Through the cabin's one window the branches' shadows bent across the far wall and onto the ceiling. Finally, fitfully, Mort slept, and the shadows became spokes, and he dreamed of crashing-- yanking his body sideways moments before, then throwing his bike forward while launching himself backwards in an attempt to fling far enough from the bike before it rolled into the oncoming truck. Mort sat up. He looked out the window-- the sky was lightening from black to blue; Mort knew it was about four o'clock. In the faint light he saw for the first time a red gas pump. It was across the semicircular drive that ran in front of the cabin.

Mort dressed and walked out to the pump. He lifted the handle and felt the nozzle's tip-- his finger moistened. He walked over to his trailer and took out a jerry can. He filled the can and emptied it into his Packard. He made several trips in order to fill up what been a bone dry tank. Last night, he had virtually coasted to a stop before finding himself fortuitously in front of a row of dimly lit motel cabins. Now, this morning, capping off a streak of good luck, he had discovered that he had also stumbled upon a source of gas. If he chose to accept that such events held a meaning, then the signs seemed to be saying that now was the moment to break out his Vincent and ride it.

First he finished topping off the Packard's tank. Then (still without telling himself that he had in fact committed himself to going for a ride) he walked back over to the pump and filled the jerry can once more. He carried the can back over to his car; right now, all he told himself was 'Refill the bike.'

Mort rolled the Vincent from the trailer. As he did so, he saw that the bike still had on straight pipes; if he was going to ride it this morning, he would have to put back on his street pipes and muffler. He also noted once again the burn marks on his racing pipes-- they were new and had come from yesterday's aborted run. A full bore run always blued new pipes. Some guys, Mort thought, would know what they would want to do with those burnt pipes without having to think about their decision. Either they would get the pipes rechromed so they made the bike look like it had never been run, or they would think of the burns as a sort of war wound and leave the pipes as is-- guys like that, in fact, weren't happy until they had run their bike hard enough to show off some visible discoloration. Mort however had no idea what he wanted to do. He was always putting such decisions off. For now, he would just take off the racing pipes and replace them with his set of street pipes. Once he got home, he could always go and get them rechromed.

While Mort went about changing the main jets, he looked up periodically to watch the sun rise and the blue return to the sky, gradually erasing the fainter stars. Now only a few, the very brightest, remained. Mort couldn't identify them, though names came to mind-- the Polar star, Pleiades, Venus-- but he didn't know what to call these stars and it didn't really matter. He felt good looking at them though, and he began to anticipate taking a morning ride. Then the sensations of yesterday afternoon came back to him-- that moment after he had heard the first backfire, and then coming up off the throttle too quickly-- that had been the mistake-- the one slip that had sent vibrations up the handlebars, and he had found himself locking his arms and fighting to keep the bike going straight and upright. It had been what the Brits endearingly called "a near thing." He had come out alright, but he was still thinking about it-- even as he was trying to stop thinking about it. But he had decided: the thing he had to do was ride that son of a bitch now, and this time, he wasn't going to go fast-- in fact, he didn't care how fast he went-- or how fast this machine of his could go-- today, or ever. His Vincent went fast enough, and he was just going to have to leave it at that. So he wouldn't know how fast that might be, but how important, really, was that? Yesterday, he had gone--what?-- approaching one forty, probably? That was an awfully high percentage of whatever this machine's top speed was, probably over three-quarters, for Christ sake!

Mort stopped once again to study the progress of the sunrise. He wondered what the sky looked like over Virginia right now, if the same few persistent stars were visible there as well. He was seven hundred miles south, in Florida, and he thought that might make a difference.

He would drive back to Virginia today, and this evening when he looked up the stars would be in different places. The day was a curtain behind which the stars were changing positions as if they were actors moving to different parts of a stage. From now on, Mort vowed he wasn't going to let himself get carried away with this speed record business. He hadn't gone down to Daytona only for that; yesterday's run was just a lark, a chance to go fast and have someone certify the speed. Yesterday's run had been an opportunity for him to test his Vincent with the aid of authorized time traps. Mort had wanted to do that-- few people ever get the opportunity, and this way he would have some fun, too. It was all a part of Speed Week at Daytona, 1963. They had opened the beach up for time trials. Going into this year's event, the current record was 132 m.p.h., set by a guy with a Harley.

Hell, on his Street Lightning Mort had bettered that on any number of Sunday morning rides. His Vincent was capable of going much faster than 132, so he had packed up and driven down....

The sand at Daytona's flat end was firmly crusted over early Saturday morning. Mort sat on the Vincent and watched the American Motorcycling Association's observer car drive down the beach to the 100 foot timing section 2.5 miles away. An aged official holding a flag stood by him at the start.

