Part 2: Our Chapter Has a Rule: When a Brother Goes Down, the Whole Club Rides His Bike One Last Loop Around the City Before We Hand It Back to His Family. Three Days After We Buried Reggie Westcott, His 1998 Harley Started Itself in His Widow’s Garage. None of Us Were There. None of Us Believe in Ghosts
I want to tell you about Reggie’s garage.
Reggie and Patsy had lived for the last twenty-six years in a small one-and-a-half-story house off Sheridan Lake Road on the west side of Rapid City. The house had been built in 1976. The lot was about a third of an acre. The detached garage was a small two-car wood-frame structure built in 1978, set behind the house at the end of a small concrete driveway.
The garage had two side-by-side overhead doors. The left bay had been Patsy’s parking spot for her 2017 Subaru Forester. The right bay had been Reggie’s spot for the Heritage Softail.
The garage had no other vehicles in it on the morning of Tuesday October 29th, 2024.
The garage doors were the standard residential overhead-door design — sectional steel doors with manual chain hoists, no automatic openers. Both doors had been installed in 1996 by Reggie himself. He had refused, in twenty-eight years, to upgrade them to automatic. He had liked the manual chains. He had said, more than once, that automatic openers were “a fancy convenience for people who don’t want to get out of the car in the rain.”
The right bay overhead door — the bay where the Heritage Softail was parked — could only be opened from inside the garage by pulling the manual chain. From outside, the door could only be opened by walking into the garage through the side personnel door (which was at the rear corner of the garage, accessed from the back yard through a small gate from the driveway), and pulling the chain from inside.
The side personnel door had a standard residential deadbolt. Patsy had been keeping the door deadbolted continuously since the funeral.
The keys to the Heritage Softail had been sitting on the small kitchen counter inside the house, in a small wooden bowl that Reggie had used to drop his keys into every evening for twenty-six years, since the moment Patsy had brought them in from the funeral on Saturday afternoon.
I am going to be very precise about this, because the precision matters.
The keys had been on the counter.
The garage side door had been deadbolted.
The garage main bay doors had been closed and not locked but heavy and held by manual chain mechanisms.
Patsy had been alone in the house since Saturday evening. Her older son Marcus had stayed Saturday night and Sunday night. Her younger son Cole had stayed Monday night and was scheduled to stay Tuesday night. The boys had alternated by Patsy’s request because she had wanted, after Monday night, to spend at least one full evening alone in the house before the loop ride on Tuesday morning.
Cole had left Patsy’s house at 9:42 p.m. on the evening of Monday October 28th, 2024.
Patsy had locked the front door behind him. She had checked the garage side door deadbolt. She had checked the back door deadbolt. She had checked all the windows on the first floor. She had gone upstairs to her bedroom.
She had been alone in the house from 9:42 p.m. on Monday until 3:14 a.m. on Tuesday — five hours and thirty-two minutes.
The keys to the Heritage Softail had remained, by her own absolutely certain account, in the small wooden bowl on the kitchen counter the entire time.
She had been awake at 2:47 a.m. on Tuesday October 29th, 2024.
She had been awake because, by her own account in a careful conversation we had at her kitchen table a week later, she had not slept well any night since Saturday. She had been lying in her bed in the dark, in her bathrobe, with her reading glasses on and a small paperback open on her chest, not really reading.
At 2:47 a.m., her cordless phone — which she keeps on her nightstand — had rung.
The caller ID had said Edna Halverson.
Mrs. Edna Halverson is a kind sixty-eight-year-old retired schoolteacher who lives across the street from Reggie and Patsy’s house. She had moved into the house across the street in 1998. She had been a friend of Patsy’s for twenty-six years. She had attended Reggie’s funeral on Saturday.
Patsy had answered the phone.
She had said, “Edna?”
Edna had said, “Patsy. Honey. Are you in the house?”
Patsy had said, “Edna. Yes. I’m in bed. What’s wrong.”
Edna had said, “Patsy. Honey. The Harley is running. I can hear it. It’s running in your garage. The garage doors are still closed. The bike is on. Reggie’s Harley is running, Patsy.”
Patsy had said, “Edna. That can’t be. The keys are on the kitchen counter.”
Edna had said, “Patsy. I’m standing at my front window. I can hear it. I have heard that bike start up in your driveway every morning for twenty-one years. I know what that bike sounds like. It is running. Right now. In the garage. With the doors closed.”
