On Driving by Something Mysterious

The walker walked with the confidence of a man who knows much and has little to show for it. He wore a heavy black leather jacket, shoulder length hair and a thick beard. Thinness showed in the seat of his jeans and from his left back pocket there hung a red bandanna.

     

     At first glance, Steven figured the walker was probably some mechanic, or machinist, or welder, who, in better or even warmer times, drove a motorcycle to work. The bandanna made sense.

     But as he passed, Steven began to think the bandanna seemed a little too clean, too intentional, flaunted almost. That perhaps it might be part of some secret language: a code meant to notify other bikers that the walker had fallen on to hard times and was in need of a lift.

     He briefly considered turning back; asking. But then again, the bandanna could signify the walker’s status in some murderous gang, or that he was a prostitute of some sort, open for business. God, there was so little he knew and so much he feared to ask.