I remember it was the middle of winter when the family I met became my only summer. The cracks and pops of the exhaust made me so deaf to the common banter, that when I heard this group from across the dive, I knew they weren’t just another group of leather-vested dropouts. Initially it was the liquor store cologne stuck in their beards that attracted me, but I stopped and stayed when they told my back how beautiful blue eyes were. In the few minutes it took to inhale a whiskey coke, they had seen the thirst I had for freedom flowing out of my pores. They said that I reminded them of those dead flies in the corner, turned over and lifeless from the exhaustion one puts themself through when trying to live life so hard and so fast. And they were right; I had made an art out of living fast and crashing hard. When the skin on my palms tore and bled all over the pavement, it was like fine art to any peanut gallery.
    That was the night they taught me to ride. To unpin my curls and let them flow and crash in the wind like a desert ocean. They had found their horizon oasis in me. But Big Jimmy still hated me the most. I knew his secret and he saw that I had figured him out. He was a master at turning his cheap improperly functioning parts into his best character traits. But above everything, he let me learn that the open road will heal any scar.
    I’d been at war with myself. Before I knew that a desert sunrise on chrome was the best alarm clock, I only ever thought that the way I’d wake up was with rushed embarrassment to grab the ***** tip. Big Jimmy weaseled my ****** heart out of my sunken chest, and was gettin’ twitchy now that I had my hand on his. He always said at every pit stop, life was too short for traffic. And when I stepped out of the 7/11 that chilly November morning, I could hear the sounds of distant engines, howling laughter and a single tear hitting the asphalt. I was alone again. But this time, I wasn’t at war.