Mort looked over at the official and smiled after the bike fired on his first kickstart attempt.

The official leaned over and asked, "What diameter exhaust pipes?"

"Two inch."

"City Ordinance against that," the old man cautioned.

"These pipes are not for the street. I have muffled pipes back in the trailer but it would ruin my top end."

"That's alright. Just don't ride it on our streets without proper mufflers." The official shook Mort's hand and stepped back. Mort watched the old man's face contort in rhythm to his twists of the throttle grip. While he waited, Mort flipped down the two back up gas taps to insure that the Rattler (as he had named it) was drawing equally through all four. Chokes off, steering damper down tight. When the old man raised the flag Mort pulled off and accelerated; he pulled in the clutch lever and shifted-- then he eased out the clutch... second... again, third... at about 100 he snicked fourth, top gear. Mort began to wind the throttle open. He made himself as small on the bike as he could, hugging the tank and seat in a true racing crouch. He moved his left hand from the handlebar grip to the front forks, an extra precaution to ward off wobbles. He listened as the motor began to pull for that quarter mile of timed beach...

Misfire-- then Mort heard another, sounds like rapid gunfire. And the bike was just not missing beats but firing randomly. Afraid of engine seizure or an explosion, Mort hit the kill switch. Then he slid the throttle shut quickly-- too quickly-- the sudden change started a skip at the front tire--he felt a sudden twitching vibration jerking at the handlebars, wanting to swing them left and then right; this gyroscopic motion would only increase as the wheels started to slow and Mort knew that it would end in what is called a lock to lock wobble: the handlebar turning back and forth in full sweeps. To avoid crashing, Mort reengaged the motor immediately, and rolled the throttle back on, which stilled the wild oscillation, before shutting off again, easier this time. He coasted to a halt.

White and clammy, Mort sat there with no facial expression, as if thoughts had yet to come about the run, and the failure of the magneto. For that is what it was: a duff mag. Mort sat and watched the AMA car driving toward him. When they asked if he wanted help, he told them he had continued to sit because the sidestand would sink into the sand and the bike would fall over.

Mort then questioned the officials. The old man at the start knew nothing. He thought the run had gone off without a hitch. The two timers had sat inside their car as he went by, and they made no remarks about the bike's pliant wobble as Mort had crossed in front of them. They must have heard the bike go silent, then roar again before dying away again but the meaning of that didn't register-- they had no idea what any of that meant. They simply told Mort that he had coasted through the lights turning 128, and that he had not broken the record.

Meanwhile Mort had almost died. None of them had noticed the wobble--motor off at plus 128-- and then back on. And these men were not telling him that before the mechanical failure he was doing more like 140 and had already broken their little Beach Record, smashed it, and was lying out there on a bike that could, could, given a proper venue, take the American Class A (alcohol) record, then held by another Vincent owner, Rollie Free. They weren't gathering around him to tell him that or pledge to help him put together the needed team to carry this machine all the way out to the Salt Flats in Utah and let her have a proper chance to do what he had modified her himself to do.

Mort's Vincent had left the factory as a Rapide, meaning it had been tuned to achieve top speed of about 110. Mort had acquired all the needed parts and performed all the necessary modifications to transform that docile Rapide first into a Shadow, meaning a top speed of approximately 130, and then further, into a Black Lightning, meaning a machine that equaled (exceeded actually) factory racing specs. Most Sunday mornings found Mort out at what they called "the old grain road," testing his various modifications: jetting, porting, ram length... Rollie had purchased his Black Lightning. The class A record was then somewhere in the low 160s. If Mort had every gotten out there, his bike would have had a shot, and it would have been something of his own creation.

But these men standing on the beach with him didn't share that dream-- these men couldn't value the work he had done; these men didn't appreciate what it meant to dedicate yourself to the pursuit of speed. He saw that in their ignorant faces. And he was at a speed event for Christ sake!

He felt disgust at himself for having surrendered so fully to a desire that now seemed dirtied and empty of meaning. And for making him realize that, these men disgusted him all the more. He could have told them it was a bad magneto, and he had shut down early. He could have told them about the lock to lock. But right now he didn't feel like wasting an explanation on them, instead he only laughed when the top speed was mentioned, then said something about having had his fun and how he was going to ride around now and look at the girls.

After loading up the bike, the next thing Mort decided to do was get a cold drink and rest. He pulled into the parking lot of a small abandoned grocery store and parked under the trees. He sat in the shade with a Coke, looking at the Vincent, which he had pulled from its trailer because he had to repair it. He could still spend the rest of his weekend down in Florida. He was supposed to be on vacation, a long weekend. What would he do? Stay or go? He sat and thought. Back home, sailors would soon be crowding Granby Street just as they did every Saturday evening, so thick Mort could walk on their white caps past the movie theaters, burlesque shows, bars, tattoo parlors, but he never went to enjoyed any of that; so what made him think he would he would enjoy doing it down in Florida?

