fucking pedaling.
In his fourteenth year Fagan grew four inches and stopped thinking about mini-bikes. Now he wanted a motorcycle. The Rabbi laughed.
“After you’re on your own, you can get a motorcycle. But not while you’re living under my roof.”
Fagan haunted the local dealers: Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki. The town wasn’t big enough to have a Harley dealer. He became a paperboy for the Chesterton Bugle Courier , rising at five a.m. each day to deliver the paper with a thump to door stoops all over town, seven days a week. He told the Rabbi and Esther he was saving for his college education. He wasn’t sure they bought it, but they were pleased with his discipline. In the summers he took jobs mowing grass.
On day he was mowing the Sanderson lawn on Lake Wyandotte. It was a lazy Sunday morning with water skiers and sail boats out on the lake. The mower sputtered and died by an old elm. Out of gas. In the sudden silence Fagan heard chirping and noticed a distressed robin hopping on a branch, taking off, doing little loops and landing in an agitated manner. He looked down. A hatchling had fallen from the next and was squirming in the grass.
Fagan’s first impulse was to crush it with his heel. But something about the desperate mother’s exertions attracted his attention. He’d heard somewhere that the scent of human flesh on a baby bird would doom it to abandonment so he trekked back to the garage for a can of gasoline and a roll of paper towels. Back at the tree, he gently picked the baby bird up in the paper towels and deposited it among its mates in the nest, which was eight feet off the ground.
He hopped down, fueled the lawnmower and resumed his job.
He didn’t realize until much later that it had been a tipping point.
Fagan turned fifteen on August 15. The Rabbi wouldn’t let him get a learner’s license. “Do we look like farmers to you?”
For four hundred dollars Fagan bought a well-used 250cc Yamaha dirt bike, no title. No license. Couldn’t ride it on the road. Did anyway. He kept it at his friend Josh’s house. There was so much junk in the Peterson garage no one noticed.
All went well until Fagan did a one and a half gainer off a hidden log in the woods and planted his face in the earth. He came home with a huge shiner, limping. Somehow he convinced the Rabbi and Esther that he’d had a mishap swinging on the rope which hung over the lake.
One evening in September the Rabbi had a speaking engagement at the First Evangelical Church of Spartanville, about fifty miles away. He asked Fagan to accompany him and help lug the audio-visual material. The topic: “The Survival of Israel and the Chances For a New Holocaust in the Middle East.”
They were running late. The Rabbi stepped on it, pushing the old Volvo station wagon to seventy-five on the state highway. Out of nowhere, lights and sirens appeared behind them. It was like that scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where the UFOs show up at Terri Garr’s rural home. Whamo!
Chagrined, the Rabbi pulled over to the side of the road. Fagan stared in awe as the trooper got off his big police Harley and sauntered over, book in hand. The Rabbi wore a black suit and tie. The rear seat was jammed with Bibles, Torah, research materials. There was a Support Your Police sticker in the rear window.
“Sir, do you know why I stopped you?”
“Yes, officer. I was exceeding the speed limit. I have no excuse.”
“You in a hurry?”
“I’m late for a speaking engagement at the First Evangelical Church in Spartanville.”
“This your boy?”
“Yes sir. Say hello, Pete.”
“Hello, officer.”
“You clergy?”
“I’m a rabbi.”
The cop examined the Rabbi’s license and registration. He handed them back. “How about I escort you into town, and after this, you stay within the speed limit, Rabbi? That all right with you?”
“Yes sir. And thank you, officer.”
Fagan lit up like a Saturn booster launch. His eyes had
In his fourteenth year Fagan grew four inches and stopped thinking about mini-bikes. Now he wanted a motorcycle. The Rabbi laughed.
“After you’re on your own, you can get a motorcycle. But not while you’re living under my roof.”
Fagan haunted the local dealers: Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki. The town wasn’t big enough to have a Harley dealer. He became a paperboy for the Chesterton Bugle Courier , rising at five a.m. each day to deliver the paper with a thump to door stoops all over town, seven days a week. He told the Rabbi and Esther he was saving for his college education. He wasn’t sure they bought it, but they were pleased with his discipline. In the summers he took jobs mowing grass.
On day he was mowing the Sanderson lawn on Lake Wyandotte. It was a lazy Sunday morning with water skiers and sail boats out on the lake. The mower sputtered and died by an old elm. Out of gas. In the sudden silence Fagan heard chirping and noticed a distressed robin hopping on a branch, taking off, doing little loops and landing in an agitated manner. He looked down. A hatchling had fallen from the next and was squirming in the grass.
Fagan’s first impulse was to crush it with his heel. But something about the desperate mother’s exertions attracted his attention. He’d heard somewhere that the scent of human flesh on a baby bird would doom it to abandonment so he trekked back to the garage for a can of gasoline and a roll of paper towels. Back at the tree, he gently picked the baby bird up in the paper towels and deposited it among its mates in the nest, which was eight feet off the ground.
He hopped down, fueled the lawnmower and resumed his job.
He didn’t realize until much later that it had been a tipping point.
Fagan turned fifteen on August 15. The Rabbi wouldn’t let him get a learner’s license. “Do we look like farmers to you?”
For four hundred dollars Fagan bought a well-used 250cc Yamaha dirt bike, no title. No license. Couldn’t ride it on the road. Did anyway. He kept it at his friend Josh’s house. There was so much junk in the Peterson garage no one noticed.
All went well until Fagan did a one and a half gainer off a hidden log in the woods and planted his face in the earth. He came home with a huge shiner, limping. Somehow he convinced the Rabbi and Esther that he’d had a mishap swinging on the rope which hung over the lake.
One evening in September the Rabbi had a speaking engagement at the First Evangelical Church of Spartanville, about fifty miles away. He asked Fagan to accompany him and help lug the audio-visual material. The topic: “The Survival of Israel and the Chances For a New Holocaust in the Middle East.”
They were running late. The Rabbi stepped on it, pushing the old Volvo station wagon to seventy-five on the state highway. Out of nowhere, lights and sirens appeared behind them. It was like that scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where the UFOs show up at Terri Garr’s rural home. Whamo!
Chagrined, the Rabbi pulled over to the side of the road. Fagan stared in awe as the trooper got off his big police Harley and sauntered over, book in hand. The Rabbi wore a black suit and tie. The rear seat was jammed with Bibles, Torah, research materials. There was a Support Your Police sticker in the rear window.
“Sir, do you know why I stopped you?”
“Yes, officer. I was exceeding the speed limit. I have no excuse.”
“You in a hurry?”
“I’m late for a speaking engagement at the First Evangelical Church in Spartanville.”
“This your boy?”
“Yes sir. Say hello, Pete.”
“Hello, officer.”
“You clergy?”
“I’m a rabbi.”
The cop examined the Rabbi’s license and registration. He handed them back. “How about I escort you into town, and after this, you stay within the speed limit, Rabbi? That all right with you?”
“Yes sir. And thank you, officer.”
Fagan lit up like a Saturn booster launch. His eyes had
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