Dear Graduate Program(s):
Hi! If you are here, it means you have received the card I sent you. Welcome! I am a writer of the creative non-fiction style. I’m a big fan of the memoir and a bigger fan of semi-fictionalized anecdotes. How do you like them? I hope you like them a lot and that you like my creative nonfiction stories, which I have attached below as handy links. Most of them are postmodern, like the URL I sent you -- http://postmoderndystopia.blogspot.com. Keeping in mind Second Life, Web 2.0, postmodernity, cyber presence and all that, I have posted my portfolio electronically. Not only does it save paper, but it saves me from having to talk to postal workers. And I don’t have to leave the comfort of my apartment (or put on pants). But enough about me.
Why do you want RdB for your creative writing program? Simple. I like writing. I like reading. You probably like those two things. We have stuff in common and should hook it up. Not even lying. Just shoot me an email to the address provided (no snail mail, please), and we’ll draw up the papers (as PDF attachments, please).
Best Regards yo,
--RdB
PORTFOLIO:
How to Survive a Car Wreck
Maus Haus
Free Ride
Transit
The Man in the Quarry
Showing posts with label portfolio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label portfolio. Show all posts
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Maus Haus
Five years and two lifetimes ago, I was an architecture major. Most of my time was spent in a sleep-deprived fog of frustration and passive aggressive turmoil. From the get-go, from the very start, it did not fit with me. I knew this very early on, for within the first two weeks of entering the program, I had pulled an all-nighter. It snuck up on me, the first night of my life when I did not get any rest. Around 3 a.m., things stopped making sense. I brewed a whole pot of coffee and drank none of it. I broke back into the studio after hours to find the place deserted. No one stayed up late at the beginning of the semester. There was no reason to. One would think I’d have come to terms with my short comings and just moved on. But I lived the next two years in denial.
It wasn’t an entirely uphill climb those two years. Some days and weeks were easier than others, but in the grand scheme of things it was never meant to be, nor was there anything I could have done to make it work.
Five years and two lifetimes ago, I began a failed endeavor, but kept on with it for fear of embarrassment or the great what if?!
Four years and two lifetimes ago, I realized it was not going to work, no matter how hard I tried, but I kept on anyway, for the same reasons listed above.
By the end of my third semester as an architecture student, the assignment that defeated me wholly, that completely crushed my spirit as an artist and creator, was not in and of itself very complicated. We had to design a pretty or hip house in a city then multiply that house by four, each residence butted up against one another in a line. It was a rowhouse. You’ve seen them; they’re everywhere. I can practically look out my window onto Cedar and see a whole mess of them. I could have copied one of those designs and probably received a B-/C+ on the project. But I tried (oh, how I tried) to do something a little different.
My rowhouse, much like my life at the time, was misguided; misaligned. The walls were positioned at odd, obtuse angles. A few rooms were shaped like triangles. The floor plan revealed a kitchen with no outside view. Professor Davies, in her infinite spatial wisdom, drew this to my attention on the final ink drawings: a misshapen red oval scrawled around the thick black line that signified kitchen wall. Part of it encircled the sink and refrigerator. Next to the circle, an arrow and text: ‘NO VIEW!’
At the time, I was in a relationship. Or at least I kept telling myself I was. This endeavor also proved itself misguided and misaligned. My life became increasingly tensile, as the two factors seemed to place more stress upon the span than it could withstand.
In the end, everything collapsed. My rowhouse puttered to the finish line with a few botched section drawings leading the stampede of things I never got done. The final project, among a host of other things, called for drawings of aspects of our project we found ‘interesting.’ I sat and I sat and stared and stared and could find nothing remotely interesting about my monstrosity of a design. My residence was grotesque, unlivable, as far from aesthetically pleasing as one could meander.
My rowhouse was a solid D project. At the time, before we received our grades, during long nights that eventually bled into long days that eventually bled into more long nights that eventually hemorrhaged whole weeks, I was of the belief that merely finishing this marathon warranted at least a B. I had been mistaken, I thought, after slitting the piece of drafting tape and opening the grade sheet left on my studio desk. I looked at that D and thought that I had been taken advantage of, that the profession of architecture had victimized me. I had given so much time and effort and had nothing to show for it.
