My brother took the custom Harley I spent two years building, then listed it on

My brother took the custom Harley I spent two years building, then listed it on Facebook Marketplace for $9,500. My parents kept telling me to relax because “that’s just Cody,” even after he refused to bring it home. When I saw his listing, complete with photos of him pretending the bike was his, I didn’t call my dad again. I called a detective…

I came home on a Thursday evening, opened my garage, and found the biggest empty space I had ever seen.

My Harley was gone.

Not just any motorcycle. My motorcycle. The custom Harley I had spent two years building piece by piece, paycheck by paycheck, mistake by expensive mistake.

I stood there staring at the concrete floor where it should have been.

My tool cabinets were still there. My workbench was untouched. Even the bag of grass seed I had bought in April and avoided ever since was sitting exactly where I left it.

But the bike was gone.

My name is Red. I’m 35, a dermatologist in Columbus, Ohio, and until that week, most of the disasters in my life had involved skin.

Earlier that day, I had removed two cysts, frozen more actinic keratoses than I cared to count, biopsied something I didn’t like the look of, and spent twenty minutes explaining to a college student that toothpaste was not an approved acne treatment.

I wanted a shower, leftover Chinese food, and maybe an hour fixing a small oil leak on the Harley.

Instead, I called my dad.

My parents had a spare key to my house. Dad lived fifteen minutes away and occasionally stopped by to “borrow” drill bits that never returned.

He answered on the fourth ring.

“Hey, Captain Cortisone.”

“Dad, where’s my Harley?”

“Oh. Cody took it.”

I waited.

That was apparently the whole explanation.

“What do you mean Cody took it?”

“He needed it.”

“For what?”

“To impress a girl.”

Dad said this with the calm tone of a man explaining that my brother had borrowed a rake.

“Dad, he doesn’t have permission to ride my motorcycle.”

“He knows how to ride.”

“He crashed a rental scooter into a decorative fountain in Tampa.”

“That fountain came out of nowhere.”

“It was a fountain.”

Dad sighed. “He said he’d bring it back.”

“When?”

“Tonight, probably.”

Probably.

Then came the sentence my family had used my entire life whenever Cody did something ridiculous.

“Relax, Red. You know Cody.”

I knew Cody.

That was the problem.

Cody is my younger brother. He is 29 years old.

I need that detail understood.

He is not nineteen. He is not a confused teenager experimenting with bad decisions.

He is a grown man who once financed a hot tub while living in a second-floor apartment. The delivery company refused to carry it upstairs, and Cody still made payments on it for nine months.

He once borrowed our grandmother’s mobility scooter to use the Taco Bell drive-thru.

He tried to start an exotic fish investment club.

He rented a smoke machine for Thanksgiving.

He once insisted a goose had stolen his wallet.

So yes.

I knew Cody.

I called him.

No answer.

I texted: Where is my bike?

Three dots appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

Then Cody sent me a selfie.

He was sitting on my Harley outside a rooftop bar, wearing sunglasses at night and a leather vest I had never seen before. A platinum-blonde woman beside him was flashing a peace sign at the camera.

His message said:

Bro relax. Making memories.

I called immediately.

Declined.

Then came another text.

Can’t talk. Social situation.

I wrote back: Bring my motorcycle home now.

His answer?

You’re killing the vibe.

Then, somehow, he made it worse.

She thinks it’s mine so don’t be weird if she asks.

For several seconds, my anger became pure confusion.

Who was this woman?

Why did she care who owned the motorcycle?

And why was I suddenly being recruited into a conspiracy involving my stolen Harley and a stranger I later learned called herself Bambi?

Her legal name was Michelle.

Apparently Michelle had been spiritually discontinued.

By eleven that night, the bike still wasn’t home.

At midnight, I called Dad again.

“He’ll bring it back,” he said.

“You said tonight.”

“Well, Cody’s nights work differently.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You know Cody.”

There it was again.

The family motto.

The magical phrase that transformed stupidity into personality.

I barely slept.

