The Boy Was Shooting Into A Trash Can So I Pulled Over And What He Said Destroyed Me

“You can thank me by taking care of yourself, ma’am. That boy needs his mama. You can’t fall apart on him.”

She nodded. “I know. I’ve been trying. It’s just… Jerome was my everything. We were high school sweethearts. I don’t know how to exist without him.”

“You learn,” I said quietly. “One day at a time. Some days you take it one hour at a time. One minute at a time. But you keep going. For him.” I nodded at Marcus.

An hour later, a pickup truck pulled into the driveway. The clerk from the store got out with a huge box. A 32-inch portable basketball hoop. Brand new.

Marcus’s jaw dropped. He looked at me. Looked at the box. Looked back at me.

“Is that… is that for me?”

“Your daddy promised you a basketball hoop if you made a hundred shots. You made the shots, buddy. You earned this.”

Marcus burst into tears. Not sad tears this time. Happy tears. Overwhelmed tears. He ran to me and wrapped his arms around my waist, squeezing so tight I could barely breathe.

“Thank you thank you thank you,” he sobbed into my vest. “Thank you, Mr. Robert.”

His mama was crying too. She came over and hugged us both, this strange little group standing in the driveway around a basketball hoop box.

“I’ll help you set it up,” I said. “If that’s okay.”

For the next two hours, Marcus and I built that basketball hoop together. I showed him how to read the instructions. How to use the tools. How to tighten bolts and check if things were level.

He asked me about my patches. I told him about my club. About the charity rides we do. The kids we help. The families we support.

“Are all bikers nice like you?” Marcus asked.

“Most of the ones I know are, buddy. We look scary but we’re just regular people who like to ride motorcycles.”Continue reading…