Darin' Aaron

Little Aaron is circling the Barbed Wire Museum parking lot on his Big Wheel, hoping to find some younger kids to run over.  His parents are informing a bored couple that it's their fourth annual visit. Barb, Aaron's four-year-old sister, picks her nose, wipes it on her shorts, and hums a rap song.

Aaron graduates to a full-sized bike at seven. Out of sight of his parents, he favors bumping his way down flights of stairs, pedaling at warp speed, and flying over small obstacles like puddles and poodles. In a grocery store parking lot near home one day, he lifts his black Schwinn onto the roof of a random station wagon, mounts the saddle seat, and attempts to fly over two parked cars. He lands in between them, left ankle firmly lodged between spokes, front wheel still spinning fast. He surveys the damage to himself and the second car: a newly freed but bleeding ankle, a jagged strip of white on the sedan, where Aaron's pedal has divested the cherry red vehicle of paint. Aaron moves to a new area of the lot, spots a motorcycle, and only at the last moment decides to not try to clear it, simply because he now realizes he needs speed, and can't get it atop a parked car.

 At 12, Aaron impresses his school mates by whizzing past, hands free, working in a high-pitched wheelie every time he passes anyone of note. Sometimes for effect, while riding at full speed, he eats an apple or pretends to be studying a textbook, something he rarely does in class or at home.

At 18, Aaron graduates to a used but bitchin Harley, often doing his summertime riding in shorts and flip flops. He especially enjoys riding nearby mountain passes, taking the switchbacks with a modicum of caution, but fast enough for thrills. On road trips in the plains, he stays straight roads like a speeding arrow seeking prey, working in a wheelie here and there just for laughs.

At 31, Aaron becomes engaged to a woman who hates motorcycles. Hates that he rides. But ride he still does, where he can. When he can.

At 48, Aaron has three sons, his hot but bitchy wife, a mortgage, and one small, framed photo on his work desk of his old Harley, which he sometimes glances at wistfully for seconds at a time. When he can.

At 67, celebrating his divorce, his retirement gift to himself, Aaron is riding from Yreka, California to Blaine, Washington. Outside of Cottage Grove, Oregon, Aaron, drunk with freedom and rediscovered happiness, riding no holds barred fast, rounds an unexpectedly sharp curve. He soars like an eagle over his ape hanger handlebars, then lands with a pathetic thud.

At his funeral, his best friend Mike reprises his childhood nickname: Darin' Aaron. He invokes that worn adage: He died doing what he loved best. But Mike can't make himself believe it. Mike thinks that dying doing what you love most has got to suck. If you're doing what you love, you want to keep on doing it. Yep, that's got to be one of the shittiest ways to go.