Friday morning, Cody finally called while I was between patients.

“Dr. Nutsack Freckle.”

“Where is my motorcycle?”

“Good morning to you too. Jesus.”

“Cody.”

“Okay. There was a complication.”

Every sentence beginning with “there was a complication” becomes terrifying when spoken by my brother.

“What complication?”

“Bambi wanted to go to Cincinnati.”

I closed my eyes.

“You took my motorcycle to Cincinnati?”

“It sounds worse when you say it like that.”

“There is no good way to say it.”

“She has a friend opening a holistic candle studio.”

“What does that have to do with my Harley?”

“Nothing directly.”

I shut my office door.

He promised Saturday.

Saturday became Sunday.

Sunday became traffic.

Then the battery was “acting weird.”

Then Bambi’s cousin supposedly knew motorcycles.

Finally, Cody informed me the Harley was “actually safer where it is right now.”

“Where is it?”

“Secure location.”

“Give me the address.”

“Why are you interrogating me?”

By Monday evening, I was done.

I drove to my parents’ house.

Dad was grilling hamburgers. Mom was slicing tomatoes. Cody, conveniently, was nowhere around.

I told them if the Harley wasn’t returned that night, I was reporting it stolen.

Mom looked horrified.

“Red Velvet, you would call the police on your own brother?”

“If my own brother steals a twenty-thousand-dollar motorcycle? Yes.”

“He borrowed it.”

“Borrowing usually includes permission.”

Dad flipped a burger.

“You doctors are so dramatic.”

“This has nothing to do with me being a doctor.”

“Cody is going through a difficult time,” Mom said.

That almost made me laugh.

Cody had been going through a “difficult time” since puberty.

At sixteen, it involved Dad’s credit card and a six-foot fiberglass shark.

At twenty-two, mushroom-coffee multilevel marketing.

At twenty-six, losing four thousand dollars trying to breed French bulldogs despite owning exactly zero French bulldogs.

“What difficult time?” I asked.

“He’s figuring out his future.”

“He’s twenty-nine.”

“People develop at different speeds.”

“Glaciers develop faster.”

Dad pointed his spatula at me.

“Don’t insult your brother.”

“I haven’t even started.”

That night, I filed a police report.

I wasn’t trying to destroy Cody’s life.

I wanted my motorcycle back.

The officer listened while I explained that my brother had taken the Harley without permission, supposedly to impress a woman named Bambi, and had refused to return it for four days.

He stared at me for a second.

“Your brother’s name?”

“Cody Mercer.”

“And yours?”

“Red Mercer.”

“Red?”

“Yes.”

He glanced at his computer.

“Any nickname?”

I sighed.

“Not one you need.”

Tuesday morning, I was eating breakfast before work when my friend Marcus texted me.

Marcus knew the Harley almost as well as I did. He had helped install the rear suspension.

His message contained a Facebook Marketplace link.

Dude, please tell me this isn’t yours.

My stomach dropped.

I opened it.

There was my motorcycle.

My tank.

My exhaust.

My engine.

My two years of evenings, weekends, busted knuckles, blown wiring, carefully saved money, and one extremely judgmental accountant.

Listed for sale.

Price: $9,500.

For one strange second, the price offended me almost as much as the theft.

The idiot had undervalued it by at least ten thousand dollars.

Then I read the description.

Custom Harley. Very rare. Celebrity style. Fast, loud, women notice you immediately. Built by professional doctor engineer. No lowballers. I know what I have.

Professional doctor engineer.

I stared at those words.

Then I saw the seller.

Cody Cash King Mercer.

My brother had changed his Facebook display name.

There were fourteen photos.

Bambi was sitting on my Harley in six of them.

Cody was shirtless in one.

In another, he was pointing at the engine like he had invented internal combustion.

The final picture showed him beside the bike, both thumbs raised.

Ready for new owner. Serious buyers only. Need funds for business opportunity.

Something in me went completely still.

All week, my parents had told me to relax.

