From a distance Main Street in Sturgis, South Dakota is a snarl of chrome, mirrors, and colour. Five blocks are closed to general traffic; only bikes are allowed. Cruising this thoroughfare may be described in six words – slow and steady wins the race. Traffic is routed one way with bikes parked on either side, allowing just enough room for a trike or an Electra Glide to edge past. Cement barricades and six foot traffic cops at each intersection ensure that no cars or trucks crash the party.  
    A huge “Welcome Riders!” banner stretched the width of the thoroughfare.
    By the time I arrived, few parking spaces lingered, and the steady stream of bikes in front, behind, and opposite suggested they wouldn’t remain for long. As I eased the Deuce into an empty spot, I remembered what Dad, ever the historian, had said about the allure of motorcycles and the plains.

    “Sturgis is like a window into life in the Old West. The cowboys ride their iron horses into town and park anywhere they damn well please, thank you very much. For a few days, everybody’s the meanest gunslinger in the West.”

    I locked up my helmet, then joined the flock of pedestrian souvenir hounds on the sidewalk. It was pretty easy to sort the mass of humanity pushing me from front and behind into four categories – tourists, urban bikers, the “real deal," and -- of course -- creatures.  In my father’s day, there had been considerably real bikers. Now they seemed few and far between.
    Most local businesses rented out space to itinerant vendors during Bike Week. Everywhere there were signs advertising T-shirts, tattoos, and patches.  I spent the rest of the morning chasing down the two stores where Kori made purchases last August. One of them no longer existed. At the second – a place called “Patchworks,” I received a disgruntled snort from the owner when I insisted  she look at Kori’s picture.
    “Are you nuts?” The woman’s plump fingers expertly guided the sewing machine needle as it affixed an eagle patch to the back of a leather vest. “We see hundreds of customers in a day. Hundreds! How would I remember a little girl like that?”
    “She had tattoos,” I added hopefully.
    She pulled her glasses down on her nose and stared. “Sweetie, everybody has tattoos.   Now if you’ll excuse me, I got work to do.”
    I pulled an American fifty-dollar bill out of my pocket and lay it on top of the vest.
She tossed me a sharp look then creased the bill and slipped it between her huge breasts. “Come back and see me at three this afternoon.” She gave me a gap-toothed smile. “You can buy me a beer.”
    Feeling scant, I walked over to the main drag to check on the food vendors. I had a hankering for some chicken on a stick and hot curried rice. This phase of my investigation proved much more fruitful. I ate my lunch on the curb – perched next to a Honda Gold Wing that had been airbrushed with images immortalizing the Civil War while a river of tourists and bikes passed behind and before me.  A pocket of Jesus Bikers were hanging out in front of a coffee shop to my right. One of them – a fleshy man with assorted death’s heads and fiery crosses tattooed on his torso captured my interest.  
    I beckoned to him. “Know any female tattoo artists around here?” I asked.
    Instead of information, I got a five-minute lecture on the protocol for salvation.
    “Be you also ready, for you do not know when your time will come. Do you not fear the fires of hell?” he importuned.
    “Of course I do.  My mother’s Italian.”
    He turned away with an angry exclamation, apparently giving up my soul as lost.
    The young male artist in the first shop I entered was more sociable.  He took one look at me and grinned from pierced ear to pierced ear.
    “Finally, a canvas worthy of my craft,” he said.
    I laughed. “I’m not here for a tattoo. I’m looking for a female artist who might have done this.” I showed him the photograph of Kori’s bird of paradise.
    He studied it for a few minutes. “That’s Raphaella’s work,” he said after a while. “But you won’t get her. She’s booked years in advance.”
    “Where can I find her?”
    “Inkspiration. Across the street and two blocks west.”
    Behind Inkspiration’s picture window, a woman with waist length blonde hair was alternately tattooing and dabbing an enormous fire-breathing dragon on a man’s broad shoulders while he leaned over the backside of a chair. The flesh surrounding the inky design was pink and puffy.
    The artist, who appeared to be my age, wore an over-sized print blouse, a peasant skirt, and a pair of white latex gloves.  A pair of John Lennon glasses perched on the bridge of her long nose. Definitely a throw back to the sixties.
    “Any idea when she'll be done?” I asked a scrawny man who was seated on the ledge, peering through the window.
    “Another two minutes.” He consulted his watch. “I’m next.”
    “Her name Raphaella?”
    He nodded.
    “What are you getting done?” I asked.
    He pulled down the neck of his T-shirt and showed me a wolf’s head, silhouetted against a full moon. “She’s going to finish the wolf – and add in the pack.” He said proudly. “No one does animals better than Raphaella.”
    I wondered where Raphaella would find room for a lupine family portrait on that skinny chest.
    Raphaella set down her needle and picked up a hand mirror which she held up so her client could admire her handiwork. She then applied oil liberally to the dragon design, before taping gauze pads over top.  Stripping off her gloves, she touched her client lightly on the shoulder and whispered in his ear.  He braced his hands against the back of his chair and slowly got to his feet. It was a long way up.  By the time he reached his full height, he was swaying like a three-masted schooner rocked by heavy seas. Raphaella spoke in his ear again, and he sank back down, resting his head on his burly forearms.
