In July, I’m at our local auto mechanic in Falls Church, getting the annual state safety inspection for Linda’s red Vespa, a mandatory review after which you get a dated sticker.

I’m talking with one of the guys there, a fellow by the name of Butch. He did some nice bodywork on Linda’s father’s Oldsmobile a while back and we see each other there often.

We always say hello and have brief conversations. You could say we have a passing acquaintance.

On this day in July, Butch tells me he used to ride a Triumph when he was younger and talks about some of the roads he traveled. For some reason, I didn’t know he used to ride motorcycles; I can’t recall him bringing it up before.

He gave up riding after marriage and when Washington, D.C., traffic started getting insane. He talks about riding in the rain, the dark, and later, the traffic.

It’s a good conversation.

In August, I stop by (sans motorcycle or Vespa) and give Butch a copy of “Jupiter’s Travels” by Ted Simon, who wrote a book about his journey around the world on a 500cc Triumph 100¹ starting in 1973.

I tell Butch it’s a pretty good book about motorcycle travel² and that he may enjoy it. He asks if I want it back and I say, no, it’s his, and I hand it to him and leave.

In October, I take Terra Nova³ to the shop because she also needs a safety sticker inspection⁴ and I figure I’ll ask Butch if he liked the book.⁵

I park Terra Nova in the garage and notice Butch’s desk is neatened up and think to myself, “wow, he’s done a lot of cleaning there.”

Zach, a really good guy who runs the shop, sees me looking at the desk and says, “Hey, Butch passed away this weekend.”

I’m floored. “What? What happened?” 

Zach doesn’t know. Butch was found at his home; they think the cause was heart-related. No obituary yet.

The copy of “Jupiter’s Travels,” with the orange 3×5 card on which I’d written For Butch still snug between its middle pages⁶, is on the second shelf of the unit behind his desk. He hadn’t taken it home.

I riffle through the book, carefully put it back, and take Butch’s last business card from the cardholder on his desk. There’s a cloth draped over his computer screen, like a mirror covered during the mourning period of shiva.

Even though I did not know him very well, Butch’s death eats at me – the abruptness, the finality, the brutally unfair loss of a good man – and I stop back at the shop a day later to ask Zach if I can take a photo of Butch’s desk. It’s a useless, insignificant gesture, of course, but I want to remember. A tribute of sorts, maybe.

Zach says, sure, go ahead, adding that family members had taken the rest of his stuff the day before, so there isn’t much there.

Everything’s been removed, naturally, including the shiva cloth over the computer screen. The book is gone. I take the photo anyway⁷.

***

1 – Ted Simon’s Triumph is on display at the Coventry Transport Museum in England.

2 – It really is the gold standard for motorcycle travel books. Another good one is “Vroom With a View” by Peter Moore.

3 – My 2012 Yamaha Super Tenere, named for Robert Falcon Scott’s ship of the 1910 British Antarctic Expedition.

4 – That was after Coleman Powersports fixed the mistakes I made with the battery and got Terra Nova running again. The orange sticker goes on a small plate bolted to the left front fork.

5 – Though it may prove irritating or exhausting to recipients at times, I give books to people I like, choosing stories I think they may enjoy. I’m careful to let them know there’s no obligation to like the books, or even read them.

6 – I’d stuck the card between the pages just in case he wasn’t there that day, counting on him to find it later.

7 – The photo that’s posted above.