Then silence.
Traffic had already been redirected by that point, but the bikers stayed.
Not for ten minutes.
Not for thirty.
For three hours.
They stayed there on the hot pavement until my son felt safe again.
When Max finally stood up, he walked over to the big biker and looked at him carefully.
“Your motorcycle sounds like dinosaur footsteps,” Max said.
The biker smiled.
“That might be the best description I’ve ever heard.”
I asked him later how he knew what to do.
He shrugged.
“My nephew’s autistic,” he said. “You learn pretty quick that when everything’s too loud, the best thing you can do is make the world smaller and quieter.”
One by one the bikers told similar stories.