    “Isn’t that a little intimidating?” I asked Client Number Two.
    He grunted and pushed past me into the shop. I followed close behind. It was a busy place. At least five artists were at work, and the air was filled with the sound of buzzing needles.
    I caught Raphaella’s eye and asked for a few minutes of her time.
    Client Number Two did not take kindly to the interruption. “Hey, you’re on my time now, Sister.”
    Raphaella wiped her shiny brow and stretched the muscles in her lower back. “Relax. I’m taking a five-minute break.” The Australian accent took me by surprise. When Client Number Two protested, she raised a long-fingered hand and pointed to a chair in the corner. “Have a seat over there. I won’t be long.” She began moving to the back of the shop.
     “Can I buy you a cold drink?” I offered.
     “There’s some in the fridge. Follow me.”
    She sat me down at a small table and aimed the fan at us before handing me a can of coke and opening a bottled water. Sitting back and closing her eyes, she poured some water down the front of her blouse and lit a cigarette before speaking.
    “So what’s going down?” She smiled, twitching the angel wings tattooed on her left temple.
    I slid the photograph of Kori’s bird of paradise across the table towards her. “Did you do this work?”
    Raphaella studied it carefully before replying. “Yes.”
    “Do you remember the girl who bought it?”
    “What’s it to you?”
    I briefly outlined the details, carefully assessing Raphaella’s reaction. She evinced no surprise when I explained the manner of Kori’s death.
    “I heard something about that,” she responded. “Course it wasn’t in the papers. Stuff like that never is. Deaths during Bike Week are very hush - hush. And if someone dies the day before the official week begins, it doesn’t count as a rally-related death.”
    “What do you remember about her?” I persisted.
    Raphaella picked up the photographs and, pulling her glasses down further on her nose, studied each of them at arm’s length. “She was self-assured. Cocky even. Didn’t care for her much.”
    “Was she alone?”
    Raphaella eyed me over the rim of her glasses. “Hardly. You think she could afford my prices?”
    I took a moment to digest this information. “Who was she with?”
    Raphaella sat back on her chair and took a long drag of her cigarette, her light blue eyes quantifying me. Mesmerizing me. ”Look – I’d just as soon not say. Things might get complicated, and I prefer to keep them simple. Customers pay for my talent – and my discretion.”
    “Sort of like – client privilege?”
    “Something like.”
    I quickly averted my eyes from her direct gaze. “Can you at least tell me what the man looked like?”
    “Sorry. Don’t remember.”
     “And this was the only time you saw Kori?”
    Raphaella shook her head. “I did see her later – at Rosie’s.”
    “What’s that?”
    “A bar on the south side – off the beaten track.” She took a long drink from her water bottle. “I like to hang out there myself. Great atmosphere.”
     “Did you ever talk to Kori there?”
    Raphaella glanced at the clock radio on top of the fridge then lobbed the empty water bottle into the garbage bin. “I gotta split. Time is money.”
    “Are you heading to Rosie’s tonight?” I asked.
    A mysterious little smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I might.”
    As I stepped out the front door of the shop into the searing heat of midafternoon, I had a sneaking suspicion that this would be a very long night. I had no idea how I would coordinate meetings with Terry and with Raphaella in a few hours. However, when all was said and done, I fully intended to tick off both items on my program AND get a decent night’s sleep. To that end, I paid a ridiculous price for an air mattress and a battery operated pump from a retailer who looked like he could fold up shop and vanish in a cloud of dust.
    It was still too early to go back to the vendor’s tent, so I decided to do some sight-seeing and cool down. I was curious to see how much the town had changed in twenty-seven years.  I strapped the mattress onto the back of the Deuce and made my way towards Sturgis’ back streets.
    Everywhere I went there were bikes – and bikers. Dome tents were pitched on every square inch of lawn. Bikini babes lathered up bikes and rubbed them down with soft chamois and bosoms. Couch potatoes watched the endless V-twin parade from their front yards.
    I drove by the park where Dad and I camped as well as his favourite beanery. The latter had been gobbled up by a supermarket. I made a point of steering clear of the Vet’s Club. As I often do when I’m on the Deuce, I found myself reminiscing about my little brother's bad-ass days.
    When my parents split up, Steve and Nick were already attending university in Edmonton. Mike and I continued to live with my mother in Milestone although we saw Dad at school every day.  Mike was probably the unruliest student of Dad’s thirty-year career.  Mike was hell-bent to be expelled, but Dad was just as determined to keep him in school.  In his Grade 9 year, Mike was absent or suspended more days than he was in the building, but by Grade 12, he had earned enough credits to graduate with his class.
    God, I loved that kid.

Copyright by Maureen Ulrich