Chapter 24: Headlights

On the last Saturday in November, we opened the doors again.

Ray Rawlins's name hung over the front entrance in black iron letters I had cut myself.

Below it, in smaller letters, someone had added mine.

I stood on the porch at six o'clock and watched the lot fill, bike after bike.

The neon sign burned red in the front window.

The gray-bearded man had been voted president on the first ballot.

He had said it would only be until the club found a better one.

Then he had gone out to the shed and cried.

Hoyt had taken a plea in the county courthouse, the same one where I'd married his road captain.

He got three years for theft and one for the fire.

The lake house sold in two weeks.

The fund checks went out to twenty-nine men, and Marla's kitchen got the rest.

The twenty-nine of them had also paid me back the thirty-eight thousand dollars I'd put into the floors.

I framed the check stub and hung it behind the bar.

Lacey was pulling the first tap of the night when I came in.