The decision to keep working sounded simple.
In practice, it wasn't.
I could concentrate for a while, sometimes long enough to forget about the diner and the argument behind it.
Then something would bring the questions back.
Usually, it was the motorcycle.
The Shovelhead had been the reason we were spending so much time in the shop.
We wanted it ready for the memorial ride, and we had worked hard to get it running.
That part hadn't changed.
What changed was the way I thought about the machine.
Before Brix arrived, I had looked at it and seen a job that needed finishing.
Afterward, I saw the same motorcycle and remembered a man asking what someone had noticed about it.
I didn't like the difference.
It made me feel as if I had missed something important, even though I couldn't say what that something might be.
Reed seemed determined not to let the uncertainty interfere with the work.
He moved around the motorcycle with the same attention he had shown before.
He checked what needed checking.
He considered the work we had already done.
He didn't invent mechanical problems simply because the situation had become uncomfortable.
I admired that about him.
I was trying to learn from it.
Odom was doing his best, too.
He kept track of the time and stayed close enough to hear what Reed needed.
Every now and then, he looked at the front windows.
I noticed because I was doing the same thing.
Neither of us mentioned it.
There was nothing outside that gave us a reason to be concerned.
At least, nothing we could identify.
That distinction mattered.
I had begun to understand how easily uneasiness could turn an ordinary day into something that felt threatening.
A passing vehicle became something to notice.
A noise from outside interrupted a thought.
A moment of silence made me wonder whether somebody else was thinking about the same questions.
None of those things proved anything.
They only showed how much space the conversation had taken up in my mind.
I was tired of giving it that space.
But I couldn't simply decide to forget what Brix had told us.
He had heard an argument.
The diner man had asked him specific questions.
And Saturday had been mentioned as a deadline.
Those facts were still there.
We had to live with them without pretending they meant more than we knew.
Reed stopped beside the workbench.
"How much time do we have left?"
Odom checked the time.
"Enough to finish what we need to finish, if we stay focused."
Reed nodded.
"Then let's do that."
I felt relieved.
Not because the warning had become less serious.
Because somebody had finally given us something useful to do.
We returned to the motorcycle.
The familiar work helped.
I paid attention to what was in front of me instead of trying to imagine a conversation I had never heard.
For a while, it worked.
Then I remembered Brix's expression when he told us the diner man had wanted to know whether Reed had spoken to him.
That detail bothered me.
The man had not only asked whether Brix had been inside the shop.
He had wanted to know whether Reed had talked to him.
Why would that matter?
If the man was merely curious about the motorcycle, he might have asked about the work.
He might have asked who owned it.
He might have wanted to know whether it was ready for the memorial ride.
But according to Brix, the questions had included whether Reed and Brix had spoken.
That made the conversation feel more personal.
I stopped myself from going further.
We didn't know what the diner man believed.
We didn't know whether he thought Brix had seen something.
We didn't even know whether the man had a particular reason for asking about Reed.
I could recognize that the questions were unusual without claiming to understand them.
It was harder than I expected.
Odom seemed to be thinking about the same problem.
He looked toward Reed.
"That question about whether you'd talked to Brix still bothers me."
Reed didn't stop working immediately.
When he did, he turned toward Odom.
"It bothers me too."
"Why ask that unless he thought there was something to know?"
Reed considered the question.
"Maybe he did think that."
Odom waited.
"That doesn't mean there was anything."
I looked at Reed.
He was right.
The diner man could have believed Brix knew something without Brix actually knowing it.
The man's suspicion, if that was what it was, might have had no basis.
We couldn't confuse his questions with proof.
I had already done too much of that in my own mind.
Odom nodded slowly.
"Fair enough."
He didn't seem satisfied.
Neither was I.
But the answer was honest.
We had no reason to treat the man's assumptions as facts.
We also had no reason to dismiss the questions completely.
That was where the difficulty remained.
I looked at the motorcycle again.
The metal was familiar.
The work we had done was familiar.
Nothing about the machine explained why the diner man had asked about it.
I wondered whether Reed felt the same frustration.
He had spent so much time getting the Shovelhead running.
Now he had to look at it while considering a problem that had nothing to do with the engine itself.
He didn't complain.
He simply continued.
That afternoon, I found myself thinking about Saturday again.
Forty-nine hours had been the amount of time we had when Brix first told us what he had heard.
The hours had continued passing while we talked, worked, and tried to make sense of the situation.
The memorial ride was getting closer.
We still needed to be ready.
And whatever the diner man had been concerned about, we had not learned anything new that explained it.
I wanted more information.
I wanted something definite enough to separate a real concern from a mistaken impression.
But there was no new detail to work with.
We had Brix's account.
We had the questions.
We had the argument he had overheard.
Nothing more.
I had to accept that for the moment.
Reed completed another check and stepped away from the motorcycle.
He looked at it with the quiet satisfaction of someone who could at least say the work was progressing.
I wanted to share that feeling.
I did, a little.
The machine was getting closer to where we needed it to be.
That was real progress.
The other problem remained unresolved, but it didn't erase what we had accomplished.
I realized I had been treating the uncertainty as if it made every good thing meaningless.
It didn't.
We could be concerned about the diner man and still be glad the motorcycle was running.
We could take Brix seriously without deciding that something terrible was certain to happen.
We could prepare for Saturday without pretending we understood what the men had discussed.
Those things could all be true at once.
It was a small realization.
It helped.
Odom returned to the workbench and picked up his phone.
Reed went back to the motorcycle.
I stayed nearby, listening to their quiet conversation and watching the work continue.
For a little while, I allowed myself to think about the memorial ride again.
Not about the diner.
Not about the argument.
Just the ride and the machine we had worked so hard to prepare.
It felt good to remember why we had started.
I knew the questions would return.
They always did.
But I no longer needed to answer them every time they entered my mind.
For now, the motorcycle needed our attention.
So we gave it that.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Odom Asked the Question I Had Been Avoiding, and Reed’s Answer Reminded Me How Little We Actually Knew
I Thought Getting One Old Motorcycle Running Would Solve Everything, Until a Hurt Boy Told Us What He Heard
Part 9 of 20
