Page 29 of A Handsome Devil

“Whoa!” yelled Truman. I wasn’t sure if he was glad or unhappy.

I had to slow it down when I merged into traffic at a curb ramp, drumming my brain over the sidewalk bumps. “He still following?” I shouted, swerving by a driverless taxi.

Truman put his chin on my shoulder. “You’re not gonna believe this.” He paused for dramatic effect. “He’s riding a bike.”

“Bike? Like electric bike?”

“No.” I heard him laugh over the clanging and vrooming of traffic. “A regular bike.”

Of course at the red light I had to stop and fucking look back.

A regular bike could have feasibly caught up with us if the rider was talented. But this dude had whipped a bicycle with training wheels from some homeless guy.

Un-be-fucking-lievable. He wheeled along, slower than a kid just learning to ride. Even the addicts were laughing as the guy furiously pressed against the pedals, huffing and puffing. His fellow officers would never let him forget this. He maxxed out at maybe eight miles an hour, allowing us the luxury of standing still and laughing. Pedestrians even noticed, several snorting with glee, making surprised lip farts.

“You’re crushing it, bro!”

“Pedal to the metal!”

“Rock it, buddy!”

One guy even looked quizzically at the joint in his hand, probably wondering what it was laced with.

The pig wobbled side to side, legs pumping in hot pursuit, his knees almost to his chest. Truman laughed so hard I felt his stomach clench against my lower back.

But soon it was time to go, and I took a right onto a less crowded street where Denmark met us. He chortled at the absurdity of our own ride. We didn’t bother explaining that the hilarity was behind us, slowly creaking along.

We were becoming a club, a union. I felt like the leader of a band, as in days of old, orchestrating their moves. Denmark stole a new ride but took his intersex flag with him. I couldn’t have been prouder. I told Truman to buy a new burner phone.

We discovered that a newsman, a Jack Hoffman, was following us, documenting our every step. He was a suave, Latino guy about my age with buck teeth, a hefty Adam’s apple gulping at his every word, but he seemed on top of things. By that, I mean he idolized us.

The night of the training wheels episode, we gathered around Truman’s laptop in a motel to hear Jack Hoffman avidly speak.

“Notorious crime couple, Will o’the Wisp Alessio Messina and Denmark Groover, got only forty dollars today from a drug dealer in Modesto. But the getaway sparked so much more.”

We held our breaths as they played some camera footage from various viewpoints. Most of them seemed to show me zipping by on the scooter. Strange thing was, the guy behind me gripping my waist clearly wasn’t black. And Jack Hoffman picked up on that.

“Oddly,” he frowned, casually strolling through a crowd of addicts at the scene of the crime, “Messina’s companion didn’t seem to be Mr. Groover, the murderer he broke out of jail last week.” They zoomed in on an extremely pixilated image of Truman’s profile. To me, he seemed to be laughing.

“Busted!” cried Erin, shoving Truman’s shoulder.

“You bad!” shouted Denmark.

“I’d never think of a scooter,” lamented Gunning.

My nerves rising, I glanced at Truman to see his reaction. He giggled like a dancing dervish, seemingly enamored with himself. I was glad to see that. He needed more self-assurance.

Hoffman continued as he strolled, as though the crusty street was the Champs-Élysées. “Wanted posters have been sent nationwide as of this morning, but still.” He paused for dramatic effect, squarely facing the camera. “With the mystery of this companion in crime, and the gang’s ability to evade the law, tension builds as to where they’ll strike next. In the meantime.” And they cut to a video of the cop with the training wheels creaking along behind us. “The identity of Messina’s new gang member remains a riddle. And a diverse array of dreamers, oddballs and misfits remain at large.”

Truman clicked pause on the end of the video, while Erin squealed, “We’re no gang! We’re a fucking club, like a motorcycle club.”

Gunning said, “He got the oddballs and misfits part right.”

Truman put the laptop behind him on the motel mattress and stood. “I’m going to send that motherfucker one of your postcards.”

Postcards? I’d forgotten all about buying those from the liquor store. From a side pocket of his suitcase, Truman withdrew some colorful pieces of cardboard. He whipped a pen from the tabletop with a flourish, wiggling his eyebrows.

I wanted in on this.