All week, Cody had behaved as though my property was his to borrow, hide, parade around, and use however he wanted.

And apparently that still wasn’t enough.

Now he was selling it.

I did not call Cody.

I did not call Mom.

I did not call Dad.

I picked up the police report, found the detective’s number, and called.

Detective Harper sounded about fifty and permanently tired, with the voice of a man who had spent decades discovering fresh ways adults could disappoint him.

I sent him the Marketplace listing.

Ten minutes later, my phone rang.

“That’s definitely your motorcycle?”

“Absolutely.”

“You have the title?”

“Yes.”

“VIN?”

“Yes.”

“Receipts?”

“Plenty.”

There was a pause.

“And your brother listed it publicly under his own Facebook account?”

“Yes.”

Another pause.

Then Harper asked, very quietly:

“Is he okay?”

“That depends on your definition.”

Harper told me not to contact Cody again.

The police were going to message him.

They were going to pretend to be a buyer.

And for the first time since I opened that empty garage door, I stopped wondering whether my family would finally take this seriously.

Because it wasn’t a family argument anymore.

Part 2…..

IF FACEBOOK BROUGHT YOU HERE, HERE’S THE CONTINUATION YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. ENJOY! 👇

Apparently, Cody answered the undercover buyer in less than two minutes.

That was impressive, considering he had spent nearly a week treating my messages like optional paperwork.

The buyer asked why a custom Harley was priced so cheaply.

Cody replied:

Need liquid capital ASAP. Launching luxury lifestyle brand.

Detective Harper sent me the screenshot.

I had to sit down.

The undercover buyer asked what kind of lifestyle brand.

Cody’s answer somehow made everything worse.

Can’t disclose before NDA, but imagine Red Bull meets Gucci meets emotional wellness.

I called Marcus.

“Do you know what Cody’s doing?”

“No.”

“He says he’s launching Red Bull Gucci emotional wellness.”

Marcus was silent long enough that I checked whether the call had dropped.

Finally he asked, “Did he get kicked in the head by a horse?”

“Not recently.”

Harper arranged the sale for Thursday afternoon in the parking lot of an abandoned big-box store. Cody wanted cash, naturally.

Then, before the meeting even happened, Harper called me with another problem.

My brother had already taken deposits.

Three of them.

Cody had listed the Harley in multiple local groups and accepted five hundred dollars from three separate people. He had told each buyer the motorcycle was being held exclusively for them.

One person apparently noticed the logical difficulty of three simultaneous exclusive holds.

Cody explained:

Different tiers of exclusivity.

One buyer demanded his money back.

Cody informed him the deposits were already being “reinvested into brand infrastructure.”

At that point, I still did not know what brand infrastructure meant.

By Wednesday night, I did.

My phone rang from a number I didn’t recognize.

“Is this Dr. Red?”

“Yes.”

“This is Bambi.”

There are moments when a ridiculous name confirms ridiculous information is about to arrive.

She sounded furious.

“Your brother is insane.”

“I’m aware.”

“He told me you gave him that motorcycle.”

“I did not.”

“He said your parents always gave you more attention because you became a doctor, so you gave him the Harley as reparations.”

I closed my eyes.

“Reparations for what?”

“Being the less celebrated son.”

“Cody got a jet ski for graduating high school.”

“He told me it was an educational marine vehicle.”

“Of course he did.”

Then she explained the business.

The mysterious “luxury lifestyle brand” was called Wolf and Orchid.

“What exactly is Wolf and Orchid?” I asked.

“Honestly?”

“Yes.”

“I still don’t know.”

From what she could piece together, Cody wanted to create premium nightlife events combining motivational speaking, luxury parties, exotic mocktails, personalized astrology, bottle service, and what he called “wolf-based masculine networking.”

I had no response.

Bambi continued.

Men were supposed to pay to learn “predator confidence.”

Women would receive “goddess frequency coaching.”

Tickets were supposed to cost $250.

Their first event was scheduled for Saturday.

They had no venue.

No permits.

No speakers.

