The Red Bicycle             

3,500 wds            

In 1975 my family moved from Kailua, Oahu, Hawaii, to Ft. Collins, Colorado, 45 miles north of Denver along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I just finished talking to my mother by phone and she confirmed it. In the summer of 1975 we moved to a new house in a new suburb in South College Heights, on the southern edge of town. 

Our suburb was surrounded by corn fields encircled by rural routes. One day as I rode my bicycle through the country I met a boy my age, 10, on a bicycle. He had a red bike. My bike was green and white. Red, green, and white are still my favorite colors. 

Judging by the look on this boy's face his being there prefigured deep sorrow. He was pale, his skin grayish.  I felt bad for him looking so strained. I wondered why he didn't talk. His mouth seemed glued shut as he looked at me with a furious sadness. At first i was afraid, but soon liked him because he let me talk and seemed to listen intently, always a valuable characteristic.

But he was more than a friend. He became a wall i hid behind. He was my secret friend; no one else in the world knew about or could touch him. I had his complete attention. Later, after my family was torn apart by divorce and my mom and i moved away, i would make up a friend to replace him and hint to my family and friends i had a friend they didn't know about.

My strange friend never visited my house and i never went to his, until today. I had the opportunity to visit his house the summer we met, but the one time he invited me in the driveway looked too long and spooky and i had to get home to feed my puppy.

Today as i rode through the country again, this time on a different bike delivering telephone books, i visited with his mother and learned his name; Thomas Wayne. His mother invited me into the dark, moldy house where photos of him were arranged on a side table. Seeing his face made me frantic with recognition, with a hot rush of memory, then i had the feeling of being turned to stone. I wanted to run, but to where? There is no place left in the world to run. 

That summer when i was ten the first thing i did in the morning to escape the misery in that house was to get on my bike and ride. I didn’t care where i went, but usually i sped into the open country 

and less traffic. It was dangerous in the city where a lot of creeps hung out. The only place in town for me was Al's Tobacco and News Stand. If i had money i would buy a newspaper. I rarely read the paper; i looked at the pictures and enjoyed owning it, it meant i knew the stuff in it and i loved the smell of tobacco in Al’s. A newspaper is also a useful tool. It can be used to smack a bug or a barking dog. Rolled long ways, a newspaper makes a great rifle if i felt like being a soldier.

Al's is on the North side of town. I usually went into the country east or south of town. The Dill Pickle factory was east of town on the banks of the Cache La Poudre river. The river there was sometimes full of rejected pickles. Our family never ate Dill Pickles. We never ate them because we heard that a man had fallen into and drowned in one of the pickle vats long ago and his body was not discovered for two years. Jar after jar of pickles was sealed and sold, each with a little bit of the man in them until they cleaned out that pickle vat and found his skeleton. 

South of town there were hardly any cars on the farm roads. On old maps there is an empty space south of town, pastures and corn fields, which are now housing divisions.

On the day I met Thomas Wayne he appeared behind me as i rode home on Drake Rd. i was late and in a hurry. He followed me, his front tire almost touching my rear tire and scraping my fender. I stopped and he stopped and I said, "My name is Robert, what's your name?"  This was how i was taught to 'manage' (my sister's word) strangers, get names right away. If they hesitate to tell you their name, watch out.

He looked at me and said nothing. His eyes were so sad, i was sure he didn't have a friend in the world.

"What's your name?" i asked.

I liked looking into his eyes and feeling sorry for him, but his silence made me uneasy so i rode on. He followed me until i reached my street, stopped i looked around. He looked at the houses up and down my street. 

"Goodbye," i said. I rode away. After a few strokes of the pedals i looked behind me and he was gone. He must have gone in his own direction. I never knew where that was and now, remembering his face, i shiver thinking of it.

It became a habit for us to ride together through the country, never side by side, always one before the other, intent, going, and in one summer we covered the country fairly well. The only odd thing was him never saying a word. I concluded that he had no vocal cords.

The only day i saw his mouth even move we were riding east of town near the construction of I-25 and approached a farm house I was unfamiliar with. Two vicious dogs lived there and before we passed they rushed out into the road. These were biting dogs, not yapping to tell us they owned this territory or prancing around, but headed low, without barking, ready to lunge and clamp onto a leg. I was leading and afraid. My friend behind me with a burst of energy rode ahead toward the dogs stationed in the road. He went directly for them and i was sure they would bite him. I called to him. He rode on.

They didn’t bite him. He descended upon them and the dogs stopped, backed up, turned and ran. You know how a dog when it's really scared will try and turn around so fast it stumbles over its own hindquarters? That's what these dogs did. They fell all over themselves in terror and ran behind the farmhouse without looking back.

I asked, “Why did they run from you? Why were they so scared? Do you know them?”

