bolts on the engine with wing nuts and studs. The only link to the frame, was a tie down rod which put tension on the motor. When the engine was remove it was collapsible so that it all fit into a small canvas bag. The kind the guy rats used to carried their stinky clothes.

When the motor was removed it left only a mounting bracket under the seat and one stud with a wing nut where the tension rod attached. It was a neat system. I am sure there were others like it but I had never seen one advertised.

Chris and I had a long talk the morning after her dad's memorial service. I left Gus's apartment with a lot of information about him. Some of it, I would just as soon have not known. But I was still glad I had the talk with her. I also left with his Captain America bike helmet.

"I fussed like hell when he bought that bike after the DUI. I was afraid that he was still drinking and would ride it into traffic. So I bought him a blue bike helmet. He drew the flag on it with paint sticks. Not a really good job, but he loved it, and now it's yours," Chris said.

So by the time I began to feel like me again, I had a smaller version of the bike Marty and I rode across country. I also just woke up one morning and wanted to get deep into some shit. Any kind of shit, I just wanted to get back into life.

"So Lucas what should we add next?" I asked it once I was in the office, with a cup of coffee in my hand.

"Well, we already do bond jumpers, we serve court papers, and you do the occasional body guard job, what else is there?"

"That's what I asked you?" I replied giving him a genuine smile. "Hold on, isn't it time for you to get back into school?"

"Well if I was going to go back, it would be time yes. I think I'm going to take another semester off."

"I'm sure I do not approve of that," I said seriously.

"Well, short of firing me, there is nothing you can do. You honestly can't afford to fire me. You have grown the business, so that sometimes it takes both of us to keep up."

"That is true, but I could also just drop the bail jumper and body guard gigs and have plenty of time. So don't get too comfortable."

"Why don't we do the TV thing. Maybe we can get it picked up on a real TV network and become stars."

"Right that's what we need; every mooch in the state knowing, who we are, and how we do things."

"But for now it's just Internet TV. Probably no more than two of our mooches watch anything on the Internet." Lucas said.

"Would like to bet next week's salary on that?" I asked.

"Why," he asked.

"I'll bet you your next week's salary that at last 1/4 of them have watched Internet porn."

"Okay, you would probably win, but odds are none of them are going to see our little show."

"Tell you what Lucas, I'll leave it up to Ed. Ed do you want to be a TV star?"

"Actually with all this talk over the last few months, I have considered it. I knew you would have to ask me, since I'm the most interesting one here."

"So what's your decision?"

"Well, I never did get my fifteen minutes, so yeah let me have my fame now."

I burst into the song "Fame, I'm gonna live forever, people gonna' remember my name." I sang it and laughed.

"So do I call Gwen?" Lucas asked.

"Are you that hard up for ass? Do I have to be a TV star, just so you can get laid again?" I asked.

"Actually she gives great head," Lucas said smiling.

"All right lover boy, make your call. Tell her to get with Marty and make us an offer."

"We would have gotten more Gwen said, if we had done it right after the Russian shoot out."

"Yeah well, I was a little busy," I replied. "Besides it's going to take them a while to get it on the air anyway. They are going to have to edit the film."

"It is the Internet. It won't take long at all. They want it to be as raw as possible. Just as long as it is still entertaining. That's probably why they picked us. We are pretty raw." Lucas said with a grin.

"You are for sure pretty green, at least," Ed threw in.

"Even if we all go for it, they won't be here for a while, so let's get some work done?"

"How does the day look?" I asked Lucas.

"Not too busy, we have time to play around, if there is something you want to do."

"What would I want to do?"

"I don't know, buy a car, let me ride the bike."

"Well I don't think we can buy a car today, but you can ride the bike."

"Cool," Lucas said all excited. Everybody loved Gus's bike.

"Load the bike onto the van and we will take it with us today. When we find a quiet spot, you can give it a try. But first we do the work." I was adamant about that.

We picked up the three new court orders. Ones we had not had time to pick up the day before. We also had two on hand, so our deliveries were five for the day, along with any calls we got while we were out working. We could deliver three times that many, if they were ready for us.

In our business you don't just go, go, go. Usually it is go, wait twenty minutes for something to happen, then go again and wait again. During one of those breaks I had Lucas pull the van into the parking lot of an abandoned textile mill.

"Okay Lucas," I began once the bike was off the van and ready to ride. "Now we will start the engine. It is a centrifugal clutch so when you rev up the engine it will want to start pulling the bike, so don't rev the motor until you are on the bike. If it dies, stop immediately. If you can't get it restarted or it is out of gas, lift it off the tire and lock it. You got it?"

"Yeah, I have seen you ride it. I think I can figure it out."

"Well we can get into how to ride with the most efficiency after you get the hang of it." I suggested. I knew Lucas was really still a kid, and he wouldn't want to ride it for efficiency, he would want to ride it like a motorcycle. To do that he needed the big engine Marty and I had on our cross country trip. The engine on Gus's bike was just a helper. It was meant to extend the bike's range.

Since the larger engines were illegal in every state, we had gotten lucky. None of the cops or highway patrols along the way bothered with us. We were off the beaten path most of the time. The engine on Gus's bike was very legal. It was even a little smaller than the largest legal, but still inadequate engine.

"Put the helmet on, I don't want your mother to come down to beat my ass for letting her little boy crack open his skull."

"Right, I hardly think my mom would do that, but I will wear the helmet."

"You are lucky, it should be a motorcycle helmet to be legal. So go for it."

The beauty of the motor on a bike frame is that almost everyone knows how to ride a bike. With those things, there were no new skills to learn. Engaging the engine was just a matter of opening the throttle, which replaced the right handle bar grip. Most of the time it was rev the engine and hold on, with the engine on Gus's bike it was rev the engine and settle back. It still required that one pedal up hill and even on the flat to get more speed now and then, but it made longer trips on the bike possible with the expenditure of the same amount of energy.