Title: Neighborhood Watch
by R. M. Hutchison
It’s funny, the things you remember, the things that seem to stand out in your mind as the years pile up. Back when I was a wet nose kid, we lived in a third floor walk-up that was part of an apartment complex lashed together for vets returning from the big war. It was made up of three story brick buildings each containing twelve apartments clustered around two stairwells. There were twenty buildings lining both sides of a quarter mile of street. It was old when we moved in. It wasn’t really the kind of housing project you see in the inner cities now, but we didn’t know that.
My old man was a big, ornery bad ass who’d made his bones leading an infantry company all the way from Normandy to Berlin. It was made up of what he lovingly referred to as misfits, goofballs, and losers . Not all of them made it, but of the ones who did, most of ’em came by at one time or another to thank the old Sarge and shake his hand. That was how I learned he’d been in the war. Some guy would show up at the door and him and the old man would hug each other and then break out the Old Sunnybrook. I’d get sent to bed early and have to listen from the door of my room as they talked way into the night about things the old man never mentioned. That’s when I understood that my old man was different from the other stiffs he worked with down at the plant. If even half of what those ex soldiers said about him could be believed, my old man was a cross between a water-walking, miracle-working savior and some kind of savage, blood drinking stone killer.
He was different in other ways too. This was the 60’s and nobody in our neighborhood rode motorcycles. Nobody except my old man. He’d ridden old Indians and Harleys as a kid but because of some of the combat injuries he suffered in the war, he’d laid off since then. All that changed about the time I turned seven.
One fall day just before Kennedy got elected, my first grade teacher came running into the room and dragged me to the office. They told me the old man had been in a car wreck and one of them drove me to the hospital and turned me over to my mother. Pissed off and blind drunk, he’d launched the family Plymouth station wagon airborne, at the end of a curve, on the bank of the Elk river, wrapping the big Detroit iron around a perfectly good tree. It died. He didn’t.
He spent three months in intensive care with a broken back and neck, then another three months wearing a brace that looked like a space suit out of a fifties monster movie. They told us he’d never walk again. They forgot to tell him. Three weeks after he strolled out of the hospital, Ma found out he’d been bangin’ one of the nurses since getting out of traction.
When he rode it home the first day, the neighbors had a fit. It was noisy, big and stood out against the beat up Fords and Chevys that hogged the parking spaces in that working class part of town. Somebody had painted the sonofabitch bright blue and that made it stand out even more. There were no lid laws in those days and the old man wouldn’t have pissed in one anyway. He wore boots, khaki work pants with white t-shirts and topped it off with a pair of mirrored “Roy Orbison” sunglasses.
I was in love with the bike and in awe of my old man. All the kids on the street were. He played it up to the hilt, knowing that it drove their parents nuts. Once in a while, if he hadn’t been drinkin’ much, he’d take the neighborhood kids for a short ride. My younger sister came up with the idea of chargin’ the little crumb grabbers a dime for each ride. We had seventy cents and were on our way to a buck-fifty when the old man caught on. He made us give all the money back and gave the rest of the kids in the line a free ride, after which they all got to watch him bust my ass. Since I always lied and took full credit for our evil deeds, my sister missed out on all the old man’s sessions with the big leather belt. All I could do was grit my teeth an hold on while he lit me up.
If we were really lucky, when he was in a good mood and not too hung over, he’d let us kids watch him tear the V-twin motor down. He did it right there in the parking space with all his tools laid out on an old piece of canvas. We knew better than to touch anything or even talk to him until he got the scooter back together and tuned just right. He’d start in the morning and have her purring by mid afternoon. The neighbors went ape-shit.
The kids loved him, the parents hated him, and me, I just wanted to grow up and be like him. I’d watch him tear out early in the morning on weekends to go on rides or to hill climbs. Once the big Panhead had disappeared, I’d listen till I couldn’t hear it anymore then go racing back and jump on my bicycle. We put baseball cards in the spokes to make engine sounds and pretended we were riding with my old man. We’d ride all day and into the night.
He always parked in front of our building so he could be as close to the bike as possible. He left his big logging chain and lock and the huge green tarpaulin in the middle of the parking space to keep some cage driver from taking it. He’d pull up and back into one of the old straight-in parking places between a Desoto or a Dodge , lay it over on the side stand and smoke a cigarette while he waited for the motor to cool. Then he’d cover the bike, wave at the loafers who lounged on the stoop in front of the manager’s office, then head inside.
Although nobody ever said anything about it, it was understood that most of the neighbors thought it was uncivilized to have a big, nasty, oil dripping, motorcycle taking up one of the rare and valuable pieces of prime parking real estate. They couldn’t understand why he didn’t leave it around in the side parking lot, sort of as an incentive to the hubcap thieves and glove box pilferers that prowled that area. But nobody ever actually made the suggestion. Face to face confrontations weren’t their style. The old man continued to mark his spot with his tarp and chain when he was out riding. The neighbors continued to bitch and whine behind his back.
As the weeks wore on, they couldn’t let it go. Seeing the big blue behemoth oiling up that pristine parking stall just ate away at them. Something had to be done and when they finally got up the courage to make their move, they chose guerilla tactics over diplomacy.
They waited in the dark until the old man wasn’t around and then someone knocked over the Duo Glide.
