The second I saw what that man had gone to all that trouble to hide before he disappeared, I forgot to breathe, because the false bottom held motorcycle parts, gleaming chrome and a rebuilt engine block, all wrapped and labeled, and a photograph of a young man beaming beside a classic Indian motorcycle.
I sat down on my carport step and turned the photo over.
The man who owned the freezer had not fled from trouble, he had been chasing a promise, and what he hid were the parts of a motorcycle he was rebuilding for someone he loved.
The notebook told the story. His name was Ray, and the young man in the photo was his nephew, the boys own father, who had died young in an accident on a motorcycle just like this one. Ray had been rebuilding that exact model, the Indian his brother loved, meaning to give it to his nephew, the very boy who would one day sell me the freezer, on his twenty-first birthday, as a tribute to the father the boy barely remembered.
He had hidden the precious parts in the freezer to keep them safe while he gathered the rest.
And then, the boy said, he took off in a hurry. The notebook explained: Ray had gotten a lead on the last rare part he needed, out of state, and had rushed off to get it before someone else did, telling the family only to keep his things, wanting to keep the surprise.
The last entry read: This bike is for my nephew, his daddys favorite kind, so the boy will always have a piece of the father he lost. If I do not make it back to finish it, please, get it built, and give it to him, and tell him his daddy and his uncle both loved him more than anything.
The boy who sold me the freezer was that very nephew. And Ray, I learned, had passed while away chasing that last part, never finishing the tribute.
I went back to the boy, now old enough, and I showed him the parts, the photo, the notebook. He wept, learning that Uncle Ray had been building him a piece of his lost father, and had died trying to complete it.
I helped him find a mechanic who finished the Indian, exactly to Rays notes. And on the boys next birthday, we gave it to him, his fathers favorite motorcycle, rebuilt with love by the uncle who never got to hand it over.
He rides it carefully, proudly, a piece of his father and his uncle both, on two wheels.
I keep those wing nuts in a coffee can. My wife tells the story and nobody believes her, but they held down a mans tribute to his lost brother and beloved nephew. I bought a dented freezer for thirty-five dollars. I ended up giving a boy back a piece of his father. No price on that.