No employees.

No insurance.

But they did have 1,200 black napkins printed with a gold wolf wearing sunglasses.

That was why Cody needed to sell my Harley.

Launch capital.

“How much has he already spent?” I asked.

Bambi went quiet.

“A lot.”

“Define a lot.”

She started listing purchases.

Eighteen hundred dollars for a custom neon sign.

Nine hundred for a fog machine that, according to her, looked like it belonged in a middle-school production of Dracula.

Twelve hundred dollars for imported mineral water because Cody believed ordinary water gave events “middle-class energy.”

Seven hundred dollars for a life-size fiberglass wolf.

Four hundred fifty for business cards.

Six hundred dollars for custom drink stirrers.

Eleven hundred for something called a VIP scent experience.

“What is that?”

“A guy sprays cologne when people enter.”

I lowered my forehead onto the kitchen table.

She kept going.

Cody had also paid $2,400 to a social media consultant named Blae.

“What did Blae do?”

“Three Instagram posts.”

“What were they?”

“One was just the wolf.”

“Naturally.”

“The second was Cody shirtless beside your motorcycle.”

“Of course.”

“And the third showed a champagne glass next to a quote.”

“What quote?”

Bambi inhaled.

“Success is just trauma wearing a watch.”

I laughed so hard I had to mute myself.

Not because any of this was actually funny.

My brain had simply reached a temperature at which laughter was apparently the emergency cooling system.

Then Bambi delivered the final piece.

“He also ordered a live camel.”

I unmuted the phone.

“I’m sorry?”

“A camel.”

“Why?”

“He says luxury brands use animals.”

“Which luxury brands?”

“I asked him that.”

“And?”

“He said, ‘Think Dubai.’”

There are ordinary family problems.

Then there is learning your brother is attempting to sell your stolen Harley to finance a camel for an unlicensed motivational nightclub.

Thursday came.

Detective Harper told me specifically to stay away from the sale.

So I stayed away.

Mostly.

I parked at a Wendy’s across the street where I could see the lot from a safe distance.

I assume Harper knew exactly what I was doing and had simply decided I was not the most exhausting Mercer brother available that afternoon.

At 3:12 p.m., Cody arrived on my motorcycle.

He was wearing a white suit.

White loafers.

No helmet.

And a red scarf blowing behind him.

I wish I could tell you that detail was exaggerated.

Bambi followed in her Nissan.

Two detectives were waiting beside an SUV. One of them played the buyer.

Cody parked the Harley, removed his sunglasses, and immediately launched into what looked like a sales presentation.

I later watched the body-camera footage.

It remains one of the greatest pieces of media I have ever consumed.

“So,” Cody said, patting the motorcycle. “This is a one-of-one custom.”

The detective nodded.

“You built it?”

Cody hesitated.

“I oversaw the build.”

“How long did that take?”

“Couple years.”

“What engine?”

Cody stared at the motorcycle.

“Harley engine.”

“What size?”

Another pause.

“Large.”

The detective asked for the title.

Cody smiled.

“Title is currently in transition.”

“What does that mean?”

“Family paperwork.”

“Whose name is on it?”

“Technically my brother’s.”

The detective waited.

Cody added:

“But spiritually mine.”

I had that sentence framed later.

The detective asked whether I knew Cody was selling the bike.

Something finally flickered behind my brother’s eyes.

Suspicion.

“My brother’s a dermatologist,” he said.

The detective waited.

Cody apparently felt additional explanation was needed.

“He makes dermatologist money.”

As though my income were a legal method of transferring vehicle ownership.

The detective asked why Cody needed $9,500.

Cody could have stopped talking.

Cody has never stopped talking when stopping would help him.

He explained Wolf and Orchid.

The luxury networking.

The goddess frequencies.

The scent experience.

The wolf.

The camel.

At one point, Harper, who was standing several feet away pretending to look at his phone, had to turn around because he was laughing.

Finally, the undercover buyer said, “Okay. I think we’ve got enough.”

Harper approached.

