Teaser Tuesday Catorce

It's been a while since I've posted a teaser. Heck, it's been a while since I've posted anything that wasn't merely an update on my existence.

So what you have here is a snippet. There's no more, this is all there is. I don't know who these people are yet, I'm not even sure what their names are. I don't know why they're doing what they're doing, or where they're going.

This was inspired by a song called "Smoke" by a band named Lucero. Someday, I'm going to write an entire book based around this song. After I'm done writing this other stuff folks are paying me for.

~*!*~

Maybe it was the fact that Don-the-Dick had fired me just that afternoon, from a job I hated anyway. Without the menial under-the-table job of grease monkey at a mostly-shady engine shop, there was no way I’d be able to pay next week’s rent on the lousy motel room I called home.

Maybe it was the fact that the last woman I’d come within arm’s reach of had almost gotten my head blown off by the jealous husband she’d conveniently forgotten to mention. I was still finding buckshot in weird places.

I piled everything I owned into one army-green duffel bag and strapped it to the back of my bike, the only thing I had that was worth anything. It growled me over to The Bar – no name, but since it was the only one in this podunk piece of crap town, it didn’t really need one – and I went in to drink my goodbyes.

“Where the hell you gonna go, man?” Joey shook his head, already three sheets in, and it was only ten minutes into happy hour.

“Dunno. Just gonna ride til I get there, I guess. S’how I wound up here in the first place.” Here, being where my bike had decided to blow a gasket on me, and where I’d been more or less living for the last eight months. It was the longest I’d stayed anywhere in a very long time, a mistake I didn’t think I’d be repeating.

“Won’t be the same without you.”

That made me smirk. “Yeah it will. The bar will still be here, and Ralph will still be serving the same pig piss as his ‘special brew’, and on Fridays, Kelly will come in, get plastered, and flash her tits all over the place, just like always. You don’t need me for that.”

Joey’s head swayed morosely, more drunk than grieving my imminent departure. “Won’t be the same.”

I stayed longer than I meant to, as folks I knew straggled in after long shifts in jobs even shittier than mine had been. They were people I would nod hey to, folks I didn’t want to punch in the teeth. Guess that’s as close to “friends” as a guy like me got. I drank more beer than I meant to, and I knew if I didn’t get my ass on the road, I wouldn’t be fit for riding.

Took me fifteen minutes to get out the door, and it wasn’t even that big a place. I think the whole town of maybe a hundred people turned out to see my road dust.

I got settled on my bike, buckling my pitiful excuse for a helmet under my chin. It wasn’t going to do much more than be a bucket for my brains on the day they scraped me off the pavement, and that was ok by me.

Just as I was about to punch the starter and see this town in my rearview, the bike sagged as more weight was added to it, and a pair of arms slipped around my waist.

I turned to find a pretty pair of brown eyes smiling at me, her dark curly hair caught back in a haphazard tail. Her jeans were ripped in several places, on purpose, and the white tank top she wore barely covered the assets the good Lord gave her. Her leather jacket was at least three sizes too big, and so worn it was almost see-through in places. Wasn’t anyone I’d ever seen in town before, and trust me, if a piece of tail like that had walked down the street, we’d have all known it before nightfall.

She grinned at me, displaying her dimples while one hand fished in the saddlebag where I kept my spare helmet. Slapping it on, she buckled it under her chin, and said, “Go!”

Maybe it was the three beers I’d had, or…hell, I don’t know. Without another word, I kicked the bike to life and we were gone, tearing out toward the highway.