Bicycle

Summer 1995

When I was 7 years old, I fell in love with riding my bike. I’ve been riding for the last two and half years but it wasn’t until the summer of ’95 that I truly took the simple action of riding my bike to a whole other level. I don’t entirely remember what it was, or how it came to be, but as a seven year old a euphoric sense of creativity found itself into my soul. I’d start daydreaming about miniature battles happening at the edge of my school desk, or ninja’s hopping from one tree or pole to the next as I sat in the passenger seat of my parent’s car. While jumping they’d unsheathe their swords incredibly fast and chop down the pole they just jumped off of. My toys suddenly developed personalities and back stories, ancient roman battle commanders riding on the back of a Transformer fighting a ninja turtle flying around in a spaceship. It was a great time in my  young life, and my bike became my personal bat mobile or Tron battle cycle. 

It was a particularly wet summer that year. With every bright and beautiful day, a torrent of rain showers would pass through days at a time. It allowed me to live in my fantasy worlds at home, making forts and fighting off villains with my Nerf gun, but what I really missed was the joy of riding my bike. The feeling was freeing. I’d have total control of every twist and turn, pedaling as fast as I could down my block. I’d imagine chasing down enemy bikers who stole jewels from the local jewelry shop, or flying a spacecraft through an asteroid field. I’d ring my neighbor’s door to ask if my friend Dave could come along so we could race each other in the park, which offered us a more winding path and obstacles like ditches or low hanging branches.

I’d typically win those races. I didn’t know if it was because I was particularly big for my age, and my robot like legs were working with the utmost efficiency, or if it was my booster engines that helped me fly through the course. A child’s imagination could come up will all kinds of reasons. 

Today the sun was out, puffy clouds floating slowly along the stratosphere and a cool breeze whipped through the leaves. I put on my cool Kansas City Chiefs jacket (I liked the red color mostly, only real reason I could come up with living in Chicago at the time) and went to the porch to grab my bike. My mother and sister wanted to go for a bike ride too, but I didn’t really plan on riding with them. No today I was going to fly and zip around the block, waiting for no one and leaving them in the dust. 

We all unloaded our bikes from the basement. As my sister and mother were getting on their respective cycles, my sister’s pink with long tassles on the ends of the handlebar, and my mothers a sky blue with a grocery basket on the front, I noticed something not quite right with mine. A concrete brick fell on my front tire, and bent one of the support wires near the middle of the wheel. I opened my mouth to complain to my mother but she was already outside, maybe around the corner already. It didn’t matter, I looked it over carefully, decided I could just bend it back into place with my thumb and everything would be fine.

I’m a child engineering genius, or so I thought at the moment. All it needed was some elbow grease, some careful guessing and my wheel is as good as new. I rev up my imaginary dual turbo racing engine and begin pedaling down the block. I see my mother and sister farther down near the end of the block and I decide to test how fast I could go. I start pedaling, wind rushing past me, sun shining, trees buzzing by, the feeling is exhilarating. It just so happened that it wasn’t the trees that were buzzing by, but a giant bee tailing me. 

I couldn’t believe this was happening. I was being chased down by a bee. All of a sudden I’m dodging and looking behind me trying to find and outmaneuver this deadly flying foe. I’m riding as fast as I can, looking behind still unable to see where the bee went. My fear, my adrenaline, my excitement rushed out of my body as my bike comes to a stop. I’m now flying through the air bracing for full facial impact with the front lawn of someone’s house. The instance went by incredibly quick, and by the time I knew it I’m lying face down in the grass. I hear my sister crying in the back and my mom yelling profanities. My vision is hazy, and their cries are coming in muffled as if a grenade exploded nearby and I’m caught in the residual after effects.

I squint my eyes and try to see what just happened. My bike is laying on its side with the wheel bent and broken, next to my sister who is crying from what seems to be a scrap on her elbow. I’m not entirely sure how my sister only received a minor scrap on her arm after I slammed my bike full force into her and my mother. My mother, who continued yelling profanities was covering her knee, blood dripping down her leg and through the hand that was covering the gaping hole. My heart started to beat faster knowing that I’d be in big shit back at home, being asked why in the hell I wasn’t looking where I was going.

To be honest, the event happened so quickly. I think I went in an out of consciousness for a few seconds. The one thing I did remember, was the smell and the following fear and disgust that followed. I turned my head the other way, towards the putrid smell of feces, and when I saw what was before my eyes, I couldn’t believe it. To my horror, my whole right arm was covered in what appeared to be the biggest, freshest piece of dog shit I have ever seen. If it wasn’t for the fact that we lived in a populated Chicago suburb, I would’ve believed that I so happened to fall directly on top of feces left over by a horse or small elephant. Immediately I began screaming, and crying. All pain went away as the smell enveloped my nose. As I began wiping my arm on the grass I could hear my mother laughing her heart out and my sister giggling. Imagination can get you into some wild adventures, you just need to know how far you are willing to go blindly before you end up paying for your stupidity. My sister ended up being ok, my mother had to get stitches on her knee, and still has a scar the size of a silver dollar, and sometimes I can still smell the embarrassment on my skin.