“Some geezer wanting to unload an old Indian,” the snout had said over his free beer. “Got the address right here if you see me right.”
That had lured Tinker into one of those concrete concentration camps laughingly called ‘estates’. Nobody with any sense went there, nobody with any choice. Dumps for the chumps and gutters for the nutters; gas ovens would be more honest and efficient. Hard to imagine anything here being worth more than the local dealers stash, certainly not a life.
“Bollocks!” Tinker found the place, looked, and shook his head. Three pints and a nubbin of hand-rolled hash wasted. He didn’t even bother shutting down Poke, his hopped-up Sport Scout. She idled sulkily on retard while he surveyed the clapped-out council tenement with severe misgivings. Still, his divvy sixth sense had started kicking in and it wasn’t often wrong.
“Here, up here.” Tinker traced the feeble voice to a fourth floor window, a white-haired head sticking out. “Rev her a bit, mate. I like to hear a bike talk.”
Obligingly Tinker advanced the ignition, snicked the jockey-shift into first, and clamped down on the girder’s twin discs. The scream and smokescreen of wanked-to-death rubber sang soprano to the baritone assault of an open pipe Indian stroker on the cam.
Settling down over tea and stale biscuits, Tinker and Bill took the measure of each other. Tinker, an old school biker all hair and black leather; Bill just plain old. However, as he soon left in no doubt, only in body.
“So, about that Indian as might be for sale,” Tinker said, after the hospitalities were observed. The place smelled of old man: embrocation, stale piss, defeat.
“Suppose you’ll want to chop it like on the telly,” grumbled Bill.
“No way,” Tinker replied hurriedly. “That’s only for those lard-arsed Harleys.”
Bill grimaced, and shifted in his chair. “That Scout outside didn’t look or sound stock.”
“Ball job, Chief flywheels, double lobe Schunk stroker cams with Ford Windsor intake valves all in a 648 ‘Big Base’,” Tinker rattled off, figuring to show he knew his bikes. “No such thing as a stock racer. How about yours?”
Bill got up slowly, Tinker could almost hear arthritic bones grinding together, and shuffled on his stick to the bedroom. He opened the door and beckoned Tinker over. “See for yourself.”
A ‘101’ Scout sat on its rear stand at the foot of the bed. Tinker gaped at it: no front mudguard and a radically bobbed rear, no front brake, lights, generator or battery. The bike was a skeletal as its shrunken owner. Tinker got down on his knees and looked more closely. Oddly enough, there were no springs on the rigid’s solo seat and a long pad strapped on top of the in-frame tank. The tyres seemed weird too, worn or shaved on the right hand treads. Despite everything else being stripped off or cut down, it still sported the original long footboards. Tinker scratched in his full beard. Something here rang a bell.
“Well?” Bill prompted. “You know what she is?”
Big breath, Tinker could sense the oldster testing him again. “I reckon it’s an ex-wall bike,” he said, turning to face Bill. “From the look of all those old splinters in your mitts you either rode the wall or the boards, and even you aren’t old enough to have been a board-tracker.”
Bill gazed ruefully at his knobby, liver-spotted hands. The splinters were indistinct as memories now, hard shadows under the skin.
“That, and the way you squirreled about in your chair,” Tinker continued. “Bound to get piles pulling four G-s a dozen shows a day.”
Bill cackled at a recollection. “You should have seen the brassieres women riders had to wear. Like the Forth Bridge they were.”
“But no lids,” added Tinker. “They’d weigh like a diver’s helmet.”
Bill sat down carefully on the bed, apparently standing tired him now. He must have been so fit back then, you had to be to roustabout a wall up and down, never mind the round and round. He reached for a worn photo album on the bedside table. The old keep their memories close, it’s all they have.
“A few came asking after Bessy.” Bill patted the cracked leather saddle. “The young ‘uns were after a chopper and the rest wanted to restore her. Ha! Might as well be in a museum, I say.”
A vicious bout of coughing bent him over. Tinker didn’t know what to do, he’d heard healthier death-rattles. Bill waved feebly at a huffer by the bed and Tinker hurriedly held it to his lips and gave it a good blast.
“Ta, lad,” Bill gasped, colour returning to his face as oxygen and ephedrine kicked in. “Truth is I’ve been waiting for someone like you, hanging on really. I…” he faltered, lip trembling. “I don’t have long, Quack says I should’ve been gone weeks ago. I don’t have anything to leave except Bessy and a few snapshots, not much to show for a life is it? My boy moved me in here, then put an ocean between us. Maybe being raised on the road had been hard on him, bit like a gypsy.”
Tinker’s head came up. He was half-gypsy himself and happiest heading for the next bend. “I can think of worse lives.”
