Today I decided to take a nice trip around the more unknown parts of Erie, while Jamie stayed at home to work on a "surprise" birthday gift she was concocting for me and my brothers. After about an hour of having the chilled wind blast against my face and have my toes feel as if they were slowly being morphed into small pebbles of granite, I decided to head back home to East 2nd street. To get myself from point A (Presque Isle) to point B (Home), I had to ride across bike-friendly Sixth Street (the only such road in the city), past Gannon University, turn around the corner at Perry Square, and then make a right onto Fourth Street, from whence it's only about a three block ride across State Street to German Street. Most of the trip was without event, until I made the fated right-hand turn onto Fourth Street, when suddenly, somewhere from behind, I heard the aggressive, emotion-startling tone of a car horn. "HOOOOOOOOOONK." "HOOONK" "HONK!" I quickly turned my head across my shoulder to see if I created some kind of terrible calamity, or had gotten in the way of an ambulance--after all I was only a block away from Hamot Hosptital: I would have felt terrible if I had let my late-afternoon ride for leisure, totally ruin the chances of an elderly woman surviving a stroke. Yet, what did I see blazing through the windshield, waving in my direction? A nice 'fuck you' sign from some Neanderthal wearing a flat-brimmed Arizona Diamondback's hat driving a rusted out Honda with two other knights of ignorance reclined in the back.
Now, this is where I change...
In a fit of adrenaline and rage, I turned around and yelled "WHAT!?!?" so loudly that I felt my voice box rumble in my throat. In an attempt at being as inconsiderate as I could, I immediately turned my bike to the left; placing me directly in the middle of the lane, leaving the curmudgeons behind me without the room to pass or go around me. I stopped at the stop light. At about this time, I heard a 'revving' coming from the engine and again looked back. This time I saw the dumb mug of the ignorant perpetrator smiling in my direction. My blood boiled. I gripped the handlebars a little tighter, and felt the adrenaline pulse into my leg muscles and into even into my eye sockets. The light turned to green. I inched over to the left and began my crossing of State Street at a much slower clip than is normal--which was planned of course. I looked back again and saw that the driver rolled down his side window, which normally would frighten me into humbly pulling over and letting the impatient driver by, but today was different: I felt energized when I saw he wanted to spar. I was sick and tired of having to hear horns blasting in my ears and having young high school dropouts driving past, yelling obscenities. I was tired of being ignored by the local government. And I was envious of the fact that our whole society caters to the oil-loving, car-hungry mob. Oh, did I also mention I was full of ancient, male rage!?
His window came down. They pulled up next to me. My enemy had arrived, and I shot off at the mouth quicker than ever before: "FUCK YOU!" I yelled. "I have just as much right to be on this road as you do." I saw on their faces that they were shocked that such a nerdy-looking white kid on a bike could be so angry. I guess I wore it on my eyes, which would have made sense, because I had actually imagined myself at that moment grabbing up my heavy-duty chain lock, swinging it above my head like some Viking warrior and bashing it into the side of their car window, shattering the glass and leaving all of them to pick out the bloody shards from their faces. Maybe the driver saw that in my face? He read me. I think he thought, "This guy is crazy." and hastily drove off.
I tried to catch them two more times at stop signs, but they always managed to out run me, which eventually made me drop the gallant battle. I quickly came to the realization that fighting about an inconsiderate driver wasn't worth the more-than-likely beat-down I would sustain from the three of them. So, I slunk back home; contemplating what had just transpired and why me--Jeremy Ault--a seemingly passive guy--was thrown into a fit of rage.
The only explanation that I have is that on a bike many mundane situations for the driver are as sharp as a Life-or-Death situation for the cyclist. And in that sense, I'm fighting for what I think is my own perpetuation.
Or, I could just chalk it up to a new phenomenon: Bike Muscles: a little healthier than drunk muscles, but pretty much one in the same.
2 comments:
bravo jeremy!
i love jamie's illustration too.
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