Robot Chickens
It was probably around 1979 and I was
standing down at Mallory Square in Key West with the rest of the
misfits and tourists watching the sun go down and tippling from a
sneaky flask of rum when this bedraggled dude in long cutoff jean
shorts and no shirt or shoes and hair way down his back came cruising
up on a red bicycle of indefinite pedigree. It had Stingray
handlebars and a straight diamond frame and it was a single speed and
the dude was standing erect on the pedals and the high handlebars
allowed him to be erect and somehow noble as he cruised up to the
scene; this monster circus at sundown that was Key West back then,
back before it got Disney-fied and hyper expensive and now there are
cruise ships and I even think the chickens may be mechanized or
robotic; who can tell?
But this bicycle caught my eye because
it was a Stingray, really, a grown-up Stingray (although grownups
were scarce in that milieu in those days, we were mostly there on
nefarious cowboy business or just there to drink, hard.) But that
big kid's Stingray caught my eye because of the way that hippie/pirate
was cruising up to the pier and the color red and just..in the ambiance
of the moment and my substance-stunned state of mind I flashed back
in time to my first bicycle, my first REAL bicycle, a custom
something chopped into the 1962 version of what would become perhaps
the most iconic bicycle in American History: the Schwinn Stingray.
Crazed
In those Key West days I was caught up in the
ten speed craze and rode god knows what; Walmart wasn't around then
and if it was I didn't know about it. We got our bicycles from
Sears, probably, but my ten speed was just some bicycle I picked up
somewhere for five or ten dollars. All I remember is that it was
gold. I didn't ride that much. But all my life I have had only a
handful of times without a bike. I have always had a bicycle. If it
got a flat it sat in the corner until some benevolent soul came along
and offered to fix it. I was into cars and motorcycles then and a
bicycle was...I don't know what. I just always made sure I had a
bicycle.
But years later I became something of a
bicycle genius (Hey! No laughing!) OK, I learned a lot more about
bicycles and became a cyclist and a slayer of sorts and bragged about
it on and on and on on here and always there was that image, that
pirate bicycle back in the glory years when I was cool (hey! I said
no laughing!) and life held promise and I remembered that guy on that
big Stingray. Being slightly more knowledgeable than I was in '79 I
pondered on this and stared at my old '93 Mongoose Alta and then one
day, lugging a big bag of empty liquor bottles and aluminum beer cans
to the trailer park dumpster I came across a derelict comfort bike
and it had BMX style bars and I grabbed them and put them on the
Goose.
They are still there. The Goose, eight
years mine now, has achieved the look of a Stingray and as I type
this, I realize that my “ten speed,” Me Little Darlin', my '81
Schwinn Super Le Tour, is sitting in the corner with a flat rear
tire.
I Didn't Do It
Guilt is a funny thing. It hits you
from all sides and it can cripple you, it can blow you asunder and
make you feel like hell. We all know it, this guilt, we all know
that it is all our fault and we don't deserve to live and the world
would have been better off if we had never been born. Inanimate
objects and beloved pets will really kick your feet out from under
you. Here's why: we can argue with our kids and spouses and bosses,
we can lay down seasoned lines of reasoned thought that clearly show
that we are right and if that fails, we can resort to shouting and
violence and let the cops and the lawyers sort it out.
But an anthropomorphisized bicycle or
goldfish don't get it. They don't understand and they only know that
their water smells like pee and that they have a flat tire and why
won't you fix me and at least ride me around the block?
I may be losing my mind.
I Have Custody
Toby the Trouble Puppy and Miss Daisy
the Yellow Dog are with me here at the Park for a couple days. I
have visitation, it seems. The Blonde and I didn't split up,
exactly. We just live in different places now. Because of my
extended time out of town working, the dogs stay with her. But they
are with me now and in true Weekend Dad fashion they are being
spoiled horrendously, steaks and dog treats and so much belly-rubbing
and ball tossing and benadryl-laced macaroons that they might as well
be staggering along the pier in Key West a vast long time ago.
Toby is some kind of Jack Russel-Pit
mix and given to the shivers. He has found one of the few patches of
sunlight in my deeply shaded yard and rests there now in this cold
Florida afternoon, a sweet little patch of chilled sunshine with warm
dirt and a big fern shading his gaze. Miss Daisy, an elderly Yellow
Lab who has been with me since she could fit into the palm of my
hand, is back in her favorite place: curled up at my feet and
listening to her old favorite noise of a clicking keyboard and
antique jazz.
Meanwhile
Me? Hell, I'm not losing my mind, I'm
finding it. I'm working my way back home to those days when all it
took was a sunny afternoon and my old Stingray, the sound of my
breathing as I pedaled standing up across little hills and open
fields, headed nowhere, headed here; headed to that place where we
have sorted out our crimes and our guilt and our sadness and our joy
and all of it, all of it, is just a shadow in the sunshine.
So Anyway
Later, soon, I will jump on my big-kid
Stingray and pedal fast to the store for more beer. Little Miss
Dangerous will get her tire fixed, soon enough; but right now I am
back at work and it ain't easy and it interrupts my search and so,
now, I grab my fun wherever I can get it. I will grab my fun and I
got just the bike to do it, I have the bicycle for the job.
Whispering Pines Trailer Park and
Observatory
January 17, 2014