“Didn’t figure you for a ‘flatie’,” said Bill, the term for non-carnies. “Touch of the Rom to my guess, eh?”
Tinker smiled, revealing strong, yellowed teeth in a swarthy, weathered face. “Okay, pal, you fingered me. Now, let’s see your snaps.”
The album opened at the photo of a young man in a skull and crossbones jersey, breeches and jackboots standing up on the footboards with arms outstretched. You had to look at it sideways.
“That you?” asked Tinker. “Wow, no hands.”
Bill grinned and turned the page. A dapper young man posing on a ‘101’–only his leather jacket didn’t have any sleeves, not even arm holes.
“Arno the Armless,” Bill cackled. “Being born without arms didn’t stop Alf Miers. Drove a midget car on the wall too, and did his own mechanics.”
Another page. “Hey, that’s…”
“George Formby,” Bill confirmed. “His ‘Spare a Copper’ had a wall-riding sequence. Met him filming it at Ealing Studios. Nice bloke, not the least bit stuck up, sang us some very naughty songs on his banjolele.”
Next page. Elvis taking a Honda up the wall in ‘Roustabout’. “Don’t tell me you met the King?” marveled Tinker.
Bill shook his head. “No, never liked that jungle music much either. The carnies and riders that did the scenes sent me some spare publicity shots.”
Tinker expected the next photo to be Lawrence Harvey in ‘Wall of Death’ or ‘Eat the Peach’, a more recent flick about the tribulations of wannabe Irish wall riders. Actually it proved a more interestingly candid shot of a busty young woman in creative corsetry and riding boots.
“Be surprised how many photos we sold of Kitty,” Bill said. “Ride good as any man and a real trooper.” His eyes misted over. “My poor Kitty. I came down with a terrible ‘flu, could barely walk let alone ride the wall. She insisted on doing the show, and her so far along.” Bill sighed. “She blacked-out and fell off the wall. So much blood, the nearest hospital so far away. Lost her and the baby.”
Bill sat quiet for a while, and Tinker respected the silence. Old bikes aren’t just machines. They’ve lived a life and come best with their provenance of memories. As with a family pet, a good home is more important than a good price. You couldn’t buy Bessy anymore than an outlaw patch; you had to be found worthy.
“Oh well,” breathed Bill, “be seeing them both soon enough. Bike’s stood the test of time better than these old bones, and I’ve no friends left this side of the grave.” He chuckled wryly. “Don’t get old, son, there’s no future in it.”
Grinning, Tinker observed it was how you got there that counted, and Bill responded that it was easy for Tinker to say, but he’d been going round in circles. At some point in all the jawing and joshing it went from ‘my Bessy’ to ‘your Bessy’. No mention of price, yet Tinker knew the score. Lonely old riders with the end of the road in sight and nowhere to park their bike or anyone to see them off proper.
Caught up in the old man’s reminiscences: lions snarling in the sidecar, skeletons jumping out of coffins, real broken bones when you fell off the wall, Tinker didn’t hear the letterbox squeak open behind him.
“Away, you dirty little bastard,” shrilled Bill, staring over Tinker’s shoulder and trying to get up.
A quick helping hoist, the old man weighing nothing to iron-hardened muscles, and Tinker turned his head in time to catch the last spurts of piss.
Young laughter disappeared down the stairs by the time Tinker got Bill steady and the door open.
“Your bike,” wheezed Bill. “I bet the little blighter will vandalise it.”
Tinker ran to the window, stuck his head out and whistled, then sauntered back. “Couldn’t take yer pension money, pops.”
A ferocious roar, followed by screams and the pounding of feet back up the stairs, suggested Bill would have lost the bet. A door slammed across the landing, and Tinker went back to the window. “Good dog! Ale in the hubcap tonight,” he called out, being rewarded with a woof and the drumming of a stubby tail on the Bates seat.
“Bonzo,” said Tinker, as the old man hobbled over. “Best insurance a man can have is a four-legged friend.”
Bill regarded the bull terrier pup below in some confusion. “Stone the crows, it sounded like old Briton roaring in the sidecar.” He looked funny at Tinker. “Didn’t see no dog when you arrived.”
“Rides in my jacket,” Tinker explained. Actually on long rides Bonzo would snooze in the pocket small as a mouse. The juvenile delinquent just got him full size; about Shetland pony and with considerably more teeth. No point in explaining that gorphons are a form of familiar, symbiont in science-speak that smell out compatible practitioners of the old art and take the form of their preferred pet. Bit like a woman gets her man, a gorphon will find its master. At the Dire Faire as it happened, however Bill didn’t need to hear any fairy stories. Too much excitement had caught up with the old man. Slumped back in his chair, he looked very queer.
