“You ready?”
Hank swung onto the saddle.
Turned the ignition.
Pressed the starter.
Click.
Nothing.
His face collapsed.
Elijah moved immediately.
Checked.
Found a loose connection on the temporary ignition setup.
Corrected.
“Again.”
Click.
Cough.
Sputter.
Silence.
Loretta stood in the kitchen doorway.
Hands clasped.
Elijah stared at the carburetor.
He could almost hear James.
Not words.
Rhythm.
He adjusted the mixture screw a quarter turn.
Then looked at Hank.
“One more.”
The starter engaged.
The engine caught.
Once.
Twice.
Then the Panhead exploded into life.
Deep.
Uneven.
Strong.
The sound filled Sanders & Son.
Hank froze over the handlebars.
Elijah watched his face change.
Relief.
Disbelief.
Grief.
The old man bowed his head.
His shoulders shook.
Tears landed on the gas tank.
Elijah turned away.
He pretended to organize tools.
After a minute, Hank shut the engine down.
Silence returned.
“That’ll hold?”
He asked.
“Two hundred miles.”
Elijah said.
“Probably more.”
“But don’t treat it like a permanent rebuild.”
“You want the proper sleeve soon.”
“Real coil too.”
Hank stared at him.
“You machined a sleeve out of Buick scrap.”
“Adapted a mower coil.”
“Cut a head gasket by hand.”
“In the dark.”
Elijah shrugged.
“Mostly dark.”
Hank laughed through tears.
“Son.”
“That ain’t normal mechanic work.”
“It’s what my daddy taught me.”
Hank looked toward James’s bench again.
“He must’ve been one hell of a man.”
Elijah swallowed.
“He was.”
At 2:12, Hank pulled his roll of cash out.
“How much?”
“Twenty dollars.”
Hank stared.
“What?”
“Labor.”
“Scrap wasn’t costing me anything.”
Hank laughed.
“Twenty?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’d pay two thousand.”
“Then you’d be getting robbed.”
Hank peeled five hundred dollars from the roll.
Placed it in Elijah’s hand.
Elijah looked down.
Five crisp hundreds.
His heart began pounding.
Five hundred dollars.
Georgia Tech deposit.
Electricity.
Food.
A piece of the mortgage.
Five hundred dollars was not nothing to Elijah.
It was doors.
Hank saw him hesitate.
“Take it.”
Elijah thought of the foreclosure notice.
Loretta.
The envelope beneath his mattress.
Then James.
If you take what you didn’t earn, you spend your life paying interest.
Elijah closed Hank’s fingers around the bills.
“Twenty.”
“Son.”
“Twenty.”
“For your grandmother.”