The few active lucrative listings they had managed were quickly and quietly pulled by their embarrassed clients. Nobody wanted a large Oak Creek Realty wooden sign planted on their manicured front lawn. It was considered an open invitation for neighborhood vandalism and terrible public relations. Three short weeks later, the struggling agency officially filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Susan rarely left the quiet safety of her house anymore.
She permanently deleted all her social media profiles in a panic. She stopped going to the Oak Creek Roastery entirely. She stopped going to the high-end organic grocery store downtown. When she absolutely had to venture out for basic necessities, she kept her head down. She wore obnoxiously large designer sunglasses.
She actively avoided eye contact with her former friends. She finally understood exactly what the rough bikers knew all along. Genuine respect isn't something you can conveniently buy with a cashmere sweater, an expensive vehicle, or an exclusive zip code. Respect is a hard currency you must actively earn. And she had massively overdrafted her account.
Her comfortable life had been a long series of meticulously controlled environments. She foolishly thought the rigid rules of those fake environments applied everywhere in the universe. She learned the incredibly hard way that the real world is much bigger, much wilder, and entirely indifferent to her fragile sense of entitlement. 200 miles north of the dying real estate agency, the biting wind whipped forcefully off the Sierra Nevada mountains, carrying the sharp, bitter chill of late autumn. Jim stood completely alone on a grassy hill overlooking a sprawling, empty valley.
He held a lit cigarette loosely in his calloused right hand. The gray ashes blew away quickly in the strong breeze. Directly below him sat a simple, unpolished granite headstone. Dutch Ride hard, rest easy. Jim took a long, deep drag of the burning cigarette.
He stepped forward and placed a small, heavily tarnished silver flask against the solid base of the stone. It was Dutch's favorite cheap, burning whiskey. He didn't think about the angry woman in the coffee shop. She had faded from his busy memory completely, becoming nothing more than a minor, irritating pothole on a very long, difficult road. He didn't care about the viral videos or the fleeting internet fame.
The entire digital world meant absolutely nothing to a man who lived his actual life in blood, bone, brotherhood, and asphalt. Jim slowly reached up and rubbed the right side of his thick neck. The raw skin had finally healed completely over the dark tattoo. The raised lines of black ink felt permanent, smooth, and comforting against his fingertips. He could easily feel the distinct shape of the ribbon.
He could feel the empty eye sockets of the skull. He carried his fallen brother with him forever now. That was the only thing that truly mattered in the end. The rest of the civilized world could scream itself completely hoarse.
The rest of the world could desperately fight over empty parking spaces and overpriced coffee until the end of time. Jim turned his heavy collar up against the biting wind. He walked slowly back down the quiet hill to where his blacked-out Road Glide was parked safely on the gravel shoulder of the highway. He swung his heavy leg over the leather saddle.
He turned the metal key. The massive V-twin engine caught immediately, settling into a low, steady, reassuring idle. He kicked it down into first gear, rolled smoothly onto the dark blacktop, and aggressively opened the heavy throttle. He rode out into the vast, empty expanse of the open valley, leaving all the useless noise far behind him.