Years later I realized that my professors had been right all along, for I never finished that project and thus never deserved a decent grade. My lady interest left me for greener pastures and that had made me sad. In retrospect, I drove her away because, much like my stint with architecture, I had no idea what I was doing.
I entered a renaissance period shortly thereafter and renewed my passion to produce great things in architectural design. I took the cumbersome rowhouse model back to my dad’s house and locked it away in the shed. It would not see the light of day for four years. I attempted to do well at my design work and improved markedly but fell behind in my other coursework. More conflicting downward forces were affected upon the span.
Three-and-a-half years and one life ago, I was kicked out of the architecture program. I received the rejection in the form of an email from the dean himself. The subject line read: ‘Not accepted into 3rd year.’ I didn’t need to read on, but I did. The explanation was as follows: ‘GPA was a problem, etc. Sincerely, C McW.’ The end. With very little consideration, I scrapped my architecture career and fell back into writing where I belonged. There were some growing pains but I felt fine about the shift much sooner than I thought I would. There were no hard feelings in the end.
One month and no lives ago, my special lady friend and I went home to visit my dad. Towards the end of our stay, I stepped off the back deck and saw that the old man had started a burn pile in the fire pit behind the shed.
‘You wanna burn that rowhouse now?’ he asked as I approached.
Burning the rowhouse had been one of my intentions since leaving the program. My dad and I talked about doing it every time I came back to visit. I had romanticized the act over the years, as the rowhouse not only signaled the end of era for me but also (distantly) a lost love.
‘Okay,’ I said.
I opened the doors to the shed and was immediately overtaken by the odor of stale piss.
‘Had a mouse problem in here for quite a while,’ Dad said. ‘Can’t find where they’re living.’
Our shoes crunched against droppings on the plywood floor as we searched the upper shelves for my model. The shed itself was small and my rowhouse was rather large for a model, so we quickly became confused as to where it had gone.
‘I didn’t burn it,’ Dad said. ‘Must’ve just moved it somewhere.’
‘What’s in here?’ I asked, pointing at a green plastic storage container on the floor.
‘Don’t know. Let’s take a look.’
My old man pried off the lid and roughly a dozen baby mice leapt out in all directions. They scampered along the wall and found the safety of dark corners. A few made a break for the door. My rowhouse sat inside the tub and we pulled it out for inspection.
The family of mice had snuck in through the rear window, which had been widened to accommodate the hustle and bustle of a large family. The kitchen was full of seeds and other munchies. The living room was furnished with fluff and lint and such. It looked like they had spread out into a few of the units. The place had really become a multi-family residence. Most of the family had escaped when Dad pulled it out of the container, but a few kids were left behind in the confusion. They hid in the dark corners of the triangular shaped rooms, safe from our stares and the stick poking of my meddlesome little brother.
‘You still wanna burn it?’ Dad asked.
I thought about that for a while, pacing around the yard, checking back occasionally to see if the mice were still hanging around inside. They were.
Eventually, I said, ‘Nah,’ and we attempted to shoo the remainder of the squatters toward the woods. They would have none of it -- too frightened by my bro’s frenzied poking to venture into the real world.
It was time to go, said my special lady friend in not so many words. She grabbed the palm of my hand and tapped it three times with her finger: our signal for ‘Time To Go.’
I thanked my old man for the effort and for saving my rowhouse for all those years. He said that it wasn’t a problem but asked if I wouldn’t mind if he went ahead and burned it. I said I didn’t mind at all. My special lady friend and I left.
