Then he cocked his head toward the barn. “You ready?” he asked. She nodded. He stepped back, and they crunched through the gravel to the open barn doors.
The building had to be a body shop, because the walls were hung with tools and engine parts, and the floor was smooth concrete stained black with oil. Evie was not surprised to find more motorcycles under the dim amber lights. These ones all looked pretty old, like they hadn’t been ridden in a long time. Some were covered in canvas tarps or were lying in pieces on the floor.
Ré nodded to one that wasn’t covered. “’43 Knucklehead,” he said. “All original.”
“What?” she asked, like he was speaking joual.
“That’s a Harley Knucklehead,” he repeated. “From 1943. It was Alex’s great-granddad’s. Not too many of them left these days.”
Evie looked at it again, not as impressed as she guessed Ré wanted her to be. “Why do they call it a Knucklehead?” She pictured the rider, not the bike.
“The rocker boxes,” he told her, like she knew what those were. “They look like knuckles.” He made a fist and showed her.
It wasn’t the most comfortable-looking bike. The tiny leather seat had no padding at all, worn cracker-thin by, presumably, Alex’s great-granddad’s butt. She remembered Sunny telling her that he was “full-patch.” She didn’t really know what that meant, but Sunny had made it sound pretty heavy. Those spooky, inked-up guys on Alex’s back deck were probably all full-patch too.
“How come you know so much about motorcycles?” she asked Réal.
He shrugged. “My dad’s a machinist,” he told her. “Sometimes he makes custom parts for these guys.” She didn’t really know what a machinist was either, but the answer sounded like it made sense.
A framed picture hung on the wall behind the bikes. She stepped over to look at it. Three young guys leaning on long rifles, and one more sitting sideways on a motorbike with white numbers sprayed across the gas tank. They all wore military uniforms, and all were grinning at the camera. Time had yellowed the photo, but the boys looked so young, maybe only Ré’s age. Handwritten across the bottom was the inscription Stay out of the bathtub, Janeski!
“Janeski?” Evie asked aloud.
Réal came up beside her, looking at the photo too. “Yeah, they changed their name,” he said with a shrug. “Racism, I guess.” He stood so close she could feel his shoulder move. It made her want to tip her head, rest it on his denim jacket, just lean into him. She swallowed and stepped away, careful not to back into the bikes.
Réal took his beer to a vintage-looking fridge. He pulled one can out, glancing her way as if to offer it, but she was already walking toward the back of the barn, putting some space between them.
The back doors opened onto the lawn, blue in the failing light and surrounded by a ring of trees topped with the night’s first stars. To the right, the yard sloped off down a hill, toward the sound of the dirt bikes.
Kids from school were gathered around a big tin tub that overflowed with ice and beer. A picnic table by the barn was spread with food and bottles of liquor, and a keg sat in a big bucket of ice on the ground beside it, red Solo cups scattered around. Ré totally didn’t need to bring his own. There was enough booze here to get the whole class drunk twice and then some.
She recognized a lot of the kids, but she didn’t really know them. Familiar faces that Evie had never spoken to. Most were not in her grade—it was a grad party, after all, and she wasn’t graduating. She was a little surprised Alex had even invited these kids. A few weeks ago, this party probably would have only been five people. And it might have been on a rooftop, or down at the riverbank, or at the lake. But things were different now that Shaun was gone.
The rattle and spit of two-stroke engines rose from the bottom of the hill. It broke through the tree line, drowning the music, yellow headlights bobbing up across the blue lawn. There were three of them. When they reached the barn, their engines skittered to a halt, and the quiet that followed made her wonder why she’d thought the music had been loud before.
Alex lifted his long leg over the lead bike. He pulled his helmet off and shook his hair out, every tooth he had glowing in the dark.
“What’s up, yo!” he shouted at the crowd, which earned a cheer, red cups and bottles raised. “Let’s get this bitch started!”
He pushed through the crowd to the fire pit, drawing a silver Zippo from inside his leather jacket. He knelt and lit the pile of wood and paper, and the whole thing went up instantly, probably doused with starter before anyone had arrived. Bright sparks popped and whirled into the sky. The crowd loved it, and they let him know.
Flames picked his copper hair out from the dark, the angle of his grin, his narrow eyes, shadows dancing up his cheekbones. Evie hardly recognized him. He looked half wild. Lord of the Flies. King Alex. She thought of that night, of him leaping over the flames, and of the hollow look on his face later, when the fire had died.
He backed off into the dark again, letting it swallow him, letting his guests fill the space he’d left behind.
Evie saw Sunny then, standing at the edge of the firelight. Her arms were crossed over an artfully torn-up black sweater and an acid-green bra. Her face was blank as stone behind the heavy curtain of her hair. Evie couldn’t see her eyes,
