I’ve always thought a bicycle was the best way to get around, especially in New Orleans, where there are no hills to affront the ab-challenged.
I favor big, fat-tire, one-speed models for their comfort and ability to negotiate curbs, exposed streetcar tracks, potholes, drunks on the sidewalk, and the general curbside debris of New Orleans.
This is no town for thin tires.
Also, with a big, fat bike, I’ve never felt the pressure that many men my age suddenly feel to wear spray-on black shorts and bright yellow shirts with Italian logos on them.
But somehow I can still manage to feel nearly naked and overexposed. This happened to me last week when I was tooling around the Upper 9th Ward, where my presence on a bicycle prompted three people to ask me if I was from Common Ground, the hippieish volunteer organization set up over there, because who the hell else would be riding a bicycle around what used to be one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in town?
So there I was in the 9th, riding around and taking notes, when a speeding car broke the peace of the moment on a street whose only sounds were those of industry: hammers, nail guns, Skil saws.
As the car—a white sedan—whipped past me, two guys hanging out on the corner up ahead yelled out the driver’s name and the car screeched to a halt. I was over by my side of the road, next to the curb, when the sedan driver threw the car into reverse and then plowed into me.
As I said, my bike is big and heavy. Real heavy, with tires like a Hummer.
The car hit my back tire and sent me shooting forward like a cowboy on a crazed rodeo bronc. Amazingly, I stayed on the thing. I ended up about ten yards from where I had been a second before, but I appeared to be upright and unharmed. Shaken, not stirred.
The driver looked at me and said, “My bad,” and then hauled off up to the corner where his friends were waiting. Just like that.
You just hit me and all I get is “My bad”?
“Yeah, I guess so!” I yelled as he drove away, but I felt my response was lacking the fortitude the situation called for. Then again, big red bikes don’t really pulse with auras of fortitude. In fact, they veritably shout: Poet aboard!
So. What to do? I have just been hit by a car and the driver drove away. He is up the block with friends. I don’t appear to be suffering any injuries, and my bike seems fine. I am in an unfamiliar neighborhood. I conclude: Don’t get involved.
Philosophically, this aggrieves me. But I am alone and unarmed, because the fact is: the pen may be mightier than the sword, but it’s no match for a Glock.
So I am about to ride away in a cloud of angst when a very large man steps up from behind me. Turns out he is a cop. A very large cop, or did I already say that?
He saw the whole thing. He asks if I am all right. I tell him yes and then he strides up to the three guys standing on the corner. They all jawbone for a while and then the cop waves me to join them and I curse under my breath and now I am, indeed, involved.
Funny, at this point, the two guys from the corner fall all over themselves asking if I’m okay. I tell them yes and thank them for their sincere concern for my health—now that the heat has arrived.
The driver, though, he yells in my face, “You called the police? You want to call the po-lice?”
“How could I have called the police?” I said. “You hit me ninety seconds ago.”
Everybody starts yelling. “You want to call the po-lice!” the driver keeps yelling. It’s stupid. I am a guy on a bicycle in a place I shouldn’t be, and this is what happens. But then I’m thinking: No, this is my city, I can be here. Dammit.
But why is the guy who just hit me copping attitude like I’m the bad guy? Where does this come from?
I keep marveling at how huge the cop is. I take comfort from this. He asks me if I want to press charges, I tell him no; in fact, it was a minor traffic infraction in and of itself. It was the aftermath of swagger and stupidity that, to me, constitute the bigger crime, but what are you going to do? It’s not against the law to be an ass.
And what if it was? Man, you think our jails are crowded now?
The driver holds firm on his infallible alpha-male stance, but the other two guys do that thing that is probably one of the male species’ most annoying traits. They keep shaking my hand. Over and over.
“We’re cool, right?” they say and then the handshake. They won’t stop shaking my hand. And when they stop, they say something else and reach for my hand again.
I tell the cop thank you and withdraw my hand from further assault. And I ride away, feeling somehow humiliated by the experience, though I’m not sure what I did to feel that way.
On my big red bike in this big mean world, sometimes I feel like Pee-Wee Herman.
But I’m not going to stop riding around town. Not gonna let the fools get me down. This is our town. These are our streets. I’m allowed to be here.
From now on, though, I’m gonna watch my back.