Stories from the Back of His Motorcycle

I had never been in the neighbourhood before, despite living just a few blocks over for my entire life. The houses were almost all wooden and aged as if this particular street had been here first. As if everything else was just an add on to what had originally been a break in the countryside – just a use for the cut-down trees. I could almost see the history as we rolled slowly down the road.

Still, although obviously old, the street was very pleasant. There were wild flowers dotted around lawns not an unearthly green, either through lack of care or deliberate neglect. Other houses had ivy crawling up the wooden frames, green shoots making their way up to heaven. I found myself unwillingly comparing it to my moderate neighbourhood where every house was an exact copy of the other. Although my neighbours liked to turn perk noses up at our untrimmed garden and sneer at the scratches in my front door, I still had my kitchen overlooking the front window and two bathrooms upstairs, exactly the same as them. This street looked quaint, picturesque. I couldn’t understand for one second just what business Vaughn had down here.

I fidgeted with my hands from where they lay in my lap, still uncomfortable that we were driving in a vehicle with more than two wheels. Still unnerved by Vaughn’s willingness to discard himself for a clone of someone else. I hadn’t realised what power I wielded with him, just discarding his feelings for me too lightly, never really acknowledging what he meant by telling me about his illness. Vaughn had opened himself up in ways I had only dreamt about doing. Vaughn had shocked me into a reality so raw it almost hurt to breathe.

And I was apprehensive, scared almost, at the prospect of meeting someone linked to him. They must have been special, meant something to him, and I was being given an opportunity to ruin things. I had a habit of doing so and couldn’t afford to do that to Vaughn. Not since I’d learnt his secret. Not since I’d started to realise just what he meant to me.

“You’re going to have to excuse her language,” Vaughn spoke once we’d finally stopped outside a particular house. “She’s in that whole rebellious stage where you swear like a sailor. If her parents allowed her I’m sure she’d wear nothing but black and have her walls plastered with heavy metal bands.”

I didn’t mention that I’d never gone through that whole rebellious stage – that the closest I’d come to heavy metal music was listening to it through the walls of my brothers’ rooms and that I’d only sworn when severely provoked. I was too busy letting the new and overwhelming sensation of jealousy drown me.

She. Her. I couldn’t help but be jealous of this mysterious girl – she meant a lot to Vaughn. I could see it in the way his lips turned up when mentioning her, his eyes already locked on the house as if desperate to catch just one glimpse of her. Her. It was irrational to envy an unnamed, un-introduced girl but I found the emotion unrelenting.

“Okay,” I said meekly, blinking furiously against the spark of anger burning up my throat. Vaughn eagerly left the car and I watched him tear up the path, not even pausing to glance back or take in the tall rose bush creeping up around the front window.

I sighed out. I tried to take control of the way my stomach was plummeting and my heart racing. My legs propelled me outside and forwards – faster than my mind would have liked so I ended up standing just behind Vaughn as the door swung inwards.

The woman on the other side was beautiful in a way that had me shrinking further back. I desperately wanted to bolt for the car, or down the street, anywhere I wouldn’t have to deal with anymore stray, hot emotions. Like shame, like envy, what felt like someone was stealing something from right under me.

“Oh Vaughn! I didn’t expect to see you again until next Tuesday. Should I even mention the time and how you’re currently missing school? Your Mom knows you’re here, right?”

The boy in front of me shrugged, shooting her an easy smile, while I just eyed them both uneasily. Despite the woman’s beauty I could see that she was old – thirty at least – with lines around her eyes which only appeared after years of stress and worry. The exact replica of the ones Mom had worn for half of my life.

“She knows Mrs Agnes,” he winked “and our school’s having another day off for all the students.”

Mrs Agnes didn’t look like she bought his watery lie but she was grinning anyway. “Your school seems to have a lot of them.”

“And I’ve bought someone for Keisha to meet,” he raised his palms and gestured to where I was still half hidden behind him. Her dark head stretched around to catch a glimpse of this offered guest. By the small frown lines in her forehead, I could tell that Vaughn didn’t bring a lot of them with him.

“I’m Alice,” I applied all of my best masks – fake smile, stiff offered hand, seemingly relaxed body. I had years of practise dealing with pretending but it didn’t make trying to be friendly towards Mrs Agnes any easier. She was old enough to be my mother but pretty enough to be a cheerleader. Hair so black it seemed unnatural, teeth so white they almost shone, skin a rich chocolate so smooth it looked like silk.

“So you’re the Alice Vaughn won’t stop talking about,” she was grinning so much I wondered if it hurt “well I’m glad to see he didn’t make you up, dear. Vaughn here really needs a girl like you to take care of him and love him good.”

I swallowed whatever foul taste had infiltrated my mouth at the word ‘love’. I hadn’t realised my existence had been so well documented by Vaughn – I began to wonder just what he’d been saying to Mrs Agnes. Vaughn, however, had no desire for me to question the woman about this and placed a warm hand on the small of my back.