Patsy had said, “Edna. I am going downstairs. Stay on the phone with me.”
Edna had said, “Patsy. Honey. Wait. Don’t go down there alone. Call Sundown. Call him right now. Don’t go down there.”
Patsy had said, “Edna. Stay on the phone.”
She had walked, in her bathrobe and slippers, downstairs.
She had not turned on the lights.
She had walked through the dark living room, through the dark kitchen, to the kitchen door that opens onto the small concrete walkway between the house and the garage.
She had heard, by the time she had reached the kitchen door, the unmistakable sound of a 1340cc Harley-Davidson Evolution V-twin engine idling at about 950 RPM, exactly the way Reggie had set the idle on the Heritage Softail twenty-one years earlier.
She had not opened the kitchen door.
She had walked, instead, to the small wooden bowl on the kitchen counter.
The keys to the Heritage Softail were sitting in the bowl.
She had picked the keys up.
She had held them in her hand.
She had gone back to the cordless phone.
She had said, “Edna. The keys are on the counter. I’m holding them. The bike is running.”
Edna had said, “Patsy. Honey. Call Sundown. Right now. Hang up with me. Call him.”
Patsy had said, “Edna. I’ll call you back.”
She had hung up.
She had called my cell phone at 2:51 a.m.
I had been asleep at my house off East Saint Charles Street on the east side of Rapid City. My phone had been on the nightstand. The ringtone had been the standard ringtone. My wife — Lorraine Halverson, age sixty-one, retired pediatric nurse — had been asleep beside me.
I had picked up on the third ring.
I had said, “Patsy. What’s wrong.”
She had said, “Sundown. The bike is running. In the garage. The keys are on the kitchen counter. I’m holding them. I have not been outside. The garage is locked. The bike is running.”
I had said, “Patsy. Stay in the house. Lock the kitchen door. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I’m going to call the chapter.”
She had said, “Sundown. Hurry.”
I had hung up.
I had called our chapter president — Frank “Captain” Brodersen, age sixty-five, retired Air Force master sergeant — at 2:53 a.m.
I had told him what Patsy had told me.
He had said, “Sundown. I’ll call the phone tree. Get there. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
I had gotten dressed. I had grabbed my cut. I had grabbed my keys. I had been out the door at 2:58 a.m.
I had been at Patsy’s house, with my truck pulled to the curb in front of Mrs. Edna Halverson’s house across the street, at 3:14 a.m.
Within the next eleven minutes, eighteen more chapter brothers had arrived.
Nineteen of us total had stood, in the dark, on the small concrete sidewalk at the curb in front of Reggie and Patsy’s house at 3:25 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday October 29th, 2024.
We had all heard the same thing.
The 1998 Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic — Reggie’s bike, parked alone inside a closed locked garage, with the keys on the kitchen counter inside the house where Patsy was holding them, with the side personnel door deadbolted — had been running, at idle, at the same idle RPM Reggie had set when he was alive, for thirty-eight minutes by that point.
We had stood on the sidewalk and listened to the bike of a man we had buried three days earlier idle in his closed garage.
None of us had said anything for the first ten minutes.
Captain Brodersen had been the first to speak.
He had said, very quietly, “Sundown. I want to be clear about something. I do not believe in ghosts. I am Air Force. I am a Lutheran. I have spent forty years on aircraft engines. Engines do not start themselves. I want to know what is going on in that garage.”
I had said, “Captain. Same. I do not believe in ghosts either.”
He had said, “Sundown. We need to get into the garage.”
I had said, “Captain. We need to be careful. We do not know what is going on. We need to think this through.”
He had said, “Sundown. Patsy is going to come out the front door of the house in about thirty seconds asking us to do something. We need a plan.”
He had been right.
Patsy had come out the front door at 3:27 a.m., in her bathrobe, with the keys to the Heritage Softail in her right hand. She had walked, slowly, across the front porch and down the small concrete walkway to where the nineteen of us had been standing at the curb.
She had said, “Brothers. Open the garage. Whatever is in there. We need to know.”
Captain Brodersen had said, “Patsy. Are you sure.”
She had said, “Captain. Yes.”
I had said, “Patsy. Give me the keys.”
She had handed me the keys.
