Summer Ride

Some days should never end...and some refuse to

As I pivoted around the old bank building at the corner of Harvey Avenue and Main Street, my heart jumped into my throat even though I’d known what was coming.

It was the morning of June 21st, after all. Every year since 1978, the three bikes had appeared overnight, lined up in order along the sidewalk in front of Ollie’s Pharmacy.

One was a yellow Huffy with a banana seat.

One was a red Schwinn with rusted handlebars.

And one was a blue Murray with baseball cards pinned to the spokes. Always Cardinals players since this was Reds country.

Cody, Greg, and Mikey had been out looking for adventure of the sort you could only find in small-town America in the middle of summer in those golden weeks between the end of the school year and the Fourth of July. Shooting marbles and slingshots and BB guns, playing crash-up derby with their bikes and Hot Wheels, stopping in at Ollie’s for a pack of gum and maybe a pop.

And then, an afternoon at the old fishing hole down past the end of Maple Street, where the road turned to a dirt path the locals called Muskrat Lane.

It was the perfect sort of carefree day that stuck in a boy’s soul for the rest of his life. Gave him hope even in the stormiest moments of adulthood. He knew paradise was real. He’d tasted it once. Maybe he would find it again someday.

Of course, sometimes memories don’t tell us the truth. And sometimes, we don’t get the memories we think we deserve.

I was supposed to be with those boys that day, just like every other day that summer and for as many summers before as I could remember. The four of us were always together – the adults called us the “Rat Pack,” a name my grandfather slapped on us. It stuck, even though it would be years before I understood the reference, and even though the numbers didn’t quite add up.

But that morning, my mom had grounded me for throwing a rock through the Jenkins’ window. Didn’t matter that I was just trying to chase off the mangy raccoon that was hanging from their porch light. I was stuck at home while my buddies were off having the time of their lives.

I was flat on my back in the backyard, reading a Hardy Boys book, when Mom came out and told me the news just before suppertime.

Cody, Greg, and Mikey were missing. Their bikes were still parked in front of Ollie’s, even though several witnesses swore up and down they’d seen the boys ride off toward the pond after leaving the soda shop that afternoon.

Mom wanted to know if I’d seen them. I hadn’t, and wouldn’t. No one would.

By the next day, the local police had called in the FBI, and townspeople were searching streets and fields and barns and woods, looking for any signs of my friends.

But there were none.

No bodies, no telltales of a struggle. Not a scrap of clothing, not a drop of blood. Just three missing kids and a town that never quite recovered.

Oh, life went back to normal, at least for a while. The fair parade was still the biggest event of the summer, though my parents made me stand with them through the whole thing, my mom’s hand on my shoulder. Looking up and down Main Street, I saw other kids suffering the same sort of indignity.

And by the time school started in late August, the adults were talking about football and the harvest and classroom parties and fall baking. By Christmas break, hardly anyone ever mentioned the Rat Pack.

The school year ended in May, and we rolled into summer break. For the first time ever, my parents sent me to camp, but I heard the stories when I came back in late July.

Three bikes had appeared in front of Ollie’s overnight as spring rolled into summer. Sheriff Thompson couldn’t say for sure that they belonged to my friends, but then, no one could remember – or would admit – what had happened to the bikes after the boys disappeared the year before, anyway.

And, in the time it took the sheriff to drive back to the station, call the FBI, and return to Ollie’s, the bikes were gone. Thompson chalked it up to someone’s twisted joke, but I wasn’t so sure. Neither was anyone else when it happened all over again the next year, and the year after that, and every year since.

After a couple of years, the cops started roping off the sidewalk, hauling the bikes to the evidence locker, taking photos. But after the tenth time, they stopped. Nothing ever came of all the work, and the bikes somehow always just disappeared again. Eventually, old Ollie would just open the pharmacy on the first day of summer like usual and ignore the bikes.

Everyone else did, too. I did my best to play along.

After Ollie died, I moved home and bought the old drugstore. It was a pull I couldn’t ignore, like the Rat Pack was calling me back, in time and in place. That had been five years ago, and the beginning of summer always brought the same sense of dread as I rounded the corner and headed for the shop to start my day.

The uneasiness was worse than ever this year. It had been building for weeks. Just part of getting older? Maybe.

But even middle-aged paranoia couldn’t make the bikes stand up straight on their own in the middle of the street in front of the pharmacy, like unseen riders straddled them, ready to peddle off toward Muskrat Lane.

They’re all there – the yellow one, the red one, the blue one. And, still parked on the sidewalk, kickstand down, the green Huffy with the little plastic license plate my grandmother bought for me at Christmas in 1977 wired to the back.

The license plate with my name on it.

I guess I always knew they’d come back for me. Maybe that’s why I came back for them.

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