None of us saw it happen of course. They were very careful about that. We were all upstairs in that sweatbox of an apartment waiting for Ma to finish dinner, so we could eat and get back outside where it was a somewhat cooler. The old man answered the door, shirtless like he always was in that heat.
Looking past the old man, I could see a couple more of the local loafers hanging back, down on the lower landing. I watched the neighbor as my old man’s eyes bored holes in him. His face began to quiver a little around the jowls. He was sweating buckets. “Uhh. We think somebody hit it with a car. Probably trying to park in that space..not much light there you know.”
The old man closed the door in the guy’s face while he was still stammering. He turned toward the kitchen, and I saw my mother step away from the stove. She heard what the neighbor said and her face went white. She’d had enough experience with the old man’s temper to know what was coming. We all had.
The old man looked like he could kill death itself. He pulled on his boots and a shirt and headed down the stairs. By this time the messenger was long gone. I followed even though I knew it would be smarter and a whole lot safer to stay inside. I had to see this. I just knew the old man was going to go down there and just start kicking the shit out of whoever got in range. I mean, he didn’t have a choice. He was known to be a bad hombre and he couldn’t let a thing like this go by without some blood and broken teeth, if he expected to hold onto that rep.
I followed the old man out of the hall way into the hot dark night. I could hear the murmuring of the crowd that had gathered around the old man’s parking spot. “Wonder how it happened? Car musta hit it or… Ain?t safe parking a motorbike out here…Them juvie hot rod punks. They probably did it.” I remember thinking, it was funny that they were all men. On a hot night like this there should have been women and kids all over the street.
As he walked across the small square of grass that separated our building from the street, the little knot of men parted for him like he was Moses at the Red Sea. As they stepped back, he saw his beautiful Harley Davidson Duo Glide lying on it’s side puking oil and gas. He stepped up to his scoot and stood there, hands on hips looking down at it. His face was like a stone wall. He said nothing.
Finally, one of the little weasels got the nerve to speak up. “Hey, Mac, ain’tcha gonna pick up yer sickle?”
The old man shook his head. “Nope,” he said, as his eyes drilled into the crowd. “I ain’t the one that knocked it over.” He crossed his arms and glared at them. “And I won’t be the one pickin’ it up.”
I heard another voice from the crowd. “Well, gosh Mac. What are ya gonna do?”
But I thought wrong.
The old mans voice was calm and steady. Eerily conversational. “What I’m gonna do is, I’m gonna go back upstairs to my apartment, have myself a cup of coffee, and smoke a cigarette. That’ll take about thirty minutes. Then I’m gonna come back down here…” He let his gaze rest on each one of the men for emphasis. “By that time, whoever knocked that fuckin’ bike over had better have it sitting up on the kickstand all wiped off and just like I left it.” He turned on his heels without waiting for an answer and strode back inside the building.
I chased after him not knowing what to think. Somebody had kicked over the old man’s beloved motorcycle and no one was bleeding yet. He’d just turned around and gone home. I couldn’t believe it. I was just a kid, but even I knew one of those limp dicks in that crowd had done the deed. Was he just gonna let ’em get away with it?
I got upstairs just as the old man was putting a pan of water on the stove for instant coffee. Ma, being wiser the rest of us, had disappeared. My sister was oblivious in front of the TV and that left me as the only witness to what the old man did. And what he did was nothin’. He made the coffee, sat down with it at the kitchen table, lit up a Camel and watched the clock above the refrigerator wind down.
It was the longest half-hour of my life. The old man was quiet. He just sat there smoking and drinking the bad instant coffee. When a half hour had passed, he got up without a word and headed out the door and down the stairs. I chased after him, keeping my distance. Now maybe we’d see the fire, or the brimstone or maybe at least a little thunder and lightning. Maybe now he’d start kickin’ some ass.
By the time I got to the street, the old man was already there, standing in the big pool of yellow light cast by the street lamp. We were alone. The crowd of neighbors had evaporated. The street was empty. Empty accept for the big blue Duo Glide sitting upright on it’s kickstand, and centered perfectly over the oil stain that marked it’s spot in the middle of the parking place. The green tarp had been neatly folded and placed on the big leather seat.
The old man walked over to his bike and looked it over quickly. Once he was satisfied, he unfolded the tarp and covered the scooter. He stepped back and surveyed his work. Then he crossed his arms and did a slow scan of the entire street with those wicked looking eyes of his. He nodded his head slowly in satisfaction and turned to go back inside.
Usually, I would have tried to remain invisible at a time like this. But I had to know what had just happened. “Hey dad?”
I started for the entrance, trying to talk while still keeping a safe distance in front of him. “How’d you know?” “How’d I know what?” “How did you know who knocked the bike over?” For the first time he grinned. “Didn’t know.” he said. Then who set the bike back up?” “I got no idea.” I stopped and turned to face him. “Well, don’t you wanta find out?” “It’s not important for me to know who they are,” he said as he took my hand. “What’s important is for them to know who I am. Tonight, I just had to remind ’em a little.” “But Dad,” I said, still not catching on. “Don’t ya wanna kick their asses?” I heard him laugh that deep mean laugh of his. “I just did, boy,”he said. “I just did. Now get yer butt back up those stairs.”