“We’re just seeing how things go,” he said quickly, unsurely. He didn’t want to press me into anything, back me into any corners. I pulled one of my hands behind my back to rest on top of his. The earlier jealousy had dissipated now that I was almost certain Vaughn didn’t have some secret lover stowed away in this beautiful house. Although the still mysterious Keisha made me uneasy, I could feel his loyalty almost radiate off of him while our hands stayed locked together.

“Well I think you two will end up very happy. Trust me, I’ve had twelve years of matchmaking under my belt and I couldn’t have set little Vaughn here up with a better girl.” Her eyes twinkled with the sincerity in her words and I smiled at the familiarity and affection she spoke of Vaughn with. It was more than I’d heard his own mother use.

I briefly turned my head towards Vaughn to catch him winking at Mrs Agnes all before beaming innocently at me. I couldn’t help but chuckle. He was just too sure of himself sometimes.

“Well Keisha’s in bed again today, had a bit of a rough time yesterday.”

Instantly, Vaughn’s eyes lost their playfulness and his shoulders were tense. “Is she okay?” he asked Mrs Agnes anxiously.
“Not any worse really, just a lot of throwing up. You know how chemotherapy takes it out of her.”

My insides flipped over then, and I felt an infernal bubble of guilt burst inside of me. I had been jealous of an ill girl. I had been a terrible person.

“Just go up there already and bring your cute girlfriend with you,” Mrs Agnes stepped out of the way to let us pass. Numbly, I let Vaughn tow me past. “Don’t let her scare you with her attitude Alice,” she called behind us “she’ll just love you!”



The first thing I noticed about Keisha wasn’t that she was bald, or that the shape of her body beneath the heavy covers looked mangled and crooked, or that there were unusual looking boxes of tablets by her bed with names longer and more complicated than I thought possible. The first thing I noticed about Keisha was that, while there was a firm scowl secured on her face, her eyes simply shone with an unshed smile. And that she was dazzling – just like her mother.

The girl couldn’t have been older than thirteen with wisps of baby hair still tucked just in front of her fringe. She looked young but not vulnerable; the way her paper thin arms were folded across her chest showed that she wouldn’t take anybody’s attitude but her own. An impulsive motherly emotion had me almost wanting to baby her while the bigger part of me prayed to just stay hidden behind Vaughn. He seemed to have other ideas, though, as he moved towards her and pulled an empty chair away from the big window over to her bed.

“Vaughn!” she exclaimed “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you!” And I could see her joy no matter how much she tried to arrange her face to obscure it and I understood just what she was trying to achieve. This was no phase – this was a little girl’s reaction to having to fight a deadly illness. This came from having to say goodbye to her childhood and goodbye to so many people that it hurt to give most of them names anymore. I recognised the technique as one I’d used for a good portion of my life.

“You know they’re making me take those bloody pills again – the green ones – even though I just spill up the contents of my stomach afterwards. I fucking hate those pills. Do you think we could flush them down the toilet like those fuck awful yellow ones? I’m sure they wouldn’t clog it up the same, they’re smaller and green’s less noticeable in between all the shit down there.”

Vaughn put his head back and laughed. I pictured them while I stood invisible, the two conspirators together, dropping tablets down the toilet and flushing them away with glee. The obvious importance of these pills was wasted on them. They were rebels. They were already cheating death enough, why bother enduring multi-coloured tablets which made them throw up?

“Come on Keish,” Vaughn caught his breath “you know that was bad of me to do and those pills help you get better.”

Keisha flipped a bone thin hand around dismissively. “Don’t give me that bullshit. They probably gave me them so that I could suffer just that little bit more.”

They? The doctors possibly. Maybe the nurses. I could only imagine how they must all have looked like a blur of faces to her. Just one ‘them’ seemed strangely fitting.

“Yes Keisha,” Vaughn humoured her softly in a slow voice “they just want you to suffer.”

“Damn straight, my Mom’s paying them a fortune just so that they can get their little sick fun. I could have sworn the last nurse gave me too much radiation in chemotherapy so now nothing will ever grow on my head. I look like a headless fucking chicken without hair. I may as well be ugly!”

I noticed the same spark in her eyes, the same laughter lines surrounding them. It was as if she found the situation amusing. As if the fact that she was bald actually was quite convenient – she wouldn’t have to worry about bad hair days for a while.

“If you’ve had enough of being pissed off at the health system, I’d like for you to meet someone. And I want you to bear in mind that young ladies are polite and courteous so please don’t say anything which will embarrass yourself and inevitably made me out to be a fool.”

Vaughn moved his head up so his eyes met mine. I jostled, surprised. I’d been so caught up in the two of them – it was almost like watching TV or peering into someone else’s window where I saw and heard them but wasn’t actually present. Where my actions and words could affect my surroundings.

“That’s Alice?” Keisha smiled sourly, eyes evaluating every inch of me. I stepped slowly forward so I stood at the foot of her bed, sunshine streaming in to highlight my pale face and thrown-on clothes. “She isn’t how I imagined her.”

