Bicycles & Beer

WWJCD
Originally uploaded by FreeManWalking

When I was young I used to imagine myself as a fifty or sixty year old man, slightly retarded, riding around on a tricycle with three gears and a big basket. In these visions I wore a straw cowboy hat and those thick plastic glasses the Navy and Maries like to call “birth control” glasses. I think I may have even envisioned denim shorts with an elastic waist band at some point.
Thus attired and presumably homeless I would ride my tricycle around town and young jocks would chase me and try to beat me up. Pretty girls would always say things like, “C’mon Jake, don’t mess with that poor man.” I was grateful for their sympathy and would ring the bell on my handlebars and ride off while Jake’s attention was diverted.
So that brings me to today. I do ride a bicycle now, albeit a mountain bike, a fairly decent one at that. I ride commando in cargo shorts in lieu of the denim with the elastic band, wear a tattered ball cap rather than a cowboy hat, and Lasik got rid of the old birth control glasses.
But otherwise the vision has come true…or might, I’m only thirty-six so there’s still time.
I live in the old downtown part of Murfreesboro where people share $900,000 homes within a block or two of ramshackle section 8 housing. Last night I rode to the mini-market on the corner of Main Street and Middle Tennessee Boulevard and bought a 12-pack of Old Milwaukee. As I was about to walk out the door I saw some scraggly middle school kids standing around my bicycle. So, its back to this. Like so many bespectacled, pimply boys, I had problems in middle school. Not popular, pushed around, the kind of guy everybody thought would grow up playing D&D and video games. (Thankfully I actually spent my days out of doors so never got sucked into either of these geek traps).
Well, I walked over to my bicycle fully expecting some heckling, maybe a shove from behind…but instead they just asked if I’d bought the bike at the bike shop a few blocks away. “No, but I hear that place is good.” Then I accidentally stepped into one of the boys who was standing behind me and instead of a belligerent “what the fuck, nerd” he just said, “sorry, Sir.”
I got on the bike and rode toward my apartment carrying the 12-pack by its cardboard handle, hoping it wouldn’t rip and my $7.50 be shot to hell with a bunch of busted beer cans raddled with spouting pin holes. I took Cherry Street, a quiet little lane of nice houses and overarching shade trees. Coming up the street toward me I saw a young mother walking a midget child. She thoughtfully held the child’s hand as he waddled along beside her. As I got closer she looked up and we exchanged gazes.
I know the look, I’ve seen it many times. More women than would like to admit look at me with a certain desire. I’ve still got that going for me. But then they see what I’ve become: a guy in his mid-30’s riding around on a bicycle carrying a 12-pack of beer. I don’t even have the horrid fluorescent spandex of a true cyclist. It doesn’t say a whole hell of a lot about my accomplishments in life.
But maybe its just the head cold talking (I’m all stuffed up this morning). Last night at the bar this girl told me I had a glowing, enriching aura. She ate a special diet so she could see such things. It sounds like a good thing…of course she also described my aura with words one would hear in a shampoo commercial.