Little Boy Begged Biker to K*ll Him And Offered Biker His Pokemon Cards In Return – Bikers Byte

The biker found the boy hiding in the hospital parking garage at midnight, holding a bottle of his mother’s sleeping pills.

He was maybe eleven. Bald from chemo. Skeleton thin. He looked up at me with eyes that had given up and asked if I knew how many pills it would take. “I’m forty-three pounds,” he said. “I did the math but I’m not sure.”

I’d stopped to check on what I thought was a homeless person. Found a child planning to die.

He saw my leather vest, my tattoos, my rough face, and instead of being scared, he looked relieved.

“You look like someone who’s killed people,” he whispered. “In movies, bikers know about death.”

Then he pulled out a ziplock bag of Pokemon cards and held them out with shaking hands.

“These are worth eight hundred dollars. My dad checked. If I give them to you, will you make sure I don’t wake up? I can’t do the treatment anymore. I can’t. But I’m scared I’ll mess it up and just make everything worse.”

My name’s Tommy “Ghost” Brennan. Sixty-six years old. Rode with the Devil’s Prophets MC for thirty-eight years. Vietnam vet. Seen men die every way possible.

But I’d never seen a child try to hire me to help them die.

It was midnight at St. Catherine’s Hospital. I’d been visiting my brother Jake. Lung cancer.

Probably from Agent Orange, but the VA wouldn’t admit it. I’d walked to the parking garage for a smoke. Ironic, I know.

The kid was sitting behind a concrete pillar on level three. Ninja Turtles pajamas. Hospital bracelet. Counting pills into his small hand.

“Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five…”

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“Hey there, buddy.”

He jumped. Pills scattered across the concrete. He scrambled to collect them, crying.

“Please don’t tell anyone. Please. I’ll give you anything.”

That’s when he made the offer. The Pokemon cards for my help.

I sat down on the cold concrete. My knees protested. Everything protested these days.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Ethan. Ethan Marsh.”

“I’m Tommy. Why you out here counting pills, Ethan?”

His face crumpled. “I have AML. Acute myeloid leukemia. Third relapse. They want to do another bone marrow transplant. The last one… the last one almost killed me. Took four months. Couldn’t walk. Couldn’t eat. Threw up blood. And it didn’t work.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“Asleep in my room. She hasn’t left the hospital in two weeks. Dad works three jobs to pay for treatment. I haven’t seen him in five days.”

“And you think this is the answer?” I gestured at the pills.

“I’m dying anyway. Doctor told Mom when they thought I was asleep. Twenty percent chance this transplant works. Twenty percent chance I live six more months. But those six months will be hell. I’ve already been through hell. I can’t do it again.”

An eleven-year-old boy talking about hell like he’d lived there. Because he had.

“The Pokemon cards,” he continued.

“I collected them before I got sick. Some are really rare. Charizard first edition. It’s worth four hundred alone. You could sell them.”

“I don’t want your cards, Ethan.”

“Then what do you want? I don’t have money. I have a PlayStation at home but—”

“I want you to tell me about the cards.”

He looked confused. “What?”

“Tell me about Pokemon. I don’t know anything about it.”

For the next hour, sitting on that parking garage floor, Ethan explained Pokemon to a sixty-six-year-old biker.

Motorcycle travel guides

Every character. Every evolution. Every battle he’d won with his deck before cancer took over his life.

“I was regional champion,” he said proudly. “Youngest ever in the state. I was going to nationals. Then I got sick.”

“How long you been fighting?”

“Three years. Since I was eight. I’ve spent more time in hospitals than at home. Missed third grade. Fourth grade. Fifth grade. Kids at school don’t even remember me.”

“But you remember Pokemon.”

“It’s the only thing that didn’t change. Everything else did. My hair fell out three times. Grew back twice. My mom aged ten years. Dad started drinking. My little sister had to go live with my grandma because Mom couldn’t take care of us both. But Pokemon stayed the same. Pikachu is still Pikachu.”

I understood. When I came back from ‘Nam, nothing made sense. The world had moved on. But motorcycles? They still made sense. Two wheels. Engine. Freedom. Constants in chaos.

“Show me your best card.”

He pulled out the Charizard. Pristine. In a protective case.

School supplies

“I pulled this from a pack the day before diagnosis,” he said. “Mom was so mad I spent my allowance on cards. Said it was wasteful. Now she cries when she sees them. Says they remind her of before.”

“Before you were sick?”

“Before I was a burden.”

The word hit like a punch.

“You’re not a burden.”

“I cost more than our house. Dad’s boss told him to ‘let nature take its course’ so he wouldn’t miss more work. Mom hasn’t smiled a real smile in two years. Sierra, my sister, she’s seven now. She doesn’t remember me healthy. Just the sick brother who ruined everything.”

“That’s not—”

“It’s true. I heard the bills. Eight hundred thousand so far. Insurance stopped paying. Dad sold his truck. Mom sold her wedding ring. Grandpa came out of retirement at seventy-three to help pay. All for twenty percent.”

He picked up the pills again.

“Ethan, let me tell you something.”

“About death? You’ve killed people, right? In the war?”

“Yeah. I have. And it haunts me every day.”

“But they were enemies.”

“They were kids. Some not much older than you. And every life I took left a hole in me. Holes that never filled back up.”

“But I want to die. That’s different.”

“No, son. You don’t want to die. You want the pain to stop. There’s a difference.”

“What’s the difference when the result is the same?”

Smart kid. Too smart. Too experienced with pain.

“Can I tell you a story?”

He shrugged.

“When I came back from Vietnam, I was twenty. Had a bullet in my hip that they couldn’t remove. Shrapnel in my back. Pain every day. But worse than that, I had memories. Things I’d seen. Things I’d done. I wanted to die too.”

“Did you try?”

“Three times. Pills once. Gun once. Motorcycle crash I tried to cause.”

“Why didn’t it work?”

“The pills, my buddy Jake found me. The gun jammed. The crash… I hit a tree going ninety. Should have died. Woke up three days later. Doctor said it was miraculous.”

“So you’re bad at dying too?”

I laughed. Dark humor from an eleven-year-old.

“No, I was good at it. Just turned out life was stronger. And you know what?”

“What?”

“I’m glad. Because if I’d succeeded, I’d have missed forty-six years of life. Meeting my wife. Having my daughter. Watching her graduate. Holding my grandson. Riding ten thousand sunsets. Yeah, there was pain. Always pain. But there was joy too.”

“I don’t have joy anymore.”

“When you were explaining Pokemon, your