In the end, the rowhouse was livable. It housed a great many tenants. Said tenants affected much change on the structure; put a lot of tension on the spans, so to speak. It was no longer suited for its intended purpose and had to be condemned. The situation reflected that of a great many other buildings: despite one’s better judgment, a project is undertaken and the design is misguided and misunderstood by all parties involved and there is a lot of confusion and too many factors acting against one another and not enough cohesion and you go ahead and build the thing anyway and that’s a whole other headache and then that part’s done and it isn’t received well at all and you wonder if the whole thing was even worth it and people live and work in it anyway and everyday the place is used and inhabited and inexplicably changes people’s lives and then inexplicably it doesn’t anymore and it is empty for a long time and eventually it is condemned and set on fire and extinguished and torn down.
I talked to my dad a few days later and he said the thing went up in flames with little fanfare. I hadn’t missed much. All the better, for I had seen it before and see it everyday -- structures that change lives everyday and then don’t somehow anymore. Dozens of little mouse babies living in buildings completely oblivious to where they’re going or where they’ve been.
It wasn’t an entirely uphill climb those two years. Some days and weeks were easier than others, but in the grand scheme of things it was never meant to be, nor was there anything I could have done to make it work.
Five years and two lifetimes ago, I began a failed endeavor, but kept on with it for fear of embarrassment or the great what if?!
Four years and two lifetimes ago, I realized it was not going to work, no matter how hard I tried, but I kept on anyway, for the same reasons listed above.
By the end of my third semester as an architecture student, the assignment that defeated me wholly, that completely crushed my spirit as an artist and creator, was not in and of itself very complicated. We had to design a pretty or hip house in a city then multiply that house by four, each residence butted up against one another in a line. It was a rowhouse. You’ve seen them; they’re everywhere. I can practically look out my window onto Cedar and see a whole mess of them. I could have copied one of those designs and probably received a B-/C+ on the project. But I tried (oh, how I tried) to do something a little different.
My rowhouse, much like my life at the time, was misguided; misaligned. The walls were positioned at odd, obtuse angles. A few rooms were shaped like triangles. The floor plan revealed a kitchen with no outside view. Professor Davies, in her infinite spatial wisdom, drew this to my attention on the final ink drawings: a misshapen red oval scrawled around the thick black line that signified kitchen wall. Part of it encircled the sink and refrigerator. Next to the circle, an arrow and text: ‘NO VIEW!’
At the time, I was in a relationship. Or at least I kept telling myself I was. This endeavor also proved itself misguided and misaligned. My life became increasingly tensile, as the two factors seemed to place more stress upon the span than it could withstand.
In the end, everything collapsed. My rowhouse puttered to the finish line with a few botched section drawings leading the stampede of things I never got done. The final project, among a host of other things, called for drawings of aspects of our project we found ‘interesting.’ I sat and I sat and stared and stared and could find nothing remotely interesting about my monstrosity of a design. My residence was grotesque, unlivable, as far from aesthetically pleasing as one could meander.
My rowhouse was a solid D project. At the time, before we received our grades, during long nights that eventually bled into long days that eventually bled into more long nights that eventually hemorrhaged whole weeks, I was of the belief that merely finishing this marathon warranted at least a B. I had been mistaken, I thought, after slitting the piece of drafting tape and opening the grade sheet left on my studio desk. I looked at that D and thought that I had been taken advantage of, that the profession of architecture had victimized me. I had given so much time and effort and had nothing to show for it.
Years later I realized that my professors had been right all along, for I never finished that project and thus never deserved a decent grade. My lady interest left me for greener pastures and that had made me sad. In retrospect, I drove her away because, much like my stint with architecture, I had no idea what I was doing.
I entered a renaissance period shortly thereafter and renewed my passion to produce great things in architectural design. I took the cumbersome rowhouse model back to my dad’s house and locked it away in the shed. It would not see the light of day for four years. I attempted to do well at my design work and improved markedly but fell behind in my other coursework. More conflicting downward forces were affected upon the span.
Three-and-a-half years and one life ago, I was kicked out of the architecture program. I received the rejection in the form of an email from the dean himself. The subject line read: ‘Not accepted into 3rd year.’ I didn’t need to read on, but I did. The explanation was as follows: ‘GPA was a problem, etc. Sincerely, C McW.’ The end. With very little consideration, I scrapped my architecture career and fell back into writing where I belonged. There were some growing pains but I felt fine about the shift much sooner than I thought I would. There were no hard feelings in the end.