Mort replaced the magneto and reattached his streetgear. While he worked he continued to think about his decision, and the more he thought, the more embarrassed he became-- he had driven over a thousand miles to sit outside in a parking lot. Is this what he was here to do? If not this than what-- ride around and show off? Drink and ogle women? Now the whole trip seemed ridiculous. It was those fools who had observed the beach run. No-- it was he who had been the fool. He put the bike back in the trailer. He had made his decision.

Driving home on route seventeen at 3 am later that evening, Mort had run out of gas. Hearing his Packard die away, he shifted into neutral and angled to cost clear of the road. After he came to a full stop, Mort climbed out. He stopped on the dashed yellow line and turned around-- nothing, nothing but his car lights, and behind that the shadows darkening out into trees. He was so disgusted-- he wanted to roll out the bike, leave the car, leave everything. He hated that he had nowhere to go but home, he hated having to return to work under his father; a man determined to take everything into the ground with him. Two of the three stores he had already sold and spent up the money. He had broken Mort's mother, and then when his son's acceptance to engineering school had come, he had coaxed Mort to stay, claiming he needed his help in the family business.... Now Mort was lugging meat while the old man went to the Jewish Community Center and played tennis and swam and schmoozed with the other old men, telling them all how his wife and son ran and did for him. Standing in the middle of the road Mort wanted to get on his Vincent and get away from all that. Then he remembered his Vincent was running alcohol. Alcohol runs fast, cool and clean, but it don't get you very far. He walked behind the trailer and opened it. His Vincent sat securely strapped in with four cross ties. He imagined for a moment landing in jail for riding with 2 inch diameter pipes. He saw that small star of David he had painted on the rear fender inside a circle of letters that spelled out his bike's name: the Rattler. The anti-Semites would come up--oh ah, neato, but then they would see that little star and their faces would change. Mort found an empty ham can in a ditch nearby, and with it, he siphoned out the bike's fuel and poured it into his Packard.

After turning the ignition key, Mort pulled the choke to nurse his gas, and then, treating the accelerator as if it were a raw egg, Mort idled down the highway until his motor died again. This time he came to a halt in front of a light. He got out of his car and walked towards that light.

Far off the road Mort found five cabins. The middle one had a sign on the door that said Office. Inside it was empty, but there was a note by a set of cabin keys that read, Make yourself at home. I'll see you in the morning.

Mort put away his tools and secured his racing pipes by lashing them down inside his trailer. He put on his helmet and sat on his Vincent. Mort doubted that anyone else was staying at the cabins. Perhaps when he came back from his test run, someone would be around. Still, he decided not to start it out front, so he coasted out onto the highway giving the bike a good push with each foot. When his car and the little circle of cabins were invisible behind the trees that ran along the edge of route seventeen, Mort bump started her. Once he had her idling, he listened to the sound of the motor's spaced out beat, it's mellow thudding sounding normal and smooth.

Mort thought again about how lucky he had been to encounter those cabins. The mind had more senses and greater imagination than man could understand. Mort also believed everyone had moments when their life appeared explained. Finding those cabins was just such a preternatural event.

Mort accepted then that he was never going to the Salt Flats, that he was never meant for the record books. Instead he would arrive home later that night. He would walk quietly past his mother who wheezed and gurgled asleep on the couch. His mother, who could only make herself talk in a forced whisper. When he asked about her health, his mother said she was sick, but that's how normal felt. And she refused to see a doctor. He would kiss her once on the forehead, climb the stairs to the attic, and get quietly into bed. He would close his eyes and imagine the clock hands positioned at seven o'clock, and when he awoke it would be that time tomorrow.

Mort accelerated, shifting gears, and the Vincent settled in nicely at eighty. The throttle was little more than a quarter open. He listened to his windbreaker flap pleasantly against his body. On impulse, Mort looked behind him, perhaps he did so imagining that he might see his friendly but invisible host, but what he saw instead were sparks and bits of flame swirling out into a fiery cone from behind him, from inside the bike. It was a startling sight, and immediately a name for it came to him-- Satan's breath. A moment later, the explanation also occurred to him-- inside the muffler, accumulated carbon had shaken free as a result of having sat and rattled in the trailer during the long trip last night. The loose carbon ignited and burned as it was being blown out the exhaust. It was nothing to worry about.

Mort turned back around. He took his free hand and rested it against the front cylinder head feeling it warm his glove. He heard the wind crossing his helmet and somewhere far behind the sound of the Vincent motor.