“Now, you sit there and take it easy,” said Tinker, giving it the suggestion a slight spell of enforcement. “I’ll clean up the mess then make us some fresh tea.” He went and put on the kettle, yet made no move for the mop. By the time he’d found the tea caddy and rinsed the cups, Bill had dozed off.
“Right,” said Tinker, holding the letterbox open and pointing to the puddle. “You can return whence you came.” Abandoned bodily fluids are very prone to suggestion and will do almost anything not to dry up. With a slurping sound the piss took off, and Tinker rewarded by a faint yelp of dismay audible through the thin walls–Surprise!
Tinker let Bill nap while he attended to the tea, then went for another butchers at Bessy. Internal expanding rear brake and the throttle-varied oil pump pegged it for a ’31, the last year. When Indian canned the ‘101’, their dealers nearly went on the warpath. Unfortunately it cost as much to make as a Chief, plus they sold more of the bigger bikes. Depression-forced austerity had started to bite.
Jerking up, he nearly had his ear off on the bars. An eerie howling like a ‘101’s helical gear primary had come from outside. In six strides he glared down at Bonzo who sat erect, eyes shut, head thrown back and quite oblivious to master’s cursing.
Bloody dog, thought Tinker, shutting the window and turning back. Funny, he’d never made that nois…
A young, black-clad woman stood looking speculatively at the sick old man.
“But Bonzo never met me before,” said Death. “Just a pup really.” She reached out and traced a deep splinter with one black-lacquered nail. “Bill has though, as dispatch rider Brown in the war and ‘Whirlwind Willy’ on my wall.”
Roused by his old names, Bill opened one eye, then both very wide. He swallowed painfully. “And when Kitty fell off it. That baby were blood of my blood, the part of me that died saw you clear as I do now.” He forced himself upright, a shake of the head to Tinker’s offered arm and a suspicious stare. “He’s taking this awful calm; one of yours, is he?”
“Um, not yet,” said Death, but seemed to consider the prospect. “Oh, which reminds me, are you ready?”
Bill looked at Tinker, last request written on his face for any rider to see.
Tinker nodded. “Any petrol, meths, paraffin even?”
Now Death paid attention. She liked ceremonies.
“My leg rub,” gasped Bill, leaning heavily on his stick. “Surgical spirits, in the bathroom cabinet.”
Not much in the bottle, but Tinker figured he’d only need a float-bowl full. Hopefully the Splitdorf magneto and plugs would be up to snuff. Next the familiar rituals of quickening a long dormant Indian. Bessy kicked through clean and with good compression, while the spark jolted a finger on the plug. Taps on, prime–she wouldn’t be the first ‘101’ to run on alcohol.
Bill lurched in from the front room, and Tinker did a double take. It wasn’t so much that he now wore the same skull and bones pullover, breeches and boots as in those faded photographs; Tinker had seen a glamourie before. Death, however, had the old man’s arm over her shoulder, helping him. Oops! Not in the rules.
“Better allow me, milady,” Tinker said with a frown.
“I know, I know, I’m meant to stay detached,” Death said crossly. “But you took your time getting here and guts alone won’t hold him up. The brave ones are the only fun I get.”
Between them they got him into the saddle. Like a familiar sword placed in a dying warrior’s hand, Bessy lent him her spirit to rally. Tinker came down on the kicker and the open pipes bellowed into fiery life, smoke filling the room. Above it rose ‘Whirlwind Willy’, standing up on the footboards, arms reaching out.The engine spat through the carb, gasping for another drink, and died.
After the undertakers and vicar had split, Tinker stood alone looking down at the simple gravestone. Really only a big slab of concrete he’d worked on with a cable grinder. A name and two dates beneath a large circle. A rough representation of a bike, upside down inside the circle, the rider standing up, his arms raised.
“Taking Bessy to the Bulldog Bash,” said Tinker quietly, you don’t need to shout for the dead to hear you. “Palmer got a wall there and said he’d be chuffed to put her on it.” He looked over to where Poke sat, irked to have the sidecar chassis attached but impressed at the old wall-hero strapped down on it. “I told him if he taught me to do that stunt of yours on Bessy, he could keep her. Only condition is he has to run her on the wall–can’t wear out an Indian Scout, eh?”
Tinker got up and brushed grave-dirt from his leathers. “So Whirlwind, I’m for the off. Wish me luck on the wall; if not, guess I’ll be seeing you soon.”
As the Scout rig growled off down the road, a slim, dark figure stretched her back against the other side of the stone.“Oh, no,” she decided, tapping a white finger against black lips. “Not yet.”
