bikers, 1

biking through downtown on a thursday night is a delicate art. by the time the sun has set, three quarters of the city’s population is already drunk and stumbling through the streets, puking and brawling, publicly displaying their affection for one another, peeing on the sidewalks, and harassing easy targets. An example of an easy target, in this particular case, would be myself on a bike.

secondly, the police force is usually pretty busy on the other side of campus where the fraternity houses butt heads with the sorority houses, breaking up rapes, busting dens of underage drinking, and pulling over young women so they can flirt with them and wield their power in a low-risk situation. this leaves downtown more or less unsupervised, like a kid who is almost old enough to stay home alone but not quite.

so last night i was riding home from work like a total nerd in helmet [IT SAVED MY LIFE ONCE] and highwater pants [they apparently don’t make pants in my leg size] — this alone grounds for harassment, on any night of the week. a car turned off of a side street behind me, became immediately offended by my presence, and responded by alternately driving two inches behind me, slamming its brakes, speeding up, slamming brakes, etc. being tailgated while on a bike is a little bit scarier than being tailgated while in a car: instead of layers of metal and glass between you and death, there’s a layer of cheap poly-cotton blend between you and death. (when dealing with death, it’s best to keep as many layers between it and yourself as possible.)

sigh. eff-ing frat boys, i thought — and yes, i was stereotyping here (but the stupid-ass radio jams, the tinted windows, the stench of department store cologne, the failure to understand why anyone would possibly want to ride a bicycle…i just knew). wait for it… wait for it… “GET ON THE FUCKING SIDEWALK!”  the guy sitting in the passenger seat screamed at me as they screeched past, his voice cracking in late adolescent rage.

what happened then? what always happens when you try to pass someone when you shouldn’t: an awkward, forced reunion at the next red light. normally i would just sit behind them and seethe until the light changed, but tonight i was feeling feisty, so i pulled up next to them and said to the guy sitting on the passenger seat: “hey! was that you who yelled at me to get on the sidewalk?”

sheepish nod. they turned the radio down.

“did you know that the cops ticket bikers if we ride on the sidewalk? we legally have to ride on the streets. it’s not my choice.”

“i’m sorry, i didn’t know,” he said.

“and bikers hate it when people yell at them from cars. it’s rude.”

“i’m really sorry.”

i’m sure they laughed at me as soon as they drove off, but i felt like i had just scored a point in the name of bikers everywhere.

supermarkets of the dead

Pushing my cart through the supermarket late last night, I thought I saw you standing by the bakery. You were inspecting day-old baguettes, the ones that go half price at midnight, and when you turned I was relieved to see that your face had mended itself somewhere between this world and the next.

It is always a little strange and sad grocery shopping alone at two in the morning but tonight someone has opened the gate that locks the dead in their place and they’re streaming out into ours. A slight chill around my ankles, a dampness on my back, and suddenly the aisles are crowded with deceased shoppers, ghosts with coupons, phantoms with food stamps. Welfare banshees. Go towards the light we told them once, and when the cashier announces a blue light special on aisle 9, blue light special on aisle 9, the ghosts flock to it like moths.

Grady the piano teacher (AIDS, 2004) crouches by the potato chips, comparing saturated fat contents. Alice from chemistry (drowning, 1995) drifts towards the produce section – eternal sixth grader – leaving a trail of wet leaves and river mud on the waxed white linoleum behind her. My grandmother (old age, 2001) passes me on her way to the pharmacy, eyeing the items in my cart with disdain (is the candy necessary, dear?).

There is no room left for the living. I put a last can of soup in my cart and hurry to the check out – I can go another week without lettuce or cheese.

The cashier wants to say something about how strange and sad it all is but he knows the customer is always right even when the customer is dead, so he keeps his eyes down and puts the items you have selected carefully into brown paper bags.

You scan your credit card over and over and over and over but it no longer reads, not in this store, not in this place.

[who is this “you” I’m always talking to? Why did my last two posts both start with the word “somehow”?]

the first night i stayed over

somehow i expected the contents of your medicine cabinet to match the contents of your strange and marvelous brain. i expected potions and flasks, parchment and ink, brown soap and silver-handled razors (the kind our great grandfathers might have used). i expected to find romance on the shelves behind the tarnished mirror, but what i found could’ve belonged to any balding broker or sweaty clerk in these United States:  floss, cotton swabs, a pair of glasses with only one lens, and, there on the top shelf, half hidden behind a bottle of peroxide, a heartbreaking box of anti-diarrheals, family-sized.

(family-sized!)

why should i have expected anything different? even a honey-tongued shakespeare has nose hairs to tweeze. even a greek god needs to shit.

i try to remember what you looked like that first night we met, sitting next to me on the porch swing with that smile and those eyes. (you were singing a song, but which one?) i try to remember exactly what you said to me,  something about the wind and the sea. i try to remember how i felt when you leaned in to kiss me.

i go back to bed but you have already fallen asleep:  snoring, slack-jawed, as any mortal might.