I had walked, with Captain at my left shoulder and our chapter road captain Trevor “Trace” Engebretson at my right shoulder, around the side of the house, through the small gate, and to the side personnel door at the rear corner of the garage.
The deadbolt had been engaged.
I had unlocked it with the key that Patsy had also given me.
I had pulled the side door open.
The Heritage Softail had been running.
She had been on her side stand, in the center of the right bay, exactly where Reggie had parked her on Friday afternoon — the last time he had parked her, after riding home from a small charity ride that he had attended in the morning, before going to the office to do payroll.
The headlight had been off.
The taillight had been off.
The neutral indicator on the dash had been on.
The bike had been in neutral. The clutch had not been pulled. Nobody had been on the bike.
The engine had been idling at 950 RPM.
The fuel gauge had been reading approximately three-quarters full — which had been consistent with where Reggie had left the tank on Friday afternoon, given that he typically filled up to full on Sunday rides and would have been at about three-quarters from his Friday morning charity ride.
The ignition switch had been in the On position.
I had not, until I walked into the garage, considered the ignition switch.
The keys to the bike had been in my right hand.
The keys had been the only set of keys to that bike.
I had checked. I had said, “Patsy. Are these the only keys.”
She had said, “Sundown. Yes. He never made a spare. He did not believe in spares. He said spares were for people who didn’t pay attention to where they put their keys.”
I had walked around the bike, slowly. The ignition switch on a 1998 Heritage Softail is a small turn-cylinder switch on the dash, integrated with the headlight and accessory switches. It cannot be turned to the On position without a key in the cylinder.
There was no key in the cylinder.
The cylinder was empty.
The ignition switch was, somehow, in the On position with no key in it.
I had stood in the garage, with Captain at my left shoulder and Trace at my right shoulder, and I had looked at the Heritage Softail idling smoothly at 950 RPM, with the ignition switch on, with no key in the cylinder, in a closed locked garage where the only set of keys had been in a kitchen bowl until eleven minutes earlier.
I had not said anything for about twenty seconds.
Captain had said, “Sundown. What do we do.”
I had said, “Captain. I do not know.”
Trace had said, “Brothers. He’s taking his loop.”
We had both looked at him.
He had said, “Brothers. Look. We do not believe in ghosts. None of us do. But the bike is running. With no key in it. In a closed garage. With nobody touching it. Three days after we buried him. Hours before we were going to ride his loop for him. I am telling you what I think. I think Reggie is taking his own loop. I think we are not supposed to ride his bike this morning.”
Captain had said, “Trace.”
Trace had said, “Captain. I know how it sounds. I am a sixty-one-year-old union welder. I know how it sounds. I am still saying it.”
I had stood there for a long moment.
Then I had said, “Captain. I think Trace is right.”
Captain had said, “Sundown. Engineering does not work like this.”
I had said, “Captain. I know. I have spent thirty-eight years on engineering. I am telling you what I am looking at. I am looking at a 1998 Heritage Softail running at idle, in neutral, with no key in the cylinder, in a locked closed garage, with the only set of keys in my hand right now. There is no engineering explanation for this. I am going to give you the only explanation I can give you.”
I had said, “Captain. I think Reggie is taking his own loop.”
Captain had stood there for about thirty seconds.
Then he had said, “Brothers. Step back. Out of the garage. Close the side door. Lock it. We are not going to touch the bike.”
We had stepped back. We had closed the side door. We had locked it.
We had walked back to the front of the house.
The other sixteen brothers had been waiting at the curb. Patsy had been standing on the front porch.
Captain had told them what we had seen.
None of them had said anything for about a full minute.
Then a brother named Carl “Carl” Stenmark had said, very quietly, “Captain. I will tell my wife. She will not believe me.”
Another brother — Donny “Donut” Lindgren — had said, “Captain. I do not know what to think about this.”
Captain had said, “Brothers. Here is what we are going to do. We are going to wait. Out here. On the curb. We are going to listen. We are going to wait until the bike stops. Whenever that is. We are not going to touch the bike. We are not going to enter the garage. We are not going to interfere. We are going to let the bike run for as long as it is going to run. And then we are going to assess.”
I had said, “Captain. How long do you want to wait.”
Captain had said, “Sundown. I want to wait until the bike stops by itself.”
We had stood on the curb.
The Heritage Softail had run, at idle, at 950 RPM, in the closed garage, for forty-three more minutes after we had closed the side door.