“Cody Mercer?”

Cody smiled.

“Yes, sir. You interested too?”

“I’m Detective Harper.”

The smile vanished.

According to Harper, Cody’s first words were not “I can explain.”

They were:

“Is this about the camel?”

I nearly went through the Wendy’s windshield.

The detectives detained him.

Bambi immediately raised both hands despite nobody accusing her of anything.

Cody began talking at machine-gun speed.

“This is a family misunderstanding.”

Harper asked a simple question.

“Did you have permission to take the motorcycle?”

“My dad said it was fine.”

“Does your dad own it?”

“Not legally.”

“Did your brother give you permission?”

“Not verbally.”

“In writing?”

“No.”

“Did he give you permission in any form?”

Cody considered this.

“Emotionally, I feel like yes.”

Harper later told me that was the moment he stopped asking questions.

My father called less than twenty minutes later.

He was furious.

Not with Cody.

With me.

“Dr. Lotion, what the hell did you do?”

“What did I do?”

“You got your brother arrested.”

“He tried to sell my motorcycle.”

“He was going to pay you back.”

“With what?”

“The business.”

“The camel business?”

“It is not a camel business.”

Dad sounded genuinely offended by my failure to respect the business model.

Mom took the phone.

“Red Velvet, he made one mistake.”

“One?”

“He got excited.”

“He stole my motorcycle.”

“He borrowed it.”

“He listed it for sale.”

“He panicked.”

“He took deposits.”

“He’s entrepreneurial.”

“He ordered a camel.”

There was silence.

Finally Mom said, “I don’t know what the camel has to do with anything.”

“Neither does anyone.”

Cody was not dragged off to prison that afternoon. My Harley was recovered undamaged, and investigators were still sorting through the attempted sale, the deposits, and the rest of the financial nonsense surrounding Wolf and Orchid.

But almost immediately, evidence of Cody’s entrepreneurial vision began arriving at my parents’ house.

Friday morning, Mom called me.

“There are twelve boxes on my porch.”

“What’s inside?”

“Plastic sticks with wolves on them.”

“The drink stirrers.”

“What?”

“Brand infrastructure.”

“This isn’t funny, Red.”

“It’s a little funny.”

Then the wolf arrived.

Seven feet tall.

Black artificial fur.

Gold eyes.

Molded sunglasses.

My father refused delivery.

Unfortunately, Cody had apparently paid extra for something called executive wolf customization, which made it nonreturnable.

The wolf ended up in my parents’ garage.

Dad hated it.

I loved it.

I named him Litigation.

Next came forty-eight cases of Italian mineral water.

Mom opened one bottle, drank it, and called me.

“It tastes exactly like water.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m serious.”

“It tastes like water with upper-middle-class ambition.”

Then the neon sign arrived.

Dad plugged it in.

Half the letters were dead.

Instead of WOLF AND ORCHID, it lit up:

WOLF AND OR

Marcus suggested hanging it above Litigation.

My parents did not appreciate his artistic direction.

Then came Apollo.

Two weeks later, a man named Ernesto called my father asking where he should deliver him.

Dad hung up.

Ernesto called again.

Dad assumed it was a scam.

It was not.

Apollo was the camel.

Cody had paid a nonrefundable deposit for a camel rental as part of a promotional photo shoot at a vineyard.

There was one small problem.

The vineyard had never agreed to the photo shoot.

For three days, my father negotiated with a livestock entertainment company because his twenty-nine-year-old son had rented a camel using money obtained during an attempt to sell my stolen motorcycle.

Dad stopped calling me Dr. Lotion after that.

Almost an entire week.

Eventually, Cody accepted a plea deal related to the theft mess and was required to repay the people whose deposits he had taken.

My parents helped him with some of the repayment.

That annoyed me.

But I stayed out of it.

I already had the thing that mattered most.

My Harley was home.

I changed the locks on my house.

I changed the garage code.

I installed cameras.

I also hid an AirTag on the bike.

Dad called that paranoid.

