"I won't be alone. That son-of-a-bitch Peter is coming to visit."
She doesn't laugh, but she doesn't try to argue with me either. Sheila has known me long enough, and knew Dad long enough before that, to understand what this place means. She comes around the bar, reaches up, grabs my face with both hands, and pulls me down to her level, which is considerable pulling given that she's five-foot-nothing in shoes.
"You call me," she says. "Every hour during that storm. You miss one check-in and I will drive back out to this beach in the middle of a hurricane and drag you out of here myself. Don't think I won't."
"Yes ma'am."
"Your daddy would've stayed too," she says, quieter. "Stubborn damn fools. Both of you."
She hugs me hard, like she's trying to squeeze the stupid out of me and then she's grabbing her purse and heading for the door. She stops halfway.
"What about boarding up the windows? Need my help?"
"Nope, I'm heading to the hardware store right now. I'll get her buttoned up tight. You go on now."
She nods once, sharp, and she's gone. The door swings shut behind her and the bar goes quiet. Not the good kind of quiet, the Friday-afternoon-before-the-rush kind. This is the quiet that comes when everyone with any sense has already left.
I take one long look around my place. Dad's place. The stools pushed up to the bar. The neon signs I haven't turned off yet —BIG TEX'S ROADHOUSEin red and blue, and a Harley-Davidson logo. The signed photos on the walls from every biker rally, charity ride, and parking lot cookout we've hosted in the last thirty years. The pool tables with their green felt tops. The scuff marks on the hardwood floor from a thousand boots.
"Alright, Pete," I mutter. "Let's see what you got."
I grab my keys. The sky has turned the color of an old bruise by the time I pull onto Front Beach Road. The first outer bands are pushing through. Sudden walls of rain that blow sideways for ten minutes, then stop, then start again, like the storm is clearing its throat.
The wind has some teeth to it already, gusting hard enough to shove my truck toward the center line. The beach road is mostly empty. Everybody's heading toward the evacuation routes going north on the highways, away from the water. I'm one of the few idiots heading the other way.
That's when I see him the first time.
A biker. He's small. That's what I notice first. Not small like short necessarily, just compact. Lean. He's standing next to a motorcycle under the overhang of a closed-up souvenirshop. One of those places that sells airbrushed t-shirts and pink flamingo floats. The shop's been shuttered and boarded.
The biker hasn't been. He's got a helmet on with the visor down and a light jacket that's soaked through to the skin. The jacket isn't rain gear. It's a regular jacket, the kind you'd throw on for a cool morning ride, not for the leading edge of a Category 4 hurricane.
I drive past. I note the image of the lone rider, no cover, no plan, bad weather, and wonder what his situation is. Probably waiting for the rain to ease up a minute so he can ride out. It's not my problem. I've got a hardware store to get to and a bar to board up.
The hardware store is a zoo, which I expected. Every person left in Bay County who isn't already halfway to Dothan, Alabama is in this parking lot right now. They're loading plywood and bottled water into their vehicles with the grim focus of people who've done this before.
I load up too. More plywood than I probably need, but I learned from Hurricane Michael that you can never have enough. Boxes of three-inch nails. Two extra propane tanks. Every case of bottled water I can fit. Duct tape, tarps, batteries, a hand-crank radio because cell towers don't survive Category 4 winds. I make small talk with a couple of guys I know from the area, both of them evacuating, both of them telling me I'm crazy. I don't argue. They're not wrong.
The guy at the register looks at my cart and says, "You building an ark, Big Tex?" and I say, "Brother, if I was building an ark, I'd need a bigger truck and a lot more beer."
The truck's riding heavy on the way back, the bed loaded down and the suspension complaining about it. The rain has gotten worse. The wipers are on full speed and barely keepingup, and the wind is gusting hard enough now that I'm gripping the steering wheel with both hands to keep it in the road.
And the biker's still there.
Same spot. Same overhang. Same soaked jacket, same helmet, same motorcycle that isn't going anywhere in this weather. He hasn't moved. The rain is driving sideways now, getting under the overhang, and even from the road I can see that he's drenched. Standing in it like he's waiting for a bus that's never coming.
I drive past him again. I make it about three blocks. Then I start arguing with myself. He's probably fine. Probably has a plan. People ride in bad weather all the time. He's got a helmet on, he's under cover, he'll figure it out.
Except the rain isn't going to ease up. Not today, not tonight, not for the next forty-eight hours. And those rain bands are going to get a lot worse before Peter makes landfall. And that kid, if he is a kid, is standing under a four-foot overhang with a motorcycle and a wet jacket and apparently no idea what's bearing down on this coast.
I know what Sheila would say. I know what Dad would say. I know what I'd say to anyone else in my position, which is the same thing I say to myself as I check my mirrors and turn the wheel hard.
"Dammit, Tex, you'd better go back."
I make the U-turn.
"For the record," I say to nobody, because the truck doesn't judge, "this is exactly how every bad decision I've ever made starts. I see a situation that's not my problem and I make it my problem."
He's still there when I pull up. Hasn't moved an inch. I park the truck on the shoulder, leave it running, and stepout into the rain, which has picked back up with enthusiasm. The wind is gusting hard enough to make me lean into it, and I'm not a small man. I'm six-five, two-forty, and the wind is pushing me around like I'm a weatherman on the Weather Channel.
