Off the seat of a bicycle
Chapter 22    I became a bicyclist that year 1973 / the informer and I steal ladders

I became a bicyclist that year 1973, not a basketball player or bricklayer. I was an athlete and honed my skills, and could cobble over curbs without hands and swerve in and out of traffic at will. My terror manifested itself on the community and I belonged nowhere. I found a new state of mind.

Pirates live by a code, and I was no exception. My rules took nobody into concern, and I took no prisoners. If I chose to run a stoplight or roil down a sidewalk full of people then that was my choice as a free man.

How is that any different from a coach pushing their athletes to find the extreme because the opposing team doesn’t care?

Yes that’s right. Cars do not care. They rush for yardage, willing to crush anybody to gain an inch at the intersection. Well that’s not exactly true, but true enough when you’re on a bicycle.

I introduced bike-riding to Dan the Informer. And also to my younger brother. Both men came to see bike-riding as a requisite in their lives because neither had a car. My younger brother became an expert cyclist and the physical motion helped his arthritic back, and it added a proud accomplishment to his life that he still enjoys today.

My relationship with Dan was complicated. He was a local boy who had fallen behind the herd and had no job and developed a theory about life: ‘the best way for seeds to grow is to cast them at arm’s length on un-toiled soil.’ I guess that meant he didn’t want to work, but we stole two aluminum ladders and went into the painting business together.

The informer and I stole two aluminum ladders! Why did that go unreported?  Did Dan want a job? Did he violate impeccable ethics for selfish gain? But then again, ethics are just a measure of rash desperation aren’t they? There is no right or wrong. All actions cause change, and that’s all there is.

Does Dr. Gray think he would not steal my loaf of bread to feed his starving children? Of course he would, and ultimately what difference do those tiny accounts make? Life can be chiseled down to a simple formula: all men cause change, and all change to become men. And that’s all there is; everything is ‘change.’ Just like inside Wayne’s cave where every man made his mark over all those that preceded him; man must mark his change.

In Wayne’s cave, there is no memory of which man was honest and which stole a hamburger. All that remains is the mark, and mankind innately understands this, otherwise why do people make a mark to begin with. Why else build a pyramid?
 
The only immortality available to man is the change you cause by scratching into the cave ceiling with your torn fingers before you drown in the black water, and even that is eventually lost to time.

So did it matter that Dan the Informer stole two ladders with me? Or did one unlawful change in property ownership allow a positive change when we used those ladders to find useful work in society? I’ve always said, there’s no sense shooting two Christians to save one … although I don’t know what that means.

I had occasional work from the Bank’s trust department and bought a ’55 Chevy pick-up truck for $200. I went gliding about town showing off my new rust. But that old truck couldn’t go faster than 35 mph.

I moved into a house on Washington Street that shared common areas and I made a zoo of new friends.

Somehow our Washington Street group started an evening volleyball game that attracted young people from all around the area. I had the final say on the teams because I made them equal. I could divide up sides and make them equal, and people accepted that about me. They looked to me to do that at the beginning of each game.

Down deep inside, people just want equality and fairness. That’s what people really want.

Inequality is the cause of every fight, and I was about find one.

Trouble was coming, and that trouble would be the first seed in a long fight for bicycle equality on the road.
Chapter 23) James and the felony
Chapter 24) Arrest and sentence
Chapter 25) The-sex-try
Index of chapters