03/19/2026
Courtesy of 4 for the Road....
Of all the short stories I’ve ever written, I think this one is my favorite.
And it gets me every time, even though I wrote the damn thing.
-Drifter
Dunk
Dunk thought to himself, “Man there’s nothing like riding in a pack with his brothers doing 80 down the freeway.” The pack was in tight and as the tail gunner Dunk was watching the pack take the turns together. It was like a well-oiled machine or maybe even a perfectly timed military maneuver the way all the bikes would lean together in a turn and then straighten back up one by one as they came out of it.
It was a beautiful thing to behold.
They had been riding like this for two days now on their way to their club nationals and Dunk was looking forward to meeting up with brothers he hadn’t seen in a while. The pack rounded another turn and you could see up ahead that there was a slowdown. Dunk saw the brake lights and slowly applied his own brakes. The pack had plenty of time to stop. They had slowed from 80 to about 20 and Dunk could see that they would be coming to a complete stop.
That’s when he was hit from behind. The lady driving the minivan hadn’t been paying attention and never slowed down. She hit Dunk who was the last one in the pack doing at least 60. Dunk was thrown several yards in the air. His bike was now embedded in the minivan’s radiator. Dunk never felt any pain, he just had a sensation of being pushed from behind and the quick realization that he had be hit by a car, then nothing.
All was black.
When Dunk opened his eyes he was standing in a garage. The door was rolled up and bright sunshine was shining through. Dunk looked around and saw an old man with long grey hair sitting next to an old Harley WLA Army bike up on a lift. There was a radio playing music softly in the background but he couldn’t tell where it was. This old man was replacing a spark plug on the rear jug and was bent over the bike. He didn’t seem to take notice of Dunk. For his part, Dunk didn’t know what to say or do. The last thing he remembered was getting hit while on his bike. The old man turned his head and Dunk could see a kindly old man’s face with bright eyes. The old man looked at Dunk and said, “Young man would mind handing me that wrench over on the bench there?” “Seems no matter where I am, that wrench wants to be clear across the room from me.” Dunk walked over to the bench mostly is a daze, picked up the wrench and handed it to the old man.
“Thanks young man” is what he got in reply.
Dunk looked around and saw that he was in a small but very clean and well organized garage. There were parts and gaskets on the walls and well stocked tool boxes along the back wall. He saw a calendar with an advertisement for a gas station. It looked like one of those calendars you’d see from the 40’s, but when he looked closer, he couldn’t see what year the calendar was for. There was a quiet and calm feeling about the place and Dunk felt no need to ask where he was or how he got there. This seemed like a good place to just work on bikes. He didn’t have a care in the world at that point.
The old man looked up from his work and said, “Well Dunk, how do you like my little piece of heaven?” He then turned back to work on the spark plug. Dunk wondered how this old man knew his name but it didn’t seem to be important. Dunk said, “Mister, this place looks about as perfect as it gets.” He then asked, “Need any help with that?” “I kinda have a thing for working on old bikes.” The old man just smiled and said, “I know.” The old man put his wrench down and turned to Dunk with a more serious look on his face. Dunk looked him right in the eyes and was just overcome with calm. He just felt so at home in this old man’s presences. The old man smiled and said,
“Dunk, my son, it’s not time for you to come home just yet.” “I’ve got a few more things for you do first.”
Dunk sucked in a deep breath. He was laying in the median between the East and West bound freeway. That breath had caused him a lot of pain, but he was breathing. He opened his eyes and there were his brothers looking down at him. They had a mix of fear, concern, and surprise on their face but the most obvious emotion you could see on their faces was love.
Dunk sat up.
He would be sore but nothing was broken. The ambulance arrived and loaded him up. The trip to the hospital was uneventful unless you counted the huge pack of bikes following the ambulance in close formation unusual. When they arrived Dunk was taken in and placed in a bed in the emergency room. He was feeling fine by this point. The nurses came in and took blood and cleaned up his scrapes. About 45 minutes later the Doctor comes in tell Dunk that he’s all good to go. As Dunk is getting his things together a nurse comes running in and whispers in the Doctors ear. The Doc looks over at Dunk as asks “Do you know what your Blood Type is?” Dunk says “Yeah, it’s something negative, maybe A negative.” “I’m not sure.”
The Doc said in a lower, more serious voice “Sir you have AB Neg Blood Type.” “Less than 1% of the population has that type.” “Now normally that’s not an issue because a person with AB Neg can take any blood that is Negative but we happen to have a very sick little girl that due to her type of cancer has to have AB Negative blood for an upcoming surgery.” “Would you be willing to donate blood to her?”
Dunk slapped the inside of his arm where a needle would normally go and said “The pumps are open Doc, let’s fill this tank up!”
The old man stood up and looked around his garage. He backed the motorcycle out the door gave the kick starter a single hard kick. The old WLA started right up and purred like new. The old man hopped on and took off down the road with a smile on his face.
-Drifter
