Arthur Callahan had been coming to this café every Thursday at eleven in the morning for decades. Coffee, newspaper, a scratch-off ticket. He never asked for anything but he always gave plenty. He fixed bikes for kids in the neighborhood, lent tools to young mechanics, and taught local teens how to handle a wrench without losing a finger.
The punk kicked Arthur’s hearing aid across the concrete. “What is wrong now, grandpa?” he taunted. “Can you hear me now?”
Arthur’s hands were scraped, skin fragile with age, his blood mixing with oil stains on the asphalt. He tried to rise. “I just needed to park,” he said shakily.
“Nobody cares,” one of the kid’s friends shouted, joining in with the filming. “You think you run this place just because you are old?”
That was when I nodded. Chairs scraped and thirty-five bikers rose, forming a solid wall in the doorway. The café owner, Jean, stepped back, eyes wide.
“Say something for the camera, old man,” he taunted again.
I blocked him without effort, just my shadow falling over him. “Is there a problem here?” I asked calmly.
The bravado faltered. “Yeah, this old man tried to tell us where to park. We handled it,” he muttered.