Travis rounded the corner and gunned the throttle. The burst of sound from the drag pipes scattered the neighborhood kids playing street hockey running past their goals before they could lift them out of the way. His bungalow was the third one in from the top of the block. He backed the bike to the curb, shut it down and pulled the last crumbled cigarette from the pack of Marlboro.
“Damn,” he cursed under his breath.
The Shovelhead pinged in the silence of summer in protest of the short ride home from work. The plant had shut down for maintenance, two weeks off, two weeks of not having to punch a time clock, two weeks of freedom, two weeks away from the man. Travis dismounted as a lawnmower sputtered to life down the block. Travis stretched before crushing the butte out under the thick rubber heel of his engineer boots.
The big man slipped into the entrance quietly, but the silence of the house deafened him. There was always something on, the television tuned to some dreadful cooking show, the radio in the kitchen, the washing machine from the basement. Travis stepped into the uneasy calm. The house was cleaner than usual, a white envelope rested alone on the usually cluttered coffee table, his name clearly printed on the outside. He pushed it to the back of his mind and called for her. The emptiness didn’t reply. He called again, but there was no one there. Travis did a quick walk through, as some clue would answer his questions. The fridge hummed to life as he retrieved a cold Budweiser from the vegetable crisper, the bottle cap dancing on the counter top.
Travis sat on the couch sipping his beer staring at the envelope, willing it to go away, wishing it wasn’t there’ wishing she might pop from a closet. The house was quiet. The neighbor’s lawn mower fell silent as Travis finally reached for the inevitable.
The note was simple. “I’m leaving.”
Travis tried to tell himself that it wasn’t her writing, that he had somehow stumbled into the wrong house, an identical house with the faded orange flower drapes, the faint smell of a home housing a dog. His hand felt for the rip in the sofa cushion, hoping it wasn’t there, wishing it wasn’t there. It was. His heart dropped. Travis tossed the note defiantly on the table. It had to be a joke, she had to be here, hiding in a closet, waiting for him to hit bottom, when she would jump out laugh hysterically, prodding him for being so gullible.
Travis walked through the house once more, checking closets, checking under bed in a solitary game of hide and seek. He leaned against the wall outside of their bedroom, the room where they laughed and played, where they made love, where he comforted her when she cried after watching a sad movie on television. Travis crumpled to the floor in the waning light of day.
The knock at the door startled Travis awake on the couch. She was back. It had been three days but she was back, she had forgiven him for what she had perceived he had done wrong.
“Mr. Simms?” Travis stared blankly at the officers in their crisp blue uniforms. Travis tried to speak but could only nod as the officers explained his wife had come to get some of her belongings. He would have to wait outside while she went inside, that he was unwelcomed to be near her. Travis’s body was numb, the muffled voices of the officers in his ears as he stared at the woman he loved. The woman he vowed to spend the rest of his life with carried bags of clothes, the picture from the hallway, the coffeemaker from the kitchen, putting them in the back of the Ford Harley-Davidson truck. Travis squinted, trying to make out the shadowy figure behind the tinted windows. He didn’t recognize the truck. Was that him? Was he the one who had stole her away from him, was he the one who was fucking her? Travis clenched his fists, wishing to kick the black truck door open, yank the arrogant prick from his truck, and kick the shit out of him.
“You ok buddy?” Travis directed his glare at he officer. “I know what you are thinking. Everyone thinks it when they sit in the back of a police cruiser as they watch the woman they love carry their life away. I’m not here to judge, not here to tell you how to get her back. But it’s been my experience,” the officer’s voice trailed off. “ Well we’ve never been here before, never had a call for domestic violence, and I don’t think you’ve ever harmed her. In fact I can tell by looking at you that you treated her kindly. Anyways, when a woman like that calls us to protect her when she gets her belongs from the house, she isn’t coming back.”
Travis was in shock, watching the truck hauling his life away.
“You have to put this behind you. I feel sorry for you man. I can tell this came out of left field, but all you can do is start picking up the pieces and move on.”
Travis stood on the lawn in front of the house that was once a home and watched the police cruiser drive away. He wanted to hop on his bike and blast off in the opposite direction and hunt down the truck. Rain slowly fell, wetting his socks. Travis turned towards the house.
The Biker walked through the house one last time. The house was as dead as he was inside. No longer a home, no longer a place where love ones lived. He closed the door behind him one last time. He picked up what he wanted, what he had when he first met her and packed it into the duffle bag strapped to the queen’s perch against the sissy bar. The Shovelhead snorted to life. Travis looked back one last time satisfied that it was over. He would drop the keys off at his lawyer’s office in the run down strip mall on the edge of down town. She wanted half, but without her it was worthless. The bitch could have everything, lock stock and barrel.
Travis weaved through the congested downtown traffic. He spotted the Ford Harley truck turning into the parkade under the glitzy glass and steel high-rise. He thought about doubling back, thought about confronting the man who had taken his life away. It wasn’t him, it wasn’t himself. It was the bitch. She headed for greener pastures. She made the decision. He couldn’t take her back after that, couldn’t fault the guy for being in the wrong place at the right time. Travis gunned the throttle and split the lanes between two police cruisers and turned south towards his lawyer’s office.
It only took Travis a few minutes to shed the shackles of the city as he pushed his bike down the highway heading south. Traffic seemed to sense the impending doom lurking behind and moved out of his way. The four lanes soon thinned to three, then two before Travis pointed the bike left to the off ramp and the two lane highway that snaked to the East before cutting back under to wander Southwest.
