At Walmart, the six-year-old girl who couldn’t talk sprang into the large biker’s arms and started signing something quickly while tears spilled down her face.
I witnessed this enormous, tattooed man in a Demons MC vest suddenly start signing back to her fluently as other consumers backed away in panic. His hands moved with amazing grace.
The little girl, who couldn’t have weighed more than forty pounds, was clutching on to this scary-looking biker like he was her lifeline. I couldn’t see what she was doing with her little hands.
The biker’s face went from worried to angry, and he stood up and looked around the store with eyes that promised violence. He still clutched the child close to his chest to protect him.
“Who brought this child here?” He roared, and his voice resonated through the store. “WHERE ARE HER PARENTS?”
The girl pulled on his vest and signed again, this time with a lot more energy.
He looked down at her, signed something back, and his face grew darker than I’d ever seen a person’s face get.
At that point, I knew that this small youngster hadn’t just run to him.
She had seen his vest and the patches on it, and she knew something about this biker that no one else in the store could have guessed.
This would explain why she was so desperate to get aid from the most terrifying person she could locate.
While I watched this unfold, I couldn’t move. The rider, who was at least 6’5″ tall, weighed 280 pounds, and had arms like tree trunks, was somehow able to converse to this young boy in sign language.
He told me to “Call 911” and didn’t ask me to do it.
“Now.” Tell them that a kid has been taken from the Walmart on Henderson.
“How do you know—”
“CALL!” He exclaimed, “He barked,” and then he rapidly changed his tone and signaled something to the girl that made her nod her head.
The biker escorted the little boy to customer service, and four other leather-clad giants from the MC stood around them to protect them.
The girl kept signing, and her story flowed out of her fingers.
The rider spoke for the store manager and the people who were there.
“Her name is Lucy.” She can’t hear anything. Three days ago, they yanked her out of school in Portland.
He sounded strong, but I could tell he was angry.
“The people who took her don’t know that she can read lips.” She heard them discussing about selling her in the parking lot. Fifty thousand dollars. In an hour, they will meet someone.
My blood got cold. The manager turned white.
“How does she know to come to you?” Someone asked.
The biker pulled down his vest a little, and there was a small purple hand insignia behind the Demons MC patch.
“I teach deaf people how to sign at a school in Salem.” For 15 years. The sign meant something to Lucy. In the deaf community, it means “safe person.”
This motorcyclist who seemed intimidating was a teacher.
Lucy pulled on his vest again and quickly signed. His face changed.
“They’re here,” he said.
“The woman with the red hair and the man in the blue shirt.” “By the pharmacy.”
Everyone turned around.
A couple who seemed regular was walking toward us. Their looks changed from confused to horrified as they saw the bikes, the crowd, and Lucy in the giant’s arms.
“Lucy!” she said in a sympathetic voice.
“Hey there, sweetheart! “Come here, Mommy!”
Lucy laid her face on the biker’s chest and shook all over.
The biker’s brothers went ahead and blocked all the exits, but they weren’t in a rush.
The couple tried to be normal and kept going.
The dad said, “That’s our daughter,” as if he was in charge.
“Her behavior is bad.” Sometimes it runs away. Thanks for finding her.
“Really? The cyclist responded softly, “Then you can tell me her last name.”
They both glanced at each other. “Mitchell. Lucy Mitchell.”
Lucy was singing a lot. The biker nodded.
“Her name is Lucy Chen.” Her parents are David and Marie Chen from Portland. Her favorite color is purple.
Her cat is named Mr. Whiskers. He pointed at the two and stated, “You two are going to stay very still until the police get here.”
The man put his hand in his jacket, and all of a sudden there were loud noises.
Four people on bikes went at the same moment. The man fell to the floor with his face down before he could grab what he was groping for.
She tried to run, but another motorcycle stood in front of her with his arms crossed.
“Please,” she said, and then she started to cry. “We were basically hired to drive.” We don’t know anything.
“You knew enough to take a deaf child from school,” the biker growled.
Lucy was signing again and pointing at the woman’s purse.
The rider remarked, “She says the woman has her medical bracelet in there.” The bracelet shows that she can’t hear and has her parents’ phone number on it.
There were six police units with flashing lights that came. The cop in charge saw the bikers and grabbed his revolver.
“Don’t move!”
“Officer,” the store manager said quickly. “This kid was saved by these men.” “They’re heroes.”
It took me an hour to figure it out. The two people, whose names were made up, were part of a trafficking network that targeted poor youngsters because they thought they would be easier to manage.
