This is a short story for my Dad...

Lighting flashes across the darkening New Mexico sky as Old Man Johnson looks out the antique pane window. He chews several times at the hunk of tobacco lodged in his jaw and spits to his left, hitting the rusted spittoon jus on the inside rim.

"Guess that's less time you'll have-a cleanin' my floor sexy," he says snickering as he walks toward the bar. He eyes the girl bent over as she moves beer around in the beer cooler and wipes tobacco juice from his mouth with the sleeve of his dirty long sleeve shirt.

"I can feel your eyes on me," she says standing looking at him disgustedly. What man wouldn't he thinks to himself looking her up and down smiling. Suddenly he hears business coming up the dirt road, but comtinues to listen.

"Can't be," he says rushing across the harwood floor as lightning flashes in the side windows.

"What is it," the girl says sarcastically putting her hands on her hips. "Thunder? It's gonna rain ya know," she says rolling her eyes and going toward the back office.

"No girl," he says biting his bottom lip nervously. "The bike you hear rolling up is a 1936 El,' he says as she stops in the hallway. "They called 'em Knuckleheads," he says leaning aginst the bar as she take a swing of his "private" whiskey. Headlights pull up with the sound of the bike getting louder, almost shaking the glass in the front of the building. "Only a few sounds in the world that can make a man feel like that," he says as she smiles at her as she walks toward him feeling the 'whiskey warm' as the old men called it. A man in total black steps off the 36 El, and takes off a pair of motorcycle glasses that must have been as old as the bike if not older, but the man and the bike didn't really match.

"You know that guy," she says as the man studies the sky in the distance, then sees her through the glass. He walks toward the door and opens it, and walks straight up to the bar to her. He looks her up and down with thoughs she can feel all over.

"Uh, excuse me sir," the mans says from behind closing the door, "but who the hell you think you are walkin' in here like you're John damn Wayne," he says stopping as the man pulls out a few large wad of money.

"I'm waiting for some friends," he say to him looking at her. Flipping out close to five thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills he licks his thumb, puts one in front of the girl, then does it again. Turnig around to the man he pulls out another two one hundred dollar bills. "If I were to hand you any more money.. I'd have to have the deed to this place," he says getting closer to him and backs him into the wall. "I'll deal with my friends when they gets here, and please send over blonde for drinks," he says walking to an old wooden table and chairs.

"Would you like anything to drink, sir," the owner says half serious, half not. A dog that don't back up in a fight ain't always the smartest dog, but this dog owns this place he thinks walking toward his table.

"Thinking will get you put down little doggy," the man says looking up at him and pulling up an old bottle out of his coat pocket, just below a pistol. "I ain't gonna hurt you or your girl, but there will come a time you have to make a choice," he says puts the bottle on the table. "But I will take a shotglass," he says sending him to the bar like a little dog in a big dogs yard. Need to play this out smart he thinks getting the shotglasses from his bartender who's getting her liquid courage on.

Lightning strikes in the distance and bike pipes are heard coming up the drive, and laughter.

"They gonna want anything to drink," he asks him as they pull up. Looking out he sees a black 46 Harley Flathead and a custom motorcycle that mixed the old and new styles with ape hangers and seemed to stretch out forever. The two men walk in and sit at the table.

"Get us two more shotglasses, honey," the man says with the glasses on and the three begin talking.

"How you been man?"

"Been good, been better. How bout a shot?"

"Sounds good to me I need a drink," the man says in a guff voice, and that what they do. They sit, never even looking at the other people in the roadhouse, drinking from the bottle the man brought in. Around 4 the owner couldn't take it anymore.

"Look, I know you paid me well, but I gotta go," he says putting his hands on the "friends" opposite shoulders, and is almost immediately grabbed up by the big guy who came in on the custom and is slamed into the chair next to him.

"I guess you wanna be in on our conversation," the thin man say to him. The first man's laugh gets deeper and suddenly his hair turns from a dark brown to a white and scraggly. His skin becomes bone white and his eye sockets sink in to a set of horrifying red eyes. Before he knows what happening the man is on top of him sinking his fangs into his neck. the other two men out of his sight dispatch the girl... then walk back over to him looking up at them...

"Are you with us, or against us," the main man says looking down at him blood soaked. A moment passes and he's on another plane he's never even felt, even in all the years of using. He wakes to his bartender standing over him grinning.

"So now what," he says looking at them in the basement of his bar.