He picked me up, setting me on the seat, a smell filling my nose and my head. It was the scent of leather and motor oil, of axle grease and unleaded gasoline, a smell I would come to associate with home, even when the treasure I sat on had long since been sold.
He pulled a helmet down from a shelf, placing it on my head. There was too much room around my forehead, it was a helmet for an adult, not a child, but at that point, I didn’t care.
“Does that fit okay, sugar bear?” he asked me, rapping his knuckles against the top of the helmet. “Can you feel that? Should we go get your bike helmet?”
I shook my head no, and satisfied, he swung his leg over the seat behind me, started the engine, and we pulled out of the driveway. Wind in our faces and my giggling filling the air, the houses and trees all moved past me at rates I had never experienced firsthand. Cars were different, cars were not like this. This was magic.
We rode down 83rd street, west to the parks and the trees and the streams he used to take me to, west to my childhood. We were only going thirty-five miles per hour, but to me, it felt like flying. We were taking off, we were pilots, spacemen. I was his copilot; he was my greatest protector.
He let me hold onto the handlebars, his hands over mine, showing me how to accelerate without making the bike go too fast, showing me how to brake slowly so our heads wouldn’t jerk forward. My excitement, the thrill that rushed through me was a planting, a seed that would grow to a love of mechanics and of driving too fast, just to feel the wind in my hair again. I hit sixty miles per hour and I’m back again, my silly, five-year-old giggle as I ride on my dad’s motorcycle, flying to the moon.