Don't Push It

A Boy and His Bike

I watched with surreal fascination, a living movie playing out in real-time through a plate glass window right in front of my eyes. Three large black men had just snapped my fifty-dollar (that’s fifty bucks in early 1980 dollars!) heavy-duty Kryptonite bike lock like a matchstick and were walking away, unhurried, with my bike. I’d paid the fifty bucks for the lock (in 1980 dollars!) because it came with a “Guaranteed unbreakable and insured,” promise, good wherever locks were sold. Everywhere, that is, except NYC. And we were very much in NYC. The guaranteed, unbreakable lock had not even slowed down these professionals.

New York bike thieves had discovered a workaround. A can of sprayable freon available at any hardware store would instantly freeze even a Krypto lock sufficient to snap it. “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world,” Archimedes said. These fine thugs had just proven it. They must’ve studied the Classics. They knew their Greeks.

It was evening happy hour in the city’s Chelsea district. Blu was there, Fritz and Lillyane visiting from Switzerland, a few others, all enjoying cocktails and apps, (in 1980, apps were something you ate, rather than something that ate you,) in a bar / restaurant, on a northeast corner, somewhere in the 30’s. Probably 8th or 9th Ave, the sun orange and low on the Hudson horizon sending its long, last rays shooting through the canyons. I remember getting up from my seat in a trance, saying not a word to anyone, walking out the door, determined and unhurried as the bad guys. I’d intercept them in about a block.

I did not have a plan. I did not need one.

There is a mythological Irish warrior named Cú Chulainn, the fairest lad in the land, who grew to a fearsome giant when the riastrad, or “battle rage” came upon him. His body would warp and contort; his knees, twist backward. One eye bulged, while the other receded deep into his head. His hair, on end, bristled with electricity. A fountain of blood gushed from the top of his head. His penis would swell like a dragon’s tail and drag on the ground behind him, a bludgeoning hammer of destruction.

This was me, (except for the bludgeoning hammer penis of destruction,) as I walked to meet my horse thieves. I caught them and turned to face them. In a calm, controlled voice I said, “That’s my bike.” The largest of the three, the leader, muscled and menacing, looked right and left to his equally scary companions, then down at the six-foot length of pipe in his hand. Then…

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The first time I’d ever ridden a bike in Manhattan, I managed one shaky block before dismounting. The evidence of my senses to the contrary, I thought to myself, ‘No, this is impossible,’ even as I saw dozens of people doing just that. The impossible. Riding a bike like it was the easiest thing in the world, or NYC, to do. Either they were illusion, or I was hallucinating. I was shaken. I’d skirted death in that one block, riding from the bike shop where it had just undergone a tune-up, than I had in the past year. My heart hammered. I was terrified. I started to walk the bike home from downtown to the Upper West Side. I would decide what to do with it later.

Riding a bike in NYC required one to grow a sixth, a seventh, eight or more new senses, the original five not up to the task. One had to be able to anticipate a cabbie tossing his lit cigarette out the window, while skirting an open manhole shooting the gap between two converging buses. These skills had to be done while going the wrong way on a one-way street. In freezing rain. In winter. Carrying a full load of whatever. Possibly drunk or stoned. At night. Riding a bike in NYC was not for the faint of heart.

I learned to do this. At first, I could manage a block before dismounting. Then two. Riding in Central Park helped hone one’s skills, especially during hours of the day when the roadway was closed to motor traffic. But first you had to get there alive through traffic. But I stuck with it, and in less time than I thought possible, I could out-crazy even the craziest bike messenger guys, the elite madmen that did this for a living. I lived on my bike in NYC, riding in all four seasons, in all weather, for years, even intra-borough, from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back. Across the Brooklyn Bridge both ways, to and from gigs, in daytime madness and nighttime danger. Incurring wrath, escaping harm, both human and not. In short, I got good. Real good.

My first bike had been stolen right in front of where I was playing, a bar called the Rose Tattoo, where Woody Allen would occasionally slum, playing clarinet in a Dixie-land, gypsy jazz band some nights. I played early dinner shift solo piano before the band would take over. I don’t know how / when the thief had managed it. The piano faced the entrance handrail where I’d lock it, just the other side of the window where I could keep an eye on it. It was there, then it was not. I might have felt begrudging admiration for the thief, if only it hadn’t been my bike that had magically disappeared. But it had been my bike and I wished him burning, bleeding hemorrhoids for the rest of his days.

This bike and the one that came after were nuthin’ fancy, which is what made them valuable to the horse thieves trafficking in stolen bikes. High-end bikes stood out. Funky old beater bikes like mine, not so much.

But beater or no, one grows attached to anything that spends hours between your legs. You really do come to think of it as your horse, dependable, able to get you in and out of trouble, to go with impunity where you want to, to beat the traffic of crosstown stand-still, faster than subterranean rush-hour subways stalled in the catacombs. It really was the only way to travel. The attachment to one’s horse was as real as the attachment to a girl. One was obliged to defend both. And so…

Cú Chulainn Before, and…

Cú Chulaiin After.

… I caught up and turned to face them. In a calm, controlled voice I said, “That’s my bike.” The largest of the three, the leader, looked right and left to his companions, then down at the six-foot length of pipe in his hand. Then…

…realizing that the riastrad was upon me, and Cú Chulainn was “riding” me, he weighed his options. He knew I would fight to the death. The only way they’d take another step was through me. And I would not go easily. The difference was I was willing to kill and die for my bike. They were not. Bike theft was one thing, murder another, and my Schwinn was not worth a life / death sentence.

“Okay, man. It’s your bike.” I got on and rode back to my friends, now standing outside on the corner. They knew something had happened; but not exactly what. That was when I saw my broken fifty-dollar (in early 1980 dollars!) bike lock in two pieces on the ground. And damned if I didn’t get back on my horse and ride down to confront the horse-thieving bad guys again.

Sitting astride my steed I placed myself square in front of them. Again.

“You broke my lock. You owe me fifty bucks.”

The pack leader looked at me, almost sad, shaking his head at my honky stupidity. “Look, man,” he said. “You got’cher bike. Don’t push it.” There was something so honest in that simple statement. “You got’cher bike. Don’t push it.” And in that moment the riastrad left me. The bludgeoning dragon tail penis of Cú Chulainn shriveled to its regular proportions. I rode back to my friends, still standing on the corner unsure of what had transpired, an epic in the space of moments. I explained, disgruntled that I’d be the one paying for a lock replacement. It was my buddy Blu that spoke wisdom to me. “What they did is understandable. Almost an honest day’s work. You wanna know who’s really robbing you? Your own government. Every day it’s screwing you far worse.”

Sans lock, I brought my bike inside to resume our Happy Hour.

Hoping for a boring, less eventful week… see you next Sunday. I am Alki

Pee-Wee Herman’s bike, from his movie, “Pee-Wee’s Great Adventure,” part of the amazing collection at Bicycle Heaven on Pittsburgh’s North Side. So what are you waiting for? Get on your bike. Go!

https://www.bicycleheaven.org