Off the seat of a bicycle
Chapter 43-44    Bat-man and side-kick wifey
 
It was near downtown Chicago early on a Sunday morning and I had been riding since the night before and the sun was just up. I pedaled north along a five-lane street (two lanes one direction, 2 the other way, and a turn-lane in the center). There were parked cars along both sides and the street was empty … until bat-man and his wife came up behind me and kept coming in my lane. I motioned for him to relent but he refused to budge into any of the empty lanes (bat-man traffic violation #1).
 
His actions endangered me, pushing me against parked cars where a door might spring open … so I chucked a spit on the bat-mobile as he passed (my social aberrant behavior #1). He reacted immediately and steered right, trying to squeeze me into the parked cars (bat-man assault #1). But I flipped the bike left, and rode around him running the red light out ahead of him and continued riding north. He stayed behind, waiting at the red light.
 
You see, this fool was going to have to stop at the red light anyway, so why did he race over the top of someone and try to endanger them? This is the complete essence of car driver logic. People turn into bug-eyed geese as soon as they get in a car. They don’t treat people like that in the grocery store. They don’t treat people like that when they walk down the street. But they sure as hell act that way around defenseless unprotected people on the road.
 
Let’s move on, and make a note here: When he halted at the traffic light, I didn’t confront him or commit any act of retaliation, instead I kept riding north, and at no time during the incident did I approach him. Yet the entire time I firmly pushed for my right to safe passage on the road.
 
Second note: If he had run the red light after me, it would mean a man more intent on forcing injury. The fact that he didn’t run the light told me he was a law-abiding ‘socializer-cow’ and would not be of great danger.
 
Therefore, I concluded the street we were on was bat-man’s cow pasture, and my non-conformist bike was trespassing on his dirt pie.
 
Socializers are herd-members and easily spooked by those who defy their version of the world. They don’t accept change … you know them … the gossipers … they spread gossip and hate at the workplace and in their neighborhoods … and if the herd runs one way, they run too because they can’t imagine anything else … they don’t even know why they run … all they know is they are happiest pissing and shitting in the same field their whole lives.
 
Half-way to the next traffic light, I looked back and bat-man was charging again, only this time the lady in the car was driving while the man hung out the passenger window swinging a baseball bat LOL (bat-man assault #2).
 
I split a gut. It was hilarious. It was pure Robert Schuler on PCP. I pulled out my screwdriver, and held it up for them to see … and knew dead certain the woman was his wife … this certainly wasn’t a first-date activity.
 
I always carried bicycle tools and a patch kit, and wedged the screwdriver in my left fist, curling my arm forward to stick bat-man if he swung the baseball bat at me (weapon preparedness: my socially aberrant behavior #2).
 
So here they come, still in my lane but I’m looking straight back at them while continuing to ride north. By that time in my career, I could ride forward while looking behind me for blocks-on-end, and I wasn’t going to take my eyes off those people.
 
Just as they pulled near, the woman steered wide and passed completely around my bike before coming back into the lane and stopping at the red light ahead. I went around their car on the left side again and ran the red light while bat-man jumped out and hurled his bat completely across the 4-lane cross-street trying to hit me (bat-man assault #3). The bat bounced short of its mark and rolled to the right curb.
 
I immediately stopped in the center turn lane on the north side of the traffic light … bat-man’s car was stopped on the south side of the intersection, and the bat lay 30 feet away against the right-lane curb.
 
There were still no moving cars and bat-man ran across to claim his bat … so now we’re 30 feet apart … separated by two lanes with no cars around … just him and me … I’m straddling the bike and he’s arrived at the bat.
 
I looked across at his car and then back at him, and then using my best Chicago accent, I guttered out, ‘I got your [license plate] number, and I’m gonna find you.’ As if the horror-show was only good at some indeterminate later date, but the whole time I’m using the raging eyes and attitude mimicked from the mob guy (my socially aberrant behavior #3).
 
