As such, Hephaistos and Scroat were very glad when the sun finally set. Riding into the night is much easier on the eyes.
In the middle of nowhere between the border of California and Los Angeles. Scroat ran over a nail. He felt the back tire get a little wobbly, and then pulled over to the right as the thumpita-thumpita-thumpita made the flat tire apparent. He flashed his headlight, and Hep pulled to the right a little ways ahead of him.
With the bikes shut down, it was incredibly dark on the side of the road. Overhead they could see millions of stars, and far away on the horizon they could see the glow of a city. Hep pulled a flashlight out of the sidecar and shuffled along the side of the road until he got to where Scroat was busy trying to locate his tire repair kit.
“What happened?” Hep asked. Scroat was still rummaging through one of his saddlebags, grabbing something, looking at it, stuffing it back in and so on.
“I got a fucking flat tire. There’s a big old bitch of a nail sticking out the left side of my back tire,” Scroat said. He brightened a bit then, pulled a small pouch out of the saddlebag, and said, “There you are.”
Hephaistos aimed his flashlight at the spot where the nail was sticking out, and Scroat got to work pulling the old nail out with his Leatherman. The nail was easily six inches long. He muttered under his breath the entire time.
“Man, who leaves a fucking nail like that out on the road? Fucking Californians can’t even keep track of their fucking fasteners...”
Scroat was running a reaming tool through the hole to get it ready for the patch when they noticed two bright lights approaching behind them. The car rolled to a stop about fifteen feet away, and shut off the engine. The driver left the headlights on, however. Hep and Scroat could hear the driver’s side door open, but couldn’t see anything besides a shadow get out of the car and look at them.
“How are you fellas doing?” the driver asked. He sounded awfully cheerful.
“Just hunky fucking dory. How are you?” Scroat said.
“Just thought I should stop and see if you needed a hand.”
“I think we’ve got it under control,” Hep said, “though if you don’t mind keeping your headlights aimed at his bike, that’d be swell.”
“Yeah, I can do that,” the shadow said. He closed the door and walked over to where Hep and Scroat were standing. “Robert Wheeler is my name, pleased to meet you.”
“I’m Hep, this is Scroat.”
“Is that right? Say, what happened to your legs there, big fella? If you don’t mind me asking?” Robert stared down at Hep’s twisted, gnarly legs.
Hep didn’t care to explain that he’d been cast out of Olympus shortly after being born, and his bad legs were a souvenir from that little trip.
“An accident when I was younger.”
Scroat was cursing Vulcan under his breath for inventing tires that were so damned much work to repair on the side of the road and stuffing a patch into the hole where the nail had been.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Robert Wheeler said. “So, you guys picked kind of a rough spot to break down here.”
“No shit? I was just thinking this was better than my fucking garage when it came to sheer convenience,” Scroat said. “In fact, I think from now on, I’m only going to work on my bike on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. At night.”
“Well, I don’t doubt it’s inconvenient, but that’s not what I meant. This is a bad stretch of road. It’s like the Bermuda highway or something. People disappear out here all the time.”
“How’s that?” Hep asked.
“Well, you know, a carload of teenagers decides to head for California, and the last time they’re ever seen is at the gas station you would have passed about ten miles back.”
“Oh yeah? And I suppose you run the gas station?” Scroat asked. “Have you got some kind of shady land development deal that would have worked if it were for some snooping kids?”
“No,” Robert said. “I don’t run the gas station. I just drive this damn road too often, and wanted to stop and make sure that at least you guys don’t disappear.”
“Well that’s awfully fucking nice of you,” Scroat said. He cut off the excess patch material, and started putting away his repair kit.
“Don’t mind him,” Hep said. “He gets a little touchy when his bike breaks down.”
“No problem, I understand,” Robert said. “Well, it looks to me like you guys are ready to start rolling again. Do you want me to follow you until we get to the next city?”
“Nah, we’ll be all right,” Hep said. “Thanks for stopping though.”
“Yeah, and thanks for the bedtime story,” Scroat said.
“All right. You fellas take care,” Robert said. He walked back to his car, started it, and pulled back on to the highway. He honked his horn twice, and soon all they could see of him were two faint red lights in the distance.
“Well, that guy was fruit loops,” Scroat said.
“Did you have to be such a dick?”
“Hey, if he was going to rob us, or pull some other stunt, I’d rather he just do it than pretend to be nice and tell us scary stories. Pissing off a robber gets them to drop the act.”
“Yeah, but he just pulled over to help.”
“We know that now. Let’s go.”
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