Jersey City

1

Gerard was feeling decent.His night of almost getting thrown into a cell was behind him,and even though the sun wouldn't set in a very long time, he was surrounded by beautiful colors whipping by in a melded fuzz as he gunned his bike, whipping through the street, leaning into slow turns.He'd head back to his apartment,get some business done, and maybe after dinner he'd —
Leaning to the right, Gerard took the next bend way too close, definitely over the centerline.He was almost around the curve when a car appeared, there it was, leaning towards the turn, and him leaning toward the car, rushing into it, horridly exposed, nothing but flesh covering bone , maybe it was all over , oh fuck, it was over for him . . .
He was unaware of the car careening toward the shoulder of the road as Gerard jerked the handlebars of his motorcycle to the left, trying to harshly pull the bike back into his lane, away from the car. He watched the cars glistening headlight sail toward his face, then zip under his ear, his helmet nearly brushing the front quarter panel. He felt the ginormous bulk of the car, pulsing with great power, zoom past him, inches away from him. Then, incredibly, he was beyond the car, nothing in front of him but empty roads and many trees, his bike cutting sharply across his lane, front wheel turning now, seemingly on its own, beyond his power to control it , in a world-tilting moment his bike slammed into a railing and he went flying through the air. Everything went blank and in slow motion, and then he heard a bold crash from somewhere , just before he slammed into the woodland floor and the consciousness knocked out of him.

—

The guy was dead. Definitely dead, somehow Gerard wasn't, but the driver sure as hell was.
Gerard had lied on the floor to rest near the bottom of a gentle incline sloping away from the road, on a thin blanket of dead leaves, weeds , and grass over a mushy mattress of moist ground. He'd laid there for a moment in a daze , staring up at the trees above, wondering how the fuck he'd flown twenty feet into the woods and rolled down a hill without hitting a goddamned tree. And,without breaking any bones.
He left his helmet by his discombobulated bike and climbed the slope back up to the road. The car was nowhere in sight. For a moment Gerard thought it may have simply swerved and kept going wherever it was going when their paths had crossed . . . and then he saw them, saw grooves running through the gravel ten feet away, grooves leading off the shoulder and down the hill on the other side, into more trees.
Gerard looked both ways , pleasantly surprised no one was there. No skid marks that he could see.The driver couldn't even hit their brakes, Atleast not before they hit the gravel on the shoulder. Gerard walked deeper into the woods, he looked down to the tire tracks into the soft earth.Maybe thirty feet in, a dark rouge car accordioned against a thick tree. Gerard slid the toe of his boot over the skid marks , making sure to obliterate them. After one more look for cars on the road , he walked even deeper.
There he was staring into the car, staring through a smashed window at the bloody face of a man slumped over the steering wheel. This car either didn't have an air bag or it had been defective and hadn't deployed. Maybe this guy deactivated it , Gerard thought. The bastards eyes were open as well.
Gerard took a few steps back. The forest was quiet all but the puffing of the engine. Most people would have called 911 by now but then again , he'd spent last night being interrogated by the cops about a murder and burglary . . . Luckily he knew how to lie his way out of those things , Plus he wouldn't want his family to be found out. Most likely he would be arguably at fault for this accident — therefore this mans death. Even the fact he'd had a couple of rounds of booze would surely complicate matters. No, Gerard wasn't going to be calling the cops. Instead, he hid his wrecked motorcycle as best he could. He'd come back after things died down here and dispose of the bike properly, if no one had found it by then, or maybe he wouldn't—fortunately, it wasn't registered in his name.
He was just about to leave, but something caught his eye through the window of his rear door. He leaned closer to the glass, carefully not to touch the car , and peeped inside. He reached for his shirt tail and gripped the door handle through the fabric, and it swung open.
On the floor of the car, behind the passengers seat, was a navy blue backpack. That didn't catch his eye, actually it was the bundles of money spilling out of the bag that had caught his notice.
He had two options: leave the money, knowing it would end up under somebody else's mattress—maybe whoever found the car, maybe a cop on the scene—or take the money. The dead guy sure didn't need it. Gerard didn't either but it was nice to bring back a little extra money home. The decision wasn't a tough one for him.