She had stopped at exactly 4:14 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday October 29th, 2024.
She had stopped the way she always stopped when Reggie killed her — not a slow rough idle-down, but a clean immediate engine cut.
The garage had gone silent.
We had stood on the curb in the dark for another minute.
Then Captain had said, “Brothers. Sundown. With me. Patsy. Stay where you are.”
The three of us had walked back to the side door. I had unlocked it. We had opened it.
The Heritage Softail had been on her side stand, in the center of the right bay, exactly where she had been when we left her forty-three minutes earlier.
The ignition switch had been in the Off position.
I had checked. The switch was off. The bike was off.
I had walked around to the side of the bike. The fuel gauge was reading exactly the same level it had been reading when we left.
The engine had cooled slightly but was still warm to the touch. Approximately what you would expect after forty-three minutes of idle followed by a clean shutdown.
I had said, “Captain. The bike is off. The switch is off. There is no key in the cylinder. The keys are in my hand.”
Captain had said, “Sundown. We are not riding his loop this morning.”
I had said, “Captain. No. We are not.”
We had locked the garage. We had walked back to the front of the house. We had told Patsy.
Patsy had cried for about five minutes on the front porch.
Then she had said, “Sundown. Captain. Brothers. Reggie always did things his own way. I am not surprised. I am — I am sad and I am stunned and I am also not surprised.”
She had paused.
She had said, “Brothers. Did he take a good loop, do you think.”
Captain had said, “Patsy. By the timing. Forty-three miles is the loop. The bike ran for forty-three minutes. I think — I think he took the loop.”
Patsy had nodded.
She had said, “Brothers. Then we are done. The loop is done. The bike is his. Or — or it was his. Until forty-three minutes ago. It is mine now. I will hold it for the boys.”
I had said, “Patsy. The chapter is going to honor that. We will not ride the bike. We will not ask. The loop has been ridden. By the man who was supposed to ride it.”
She had said, “Sundown. Thank you, brother.”
We had stayed at her house until the sun came up at 7:42 a.m.
We had sat on the front porch with her. We had drunk coffee. We had not spoken much.
At 7:42 a.m., as the sun came up over the Black Hills, we had ridden home.
We had not told the rest of the world about it for over a year.
We are telling it now, in November of 2025, because Patsy has given me permission, and because I think it deserves to be told.
I want to tell you about the small thing I did not tell you yet.
When we had walked into the garage at 3:34 a.m. on Tuesday October 29th, 2024, the first time, with the Heritage Softail running at idle — Captain and Trace and I had not, in our careful inspection of the bike, thought to look at one specific thing.
We had thought to look at the ignition switch. We had thought to look at the fuel gauge. We had thought to look at the gear position indicator.
We had not thought to look at the odometer.
I had not thought to look at the odometer until two days later, on Thursday October 31st, 2024 — Halloween morning — when Patsy had asked me to come over and help her work out a list of small mechanical questions she was going to need to answer for the insurance company about the Heritage Softail.
I had walked into the garage at 9:14 a.m. on Thursday morning. The bike had been sitting where we had left her on Tuesday morning — same spot, same side stand, same off position. The keys had been on the kitchen counter.
I had gotten out my small notepad to write down the bike’s specifications for Patsy’s insurance paperwork.
I had checked the odometer.
The odometer had read 187,490 miles.
I had stood in the garage for about thirty seconds.
I had walked back into the house.
I had said, “Patsy. I want to ask you something. Before — when we found the bike running on Tuesday morning. Did the chapter take any photographs of the dash.”
She had said, “Sundown. No. We didn’t think to. Why.”
I had said, “Patsy. The mileage. On the odometer. It reads 187,490.”
She had said, “Sundown. What was it before.”
I had said, “Patsy. Reggie’s last service log entry was on Sunday October 20th, 2024 — five days before he passed. He recorded the mileage at 187,447. He had ridden, on Friday morning, an out-and-back charity ride that was about — I don’t know exactly, but probably forty miles round trip from his house. So at the time he parked her on Friday afternoon, the bike would have read approximately 187,487.”
I had paused.
I had said, “Patsy. The bike has been parked in this garage since Friday afternoon. Nobody has ridden it. The odometer should read about 187,487. It reads 187,490.”
She had said, “Sundown. Three more miles.”
I had said, “Patsy. Three more miles. That nobody rode.”
