The Boys

They crawl in a line along the esplanade between beachfront mansions and the bay's indifference, windows down, elbows out, hands tapping on doors in time to the doof doof base pulverizing air and eardrums inside their metal sanctums of pure testosterone. Throbbing engines ease them along the street, slow and deliberate as if to give pedestrians time to admire and take in such potency. An occasional pump on the pedal sends a roar rasping out of twin exhausts and stutters a squeal of tyres announcing to the locals and all gathered, the "boys" are here. Marooned in another era, they seem oblivious to the derision flung at them as they pass, misinterpreting a smirk for an approving smile, the shake of a head a gesture of wonder rather than a judgment on how silly they look. Their egos blaze like the sun reflected in polished chrome. When satisfied they've given onlookers their fill of metallic ****, they hang a left, plant their foot and in a wake of tyre smoke and deafening noise, rocket off back to their own private planet, time frozen somewhere in the exhaust filled clouds on the far side of their minds.