Nonfiction | April 16, 2015
Airhead
Brent DeLanoy
I just wanted to stare at it for a while, to sit on it and make engine noises. I was scared of it, though I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time. The bike was too heavy for my scrawny ten-year-old body. My old Bell helmet rattling on my head, the motor running, the whole bike vibrating beneath me, I asked only to hang on and not tip it over as my family looked on. I rode in tentative circles, barely cracking the throttle. Round and round I rode in first gear, my father jogging beside me, shouting directions. Then, gear shifts. Then farther up the street, until my father was on his Harley, riding next to me, goading me past our stop sign and onto the open road, down to the Pic-Quick for a candy bar. I was soon bopping along behind my father all over town, unlicensed, free.
This essay is not currently available online.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Nonfiction
May 16 2022
Oranges
Oranges Robin Reif We called it the Buffet of Dead Food: flaccid bacon, eggs—hard-boiled and cold—and toast so tough it scratched the roofs of our mouths. Still, the meal had… read more
Nonfiction
Jan 07 2022
Cover Up
Cover Up I did not begin my time in Jerusalem with the desire to be dangerous. I arrived in that most intoxicating, infuriating, enervating, derelict, and sad of cities with… read more
Nonfiction
Jan 06 2022
Of Sound Mind and Memory
Of Sound Mind and MemoryOn Wills and Language and Lawyers and Loveby Judith Claire Mitchell PreambleI, _____________, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, hereby declare this to be… read more