One month and no lives ago, my special lady friend and I went home to visit my dad. Towards the end of our stay, I stepped off the back deck and saw that the old man had started a burn pile in the fire pit behind the shed.
‘You wanna burn that rowhouse now?’ he asked as I approached.
Burning the rowhouse had been one of my intentions since leaving the program. My dad and I talked about doing it every time I came back to visit. I had romanticized the act over the years, as the rowhouse not only signaled the end of era for me but also (distantly) a lost love.
‘Okay,’ I said.
I opened the doors to the shed and was immediately overtaken by the odor of stale piss.
‘Had a mouse problem in here for quite a while,’ Dad said. ‘Can’t find where they’re living.’
Our shoes crunched against droppings on the plywood floor as we searched the upper shelves for my model. The shed itself was small and my rowhouse was rather large for a model, so we quickly became confused as to where it had gone.
‘I didn’t burn it,’ Dad said. ‘Must’ve just moved it somewhere.’
‘What’s in here?’ I asked, pointing at a green plastic storage container on the floor.
‘Don’t know. Let’s take a look.’
My old man pried off the lid and roughly a dozen baby mice leapt out in all directions. They scampered along the wall and found the safety of dark corners. A few made a break for the door. My rowhouse sat inside the tub and we pulled it out for inspection.
The family of mice had snuck in through the rear window, which had been widened to accommodate the hustle and bustle of a large family. The kitchen was full of seeds and other munchies. The living room was furnished with fluff and lint and such. It looked like they had spread out into a few of the units. The place had really become a multi-family residence. Most of the family had escaped when Dad pulled it out of the container, but a few kids were left behind in the confusion. They hid in the dark corners of the triangular shaped rooms, safe from our stares and the stick poking of my meddlesome little brother.
‘You still wanna burn it?’ Dad asked.
I thought about that for a while, pacing around the yard, checking back occasionally to see if the mice were still hanging around inside. They were.
Eventually, I said, ‘Nah,’ and we attempted to shoo the remainder of the squatters toward the woods. They would have none of it -- too frightened by my bro’s frenzied poking to venture into the real world.
It was time to go, said my special lady friend in not so many words. She grabbed the palm of my hand and tapped it three times with her finger: our signal for ‘Time To Go.’
I thanked my old man for the effort and for saving my rowhouse for all those years. He said that it wasn’t a problem but asked if I wouldn’t mind if he went ahead and burned it. I said I didn’t mind at all. My special lady friend and I left.
In the end, the rowhouse was livable. It housed a great many tenants. Said tenants affected much change on the structure; put a lot of tension on the spans, so to speak. It was no longer suited for its intended purpose and had to be condemned. The situation reflected that of a great many other buildings: despite one’s better judgment, a project is undertaken and the design is misguided and misunderstood by all parties involved and there is a lot of confusion and too many factors acting against one another and not enough cohesion and you go ahead and build the thing anyway and that’s a whole other headache and then that part’s done and it isn’t received well at all and you wonder if the whole thing was even worth it and people live and work in it anyway and everyday the place is used and inhabited and inexplicably changes people’s lives and then inexplicably it doesn’t anymore and it is empty for a long time and eventually it is condemned and set on fire and extinguished and torn down.
I talked to my dad a few days later and he said the thing went up in flames with little fanfare. I hadn’t missed much. All the better, for I had seen it before and see it everyday -- structures that change lives everyday and then don’t somehow anymore. Dozens of little mouse babies living in buildings completely oblivious to where they’re going or where they’ve been.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Free Ride
There’s always an allure with free stuff. You’re more inclined to take something given to you than spend money on it. This is especially the case with stuff you don’t really need. I’m of the belief that once your basic needs are met, like food and shelter, you can branch out a bit, and don’t necessarily have to invest every nickel and dime into new stuff. You spend your time on shared experience, as opposed to just spending your money on random crap. I’ve come to rely upon benevolence as a means to keep me alive. Likewise, I am rather liberal with my stuff and try to give as much as I get.
