Chapter 1: A new life
The engine in my brand new, black, Harley Davidson Dyna Super Glide roared into life as I prepared to start out on my new life. A new life that would lead me far from the small town that I'd lived since childhood, and away from everything I'd ever known. A brand new world was waiting for me and I was ready to greet it full on. Sure I was feeling a bit nervous, but at the same time the excitement that pulsed through my very being was almost more than I could take.
Just six short months ago my wife of twelve years came to me and told me she wanted a divorce. Now I should have been left feeling broken hearted, but instead I'd describe the feeling as one of euphoria. I'd met Marry in the seventh grade when she moved to my small town. I was the first boy to pay her any attention and we made quick friends, and as the years moved along a lot more than friends. We married just out of high school at the ripe young age of just eighteen.
The first few years were good, we were young and in love and even though we had very little money we always seemed to make the best of it. No one back then could have told us that the day would come when we would no longer feel that love for each other. We were more than just a married couple, we were best friends. Somewhere around the fifth year life's harsh realities began to set in. We both had our careers and soon found ourselves having less and less time for each other.
The past three years our marriage was more of a technicality than anything else. We hadn't had sex in over a year, and to be honest I don't think either of us realized it or missed it. Sex had grown sterile and boring, often leaving us both feeling unfulfilled. I admit that I often thought of cheating, but I never went that far. I kept myself content with a healthy collection of porn and plenty of masturbation.
Marry it turns out didn't share my feeling on fidelity, and as it turns out had been seeing Todd behind my back for almost four years. I guess that just goes to show how much attention that I actually paid to her. So in the end how could I be broken hearted when it was as much my fault as hers.
On the very day she asked me for a divorce I realized that someway, I had to take this ending of my marriage and use it to move on into something new and fresh. Not a new woman, but a new life altogether, a new life I knew I couldn't find here in this small town. I knew I had to do something rash, and spontaneous. Something that would make everyone turn their heads and wonder what the hell had gotten into me. They would whisper that I'd gone insane. "Poor John is just so heart-broken that he's gone and lost his mind," they'd say. All the while deep down they would all find themselves secretly longing to be me. To do as I'd done and give up everything, and free themselves from the ties of their lives. To hit the road and never look back.
That is precisely what I was about to do. I'd taken and sold everything that I had left after the divorce was final. I purchased my Harley Davidson motorcycle and banked the rest in order to fund my expedition. I had plenty set aside that I could remain on the road for at least a year. I sat down with maps of the United States and Canada and I planned out a ride that would take me on a grand journey that I like to call my new life.
I pulled the throttle, popped the clutch and I was off. The first mile of many more to come. The fresh summer air felt warm and refreshing as I headed out down the long road to personal fulfillment. The loud rumple of machine was the only sound to be heard. The feeling of pure power pulsed through me as I felt the acceleration build. My new life had just begun and I was more than ready. Bring on the open road.
After being on the road for several days, stopping to eat and rest at night. I was cruising at about sixty miles per hour on a long straight road somewhere in North Carolina. Tall trees, their leaves all turned to bright colors for the fall season, lined both sides of the road. It was as peaceful and area I'd ever seen.
Up ahead n the right ahead I spotted what appeared to be a biker bar. The parking lot was dirt and packed mostly with motorcycles of all makes and models. The front of the bar had windows that were blacked out except for the neon signs advertising different beers. Above the door hung a sign that simply read "Bar."
It certainly wasn't a very inviting looking place, but I decided that a cold beer would go down good right about now and what better place to get a drink than a biker bar right? After all I am technically a biker now. At least that's the way I seen it.
My first step through the door of this run down little bar quickly told me that these bikers didn't see things quite the same as I did. Silence enveloped the entire place all heads turned in my direction. It felt like one of those nightmares where you walk into work wearing nothing but your birthday suit. Only I wasn't waking up and these people weren't laughing. I smiled and waved at everyone, "Hey brothers, how are ya'll?" Damn I said, 'ya'll'. Bikers don't say "ya'll." I knew I was screwed now.
I felt a large hand slide over the back of my leather jacket and pull me upward about the same time as a very large, dirty looking man approached in front of me. He appeared to be about six-foot four and two hundred eighty pounds of pure muscle. His blond hair was pulled back tightly into a ponytail that draped lazily over his right shoulder. His blue eyes cut through my soul, and his apparent permanent sneer caused me to shiver at the very sight. A long scar adorned his face and stretched from the corner of his left eye down to the corner of his lip. He wore only an open leather vest that showed off a tattoo of a skeleton taking a voluptuous red head from behind, and a pair of leather pants. He also had several tattoos on his arms and one on his neck that simply says, "Baby."
He definitely wasn't the type of dude I wanted to cross, problem being that I do believe I'd already crossed him and I wasn't quite sure why.
He stepped to within several inches of my face and spat a large wad of chewing tobacco on my boot. "Who the hell are you to call me brother?"
I stumbled on my words, "I uhhhhh, well you see... ummmm, I didn't mean any harm."
"Let me give him a warm welcome Skeletor," squawked the brute who was currently holding me about two inches off the ground.
Skeletor, as I now knew the large man's name to be grunted and gave a passive gesture with his hand, "Soon enough Buzz, first I'm gonna find out who the hell this pretty boy thinks he is, coming into our bar and acting like he's one of us."