He said nothing. We stopped on the road well down the hill and his face, usually pale, now brightened and i saw the only smile, just a hint of a smile, he ever gave me. The dogs never barked at us again although we passed their house many times with myself usually shouting "Come out and get me!" and laughing. 

Then I knew my friend was strange in a good way and I loved him for it. It was easier for me to accept his look of stone. He gave me the chance to talk, to make up stories and people as it suited me, and the more i invented the more i believed in my inventions. To this day and for this reason i expand in the company of quiet people. 

At first i unloaded on him. "My father was a bomber pilot in the war," i said, "He fought in Vietnam too, and flew thousands of missions and was awarded the Medal of Honor just for flying so much. He was the pilot who dropped more bombs than anyone else in the war. My brothers were real smart in school and i have been surfing in California lots of times. I go there whenever i like. My mom is not just the nicest but the smartest mom you'll ever meet and my sister's a real fox, and a talented musician. You'll see her on stage one of these days. " 

He just looked at me. In time i grew desperate and told the truth. 

I told him how my father would come home drunk and beat my mother and how one night he went into my sister's room and slammed the door behind him and she screamed and screamed and there was nothing we could do about it. None of the family talked about that. My father cried about it the next time he got drunk, the night he turned the table over while we were eating dinner. After he started yelling we sat at the dinner table, not putting food into our mouths, but each of us looking at the plate of food in front of us. My father wailed as he usually did about how the Japanese and later the North Koreans ( he never went to Vietnam, that was just the most recent war) had bombed him and tried to shoot him and he got on his knees in front of my sister and promised he would never make her scream again. My mother tried to comfort him, telling him we understood though i didn't have the slightest idea what they were talking about and he got up cussing her and told her what a lousy cook she was and threw his plate of food at her. Then he tried to turn the table over on her. My father was a strong man, he could lift a dinner table covered with plates and food enough for four people. My mother was too fast for him and slipped to one side and everyone got out of the way as it came over.  My father told us if we spoke to him he would kill us and went into the living room to watch tv.  We helped my mother clean the food off the floor. She fixed sandwiches and told us to go eat them in our rooms. 

I told my friend Thomas Wayne all this and it made me feel better to see the sadness in his face, and then i felt bad that i had hurt my friend.  

Gradually we grew so used to each other that i didn't have to say anything at all. That was the best time

One day we approached a train crossing at which several automobiles waited for a train to pass. It was a long, slow freight train. My friend was ahead of me. He looked back and caught my eye, turned and sped toward the train. I seemed to know what he was thinking. He thought that if he rode fast enough he could pass between the train cars; hop from the road over the track and the metal connection that locked two train cars together and come out on the other side.  

So he went. I called to him and chased him, but he was too fast. He sped by the automobiles in line waiting before the orange and white barrier with flashing lights. I stopped. 

And here is the strangest part, he passed between the cars. I waited until the train passed and there he stood on the other side. I rode up to him and saw in his face a severe pride, a glow of accomplishment for doing something so difficult, something i'm sure no one had done before. 

This was not the only time Thomas Wayne leapt between the train cars. Our arrival at that train crossing coincided with the passing of a train many times and each time he would make his amazing leap, encouraging me to try it. He was instructing me. Each time his face shone with pride. I almost did try, but each time some detail got in the way. Thinking about it gave me the feeling of being on a tall building or cliff knowing i could fly if only i would try. I could do it and please him and feel as good as he felt. But i didn't want anything to happen to my bike. I had bought it myself with 47 dollars i had won playing bingo at the VFW club in Loveland, and besides, i didn't know how to jump the bike. No one 

showed me how to jerk back on the handlebars at the same moment one pedal is sharply thrust down and the weight of the body is thrown back, making the front wheel pop up. I could do that, but could not get the rear wheel off the ground, as Thomas Wayne seemed to do. Plus my eyes were too slow to pick out the piece of sky between the cars that i knew he aimed for. So i never tried, i gave up. He must have very soon known i was a quiter seeing me struggling, pulling at the handle bars and kicking the pedals, knew i would never try, though he called to me with his eyes, wanting me to join him. My body was like lead. 

One day my front tire fell into a pothole and i flew over my handlebars onto the road. We had taken a different route and i didn’t know about the pothole. Landing, i hit my head, scarred my face (scars i still have today) and scratched up my arms, but otherwise nothing seemed to be broken. I got up and went on, unsteady but determined to continue. I was a bit dazed and short of breath, but still upright. 

Although we took this different route, we arrived at the same railroad crossing, this time approaching from the other side. I didn't understand why we went in circles to get there, it seemed my friend was indecisive and hesitated. As soon as i recognized the road i charged ahead. The air was filled with an unusual humming and the day was very hot. I felt dizzy, thirsty. As I came around a bend i saw that the train had stopped down the tracks and a crowd of adults had gathered. Their faces were full of fear. My friend was behind me, i thought, as i rode up to the crowd yet, glancing behind me, he was not there. This added to my feeling of sudden confusion. I slowly approached the crowd, which was gathered around something on the ground. Suddenly a man came out of the crowd and told me to ride away fast. I would have gone had Thomas Wayne been there to go with me. I told the man I was looking for my friend and said i wanted to find him, that he was gone. 

