Bike Courier - Entry 2

March 24, 2007

Ever since the human race abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and formed sustainable communities, every action the race takes is nothing more than an emphatic statement that we are not animals. We look to the Heavens for mercy, promising a slaughtered sheep in return. We dress extravagantly and live in preposterous shelters. Trails are paved to be comfortable underfoot. We scar and abuse the earth, turning her into our bitch rather than a mother of providence. The human race is arrogant.

This is a cynical perspective, I know, but spend any significant time in the city and one would be hard pressed to find evidence to the contrary. The Concrete Jungle is so called not because of its assiduity, but the heterogeneity therein.

A bicycle immured in traffic should look like a suckerfish picking clean a shark. Instead, it is a potent example of aposymbiosis where car and bicycle spar like ancient Roman gladiators. Here the aristocracy has released venomous steel behemoths in lieu of ferocious tigers or vengeful silverbacks.

Two days I saw society's Ceaser turn its thumb down at another cyclist. I was cruising a mostly empty street and he rode a quarter mile up the road. He was a commuter; perhaps heading back to the office after lunch or heading home after a short day. His helmet was strapped tightly to his head and his right pant leg was carefully rolled to barely avoid the reach of a chainring's teeth. I laughed inwardly at the site of his street stained backpack and penny-loafers clutched by toe clips. He pedaled, undaunted, in the middle of the road, faster than I could have predicted.

A flash of light caught my eye and I saw the glint of the freshly washed grill on an Escalade. It was blinding under sunlight. I watched that same grill slip between parked cars and into the street far too quickly. The cyclist I laughed at moments before, now a perfect contour of the SUV's front side. The Escalade's tires squealed and skidded to halt. The rider was hurled onto the asphalt and slid across the far lane; stopping abruptly at the curb, a disjointed pile of wheels, bike, legs and elbows.

The runt in the SUV gripped the steering wheel tightly, with two hands. I watched him look up and down the street anxiously, then take off like the scumbag that he is. I grit my teeth and jumped on the pedals. Today I played vigilante. He might run from the police, run from the law, but he couldn't run from justice. Surely he saw me, panting in his rear-view mirror. He turned left and right at random. He sped through lights burning yellow. I trailed and parried every maneuver he could play. Together we danced a deadly promenade. Block after block I stuck to his path, until the bastard found an on-ramp.

I locked my pedals, skidding to a stop. I dismounted, cursing and punching the demons that clouded my vision. I was the lion that lost its gazelle. In a triumph of foresight, I memorized his license plate and scribbled it in my manifest. I dialed 911 and reported the accident.

I should take comfort in the fact that the man will have a warrant out for his arrest, but I don't. Often these kinds of accidents go unpunished. They likely won't look for him. They don't care that a commuter is bleeding in a storm drain. He shouldn't have been there in the first place, right?

On Monday I will roll back into the city and nothing will be different. Life will be moving at the same breakneck pace it always does. People will continue to roam unawares and new tracks will be beaten down where old memories lay. The teeming, chaotic mass of humanity will ever consume itself.

Keep your eyes open, kid. It's a jungle out there.