The middle aged woman with her finely tailored suit and her Prada bag looked up in disgust as the roar of the bikes pierced her ears. She gazed up at the four Harley Davidson motorcycles as they slowed to a stop at the light. She strode across the street eyeing each biker with an unforgiving glance. The first one was in his sixties. He had long grey hair and a tangled white beard. Tattoos covered both arms and his boots were old and filthy. The second by his side was in his late fifties looked equally disgusting. A cut-off t-shirt displayed, in her opinion, a pornographic pin-up girl on his left arm. A long scar ran from the corner of his right eye, down his cheek, to his jawbone. She wondered, how is this thug not in prison? The other two bikers were side by side behind the older two. They were younger with long brown hair and equally tattooed from necks to fingertips. One spit on the ground which made the woman shake her head in disgust. The other revved his engine which she immediately assumed was a cat call meant for her. Reacting, she slid her precious Prada bag filled with her recent purchases to the other hand in case one of these hoodlums would try to snap her bag from her hands. She increased her pace and hurried across the street.
As she reached the other side of the street the light changed. All the bikes roared in unison as if again taunting her. She noticed all four were wearing the same markings on the back of their vest. I knew it, she thought, a biker gang in my town! There should be a law! These troglodytes do not belong here with us decent people. She could not wait to meet her sister at Starbucks to tell her about these nasty bikers.
The four bikes turned into the Veterans cemetery and rolled slowly through the rolling hills dotted with small white marble tombstones stretched across the gentle hillside with military precision.
They pulled up to an open grave site. There was a lone casket draped in the American flag with only the cemetery manager by its side. The four bikers, parched and dirty, walked up to the manager. The oldest shook his hand and introduced himself as Crusher. The manager smiled and said, "Thank you for coming out. This veteran died alone on Tuesday in the Vets home and has no family we can find." The second oldest, named Scar, jumped in. "We would never let a fellow veteran be buried alone. What was his name?" The manager pulled out a piece of paper and read it. "He name is William Jenson. He was 87 and served in the Korean War"
Over the next twenty minutes the men honored the veteran they never met. At the end of prayers they carefully lowered the casket by straps into the grave. The youngest called Stones, reached into his pocket and pulled out his old and worn sergeant stripes and with a tear in his eye quietly said, "rest well my brother in arms." The faded cloth fluttered downward and landed gently on the casket. The bikers solemnly walked back to the bikes and rolled out.
The two women sat outside the Starbucks sipping their latte's and comparing what they purchased at the elite stores when the roar of the bikes interrupted their conversation. The woman with the Prada bag pointed. "Look, there are those nasty pigs. We should call the police!" The sounds of the engines faded as the weary bikers left town. The women shifted the conversation to the girl in church that they are convinced is having an affair with the usher.
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