And I know a lot people say that nothing comes for free. That there are always costs, and, most of the time, they outweigh the returns. These people are probably right, but I think it’s all a matter of perspective. A little optimism goes a long way.
This is a little story about me trying my damnest to keep the costs of a free car on par with the returns.
A little over a year ago, my grandparents asked if I would like to have their 1987 Chevrolet Celebrity. I had, during my college career, grown accustomed to a carless (read: careless) lifestyle, relying on bicycle, legs, and friends to help me reach Point B. I had even become idealistic over that span, and would frequently decry -- from the backseat -- the use of vehicular travel. However, when presented with a free car, I tossed all that idealism out the window. I’m assuming it landed at the feet of a Native American, who shed a stoic tear. But, then again, that’s an assumption, as I was moving at 70 mph at the time. I tend to only look back at pedestrians after having soaked them with puddle water.
During winter break of my senior year of college, I made the trip to my grandparents’ house in Pittsburgh to claim this free ride. It wasn’t the prettiest site—the rust infection was in its infancy, but still rather apparent; two horizontal gashes ran along both sides of the car, as if the previous owner had wedged it between two concrete pylons or, more realistically, two Hummers in the mall parking lot; and the bumpers sat rather askew, probably as a result of another unfortunate run-in with a pilaster or an H2. But still, it was a car. It was free. And, according to the vanity plate, it was a lady -- the Shelia-5. I couldn’t help but wonder at the whereabouts of Shelias 1 through 4.
My Pap expressed a heaping amount of sadness at having to part with his gem. He had bought it used for a song in the early ‘90s, and had kept up on it religiously. He apparently loved the thing, and, as we made our way to the title bureau, tried his best to guilt trip me into reconsidering. I almost did, save for the fact that I needed a ride back to Ohio, and taking this car was my only option.
At the title bureau, Pap asked me if I had the money to afford the insurance, as I sure as hell didn’t have the money to buy a car of my own. The title clerk looked up curiously, judging from my unkempt college appearance that I was destined for a life of poverty. I told them not to worry -- I would use student loans. The clerk looked at me sympathetically.
“I live off of the benevolence of others,” I said.
“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful.”
It was wonderful. I had fallen back into driving, though it took some time to grow accustomed to the mechanic issues. Take, for instance, the BATTERY light that flashed periodically when I applied the brakes. This began to surface about 6 weeks into my car ownership, and I -- quite mistakenly -- assumed that it was far too early for a problem. One night while taking me to the Circle K for scratch-off lottery tickets, Shelia became gripped by a violent seizure and died across three lanes of traffic. I panicked as a series of headlights bore down at me. I got out and pushed her back into the lot, corralling her into a parking spot. She would nest there for another week or so. Staying parked for extended periods of time became her favorite hobby from that point forward.
As opposed to dealing with the problem then and there, such as having it towed to a garage, I opted to have Shelia displaced to the carport of my apartment. Warm weather had moved into town, and I began walking places again. Plus, I didn’t like the idea of my car telling me what to do.
“If you want to play hard to get,” I said to her, “you can just stay there all summer.”
And she did, accruing an attractive layer dust to compliment the rust. Shelia’s ailment was rather tricky to diagnose. Originally, we thought she only needed a new alternator and a new battery. Simple, right? Wrong. At one point, I watched as the positive battery terminal glowed like a hot coal as a friend and I attempted to jump her back to life. Have it your way Shelia.
I left well enough alone.
But eventually, the lease on our apartment expired, and with it went my car’s free reign over the carport. I moved to Cleveland and left Shelia behind. I did not take action until my former landlord, Rillis Moneypenny, called to complain about the squatter taking up residence in the new tenant’s parking spot.
“Ryan, Rillis Moneypenny, I drove past the old apartment today. I see your car is still there. Looks like it hasn’t moved in some time. What’s it doing? If it’s not out of there by the end of the week, I’m going to have it removed.”
