Throwback Thursday: ‘Candy-Apple Baby’ by Colin Thornton

It was a candy-apple red, metal-flake, chrome-plated Harley Davidson Low Rider, chopped down, pimped out, and fully accessorized, parked under a misty cone of light from a streetlamp almost as if it was waiting for Zoober to wander by.

For months he had fantasized about owning a motorcycle: tearing down the highway, a big, nasty redhead on the seat behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist, cheek resting on his shoulder.  Money was his problem, or rather, lack of it. His old man wouldn’t pay for it, that’s for sure. And there was no way he was going flip burgers for minimum wage like those other peons.

“Well now, looky here. Someone left the keys in the ignition.”

He listened to the night, scanned the houses on both sides of the street — dark and quiet. In the silence he could hear that chrome-plated angel calling out to him, whispering in his ear, enticing him, compelling him, daring him to do what most other sixteen-year-old boys would never dream of.

Although Zoober had never been one for going to church, praying, or any of that spirit-in-the-sky crap, he looked up at the stars and with all the sincerity he could muster, said, “Thank you, Jesus.”