My First Near-Ticket on a Bicycle

7/14/09

            I unlock my bike and ride across the street from Cafe Diem to Seven Eleven, doubtlessly bound for cigarettes despite my effort to quit.  I have had several drinks and I need a smoke.  I exit convenience, pounding my pack, and ignite.  I unlock my bike again.  I look up as I do this and some girl on a phone, holding her bike, smiles at me.  I smile back and mount the tatterdemalion frame.  I feel good about this smile, like my night could only end in happiness.

            I get several blocks down Park Ave. before I hear WOOP WOOP and see those familiar blue lights.  The blue to the shield as the yellow to the stinger.  A warning I heed as I look back, pull over.  The high-and-mighty pig pulls up next to me, initiating his lecture: YOU REALIZE YOU HAVE TO OBEY THE SAME RULES AS CARS. 

            I studder, buzzed from firefly, bourbon, and PBR, tell him I'm sorry.

            "You just ran two stop signs," he says, and I nod, bobbing my head up and down, acknowledging the fact that they were four-ways and it shouldn't matter because no one was around but him, not that he was "right" in stopping me.  Whatever will make him happy will make me free, I figure.

            "I'm sorry," I concede.

            "You don't even have a front light," he tells me, as if I didn't know.  "Where is it?"

            "I have one, it's at home.  It just ran out of batteries."  A week ago.

            "I could pin you for three counts of wreckless cycling," he says.

            I want to emphasize the WOW I respond. 

            "WOW," I say. "I'm sorry, sir," I stroke his ego.  I shake my head at myself.  I am about to get a ticket.  And then. . .

            "Just go," he frees me.

            "Thank you, sir," I continue stroking his ego.  The kind of courtesy stroke you give after your forearm is killing you, but it has paid off, so you do it anyway.

            I ride off but he is behind me so I wait at the next red light on Robinson.  The pig pulls up, parks next to me, persuades my illusions of safety.  He leans to shotgun.

            "You see those bikes up there?"

            I squint and see a faint white light.  "Um," I hesitate, thinking he's making shit up, "not really.  My vision isn't so good."  I lie, "I have glasses at home," which should be true, but since I destroyed them back in twenty-oh-five it isn't. 

            "Well, if you don't have a front light and I hit you, it's your fault." 

            Thanks Mom, I think.

            "Yeah.  I've seen a few friends hit," I tell him, "and it isn't pretty.  I'm just trying to get home."  The bikes he is not lying about roll up across the street and he activates the blue, the siren.  His car ironically runs the red and then he begins speaking with the cyclists.  I wait at the red-- I heed his warning-- for as long as it eternally takes to turn green while NO ONE rides through the intersection.

            As soon as I lose the cop, I flick my friction shifters to their heighest gear ratio and safely ride home, where I am now, stopped only by my name yelled into the street where I explain the story to near-strangers, writing this.

            Fuck you, bacon bits, I know it will be my fault if I get hit. 

 

            But I won't. 

 

            Right?

 

 

Comments

[Socceraholic..]

[this is good] right!

i always try to make a fun situation to avoid these things! heheh. and yeah, trying to feed their egos works most of the time. just like with every1 else!