Bicycle

The morning my son came home from working in New York I had bought a used bicycle. The most dangerous, funniest, most furious, incident came from it. The following day, I rode the rusty, bald tired, single-braked pedal-pusher around the neighbourhood, remembered how much I loved cycling and as I steered out onto the main road, a car came behind me. The bike ceased to a halt mid-cycle, and the car screeched to a stop. I got off to the laughter of the man driving. So you would laugh if I had been killed, would you? Would you be laughing at my funeral, if you even bothered to go to it? In a semi-whisper swallowing down my anger, even though it was more my fault than his, if he was even at fault at all. I headed towards the place I had bought the bike, not really knowing what I was going to say only that I wanted to sell it back to him. He was in his kitchen, so I waited outside amongst the bric-a-brac sitting on the old ironing board, computer desk and coffee table. A well-heeled woman walked by and I heard her say to her friend: "Oh, look at that bike, I might buy it." She looked at me, mistaking me for the vendor. I told her she could have it for thirty. She said she might, but would come back later. The scene was set. When the vendor came out of his kitchen I told him I wanted to sell the bike back to him. He looked at me in disbelief. I told him he could sell it again for thirty. More disbelief of the eye-staring variety. The 'anger' welled up again and I related the traffic incident. He sighed and shrugged: "Alright I'll give you back your twenty." I went off trying not to smile all the way home.

Louis was waiting as I walked into the hood, lazing like a lion over-looking the Savannah. Like the opening scene from the Little House in the Prarie, I ran towards him, arms open in slow motion. Like a Monty Python sketch we missed and he bounded on towards the guy with the pipe down the open man-hole.