2. MAX

Chapter two

MAX

I was hunched over the motorcycle in the front yard. The afternoon sun was beating down hard on my back as I worked, getting my fingers deep into its mechanics. The bike was a beauty – a vintage Yamaha XS750, with its sleek lines and powerful engine. It belonged to my neighbor, but he didn't want to sell it. I was told about it by his son, and the father and I agreed that I would fix it up and then sell it, and we would split the proceeds. This was how I made my money now, fixing things up, selling them, figuring out deals like that.

I'd always loved everything about motorbikes: their look, their cold, hard feel, even the smell of motor oil, and the precision of how they functioned. Getting one and fixing it up was like therapy for me, an escape from reality, and also to make a few dollars.

Spending time like this was better than spending time with people, almost. Don't get me wrong: I am good company, a fun guy. But I felt as much connection to these beautiful machines as I did to other human beings. I wasn't sure I was happy about that, but it was true.

With grease-smeared fingers, I had carefully taken out, cleaned, and repaired the engine, and now had slid each repaired piece back into place. As I tinkered with the inner workings of the bike, I couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction as if you had taken a watch apart and then put it back together.

It didn't always work out. A few months before, I had picked up an old Kawasaki – off eBay! – that rather than getting better had got worse as I worked on it. But this Yamaha was a dream. I could feel the price rising. All I had to do now was put on new tires, clean it up a bit, a few other small fixes, and we'd be golden.

I lost track of time as I worked; I always did. The world around me faded into the background: the sound of birds chirping in the trees, the distant hum of traffic on the streets, the cicadas, the buzz and hiss of my neighbors' lawn sprinklers.

Finally, after some hours, I stepped back to admire my handiwork, the metal gleaming in the sunlight. Machines like this were almost a work of art, and it wasn't just money: it was a joy to bring them back to life.

I was a creative guy, always liked photography, movies, had dabbled in a bit of filmmaking myself, and I saw this as an extension of that. It may be a very guy-ish art form, but I thought it was an art form all the same.

"Hey, Max!"

I looked up from my work to see Louise standing there. She was a little older than me, a striking woman with long, flowing hair and a sexy confidence.

Her mom lived down the street. She must've seen me out there and decided to say hi.

"Hey, Louise," I said, wiping the oil from my hands on a rag.

"Hard at it?" she asked.

"Just trying to get this bike up and running."

Louise stood there and put her hand on one hip.

"You always did have a way with machines," she said. "I remember when you fixed my car that one time. I thought it was a lost cause, but you had it purring like a kitten in no time."

"Yeah, well, you know me," I replied with a shrug. "I've always had a knack for getting things working again."

"So, how have you been, Max?" she asked.

"I've been good," I replied, offering her a small smile. "Busy with work, you know how it is."

Louise nodded.

"Did you hear about Megan Smith?"

I shook my head.

"No. She okay?"

"She was killed."

I looked up at her.

"What…?"

I couldn't believe it. I stood up, absentmindedly grabbing a cloth to wipe my hands as I did so.

"Yeah, RTA. Killed outright."

A shiver went down my spine. I was standing next to a motorbike and had had a few close calls myself. I had known Megan for years, though never that well. Our connection was through her brother, Eddie, who had been my best friend in high school.

"Terrible," Louise said, her voice heavy with emotion. "She was hardly forty and had a teenage boy and no husband to take the kid."

I was vaguely aware of Megan's son, Jared. His father had skipped out when the boy was small. I felt a lump form in my throat as the news of Megan's death sank in. The thought of her son being left alone in the world was heartbreaking. My own mom had died when I was a kid, and it had been awful. Honestly, it shaped my whole life.

"Jeez."

"Yeah," she murmured softly. "It's…it's really sad."

Louise continued to talk.

"Yeah, I saw Eddie."

"Eddie?" I said. "Is he back?"

"Oh, yeah, I saw him with their uncle. You know Frank?" I nodded. Everyone knew Frank. "He was in the car, out on the freeway coming into town."

"I guess Frank went to pick him up from the airport?" I said. "He lives in New York now. A lawyer."

Louise raised her eyebrows.

"Nice work if you can get it." A smile was playing at the corners of her lips. It had an unpleasantness to it, a jealousy, perhaps, at someone else's success. I am not a jealous person, and I feel bad for those who are, because it has no point.

"I guess," I replied, just to say nothing much, to be neutral.

"Well, see you, Max," she said, and she was off. As I watched her disappear down the street, I couldn't help but think, Eddie is back .

***

Eddie and I were two regular buds at high school. In fact, we didn't know each other well for most of our childhoods, even though we were always around. But the happiest time of my life was undoubtedly the years I spent as Eddie's best friend during high school. Before the weight of the world crushed down on me, before the mistakes and regrets piled up, there was Eddie, probably the closest thing I ever had to a real best friend.

But before that, my childhood had been anything but happy. My mom died when I was young, leaving me alone in a world that didn't seem to care. After her death, I was shuttled between care homes and various relatives, none of whom had any real interest in taking me in.

I was shuttled from one household to another, a burden no one wished to bear. I was such an unhappy kid, and no one bothered to understand how utterly abandoned I felt and how that was what I was reacting to. I became Trouble.

But then, amidst the chaos and uncertainty, one day, when we were about fifteen or sixteen, Eddie and I were assigned as partners in a science-class project, and that was it; we became friends.

He was different to everyone else in our pretty rough school – kind, compassionate, sensitive, funny in a way that could be sweet or sarcastic. From the moment we met, there was an instant connection between us. He was patient with me if I lashed out and never blamed me when I got things wrong. I had a lot of rage back then, childhood stuff. He explained things to me and helped me with schoolwork. I started to improve. My grades went up.

