little kids with big toys

bike ride was long and sunny and just very enjoyable

mostly.

i knew that taking the lighter back to the store owner would result in nothing. the man was nasty, mean, suspicious. perhaps there was cultural gaps happnin, he was from india, i think. but…nah. i’ve known plenty of nice indian store owners. i think he may have just been a sour person. he always is negative feeling and distrustful. i can see how being a storeowner like a seven eleven owner could push you in this direction. and i didnt’ want to go. i was saying to myself just throw it out. just throw it away who cares. but i felt all cheated when i got home with my candles and nag champa and lighter and was ready to tweak moods and it was EMPTY so i said let me just take it back and i knew he would shake his head with that stubborn look in his eyes. i had to do it anyway. i even asked myself why. but my self only answered do it.

“you did no buy that  here” he said, before i even had a chance to explain myself, but i handed it to him and turned away. that’s okay, i didn’t expect you to give me a new one. but i did buy it here from you only ten minutes ago. that’s how i got it and that’s the truth and i walked out and unlocked my bike and got on my bike and fastened my helmet in the sun and drove away.

the ride was long. i got lost in my thoughts. no. that’s not true. i was not lost. it was soothing. the sun, the wind, the music in my ears. i was moving at my own pace. sometimes my legs burned, but i am getting stronger lately and it is at least something i can push through now. sometimes i leaned down and geared down (or is it up?) and built up momentum. but mostly i sat up on that sporty, flared seat and felt the springs buoy me, and the wind move past me, watched the sky come at me. i felt happy. strong. free. i love my bike and i love my knobby tires.

i was almost home. i pulled in front of the gas station the one with the wide open sidewalk situation, i am always careful there. people pull in and out rather recklessly or widely or often or something, you have to look out. and i was pulling past one car and i see this high, black, shiny blazer type vehicle fly toward me through the parking lot area and suddenly come to a stop all smooth only feet from me and looming over me, like the guy is doing it on purpose and i look up at his crewcut and his black glasses and mobile fone and new blazer and think to myself what a jerk and just because i look at him sidelong as i’m moving past him, he starts moving around and talking smack inside his big truck. i put up my middlefinger behind my back and ride away.

i’m at the next corner and suddenly his vehicle veers around the corner, all weighted down on one wheel with momentum. He arcs in front of me and off the road onto the curb, at an angle. He is pulled over.

He looks at me to make sure I see it’s him. Or maybe to see what I’m doing.

Well, hell. I get it. I know the way this works.

I hop off my bike and put the kickstand down and walk toward the black truck. I even still have my backpack on. It’s black, too. Like my bike and my helmet. In fact, dude and I are both all in black.

Him, leaning back far enough to see that I’m headed his way. Peering back through the tinted window on his truck.

I’m fifteen feet from his blazer and getting closer—not thinking as I said, it’s my instinct to fly into the face of the storm—and suddenly he peels out and backs up back onto the road. Electric gears lower his tinted window and he looks through his sunglasses at me. He is in an agitated state, his well-clipped head bobbing around in the dim interior. I see now that he is running on a temper that clearly blew up at the gas station and has been burning since.

“I’m a cop!” he yells at me, as if holding up a cross. “So what are ya gonna do? B—”

—”I don’t care if you’re a cop!” I yell back.

—”beat me up?”

We end at the same time almost. He is shouting across the space in the seat between us. He is a couple feet higher than my eye level. I am still on my feet, halfway between my bike and where his truck was before he peeled back out onto the road.

He goes on. ”I gave you the right of way! I stopped!  Wh—”

At this point his words became mush to my ears. I try to cut through, when this happens. I don’t need to be doing this. I’m on my way home.

I interrupt him. ”So what do you want?”

He pauses and then bursts forward with his same adolescent haste.

“I want you to say…it’s cool, we’re cool!” he screams.

Maybe I could have given him what he wanted. Maybe anything would happen now, could happen with reflection. But there is no time on these floors for deep pondering and nuance. Nobody even knows what’s about to happen from moment to moment. There is Now and a short pause between Now and Too late.  Or…maybe it doesn’t matter and it’s who I am and I’d do it again a thousand times and ten. It felt right.

“Too bad!” I shout back. “Don’t do that shit to bikers!”

He explodes inside his truck. He grabs the stickshift and squeals his tires. His blazer jerks around and then forward as he shouts “Fuck you you fucking priiiiiiiiiiick!!!”

I am oddly reminded of the Wicked Witch of the West, melting.

I get back onto my bike and push the button and then wait until the light changes and then I drive on. My heart is pounding pretty good.

He drives up the same road. Ahead of me. I slow my pace a lot before it is time to turn off, knowing its best he doesnt see where I turn. He probably did. But didn’t see where I turned again.

Probably would have been smarter to make friends with local cops. But catering to punks and bullies is simply not in me.