Two nights ago, my motel in Huntington, West Virginia overlooked a fast, busy, one-way, two lane thoroughfare. The speed limit was thirty-five, people were in a hurry, there was a lot of traffic, it was dusk.
I was sitting on the balcony watching flatbed semis hauling steel and diesel pickups rolling coal and gasser pickups with blue-lit wheel wells and growly hotrod Subarus and snarly Japanese motorcycles and burbly Harleys, the Harleys’ signature exhaust note muffled by their riders’ oversize butt cheeks, and a lot of people in sedans and minivans hurrying home for dinner.
A guy came riding by on a BMX bike. Tall guy, he was wearing a black hoodie, black baseball hat, black pants, work boots and carrying a black backpack. He was standing up and stomping the pedals like the cops were moments behind him.
When he was in front of me, he slammed on the brakes, skidded the bike sideways to a stop, lifted it chest high, slammed it down on the pavement and stalked away, back the way he’d come.
He was a hundred feet down the road and I was starting to think I’d better move his bike when he stopped, bent down and out of the gutter picked up a bright, shiny Bowie knife and held it above his head. The blade was twelve inches long or longer. He stalked back to the bike waving the knife over his head like a balloon on a stick, put the knife back in the sheath he’d dropped it from, and pedaled away, standing and stomping.
