Slinging hash, he cooks up biker novels

SEABROOK, N.H. -- They come seeking therapy at 5 a.m. from waitresses with tired eyes. In a small diner with license plates for wallpaper, they drag on cigarette butts, suck down bitter black coffee, and eat hand-cut glazed pastries.

They are real people but colorful enough to fictionalize. There are the conspiracy theorists. The longtime couples whose makeups and breakups work on their own circadian rhythms. The caustic, politically right-leaning old women. Once, a murderer's family left a confession for the finding in a trash bin. On other occasions, employees have had to cancel shifts to bail family members out of jail.

When Honey Bee Donut Shop owner Phil Englehardt decided to add fiction writing to his hash-slinging repertoire, he didn't have any trouble finding material. Every day at the Honey Bee, located on the busy Route 1 strip in Seabrook, N.H., the color is all around him.

``It's really a writer's paradise," Englehardt said on a recent Sunday morning as he fried eggs and bacon on a flat-top stove in the diner's kitchen. ``Your weirdest stories are your true ones. And I've got hundreds to choose from here."

Including, of course, his own. Over the past two years, Englehardt has novelized himself, the Honey Bee , and its colorful customers, in an art-imitating-life series of books titled ``Motorcycle Man." The two novels -- and soon to be a third -- focus on Englehardt's alter ego, Ian Payne, a man in his late 40s who bakes doughnuts , loves motorcycles, and feels a common middle-aged sense of claustrophobia.

``Voodoo Moon," the second novel in the series, came out this spring.

``Restless," the first, was released in 2004. Together, they've sold 3,000 copies, Englehardt said. Next spring, the author will release ``Peyote Canyon" to round out a trilogy.

The general plot: Payne decides to sell the Seabrook doughnut shop he's owned for years to take to freeways and back roads on his motorcycle. Some predictable activities ensue: sex on the beach, hash smoking, manic-depression, and soul-searching.

The idea came to Englehardt after witnessing many gray-haired men driving cherry red convertibles and dating 20-something women, grappling with fading time and opportunity. His own midlife anxieties also played a part.

``I envisioned this guy, a working-class guy, changing his whole life," said Englehardt, who also runs Revolution Booksellers, an Exeter-based publishing company that caters to independent authors.

Most of Payne's experiences are based on the author's own -- he has made two cross-country trips on his Harley-Davidson, during which he's slept on the side of the road and woken up eyeball to eyeball with snakes and lizards. The Honey Bee customers that Englehardt likes and laughs at, meanwhile, provided the fodder for his supporting characters.

Fittingly, then, the doughnut shop owner refers to the works as ``pseudo-memoirs."

Most Honey Bee regulars relish the nod to their favorite hangout; others portrayed in the book embrace their fictionalized likenesses.

``It gives tribute to the group at the Honey Bee," said the shop's general manager, Guy Knowlton. ``He does take a few liberties," he added with a laugh.

In the latest book, Knowlton's character is ``Guy man," an Iowa farm boy who takes over management of the Honey Bee during Payne's absence. It's a pretty accurate portrayal, Knowlton said, although the author did doctor him up a bit and throw in a few extra eccentricities.

``He's a wiseguy, always has been," he said of Englehardt. ``He always has some story, or some joke, or some line to give us."

Regina Seaman, an 18-year Honey Bee waitress, has likewise made it into the books; her character has the same name, same profession.

She called Englehardt a man of mood swings and an unusual sense of humor. ``Sometimes he's like a thunder cloud, sometimes he's like a pussycat," she said with a husky, German lilt.

For many, Englehardt also has become synonymous with his character -- customers, friends, and strangers call him ``Motorcycle man."

The 51-year-old certainly fits the part, with his white beard sitting in a close-cropped ``V" 3 inches below his chin, his head shaved, and his eyes framed by black-rimmed Elvis Costello glasses.

Then there's the whole Harley thing. He's been riding for most of his life, starting with minibikes and dirt racing. These days, he drives a stripped-down hog: There's a place to keep his clothes but no back rest, so anyone who wants a ride has to hold on.

For Englehardt, motorcycles are about freedom -- it's a cliché used by many bikers, he admitted, but true. Also, the sense he gets of tempting fate as the yellow lane markers flicker by.

Bikers ``are the last cowboys," he said. ``Every guy on a bike thinks he's riding the range. The range is tar."

Much like his character, Englehardt uses that time on the asphalt to simmer down after his grueling workdays.

In the six years he's owned the Honey Bee, he's had to weather the encroachment of goliaths Dunkin' Donuts and Honey Dew Donuts. The shop has been able to survive, he said, because it's become a local hangout of sorts.

Most mornings, his work starts between 12:30 and 4 a.m., when he fires up the old-fashioned doughnut kettle.

``Very traditional, old-school stuff," he said as he prepared buttered and greasy breakfasts on a busy Sunday morning recently.

Nearby, his wife and coworker, Mary Logan, glazed cream cheese-filled Danishes. There was a salty smell of frying bacon; jazz music sashayed out of a portable stereo.

Humming, Englehardt saturated a honey bun with butter and tossed it on the grill. He pulled it off three minutes later, browned, sizzling, and teasing of cinnamon. ``It's a heart attack waiting to happen," he said.

In his books, he rails about the greasy, sleep-depriving work, calling it exhausting and ``punishing." Still, the shop and its eclectic clientele have their charms, he said.

``It's dysfunctional, but it's very tight," he said. ``It's one of those community places that's few and far between these days."

Next year, though, he'll leave it behind -- and maybe forever, to follow his fictionalized counterpart's lead -- when he takes off for nine months on his bike. Starting in June, he'll lead a 256-day, 47,613-mile cross-country ride sponsored by Big Brothers Big Sisters. The aim of the endeavor is to inspire men to mentor by visiting 773 Harley Davidson dealerships spread around the lower 48 states.

When he finishes the trip in March 2008, the likelihood of his return to the doughnut shop is slim, he said.

Instead, he'd like the time to continue his novel pursuits: another installment to the ``Motorcycle Man" series, a nonfiction project, and maybe even a line of ``Motorcycle Woman" books.

As for a big-screen adaptation of his rogue alter-ego? Englehardt has already come up with a couple working titles.

``Easy Rider with a Cane," he joked. Or ``Easy Rider with a Bad Prostate."