Page 6 of Existential

“Good.” Jo Jo throws a leg over his bike, leaning back in the seat to regard me as he straps his helmet on. “You need to be anywhere for the next hour?”

“Nope. Crackers and Digits are due back in at about two. I’ll make sure I’m at the clubhouse before then, but otherwise I’m free. Why?”

“We need to take a ride, blow out the cobwebs.” He presses the ignition and fires his bike to life. “You, my man, need to let it go at ninety miles and hour and remember why it is you chose this life. Why you make the hard decisions. Why you’re goin’ to find a way out of this shit.”

“I’m in it, because I was born in it,” I grumble, strapping on my helmet and wishing for my dark, quiet bedroom.

“Maybe so, but that ain’t why you stayed.”

He takes off down the street, leaving me on the side of the road to mull his words over as I start my bike and pull out after him.

Fucker’s right: I might have come kicking and screaming into the world on a clubhouse pool table, but I had every chance to leave before I turned eighteen and patched in.

And I chose not to.

Because you can’t escape what’s in your blood, and leather and fuel are in mine.