Despite the score being square-even 3 to 3 … bat-man blanched puke-white, picked up the bat and ran back to his car. He was scared, and they drove hurriedly past and disappeared down the street.
 
But they would be back.
 
… the socializers always come back … always … you can bank money in Vegas on that. It’s the prime directive of the Enterprise to claim moral providence over all social situations, and Capt’n Kirk will blow up your whole fucking planet to make it right … just so the American flag can be raised and the socializer-cows are left cheering.
 
Making it ‘right’ is the very definition of socialization; even the sociopath suede-brown did it.
 
I turned down Lincolnwood Ave. Not riding fast but watching my back-side for bat-man … and just as predicted, ‘batman returns,’ only he doesn’t bring his big brother … he brings a patrol car. A black and white. Two bruisers in a cruiser. The mambo pie.
 
The police pulled me over … identification please … whatz the story … this guy says … blah blah. My Ass … he pushed me against the parked cars and threw a bat; bat-man sez, no no officer he has a screwdriver; but I always carry bike tools; oh no he’s got my license number blabber slather … the police weighed the situation and started chewing a giant second hole in bat-man’s ass, so I rode away and didn’t look back. But the whole time I stood there with the police, I didn’t look at bat-man, because I wanted him thinking about it.
 
I wanted that mf nervous about me. If you assault me on the god dam road, then you got something coming.
 
Today I would demand assault charges, at least until bat-man gave over his bat to the police, but in 1977 I didn’t understand the legal significance of my work.
 
Nevertheless, it was obvious what happened … the lawbreaker turned himself in …
 
… and folks, this is the a-b-c of socializers … a) they believe they have the right to drive any way they want, b) they demand their right to drive any way they want around a cyclist, and c) my implied threat appears so severe that it forces them to run to the police.
 
Yes my implied threat…
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Chapter 44     fundamental legal answers arise from bat-day
 
Usually when the police are injected into a social fray, they side with whoever is panicked the most.
 
Since I never reported anything to the police, and never panicked, even with the gravest threat, the police usually assumed the car-driver’s panic was the ‘au-fait’ reading of any situation.
 
… but look at the outcome from bat-day: the car driver was totally panicked but, sweet haircut on Tuesday, the police defended a cyclist’s right to safe passage.
 
I would’ve believed a snake bite in Alaska before that.
 
Bat-day was pivotal. It contained every element of the car-bike conflict: illegal driving; assaultive driving; assaultive threat; minimal provocation by the bicyclist; genuine danger for the bicyclist; defense of rights by the bicyclists; total non-aggression by the bicyclist; resistance to assault; and finally issuance of a vague threat which induced the car driver to tattle himself to the police …
 
The atypical reaction of the police that day inexorably led to a higher understanding of the law. Car drivers could be held accountable for endangering people … and I was thrown on my head.
 
My mind teased out the key legal questions and the fundamental answers: does the bicycle have a right to sole occupation of any marked lane if that makes him safer? YES. Does the state have a right to demand a bicycle yield his lane rights to a car if that makes the situation more dangerous? NO.
 
So if the government requires red lights atop radio towers to protect people; and if the government requires school zones to protect people; and if the government required the caves be closed for public safety in Indiana …
 
… then the state cannot enforce any law that demands a person to assume increased risk of injury by following that law. Therefore bikes do not have to yield their right-of-way to motor vehicles.
 
I never forgot the simple lesson learned from bat-day: to be an effective bicycle activist, you must do what it takes to cause the car driver to turn himself into the police … and have him admit to breaking the law and endangering people.
 
So I came to understand a very important nuance: the police will side with car drivers 99% of the time, but if you push it exactly right, then they will have to grant you equal protection. However, this protection is tenuous and non-existent if the police turn against you. It all gets back to what the judge decides.
 
The final word for equal protection comes from the courts, and strangely the courts have remained mum on the issue because judges are elected by car drivers.
45) Bike riding filled me
Chapter 46) Gacy
47) Dusty Grey
Index of chapters