Wipeout (part 2)

If you’re one of the 2 people that faithfully follow this blog, you may recall a poem I posted millennia ago, titled Wipeout (see that post here). At the time I mysteriously hinted that the poem was loosely based on a traumatic bicycle-related incident from my own past and that I would, in time, share the story of that trauma with you. I know you must have been eagerly anticipating it ever since that day… and the wait is finally over.

The time has come.

Fasten your helmet straps securely, kids. I have a story for you.

…

The day was bright and hot. The sun was high in the sky.

The bike was indubitably badass.

At my request, no frilly tassels graced the handlebars of this bike, for it was no girl bike. I didn’t want my enemies to be showered in glitter; I wanted them to feast on my dust.

I received the bike as a gift on my eighth birthday, and as I beheld it in all its red-and-black, lightning-slashed glory, I knew in my rebel heart that this was a vehicle with a single purpose: speed. And speed it did.

Looking back, the outcome of this story should have been entirely predictable. The bike itself was emblazoned with the word “Wipeout” along the frame, like a chilling prognostication of the doom it brought. I should have, literally, read the signs.

But of course, I was then a short, far less pragmatic version of myself, unconcerned with the Doom of Man. I was Hercules, Conqueror of Monkey-bars, Numenorian, invulnerable. My best friend had recently taught me, with a wooden sword and some plastic armor, how to lop off the heads of my opponents in battle.

I didn’t fear the bike. Not then. When I first met it the bike feared me, and I knew the pavement would soon quake beneath my tires.

Fast-forward a few days to the aforementioned hot, sunny day.

This day was a special day, set apart from all other equally stifling Nebraska summer days, because not only was I eight years old, I had a new bike. And not only did I have a new bike, but my mom had agreed to let me ride it down our street to the playground. All by myself. My time had arrived.

I shuffled my vehicle of two-wheeled awesomeness to the edge of our driveway, outlining the route through my glasses. The playground beckoned from the bottom of the hill, its lurid green and purple equipment radiating heat like a moth-drawing porch light. I could see the chains on the swing set glinting in the sun.

I took off.

The stars had aligned on that perfect day, for no cars jutted out of out of their respective driveways to impede my flight. I had been granted a clear shot straight down to the playground.

The bike was fast, but I wanted faster. I pedaled. My hair snapped behind me like a flag of triumph, and the wind tasted like the sweet freedom I had only ever dreamed of in my entire eight years of personhood.

At the bottom of the hill, the sidewalk turned sharply to the left.

If you remember, eight-year-old me was no stranger to feats of daredevilry like sharp turns. I had climbed the rock wall at the sporting goods store once; this bit of curving concrete just ahead wasn’t about to stop me. And so, thinking myself utterly capable, I rounded the turn, squeezing hard on the brakes–new, grown-up handlebar brakes–in what I surely thought to be a controlled manner.

My momentum met its kryptonite. Or, more precisely, my bike’s momentum met its kryptonite. Consequently my body, being made of tangible matter and not shimmering light particles, was carried forward by that pesky inertia Bill Nye had warned all us kids about. I launched over my front tire like an armless penguin.

My face smacked the ground, hard. Needless to say, it felt like someone had thrown a brick at my mouth. Someone with really good aim.

I tasted blood and screamed, my invincibility shattered. The mom I’d left behind in our driveway came running to my rescue, driving home the fact of my actual helplessness.

My bike had betrayed me. It would be over a year before I’d ride again, rolling timidly down a new (and steeper) driveway, pumping my brakes in cautious paranoia.

I don’t know what it was that hit me so hard (other than the sidewalk), but something heavy kept me from getting back on that bike sooner. For a kid with a resume full of daring exploits, I had always been remarkably prone to nightmares. Darkness brought with it a creeping chill, and over that next year I spent many late nights feverishly suppressing bicycle-related panic. I felt unstable. Looking back I think maybe I left behind a bit of myself at the bottom of that hill, a piece of the innocence that let me believe I could trust my own judgement.

Now, on this side of a decade, I can chuckle at my younger self’s foolish bravado. As a poet, the irony of a bike named Wipeout strikes me. I love telling this story and showing people the gnarly scar where the sidewalk sucker-punched my lip almost twelve years ago. I have, as they say, moved on.

But on summer days, as I cruise down the road on my new adult-sized bike, high-fiving trees, at the crest of every hill I still feel the ghost of a past self pull back on my handlebar brakes.