Off the seat of a bicycle
Chapter 58  Self-employment, school, another arrest, and a hard depression

I started school and begin running my business. It was full-court-press for nearly two years. I worked day and night, running on 5 hours of sleep.

A typical day was picking up materials for work, going to a couple classes, studying during lunch, going to another class, and then off to work painting and fixing houses and apartments. At night I studied and called customers in an absolute work-a-holic frenzy.

I was amazed with sudden talents in every college field … in business and sociology and astronomy and law … and my experience gave the textbook information a peg to hang on. The first semester I got one A, two A pluses and an A minus, and pulled the collegiate D+ back from the probationary abyss.

And suddenly, my ability to do home repairs and minor remodeling blossomed. I knew electric and plumbing and doors and windows and flooring. I figured out how to do everything by selling products at the lumber and hardware stores.

… and my job made sense too … I was hyperactive, able-bodied, good with my hands, overconfident, and enjoyed working alone, so self-employment was natural.
 
Then late in my 3th semester, probably running on bare fumes and diet coke, I got arrested by Det Larry for carrying a knife while riding my bike … the charges were indeterminate and absolutely no law was broken, but they held me overnight, refusing bond until the next day.

I should’ve sued … god damnit, I should’ve sued … except a police lady on a motorcycle, who I moved out of my lane, complained that I scared her by ‘brandishing a knife.’ Actually it was a closed boxcutter held idly in my left hand while she was being firmly moved out of my lane without threat. She moved over and passed without any incident what-so-ever, and I didn’t think anything about it until the police car cornered me down the street.

When the policeman stopped me, he said something about a knife so I waited until he wasn’t looking and then flipped the boxcutter behind my back into the bushes. But the policeman saw it … and one thing led to another and he wanted me to go to the police station. I rode my bike uphill to the station and waited inside for about 40 minutes before Larry came up and said, ‘well at this point, you’re under arrest.’

To think of all the threat and hard work I exposed myself to over the years and some rent-a-ranger, who is making an illegal pass, calls me a ‘threat to her safety.’

Make up a fucking story.

Ok, I take it like a man, right?

They let me out of jail the next day without a specified charge … it was some vague reference to a weapon, but the compounding problem arose a few days later.

Supposedly the University arrested me, not the local police, so the University called me into an office and told me they were going to suspend me from classes unless I signed a paper saying I was riding a bike ‘erratically.’

Erratically. The story of my life … but erratic bike riding IS the story of bicycle activism.

I wanted to finish my degree, and had a near-perfect 3.96 average since returning … I was proud that twenty percent of my grades were A+. I just didn’t have enough energy to fight them … I should’ve told him to stick his head in a bucket, but I never liked fighting and wanted the whole thing to disappear, and the University cleverly laid that in front of me.

Foolishly and without a lawyer, I signed the paper, and it was over, and I decided to stop riding a bike. I told my mom that all my troubles came on a bike … but it was a mistake … I owed myself a full explanation of the police action during that incident.

However …

… within a few months I experienced a major depression, and it struck like lightning, and it took every ounce of energy just to perform day to day. I had to curtail my workload, and my body wanted rest.

Without a doubt, I felt my depression was suppressed anger from that arrest … I tell you, the arrest diminished everything I had worked for … and it angered me for letting the police determine who I was.

And now you see why I should have taken legal action two years before when the policeman tailgated me in his car. Fuck my so-called code of honor toward authority. You see how it paid me back. You see why I told Suede Brown that I would never go to the cops ... the same reason anyone on the street refuses to cooperate.

If I had sued the city over the tailgating cop, there would have been no probable cause the night of the arrest.

On the other hand, if I sued the city two years before and got that cop fired … it would be the second cop that got fired over me … but, unlike James S.B., this cop was a local guy … who probably had lots of friends … and owned a gun. Maybe I knew intuitively that it would be dangerous to sue that SOB.

You see in America, you are fully qualified to become an officer if you don’t use a grocery cart to smash old ladies out of your way while shopping. On the other hand, the same man who knows how to behave with a grocery cart, is also considered fully qualified to be an officer if he uses a two ton car to force a bicycle out of the way. Thets ‘cause cars is more importink.

No matter, I paid the price. I paid the bill for car-driver attitudes.

Of course a psychologist might argue they arrested me because I appeared psychotic the night of the incident … why else would someone ride a bike in that manner and therefore I must be a danger! But fuck them … were they making a ‘civil commitment’ to stop ‘erratic’ bike riding because that is less important than the cycle-lady following the law? Have I ever ase-run somebody with a grocery cart? Hell no. And I never drove my damn car that way either.

Every activist needs to be committed for being ‘erratic’ … for Christ sake look at China … men are insane for disobeying the local-code, and the Chinese ran over them with a tank to prove it.

Activists in China get beat up and then the local police say the evidence shows the guy did it to himself.

Every activist does it to himself … it’s the same here as in China.

But I was the fool and signed the paper without a lawyer. I was embarrassed and angry, and now debilitated with a fatiguing depression that hung hard around my neck for six months.

A professor noted that I didn’t look people in the eye … and that was true. I was exhausted and the depression over my weakness stole fiber out of my soul.

Activism has a price.

Appendix to chaper 58
I want to comment about the kat-cop incident from Chapter-48 Explaining crows women and uniforms, and the encounter with motor-cycle lady: I have never attacked a woman in my life or been of the bent or urge to do so. So if the motor-cycle police-lady felt threatened, it was the uniform she wore that gave her inordinate privilege to cast an opinion on something that didn’t happen.

I never threatened the motor-cycle cop lady, nor did I brandish a knife at her, nor would I ever … I did what I always do, and that is provoke them into an off-sides penalty like I did with James, and bat-man, and karate-kat-cop from the forest preserve.

Except for ‘intent’ with dusty-grey, I would not attack a person outright, and would only defend myself by feign or mark their property with the intention of having them turn themselves into the police. The fact that motor-cycle cop lady turned herself in, is testimony to the fact that she was making an illegal pass and refused to accept responsibility for it.

Activism has a price, as does the work it takes to accomplish it, but I never stood up to motor-cycle cop lady and forced the issue in court because I have always been weak around people … and weakness is the antithetic of activism.

I may be weak and therefore not a true activist, and as a top-over, I may be a strange experimenter with the social code, but it is outrageous and a lie to suggest I am a predator of women.

Chapter 59) School interviews, fatigue and arthritis
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