A few months ago I found myself in the position of being able to commute to my place of employment by bicycle. Those who have known me during past lives may assume that this was not a choice I made freely. I can assure you, there were no authorities involved in the decision making process, although that day may not have been too far off.
And rightfully so, as anyone who has been a passenger in my car can attest.
During the course of the past eighteen months or so, I have come into pseudo- possession of three different bicycles which were loaned to me on a semi- permanent basis. The first was stolen from outside my apartment as I slept. In the early morning hours, someone who decided they needed that bicycle more than I did crept into my side yard with a pair of bolt cutters and clipped the cable lock that insufficiently secured the bike to a tree. At this point, the bicycle had not become my primary means of transportation, but the experience still, to put it bluntly, sucked. There are few worse things than having something taken from you, especially if that thing is not really yours to begin with.
The second bicycle had been loaned to me by my best friend, who felt confident that the cable lock he supplied was thick enough to deter the fuckers. The fuckers, it turned out, were not deterred. The fuckers returned in the early morning hours a couple weeks later with a pair of bolt cutters having once again decided that the bicycle (insufficiently) secured to my tree would better serve someone who was not me. That was the last time anything other than a clothesline has been attached to what I now refer to as The Stealing Tree. After the shock of seeing the space that a bicycle once occupied was no longer occupied by a bicycle (for the second time, shame on me), I imagined that I had naively (stupidly) attached a two- wheeled Fay Ray to The Stealing Tree to await its King Kong. This imagery did nothing to assuage my guilt, but it is kind of funny when you think about it.
The current bicycle was loaned to me by a now former love on the condition that it would never spend a night cable- locked to the tree outside my apartment. It has not, and has since become my primary form of transportation. The reason for this, as was hinted, is not because it had been determined by some social agency that I was an unfit driver, but because I had transferred to a job location that is close enough to my home that made such a decision feasible. In other words, I had decided that I was an unfit driver by proxy.
And rightfully so, as anyone who has shared the road with me can attest.
The distance between my apartment and my current job location is roughly seven and one- half miles. I live near the Montavilla neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, and work in the Sellwood neighborhood, also located in Portland. Oregon. There are a few neighborhoods in between of course, and I enjoy riding through them twice daily. Those first few trips I would listen to podcasts and pedal along, letting my mind wander and feeling pretty great about getting some exercise that would no doubt dissolve a few pounds and reduce my carbon blah blah blah. The reality is that eventually I grew tired of being distracted by podcasts, and not only did the exercise not dissolve a few pounds, it instead seemed to give me license to eat (and drink) whatever in the hell I wanted because hey, man, I'll just burn it off tomorrow!
So I abandoned the podcasts (and the unreasonable body image) and let my mind wander on the surroundings as I passed by. I'd look at the houses and imagine how the lives of their occupants played out. At first, every little micro- story followed a pretty stereotypical equation; nice house + nice yard + nice car = nice life. I grew a little envious eventually, so I had to throw some pepper into the pot. These brief stories starting ending in a The Fox and the Grapes sort of way. Sure, here's a lovely home with a manicured lawn and a bubbling water feature, but you just know the husband is thinking about his convention mistress as he's reluctantly pushing that lawn mower with a gut half- full of cheap beer.
Or half empty, depending.
This trend continued for a week or two until the cynicism (of which I'm generally a pretty big proponent) started to wear on me. Look, we've all been in the shit. We've all had days, or long stretches of days, or weeks, or years, whatever, where the grass is greener until it all begins to brown. We've most of us in our late teens/ early twenties suspected our lives are kind of crappy (ha!) until we discover in our thirties that they maybe really kind of are (oh.). I'm just now starting my forties. I've only recently come to discover that this means I am now Middle Aged. This realization is, honestly, starting to freak me out a little bit. I don't feel like the cynicism of my youth holds much water, if the cliche may be forgiven, as I've entered (or passed, depending) the marker of the second half of my life.
That's some pretty heavy shit right there.
So I decided to let it go. Who's to say those houses I pedal by every day don't hold good lives? Who's to say those lives aren't fulfilling to their occupants? Who's to say...
Who's to say.
So I was peddling home one day last week and stopped for traffic on SE Belmont St. On the corner to my left was a group of boys in their early teens, sitting in a patch of brown grass, each with a skateboard at foot and a can of energy drink at hand. Also they were wearing dumb clothes and even dumber haircuts. Bunch of acne cultivators, the lot of 'em. Regular shit- heels from the looks. Miscreants. Ne'er do wells. Why, I have half a mind to-
Well now hang on a second, I thought. See, this is exactly what I've been talking about. Let's look again for a minute. Here's a group of kids, all dudes, all about what, 12, maybe 13, hanging out on a summer day, just doing their thing. They have done nothing to provoke you. They have done absolutely NOTHING to procure your judgement, yet here you come, old man on a bicycle all grumpy and lame and whatever. I mean, look at that one kid. He's got a crappy dye- job, wearing the concert T of a band he's probably never actually heard of, but look at him. He's just hanging out with his bros. Hell, there's probably some little chick who thinks he's the shit, hasn't seen him all summer and can't wait for school to start so she can pretend not to notice him while she's doodling his name in her Pee Chee. Or Trapper Keeper. Or iPad or whatever. Anyway, he's probably a good kid. They're probably all good kids.
Who am I to say?
Traffic paused long enough for me to cross, so I did, feeling pretty good about the fine summer afternoon as well as the observation I had made. So what if they had bad haircuts? I used to rock one of the worst haircuts ever; shaved around the sides and back and pulled into a ponytail that touched the middle of my back and I dyed that shit burgundy so often people thought I was a natural- born redhead. So what if they wore shitty clothes? I used to wear cut off denim shorts over purple long- john bottoms tucked into Doc Martens with a camo army jacket over the whole deal. So what if they were drinking Red Bulls? We used to drink Jolt Cola like it was the beer we wished we were drinking and we got geeked as fuck.
Halfway through the intersection I hear one of the kids call out,
'Hey! You got some relish? You got some relish, I'll eat it outta your asshole!'
Shocked of course, and as was intended, I threw a look over my shoulder at the group for just a second, then rode on.
What the hell? That made no sense. Even within the energy drink- tweaked parameters of sun- baked (and likely dehydrated) youth, that made absolutely no sense. Yet they all laughed. I didn't see which kid made the yell but they all laughed and it wasn't the laughter of a bunch of kids nervously following their leader who said something stupid to an adult in passing, it was genuine, inside- joke laughter and I didn't get it and I thought about looking it up online later but didn't because fuck those kids.
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