Bicycles: A Personal Account

I have a bicycle. An orange one that I had to have a garage sale in order to buy. I also sold a few of my CDs and took clothes into consignment. I was like an 8 year old, except that when I was 8, I probably couldn’t yet ride a bike. Such a late bloomer in certain ways, was I. Am I.

In the story I’m riding through downtown Calgary with my husband. It was the day of the Stampede Parade and so the streets were shut off and crowds were gathering early with their children, cups of Tim Horton’s coffee in hand and lawn chairs in position.
We rode in the crisp morning air - still cool, because mornings will never be hot in Alberta - planning to plant ourselves on the roof of the museum and watch the parade below us. Watch the floats float.

This is where I should begin:
"Hey howdy, hey cowboy," before we left our home, we were sitting on the fire escape talking, you smoking cigarettes and me hanging from the stairs above. (Why didn’t I smoke with you? I do with everyone else.)
We’d sit outside and talk sometimes. We’d go over to the convenience store and buy snacks and pig out with a movie and ding-dongs. Or no ding-dongs, but I’d eat Hotrods anyway, and you’d have peanut M&Ms and Coca-cola. A steady diet of those.

In the story schoolz out for the summer and we are riding our bicycles through Calgary like a couple of teenagers. We plan to plant ourselves on the roof of the museum and watch the parade below us.
Instead I find the letters.
We went to the fucking bookstore, how civilized. I came outside and couldn’t find you and thought you’d left us for good.

Last night I rode out to the shore and found all the houses under water - or flooded I guess. They looked like they were bobbing in the sea, the waves lapping around the front steps and covering the lawn. It was a pretty foggy night and the water was awful black. I may have been riding in it or may have stayed on shore, I don’t know. I just know that I turned around eventually to head home and I felt like I was being followed. I stopped and called Dad to pick me up - I was at the cross-roads - but of what and where I don’t know.
I didn’t see Robert Johnson there.
But I got home and found the bike seat missing the next day.

So you’ve been out boozin’ and whorin’ eh? Just like you’d always wanted in your poems. I don’t know anyone who’s more of a romantic than you, young man. Maybe me. I have that paper bag still, that you gave me the Oreos in.
Man, we built 6 yrs around junk food and couldn’t gain a pound.

"So I’m at the doctor see, and he says he has to check for a brain tumour and I says, what would I want with a tumour?"

(They took a flashlight and looked into your ear for that tumour, the light came shining out your eyes.)

And so I say: "fuck - give me a break, you’ll call when you find out right? Were you going to call or what?"

And I imagine you in your new bar - some strip mall pub in Winterpeg - telling them you talked to your wife on the phone for the first time. Maybe you don’t tell them a thing, being the romantic that you are, you probably want to remain a mystery. Good for you, I wish I could maintain the same composure.

But in the story I’m walking down 14th street in a flowered dress. I think it’s hot outside, I may have brought my cardigan. Karen is somewhere on the other end and we’ll have fish with her. For some reason I hate you only in moments on that walk because I still know we’re on the brink of love.
We were awful young baby. Way too young for how intense and hard we were on one another. Lying in bed in the dark and falling so hard and fast inside - to places I know I’ll never go again.

What did we do again? Go to Superdrug and buy snacks and then that video store in Chinatown and rent Japanese anime porn and lay out blankets and pillows and turn off the lights. It was like building a fortress with you every night. Until something snapped.
Was her name Joanne?
And snapped again.
I sat down on the street and wept.
I lay down on 8th ave and yelled.
I lost myself inside my head - I’m allergic to wine by the way -
We snapped.
I can’t imagine a depth of pain that is any farther down. That’s the truth. You.

So I was on my bicycle you see, coming back from Evanston at around 8pm and it’s misty out. Just spitting rain. It takes about 30 mins and I’m riding through Roger’s Park and it may or may not be a good part of town - I don’t know - but I feel alive. I feel like I just want to stay on my bike in the dusk in the rain forever in a neighbourhood I don’t really know in a city I’ve barely seen. I want to be suspended.

And then the doctor says: you have scar tissue on your heart, you’ve been having a series of small heart attacks.
And I wonder: is that real? Or is it just us and is it just us? Will we die of that exploded heart, when that one last small heart-attack becomes too large?
And we’re in British Columbia in the motel and lying in the bed watching marathon TV and making plans for mini-golf or go-carts. Its deserted. I want to cry to think about it, you and I building forts like that.
You know, we stopped making love. We even stopped fucking - until of course you were leaving.

So I’m on my bicycle and I’m thinking only of that day like I’m watching us from above the roof of the museum, and I see us on our bikes riding into our fate. My hand on that locker door and on the sheets of paper I find there. Something else guided my hand I swear - it was all so fucking karmic. Who could’ve said then, that this is where we’d be now? You in Winnipeg and me in Chicago? Me the drunk, and you? The smart ass I guess. I’m sure you haven't straightened out that piss-poor attitude yet.

Sonorous, rich, cut to ribbons. When we danced around the family room and you sang me songs. I swear to God there’s not a person in the world who knew our love. Not that feeling.