The man shouted again and grabbed me and my bicycle, lifted us and turned us around and pushed us down the road. "Get out of here," he shouted as he pushed me, "You don't want to see anything around here!" I thought he would hit me. He had a face like my father's face when he was drunk, with his eyes going zig-zag and not blinking. I rode away.  

 Soon Thomas Wayne rode up behind me and without looking at me and wanted to ask him but rode ahead and i followed. 

On this same day I almost went to his house, but didn't want to go down the long driveway. I didn't even see his house in the trees. Thomas Wayne wanted me to go up that long road but i remembered i had to go feed my puppy, so i went home. That far into the country, i was an hour away.

Soon after, my father and mother separated and my motherand i moved to a house in LaPorte, 20 miles north of Ft. Collins. I then had the foothills and mountains to ride in and never saw Thomas Wayne again, until this afternoon. 

It was that same long vaguely familiar driveway i fled from many years before that i rode my bicycle down to deliver a telephone book. 

The house was gray-white, mostly gray, one story, and closed in by trees and untrimmed bushes. The front porch was cluttered with fallen leaves and sticks and i threw a telephone book on the rotting heap. So long as it’s on the porch i’m following the rules and I get paid.

Before i could turn my bike around and leave an old woman’s face appeared at the door. The shriveled mouth said, “Would you like some lemonade, young man?”

Something for free!  I said yes. Riding my bike in the asphalt reflected heat made it imperative that i quiet my thirst. Suppressing my 

enthusiasm, i entered the house. 

Her house was clean, but it seemed that none of the objects had been moved for many years. She motioned me to a chair beside the air-conditioner and a table on which a row of photos in gilded tin frames were arranged according to size.

The old woman’s lemonade was very cold and sweet. For a long time she talked, about what i can’t remember. There appeared to be no purpose to her talk and she didn’t seem to care if i responded. You know how some people are, their mind, their whole head, seems to be inside a bubble and they could break the bubble if they would merely shut up. 

By the time i had finished one glass of lemonade my clarity of mind had returned and i looked around with more interest. Her house was full of small items too numerous to list. And my eyes were drawn, perhaps to discover the key to her life there, to the photographs neatly arranged on a side table. There were ten or fifteen, of a baby, then a boy, growing older in each successive frame. He was familiar to me.

Her talk subsided at the same moment i realized that these pictures were of my friend on the red bicycle, the boy i hadn’t seen in twenty years.

I said to her, “I know this boy. He and i used to ride bikes together through the countryside.”

  The talkative old woman now fell mute and looked intently at me. The silence in the room was like an expanding globe and a yearning came into her eyes. I glanced back at the pictures, which felt like they had become electrically charged. 

She said, “You knew Thomas?”

“Yes, is that his name, Thomas?”

“My son, yes. Thomas Wayne. You knew him?”

“Sure did. He and i used to ride bikes all through this country in the summer of 75.”

At the mention of this the old woman looked at me more closely and said, “Young man, you are mistaken.  You could not have known Thomas in the summer of 75. “ Her voice fell low, her tone softened as she said, “my son was killed in a train accident in the summer of 74.”

The sensation of my legs turning to stone crept up me. The smiling, tan faced boy in the photos, who must have once been as capable of talk as his mother, I realized, was the living  Thomas Wayne. Then i knew the boy himself had entered the room by an unseen door, had been in the room standing or sitting with us as we talked, his eyes following our faces.

The old woman burst into talk about Thomas. Every word returned to me something i had forgotten. She asked me, “Would you like to see what is left of his bike? I have it in his room. I have everything in his room.”

I could not go into that room, it was what i feared most. If she opened the door Thomas Wayne would be standing behind it. I backed out, apologizing for staying so long, and headed for my bike, the driveway and out of there.

As it is, i’m afraid to look at the past, or the future, i know what is in my future. There is something horrible in it. The old courage men are supposed to have, if i ever had it, is gone. Observe the way i stumbled out to the driveway. I was scared, scared to the bottoms of my feet, scared in every cell of my body. I got on my bike and didn’t look back until i arrived at the truck loaded with telephone books. It was parked in a suburb several miles away. 

Here i was at last, though it is shaky, it is my sanctuary in the present. My co-worker, Paul, waiting stretched out beneath a tree, sweat beading his forehead and a can of beer, also beaded with moisture, but cold, touching his lips. This sight seemed to return me to a position more in keeping with reality. Now everything could return to normal. 

End  of “The Red Bicycle”