She had said, “Sundown. Or.”
I had said, “Patsy. The odometer gear in the speedometer of a 1998 Heritage Softail can advance very slowly when the bike is at idle. The mileage drum is mechanically connected to the speedometer cable, which is driven off the front wheel. At idle, with the wheel not turning, the odometer should not advance.”
I had paused.
I had said, “Patsy. Three miles in forty-three minutes is, I am realizing now, an idle speed of approximately four miles per hour, if the front wheel were somehow turning at that rate.”
She had said, “Sundown. The wheel was not turning. The bike was on the side stand.”
I had said, “Patsy. I know.”
We had stood in the garage for about a minute.
Then she had said, “Sundown. The loop is forty-three miles.”
I had said, “Patsy. Yes.”
She had said, “Sundown. The bike ran for forty-three minutes.”
I had said, “Patsy. Yes.”
She had said, “Sundown. The odometer added three miles.”
I had said, “Patsy. Yes.”
She had paused.
She had said, “Sundown. I do not have a — I do not have a coherent thing to say about that.”
I had said, “Patsy. Neither do I.”
We had not talked about it again for several days.
The three miles is the part of the story that I cannot stop thinking about.
Three miles is, by my own honest mathematical analysis of how an odometer works, not consistent with forty-three miles of road riding. Three miles is also not consistent with the bike sitting in a garage at idle on its side stand. Three miles is, in some sense, the small number that did not match either the supernatural explanation or the rational explanation.
It is, in some way I cannot describe, a small mark on the odometer that does not belong to either world.
It is the part of the story I have been carrying for thirteen months and that I am putting down here, in this story, because I do not know what else to do with it.
The odometer reads 187,490 today, in November of 2025.
It has not changed since Thursday October 31st, 2024.
Patsy keeps the bike covered in the garage. She has not driven her. She has not started her. She has not let anyone else into the garage to do either.
The Heritage Softail is, as far as anyone knows, going to read 187,490 miles for the rest of her life.
Three miles past where she should be.
Three miles short of a forty-three-mile loop.
A small private number that nobody can explain.
I want to tell you what I have come to think about it, thirteen months later.
I do not believe in ghosts.
I also do not believe that engines start themselves with no key in the cylinder, in locked garages, three days after their owners die, for exactly the duration of a forty-three-mile final loop, while adding three miles to an odometer that should not be advancing.
I do not have a coherent theory.
I have, instead, a small private reconciliation that I have made with myself over thirteen months, that I am going to share with you not because I think it is the truth but because it is the only thing I have been able to do with the experience.
The reconciliation is this.
Reggie Westcott was my best friend in the world for thirty-nine years. We had ridden together for eighteen years. We had taken seven specific multi-day motorcycle trips together, including one to the Tail of the Dragon in 2011, one to Sturgis every August between 2007 and 2023, and one to the Black Hills loop that we had ridden together every June for fifteen consecutive years.
Reggie had loved that Heritage Softail more than almost any object he had ever owned in his life.
He had also been, by his own quiet careful insistence at every chapter conversation about death, a man who had wanted, when his time came, to take his own final loop on his own bike, alone, the way he had ridden alone many Sunday mornings when Patsy had been asleep at home and he had wanted some quiet miles to think.
He had told me this, specifically, in a conversation on a small fishing pier on Pactola Lake in the Black Hills in May of 2019, on a Sunday morning when we had been the only two brothers awake at the chapter cabin.
He had said, “Sundown. When I go down. I do not want the chapter to ride my bike. I want to ride my own loop. Alone. By myself. With nobody on the back. With nobody in formation. Just me. One last quiet ride. I have ridden enough in formation, brother. I want one quiet one at the end.”
I had said, “Reggie. The chapter is going to ride your loop, brother. It is the rule. We have done it nineteen times.”
He had said, “Sundown. I know. I am not asking the chapter to break the rule. I am just telling you what I would want. I would want a quiet one at the end, brother. Just me. By myself.”
I had said, “Reggie. I will keep that in mind.”
He had said, “Sundown. Thank you, brother.”
That was the only conversation we had ever had about it.
I had not mentioned it to him again.
I had not mentioned it to the chapter.
I had not, between May of 2019 and Friday October 25th, 2024, ever told another human being what Reggie had said to me on the pier.