Moneypenny’s threat could have been a means to get rid of my car for good -- but I hesitated. For some reason, I was enamored with the idea of car ownership. Shelia had not moved for five months, and had regressed into a rusted-out jitney. But she had rusted out a special place in my heart. I had her towed to a Kent-based mechanic.
Even the repair process became a debacle, and Shelia sat in the garage for weeks. She was acting rather coy, and would not divulge her various ailments. Following several radically invasive surgeries, she was released and greeted me, upon her return, with an abrasively loud engine rumble. Apparently, her period of stasis had withered away the muffler and exhaust pipes and caused Shelia to sound, upon acceleration, like The Incredible Hulk.
As the mechanic backed her out of the garage, I had to comment, “Geez, I don’t remember her sounding this loud.”
The mechanic wiped his neck with an oily rag. “Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff wrong with this car. But let’s take it one step at a time. That’ll be 500 dollars.”
The free gift was becoming less and less economical. But, as I had just graduated from college, I assumed that I needed a car to get from interview to interview. Realistically, to be an adult, I needed a job. To find a job, I needed a car, right? Wrong. I needed a marketable major to find a job. As the only career opportunity that presented itself was a serving job around the corner from my new apartment, I left Shelia to once again relax curbside.
I felt a little guilty, passing her on the sidewalk each day on my way to work.
“I’m sorry, Shelia, I never meant for it to work out this way.”
Then, one day, she was gone.
There were no shards of glass littering the curb around her former home, no crowbar left in haste by the frantic thieves. Police Officer Shwartz of the CHPD arrived on the scene. She told me that the car had not been towed the night before. This left only one other option -- theft.
I was saddened at the loss, but my time with Shelia had been one of abuse and neglect. I couldn’t help but think that her new owners were appreciating her more than I had. I envisioned a utopian world, in which a homeless person had stolen my car, not only as a means to make it to job interviews on time (provided the car didn’t break down, which it had a habit of doing), but also to keep a roof over his or her head. The front bench seat was quite comfortable to sprawl out on. He or she could become more cultured and articulate by listening to my NPR presets on the stereo and slowly reenter society.
P.O. Shwartz said that stolen cars are usually taken on joy rides and turn up abandoned once they run out of gas.
I said that Shelia didn’t have much gas in her, but was confident the new owners would stop to fill her up on the way to getting the oil changed and wheels aligned.
Schwartz asked if there were any distinguishing marks on my car or something that would set it apart from other cars on the road.
“Um, it needs a new muffler, so it’s pretty loud. Like abrasively loud. If you just want to tell your peeps to keep an ear out for it, that’d be great too.”
“I’ll put that in the report, Mr. DiBiase.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, you might want to call your insurance company, too. Let them know about this theft.”
“Insurance, riiiiiiiiight. . .”
At three in the morning a few days later, I received a call from P.O. Shwartz. She informed me that they had found my car at a place called the Boneyard in Mayfield Heights. Assuming she meant the car had been found in an actual boneyard, I breathed a sigh of relief: Shelia really did take care of herself. Then came the realization that The Boneyard is actually an entertainment venue, much in the same vein as Dave & Busters. These guys really were on a joy ride. Huh.
Shwartz recited a laundry list of damage to the car. Somewhere near the bottom, she hit the new stuff.
"They punched the passenger door lock and stripped your steering column."
"Huh," I yawned, "sounds like a lot of work."
"Not really. Late model American cars are very easy to steal."
"Well go figure."
The intrepid police officer gave me directions to the Mayfield Heights PD and the impound lot where Shelia had been secured. I needed to procure the vehicle's title in order to receive a release form for the impound.
Upon arriving in Mayfield Heights, I told the officer behind the desk that said title lay in the glove box of said stolen car.
She, in turn, informed me that, "Keeping the title in the car is basically like writing a blank check for it."
I replied, "Maybe, subconsciously, that was the point."
