Michelangelo of the Motorcycle

The place doesn't advertise. You have to know somebody. You have to ride. Then maybe you end up in Southern Maryland talking to a heavyset brother named Rafaelle, a man like nobody else who makes your motorcycle look like nobody else's.

Like, a Suzuki Hayabusa (but don't say any more than 'Busa) busts by you on Route 50. If you're quick, you catch up on the off-ramp, check out the paint job, holler, "Man! Who did the bike?"

"Ray. Dude out in Clinton."

So you wind up here, a garage tucked in across from an auto repair shop and next to a woodworking place at the dead end of an industrial park.

It's spring now. Bike shows are coming up: Myrtle Beach, Miami. Rafaelle has a dozen cars and 20 bikes waiting for custom paint jobs, chrome, polish or motor customizing. Step in the office, the fluorescent gloom. Eyes adjust. Man, what a mess. Soda machine that's out of most everything, little orange lights blinking. Tires. Bike helmets. Dust. Invoices. Magazines (Super Streetbike, 2 Wheel Tuner). Parts catalogues. A painting of a woman on her hands and knees, one hand on top of a skull. A closed-circuit TV camera keeps an eye on the parking lot outside.

Inside the mess is Rafaelle Proctor, owner and proprietor of the garage, which goes by the name of Artistic Creations. Short, curly hair and an ever-smiling face. He's wearing a blue garage uniform, his name stitched on the breast. He's sketching on an artist's pad.

Daryl Bailey watches.

"Just gimme, gimme --" He's a delivery driver for the money and a biker for the love and truth of it. Lives in Lanham. He's making up his mind about colors, wants something new for the summer.

He bounces up and down on his toes, jiggling the brain for inspiration, peering at Ray's sketch.

"Hot pink?" Rafaelle smiles.

"You laugh." Bailey says. "Like a line of pink, a pearl white, a TSI blue -- you know? That's hot. That's hot now."

He's thinking out loud. Then he gets it, gets how the bike will become the apotheosis of Daryl Bailey himself. "Orange is me. That's sorta mine." He settles on an image of the Grim Reaper, too.