With him, for the first time in half my childhood, I felt someone was looking out for me. I felt safe around him; yes, it was that deep a connection.

Then one day, when I was told to leave by another aunt, and it looked like I might have to move out of the city to the only foster placement that would consider me, Eddie asked his mom if I could stay with them. Somehow, a social worker sorted out her getting some money for having me, and so I moved in and lived with them for a long time.

Eventually, my grandmother, who had not been close to my mom, turned up and told me to pack my things. She had not wanted to take me on before and, in the end, half regretted it, having a rambunctious teenager living under her roof. But she had heard Eddie's mom was getting money, so she probably just wanted that.

So even after I moved out, I was always hanging out at Eddie's.

We did everything together. For a couple of glorious years, we spent our days getting into mischief – something that was new to Eddie now, who was naturally studious and soft-edged – as we finished high school.

We spent our time dreaming of a future away from our hometown, and we thought that anything was going to be possible. Eddie was smart – really, truly smart – but it didn't ever occur to me, even when he was applying for college, that one day he would leave and not take me with him. But that was what happened.

I was being dumb. My whole childhood showed me that people leave. But it still rocked me to my core. Even more shocking was that after Eddie left for college, I barely heard from him again. He went off to New York and found a new life.

I often wondered why. What was it about here – and me – that he wanted to escape from? Or was it that his life in New York was closer to what he had wanted all along? I couldn't begrudge him that, no matter how much I grieved the loss of our closeness.

In those years after he went, my life unraveled, though that was my fault, not his. My grandmother kicked me out once and for all, and I was homeless for a while. I fell in with the wrong crowd, got involved in drugs, and the truth was I ended up spending a couple of years behind bars. I was convicted for my part in a burglary. There are no excuses. I did it, and I did it to buy money for drugs.

Prison was a nightmare: I got into fights; I even got stabbed once. But it showed me that I didn't want this for my life. When I finally got out, I vowed not to go back.

But old habits die hard, and I soon found myself slipping back into my old ways. I developed a reputation for drinking and fighting, a cycle of self-destructive behavior that I knew now was the hangover of my desperately unhappy childhood.

In a stupid attempt to have some stability, I made the decision to get married. But the marriage was short-lived and fraught with unhappiness. We were both broken individuals, seeking solace in the wrong person. She was a good person. We were not good people together.

In the aftermath of the divorce, I bounced from job to job, unable to hold down steady employment and haunted by my prison record. Then, one day, I found out that my grandmother died and, to my surprise, had left me the house I'd lived in ever since. It was the one truly good thing she ever did for me.

From there, with the security of a roof over my head, no mortgage, I stumbled into a different kind of life. I became this jack-of-all-trades, using my skills to fix bikes, cars, and anything else that needed repairing.

I became the go-to guy in my neighborhood, the one people turned to when they needed something repaired or even built from scratch. That kept the money coming in on the regular. Now and then, I scored a big win like this Yamaha.

I'll confess something, though. I wanted something more than this. I dreamed of doing something more substantial. I thought I would end up living in New York or something cool, like Eddie had.

I'd always wanted to do a film degree and to work in that industry, maybe even make my own movie. But none of that happened: I stayed here in this life. It had been a good life, or at least an okay one, but it was never my dream.

When do you give up even thinking about, let alone pursuing your dreams?

***

I knew that there would be some kind of open house over at Megan's for people to come and pay respects. I contemplated going over. I wanted to see Eddie to tell him how sorry I was. But part of me hesitated. I couldn't shake the feeling that Eddie might not want to see me.

We had never fallen out. There had been no angry words. But maybe Megan had told him things about me that would put him off.

After all, I had a reputation for being trouble. I had been to prison, all of it. It was not like he had sought me out after he went to New York; quite the opposite. Whenever I ran into Megan, she never said, "Oh, Eddie was asking after you." Would he still see me as the same person he knew back then, or would he see me in a different light?

I would like to think I was a different person again now. But what if I walked in and he gave me a horrified look, like I was the past come back, a past he didn't want?

When did I become this person who had grown a little afraid of life? I was afraid of nothing back then when we were friends.

That little voice in your head that told you to feel fear about things, it's too easy to grow to listen to it attentively. But a second voice whispered, too, urging me to take a chance, to reach out and reconnect with the friend in his hour of need.

That's what real, old friends did, right?

So I made up my mind to go see him. Besides everything, it was the right thing to do: for him, for Megan, for their mom, who was so kind to me back in the day.

Putting my tools back into their box and wheeling the bike back into the safety of my garage, I felt a sudden excitement within me at the prospect of reuniting with my old friend.

I headed into my house to get ready. Shedding my oil-stained work clothes, I left them by the inside door that connected the garage to the kitchen. Walking naked through the house, I made my way to the bathroom and turned the shower on. The water was immediately warm; hot steam spilled out, one wall of temperature against the heat of the day itself.

Stepping beneath the spray, I closed my eyes and let the water cascade over my tired muscles, washing away the grime and sweat of my work. I lingered longer than I usually did, enjoying the sensation of hot water against my skin as I lathered up with soap and shampoo.

As I washed, my thoughts turned to Eddie. I was smiling.

I dried off and dressed in fresh clothes, not all black, a white T-shirt and jeans. I brushed some gel through my hair just to keep my thicket of black curls in place.

I ran my hand over the dark, heavy stubble that ran around my jaw and chin. I wasn't going to shave. It wasn't necessary, plus my beard was so heavy it would be showing again in an hour.

With a final glance in the mirror, I squared my shoulders and thought to myself, You're done . A smile appeared at the corners of my lips.

Then I remembered why I was going over there: to pay my respects to Megan.