Bicycle

prompt: things that used to be red but aren't anymore


I stare incredulously at the mangled pile of metal, at the wheel bent awkwardly and the spokes splaying in odd directions, and then white hot anger tears through me.

I don't even care  that he broke his arm and is howling his way to the emergency room right now. Of all the stupid things my brother has tried to do - this one tops them all.

The cicadas buzz in the afternoon heat and I have to shade my eyes from the searing glare of the sun.  I look up at the solarium roof and then back down at the shimmering ripples making their way across our pool.

Trying to ride my old bike off the solarium roof and into the pool requires a level of insanity (or stupidity I haven't quite decided which yet) that is almost incomprehensible to me.

I stare at the black smear that the rubber of the front wheel has made on the cement, right next to the edge of the pool.  He almost made it I think, and this makes me smile a little.

 My fingers run slowly over the bicycle's bent frame to a place where the black paint has been scratched away, revealing the candy apple red of it's former glory.

Bitterly, I think of the full year of slogging through all kinds of inclement weather I had to do before I had earned enough to buy that bike - my ticket to freedom.
I hauled my wagon full of papers around every corner of the neighbourhood. I braved even the crazy cat lady's front porch (that was always littered with cat scat) and Mr. Garrett's house (our neighbour who never seemed to get out of his bathrobe and underwear), just to earn enough to buy that bike.

 For three whole summers it had delivered me to the local creek -where  my best friend Shelly and I would spend hours jumping off the tire swing or paddling around on inner tubes . Sometimes we would spy on the boys from school who would swim in their underwear when they thought we weren't around. At least twice a week it ferried me to Bob's convenience store where we would buy as many sour keys as we could with the change we dug out of the couch, and suck on them until the sugar and sour rubbed our tongues raw. That bike had propelled me at top speed to Shelly's house the afternoon Jacob Keller broke my heart by kissing Amanda-goodie-two-shoes behind the school, and still worked perfectly even though I dropped it like a hot stone on the driveway as soon as I could see Shelly's front door.

Even after my legs has grown too long and gangly for it to comfortably transport me, I had a special reverence for this bike. But my brother could never understand or appreciate that .

Adding injury to insult not only did my brother not have to earn his bike, but on a whim he laid claim to my old bike, spray painting it black with an old aerosol can from the garage to make it his "stunt" bike.
Dad just laughed and said he'd make him a ramp for the driveway, so he could practice some tricks, and Mom just shrugged her shoulders and sighed the way she always does when she can't be bothered. The rules were always different for Robbie.

My dark brown -and- not- black hair is absorbing the sun the like solar panel waiting to buzz me full of energy and light. It is actually hot to the touch. I can't sit here anymore so I stand, then hop, over to my discarded flip flops because the ground is burning the soles of my feet. I lift the broken bike up,  taking care to keep the damaged tire off the ground and wheel it around to the side of the house, where I dump it unceremoniously. This will be it's resting place until its final internment at the town dump.

Rest in peace I whisper over it's crumpled remains.  And then I am white hot mad all over again.
My brother would probably already be demanding a new bike. It had no value to him, it was just another disposable form of entertainment.
It's just a bike I guess, but that damaged heap about summed up my life.

It's too hot to be this mad. A swim is in order. As soon as my body hits the cool water, I have an epiphany.  He'll have a cast. He won't be able to swim. Probably for the rest of the summer.
A smile creeps across my face even though I know it shouldn't.  I make a mental note to be in the pool when they get home.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.