As Christmas neared I made another list and worked up the nerve to approach Marty man-to-man about the gifts his son deserved. Marty regarded the list for a moment before folding it in half. He told me that Christmas is just another day as far as a baby is concerned. He folded the list again, explaining that, as far as he was concerned, Christmas had nothing to do with spending all your hard-earned money on bullshit gifts.

“Christmas is in here,” he said, pointing to the spot where he thought his heart might be. “It’s on the inside, where it counts.” He folded the paper again and again until it was the size of a matchbook, all the while telling me some story about the time someone’s Christmas tree caught their house on fire and he found a roll of quarters in the ashes. The money had melted into a lump and he used it as a paperweight until some asshole stole it off his worktable.

For Christmas Marty bought himself a motorcycle, brand-new. He gave Vicki a helmet, unwrapped. He just handed it to her. The two of them rode off to Cuff Daniels’s house and brought the baby another wishbone. This one still had meat on it and was ice-cold from riding in Vicki’s pocket.

For the first few months Marty parked his motorcycle in the dining room nursery. He would take it out for joyrides and guide it back into the house, where he would lay newspapers on the floor and tinker with it. Marty understood that enclosed exhaust fumes can be fatal so he was always careful to raise all the windows while the engine was running. It was a nuisance as I would turn my back for a moment and discover the baby sitting on the greasy newspaper with a wrench in his mouth, the cold air steaming from his nose.

I bided my time, waiting for the day Marty would park the motorcycle in the garage rather than forcing it up the front steps of the house. I knew the day would come and when it finally arrived, a Thursday evening in early February, I sneaked into the garage with a hacksaw. It took me four hours in the dark but I did it: I sawed off both the handlebars. I also filled the gas tank with Dr. Pepper, but Marty is so caught up in the handlebars he still hasn’t noticed it. The next morning, when Vicki told me what had happened, I acted shocked. She led me to the garage, where she pointed to a scattering of metal flakes on the concrete floor.

“There,” she said, aiming with her cigarette. “Those are the shavings.”