Three weeks later, he asked whether I could help him install cameras at his house.

“Why?”

“Cody tried to borrow the wolf.”

I stared at him.

“Litigation?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“His dating profile.”

I refused.

Not because I couldn’t install cameras.

Because consequences matter.

Things with Bambi ended immediately after Cody’s arrest.

She messaged me later and apologized. She genuinely seemed to have believed the Harley belonged to him.

Then she told me she was starting a podcast about recognizing financial red flags in relationships.

I told her she had excellent source material.

Cody later claimed she stole his idea.

“What idea?” I asked.

“Personal growth.”

Apparently he owns that now too.

About six weeks after the Marketplace incident, my parents hosted a family barbecue.

Cody was there.

We had barely spoken since the sting.

Wolf and Orchid had failed to become the next global luxury empire, shockingly, and Cody had started working inventory at an appliance store.

He was also living with my parents.

I was getting a beer when he walked over.

“Hey, Epidermis Prime.”

I looked at him.

He smiled.

“I’m trying to normalize things.”

“Try my actual name.”

He sighed.

“Red.”

“Better.”

He shoved both hands into his pockets.

“So… you still mad?”

“Yes.”

“It’s been like two months.”

“You tried to sell my motorcycle.”

“I was going to replace it.”

“With what?”

“A better motorcycle.”

“With what money?”

“The event revenue.”

“You didn’t have an event.”

“We would have.”

“You didn’t have a venue.”

“Details.”

“You rented a camel.”

Cody groaned.

“Everybody keeps bringing up the camel like the camel was the central issue.”

“It was not the central issue.”

“Thank you.”

“The central issue was the felony.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Alleged felony.”

“You took a plea deal.”

“Legal technicality.”

There he was.

Classic Cody.

He was sorry that everything had become inconvenient.

Sorry that Bambi left.

Sorry the police embarrassed him.

Sorry everyone had “overreacted.”

But I still wasn’t convinced he understood why I had called the police.

Then he proved it.

“For the record,” he said, “$9,500 was just the opening price.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

“I was testing the market.”

“You listed my twenty-thousand-dollar motorcycle for less than ten grand.”

“Yeah. To create demand.”

“You had three buyers.”

“Exactly.”

“Because it was stolen-price cheap.”

“Marketing.”

I walked away.

There are some conditions medicine cannot treat.

Later that afternoon, I went outside to check the Harley.

Dad followed me.

“You still keeping it here?” he asked.

“No.”

He nodded.

“Probably smart.”

Then he scratched his chin and said, in the most casual tone possible, “You know, Cody really did think he was going to make enough money to pay you back.”

I turned toward him.

“Dad.”

“I’m not saying it was right.”

“Dad.”

“I’m just saying his heart was in the right place.”

“He spent stolen deposits on a fiberglass wolf.”

Dad looked toward the garage.

Through the open door, Litigation stared back at us with permanent gold-eyed judgment.

Dad sighed.

“Yeah. The wolf was a mistake.”

“The camel?”

He considered it.

“The camel had potential.”

And that is my family.

Mom still calls me Red Velvet.

My uncle still calls me Dr. Lotion.

Dad eventually invented Detective Dermatology because, apparently, reporting grand theft makes me Batman.

Cody retired Dr. Butthole Freckle and upgraded me to The Epiderminator.

Against my better judgment, I admit that one is pretty good.

The Harley is safe now.

The locks are changed.

The cameras work.

Cody is not allowed inside my garage.

And Litigation, the seven-foot fiberglass monument to my brother’s entrepreneurial judgment, still stands in my parents’ garage behind their Toyota Highlander.

Last Sunday, Mom sent a picture to the family group chat.

Dad had put one of his old baseball caps on the wolf.

Underneath, Mom wrote:

Your father says Litigation is part of the family now.

Ten minutes later, Cody replied:

Actually, I paid for him, so technically he’s mine.

Dad answered immediately.

With what money?

Nobody heard from Cody for the rest of the day.

THE END.
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