Pyro
I lay on the couch and watched V is for Vendetta. I watched the spurts of blood fill the screen. I watched the flames rise around V's upraised arms. I watched and thought about how much that feels like riding in the city.
An idea can't be killed with bullets, he said. Hmn.
Some of my friends ride slowly, and some ride fast, and some suit their speed to the occasion or mood.
One rides likes it's a war, always. Chases down cars and spits into their windows when they've behaved horribly.
Some wear carbon knuckles. One got attacked by a driver wielding a baseball bat. The result: he ended up holding the bat, the driver panicked and leapt back into his car, the friend threw the bat into his window.
You think I am making this shit up, you people who live in the suburbs?
I sometimes think of this language I read on the website of Transportation Alternatives: "It shouldn't require this degree of pluck to ride in the city."
Oh yeah?
It requires a fairly high degree of pluck to live in the city, much less ride in it.
Some days I really just want to go for a pleasant ride. To get on a path, a smooth, paved, quiet path, and ride between green trees.
But you know, those don't even exist in the countryside. I remember riding in the country. It was all about feeling the onrush of air as a car approached at 75 or more mph, and you prayed, desperately prayed that they: a) saw you, b) gave a crap about not hitting you, and c) weren't about to throw a glass bottle at you at those speeds.
You think I am making that up, too? It happened to a friend of ours, Boywich's and mine. Not just one bottle but several. He gave up and began riding only on mountain trails.
Why am I telling you this? Most of the time I never complain about it to anyone who doesn't ride the same streets. I never even discuss it. They say, You must be crazy to ride on these streets, and I shake my head and smile and downplay it and change the subject, usually to ask where we're eating.
The truth is, there's a part of it that's delicious. It's not the danger, I don't think. It's the fire. It's the fire that runs through my veins. It's always there. It needs an outlet.
When I was shopping for yarn to make a birthday hat for a friend, I mock-looked at other colours in the shop, but there was really only one choice. Don't you hear Hugo Weaving's voice as I say that?