I didn’t know whether I’d just been insulted or complimented so just smiled pleasantly.

“Hello Keisha.”

There was a pregnant pause in which our eyes locked. Blue on brown. I understood her wariness of me – not only a stranger but Vaughn’s stranger. I could remember being thirteen, being so in love with one of Nick’s friends that I’d doodled my name with his surname so many times my own had started to sound wrong. Vaughn was hers when he was here – they had each others’ support and love and a connection I couldn’t claim. I represented something different, something Keisha and Vaughn didn’t have. She was jealous and scared. She thought I might take her Vaughn away from her, an outside force ready to infiltrate her territory.

“Well...” Vaughn shifted in the seat “why don’t you tell Alice a bit about you, Keisha?”

“What’s there to tell? I have leukaemia and only really go outside when I have to go to the fucking hospital. I don’t have any friends my own age because most of them have forgotten me or are scared that what I have is contagious.”

“Keisha!” he hissed “don’t be like that.”

“Like what? I don’t sugar coat shit.”

Vaughn rolled his eyes and leaned back, his body already fitted perfectly to the chair. I could tell by his expression that he didn’t really disapprove, that Keisha didn’t sugar coat shit often, that this just made Keisha Keisha. He loved her like a little sister. He loved her like I wished my brothers had me.

“How about I just go alert your Mom that you’ve been sneaking chocolate in the periods you’re supposed to not ear.”

“You do that,” Keisha flashed a quick, triumphant grin “and I’ll tell her just who I get the chocolate from.”

There was a brief moment of stiff silence before there was laughter between them. I could almost see their connection set far deeper than blood did. They shared an understanding of what it was like to always live on edge of something – living on the edge of health, of their beds, of relationships, of medical waiting lists, of death. I felt like an outsider but also privileged. Vaughn had let me close even though I didn’t truly understand his hardship. I didn’t need to have been through it for him to like me.

“Touché,” Vaughn chuckled, hands conspicuously clenching over a non-existent cigarette. “But still, be nice to Alice.”

“I’m not a child,” I protested indignantly, hating the way I was being talked about as if truly invisible. “You don’t have to make Keisha be anything she doesn’t want to be. She doesn’t have to nice to me; she doesn’t have to like me.”

Vaughn stared at me questioningly as if trying to understand what I’d just said.
“Huh,” Keisha beamed at us, eyes flickering between our figures. “I think I like this Alice more than the one you talked about Vaughn.”

He pushed some hair away from his eyes which were set on me. They both evaluated me as I stood at the foot of Keisha’s bed. I bit my lip and wished I’d never spoken, moving over towards Vaughn where he hastily grabbed me and pulled me onto his lap. I spluttered on a choke of surprise as his warm arms coiled me to him. Keisha’s eyes glowed with something dangerous and I didn’t want to meet them.

“So how did you two meet?” I leant my head back so I could focus on Vaughn when I asked this. His cheek muscles clenched into a smile, tiny dimples only visible from this angle protruding. I wanted to kiss him again, reassure myself that I shouldn’t feel guilty for being with Vaughn.

“Through the hospital,” he said, body becoming tensed. It was still difficult for him to talk about things related to his illness with me. I could see the uneasiness in his eyes, understood that when they flickered briefly to the door he was wondering how quickly it would take for me to reach it.

“We met through this hospital scheme,” Keisha continued for him “which basically teams up two terminally ill patients and encourages them to talk about how hard dying is.”

I blinked. Her bluntness was quite the opposite of Vaughn’s reluctance. I didn’t know exactly which one I preferred.

Vaughn leaned sharply towards her, his torso twisting so I couldn’t see the anger on his face. He hissed sharp words which I couldn’t catch. I sat stupidly partly on his lap and pretended to be fascinated by the criss-cross pattern on Keisha’s covers. I could trace the indents of her figure beneath it, I could tell that her body was tiny and thin and unhealthy.

“Well she’s still here isn’t she?” Keisha rolled her eyes as Vaughn leant back, pulling me securely onto him. “You shouldn’t baby her so much about it.”

“I don’t want to put any more strain on her, it’s enough that she’s here already.”

“And mentioning your illness every now and then is so wrong because?”

I knew exactly what they were referring to and I knew exactly what Vaughn and Keisha thought of me. I looked down at my hands, clenching together.

“You two see a lot of each other then?” I asked loudly.

They stopped their glaring match to stare at me, startled. As if I’d just spoken another language. As if I’d just said something truly ridiculous. As if I’d just proven that I wasn’t going to be intimidated by Keisha, that I wasn’t going to run off at the mere sound of Vaughn’s illness.

“Every Tuesday,” Vaughn smiled proudly at me and leant his head softly into mine.

“Ugh, gag!” Keisha half screamed but I had already seen it. That flash of happiness for Vaughn. The understanding that I wasn’t going to steal him away, that I just wanted to share him, may have settled in. I smiled at her in a way I hoped meant something and she returned it with a stern look. ‘Don’t hurt him’ it read ‘or you’ll have Keisha there to kick your ass’.