SOBS: Fiction: Thunder Road by John Moss

Will's Pond, eh? Jimmy Hayden? Yeah, I remember him," he lied.

"So what the hell does he have to do with this bike?" Markus then reenacted the story of how he cleverly, right on the spot, told the whole baseball team, all of whom inquired how the bike was repaired so quickly, that Ratso fixed it.

"Who's Ratso?"

"You, Dad."

"I'm Ratso?"

" You are a half-man, half-rat that lives in the sewer. You are a wizard of the Underworld that loves to fix bikes . You only talk to me because I am super sweet. You are an outcast ..."

"Now wait just a goddamn minute," Emerson said feeling violated somehow. "I'm your father, and you are going to take this busted bike to practice to morrow ..."

"The team ate it up, Dad, and Junior Hayden (not Jimmy Hayden) said his bike needed a look-see after lending it out to his sister. Everyone is in awe of Ratso. I need it tomorrow." Lacking intuition to foresee how bad of an idea this really was, but feeling the ego-feed of the team's compliments, Emerson decided to take the bike into the garage and see what he could come up with.

_______________________

Bikes soon arrived regularly and Emerson treated them as an artist would a sculpture, always trying to extend his vision beyond the limits previously conceived as the only way. Had there ever been an artistic movement predicated on bicycle repair? Maybe in Europe and here mountain bikes were turning into his specialty, "My forte," he bragged to Ginger. One of these days Markus would return the perfect bike and Emerson would move to Switzerland to live out his artistic moonlight.

It wasn't bad having a talent some wouldn't hesitate to call refined and elegant. Maybe Emerson's ego was so big Richard Branson had considered using his head as a balloon for a round the world excursion. Maybe Emerson did inquire about giving lectures at the local bike shop on topics like "Existentialism and the Suburban Biker." He had become a flash-action intellectual and artist. Ideas and movements surrounded their home, infecting even the wife and child who decided to increase the tale's believability much to the chagrin of Emerson who was content merely working and one day giving lectures to the pipe and beret crowd of bicycling.

"Markus was the kind of kid his father used to laugh at or trip out on recess."

"If someone sees you in the garage with all the bike stuff, I-I don't know what'll happen, Dad, so please just wear the suit while fixing bikes." The kid was trembling, the wife standing behind him in defiant pose of any such argument Emerson may have. So a costume was found and purchased, on sale out of season, and now Emerson had an outfit to wear while he worked, a painter's smock of sorts; a black, furry body suit, with a facemask that had sharp, hanging fangs and a tiny oval for his face to peek out. For a manrat.

One of the first nights in his suit, as the boy sat hidden in the garage watching him work, Emerson, always in sophisticated, adroit thought anymore, was bent over a recumbent bicycle when he quickly attacked the question of why children rarely came to their house. This song and dance needed a bigger audience.

"Because Dad, you come over and corner us and start talking about bikes, and how to take care of them. Other parents leave us alone or take us out for ice cream." Emerson stood up from his piece and considered this, spiking the side of his right hand on a low-hanging fang as he adopted The Thinker's pose. Ouch, damn that hurt. But weren't parents supposed to communicate with children?