I had remembered, at 3:14 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday October 29th, 2024, standing on the small concrete sidewalk in front of Reggie and Patsy’s house listening to his bike idle in his closed garage, exactly what he had said to me on the pier.
I had not told the chapter, in those forty-three minutes on the curb, what Reggie had said.
I had not told Captain. I had not told Trace.
I had told only Patsy, on Thursday October 31st, after we had figured out the three miles.
Patsy had said, “Sundown. He told me the same thing. In our kitchen. About a year ago. I told him you and the chapter would never break the rule. He said he knew. He said he just wanted me to know what he would want, in case anybody ever asked. I have been thinking about that conversation for three days, Sundown.”
I had said, “Patsy. So have I.”
She had said, “Sundown. He took his quiet one. The chapter did not ride. The rule was honored, in some way that is not the rule we wrote down, but in some way that is.”
I had said, “Patsy. Yes.”
That is what I have made of it, thirteen months later.
I am not asking you to believe it.
I am telling you what I have made of it.
I want to tell you what we have done with the rule, since that morning.
The Black Hills Drifters MC, Rapid City chapter, has not ridden a fallen brother’s bike on a final loop since October 26th, 2024 — the Saturday of Reggie’s funeral, when we had still been planning to ride the loop on Tuesday morning.
We have, however, lost two more patched brothers since then.
Roger “Buck” Hennessey, age seventy-one, passed away in February of 2025 of complications of pneumonia.
Wesley “Wessy” Andersson, age fifty-nine, passed away in August of 2025 of pancreatic cancer.
We have, with both families’ full permission, added a small modification to the rule.
The rule, in its modified form, is now: When a patched brother passes away, the entire chapter — every patched member who is physically able — will ride in formation, on their own bikes, the same forty-three-mile loop around the city of Rapid City, before the bike is returned to the deceased brother’s family. The deceased brother’s bike will not be ridden by any member of the chapter. The deceased brother’s bike will, instead, be parked, with the keys in the ignition, on the front lawn of the deceased brother’s house, in the empty position at the front of the formation that the brother would have ridden if he were alive. The chapter will ride past the bike on the way out and ride past it again on the way back. The bike will, in some sense the chapter does not need to specify, ride the loop with us at the front of the formation, in the position the brother would have ridden, without leaving the lawn.
We rode this modified loop for Buck in February.
We rode it for Wessy in August.
Both bikes had been on the front lawn at the start. Both bikes had been on the front lawn when we had returned. Neither bike had moved.
Neither bike had run on its own.
Neither bike, in either case, had advanced its odometer by three miles.
The Reggie Westcott incident has, by the chapter’s careful account, been a one-time event.
It has not happened again.
We do not expect it to.
We do not need it to.
I will tell you the smallest version of this story, in case you skipped to the end.
Our chapter has a rule that when a brother passes away, the whole club rides his bike one final loop around the city before we hand it back to his family.
In late October of 2024, we lost a brother named Reggie Westcott.
We had been scheduled to ride his bike on Tuesday morning at 8:00 a.m.
At 2:47 a.m. that same morning — five hours and thirteen minutes early — his neighbor across the street called my phone to tell me that Reggie’s 1998 Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic had started by itself in his closed locked garage with the keys on the kitchen counter inside the house.
Nineteen of us listened to the bike idle from the curb in front of his house for forty-three minutes — the exact duration of the forty-three-mile loop we had been planning to ride.
The bike stopped on its own at 4:14 a.m.
The odometer, when I checked it on Thursday morning, had advanced by three miles since Friday afternoon when Reggie had last parked her.
We did not ride the loop on Tuesday morning.
We have not ridden a fallen brother’s bike since.
The Heritage Softail sits, today, in Patsy Westcott’s garage off Sheridan Lake Road in Rapid City, South Dakota, with the odometer reading 187,490 miles.
I do not believe in ghosts.
I am also not telling you that I do not believe what I saw.
Some things, by my own honest accounting at sixty-two years old, are not for me to explain.
They are only for me to remember.
I have remembered this one.
I have written it down.
It belongs, now, to whoever reads it.
If this story moved you — follow the page. There are more men out there with rules about how to honor the dead and bikes that, somehow, took their own quiet final loop alone in a closed garage at 2:47 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. There are more odometers that read three miles past where they should. There are more stories the world doesn’t see — and I will keep telling them as long as someone keeps reading.