They didn’t think Lucy would be smart, observant, and lucky enough to locate the one person in a hundred miles who could understand her.
I observed the biker keep Lucy safe until her true parents got there.
This huge gentleman with tattoos and leather sat on the floor of the manager’s office and played patty-cake with her, making her laugh through her tears.
Three hours later, when Lucy’s parents came in after driving like crazy people from Portland, the first thing they saw was their daughter asleep in the arms of what looked like their worst nightmare.
“Lucy!” her mother yelled.
Everyone in the room was shaken by the joy on Lucy’s face when she woke up and saw her parents.
But before she raced to them, she turned to the biker and signed something long. He signed back and then gently pulled her toward her parents.
The reunion was exactly what you anticipated it would be. Her parents could scarcely keep up with Lucy as she cried, hugged, and signed so quickly.
David, her father, went up to the motorcyclist after that. “She says you’re her hero.” He indicated that you were the only one who could save her.
The rider said, “Just lucky I was here,” and it was clear that he didn’t like being congratulated.
“Fortunate?” Marie, David’s mother, sobbed and laughed at the same moment.
“You’re a sign language teacher who also happens to be in a motorcycle club and was shopping when our daughter escaped from her kidnappers?”
One of the other bikers said quietly, “God works in mysterious ways.”
At that point, Lucy’s parents saw the purple hand patch that the biker had shown them before.
Marie said, “You’re Tank Thompson.” “You wrote the ASL book ‘Signing with Strength.’” “Your videos have helped Lucy learn!”
I think his name was Tank, and he really did turn red. This huge guy was humiliated because a mom identified him as a teacher after he had just stopped human traffickers.
David said, “That’s why she came to you.” “She knew you from the videos.” She talks about the “funny signing man” a lot.
Lucy was signing again and tugged on Tank’s vest. He laughed, and it was a deep, rumbling sound.
He said, “She wants to know if she can get a motorcycle vest like mine.” “But purple.”
Marie said “Absolutely not,” but then she stopped. “You know what? Yes. She can have anything she wants.
I couldn’t shop anywhere else for two weeks after what I saw.
There was a lot going on at the front entrance. The motors of the twenty Demons MC bikes were rumbling.
They were in front of a small pink bike with training wheels. Lucy was wearing a unique purple leather vest with the words “Honorary Demon” on the back and a purple hand symbol on the front.
While she rode her bike into the parking lot, Tank was jogging next to her and telling her where to go. Her parents were behind her, crying and laughing at the same moment.
People who worked at the firm came out to look. Customers stopped and stared.
This young deaf boy is being watched after by twenty of the scariest-looking men in the state. In the two weeks after the event, they all learnt the basics of sign language.
Lucy stopped her bike in front of the store and signed something to Tank. Everyone could hear him as he spoke:
“She says this is where she was brave.” Where she found her voice, even while she wasn’t talking. Where she learned that not all heroes look like princes in stories.
Then she said something that made Tank’s eyes water.
“And she thanks the angel who taught her that even demons can be protectors.”
Three months later, the ring that was trafficking people was broken up, and fourteen kids were found. Lucy Chen was bold enough to go see a rider whose training videos she had seen, and this all happened.
Tank is still a teacher at the school for deaf children. But now he has a helper, a little girl in a purple vest who trains them how to use signs and tells them that there are other ways to converse besides speech.
It’s important to be heard.
And sometimes, to get people to listen, you have to run into the arms of a man who is covered in skulls and leather.
You know that someone spent fifteen years learning how to talk without words so that youngsters like you may have a voice in the quiet.
The Demons MC is now the official sponsor of the school for the deaf. Every year, they ride their bikes to raise money for tools and translators.
A little girl informed twenty bikers that strength isn’t just about having large muscles, so they studied sign language.
It’s all about comprehension. It’s all about making connections.
It’s about being there for someone when they need to talk, even if they can’t.
Lucy still wears her purple vest to school. Kids are starting to ask for them.
Right now, there is a program called “Little Demons” where bikers teach deaf youngsters how to sign and how to stay safe.
This project started after a six-year-old girl figured out that the person who looked the scariest at Walmart would be the safest person to run away to.
She was right, though.
There is a framed thank-you note for Tank at the clubhouse. It says in shaky purple crayon letters:
“Thanks for listening when I couldn’t talk.”
She put pictures of herself in sign language below it:
“Heroes wear leather too.”
Yes, they do, Lucy. Yes, they do.