She phoned the impound lot to see if the title could be located in the vehicle. It was, and following a gracious fax of the document in question, Shelia could be released back into society.
I asked the officer what would have happened had I neither reported the car stolen nor came back to claim it. She said that the vehicle would be filed as abandoned and after a few months, I would have been sent an invoice for towing/storage fees as well as criminal charges for having abandoned my vehicle. It seems the system is built to prevent easy disposal of your car. All this time, I had no idea.
The next afternoon, I reached the impound lot and after some failed negotiations, I provided $100 (for towing and storage fees) to have my car released. It felt like I was bailing Shelia out of jail. She hadn't been driven in six weeks, and during that span, she had behaved magnificently. Maybe I had trusted her a bit too much, for as soon as I turned my back, she was off gallivanting with a bunch of dirty crooks and owing money all over town. Who is left to pick up the pieces? Me.
Someone from the impound lot showed me how to start the car, as the column had been stripped and the key no longer worked.
"Just finger the little latch on the left hand side," the guy said, "and she starts right up."
"Well, I guess that’s one less step. To think, the last thing I had replaced was the starter.” I paused. “Do you know of any junk yards between here and Cleveland Heights?"
He shrugged.
I surveyed the flotsam left behind by the assailants: crushed cans of Colt-45, Icehouse bottlecaps, cigarette butts, empty boxes of Black & Milds. Nowhere amongst the vagrancy did I see a job application. My theory was voided. They had even changed my NPR presets to urban commercial stations. Hooligans!
Once again, Shelia came to rest at the side of street in Cleveland Heights. I put a CLUB on the steering wheel. Ironically, it had been under the front seat the entire time. And so Shelia sat again. For weeks, I was torn over what action to take. I could have attempted to fix the damage, but investing money in something you got for free kind of defeats the purpose. I scanned Craigslist for a homeless shelter in desperate need of a jalopy. No such luck.
In the end, I ended up taking her to a junkyard in Parma. As compensation, I was awarded $150. This sum came about after a round of intense bargaining.
“How much will you give me for it?” I asked.
“Uh, $125,” came the gravel-truck response.
“How about $150?”
“Um. . .okay.”
I felt bad receiving money for Shelia, as she was a free gift to me, and I, likewise would have liked to bestow her upon someone else. But given her current state, she would serve society much better from the confines of a Parma junkyard. Divvied up for parts, she could spread her benevolence all over Northeast Ohio. Maybe, even, the world. When a homeless man needs a new alternator for his stolen car, I want him to know that he can break into that Parma junkyard and steal one from my car. It’s okay, Len. You can do it.
Although I was a bit saddened to see the gate shut behind Shelia as she was driven into the yard, a great weight had lifted from my shoulders. Over the last year, she had proved to be more of an albatross than a peregrine falcon. It became too much work to maintain the gift. One problem after another. Now, that problem was gone. I glanced up at the sky, as the overcast parted for just a moment, allowing a ray of sunshine to descend upon the bustling Parma junkyard. I sucked in a lungful of healthy Cleveland air.
I turned to find a bus stop.
I was free.
And I know a lot people say that nothing comes for free. That there are always costs, and, most of the time, they outweigh the returns. These people are probably right, but I think it’s all a matter of perspective. A little optimism goes a long way.
This is a little story about me trying my damnest to keep the costs of a free car on par with the returns.
A little over a year ago, my grandparents asked if I would like to have their 1987 Chevrolet Celebrity. I had, during my college career, grown accustomed to a carless (read: careless) lifestyle, relying on bicycle, legs, and friends to help me reach Point B. I had even become idealistic over that span, and would frequently decry -- from the backseat -- the use of vehicular travel. However, when presented with a free car, I tossed all that idealism out the window. I’m assuming it landed at the feet of a Native American, who shed a stoic tear. But, then again, that’s an assumption, as I was moving at 70 mph at the time. I tend to only look back at pedestrians after having soaked them with puddle water.
During winter break of my senior year of college, I made the trip to my grandparents’ house in Pittsburgh to claim this free ride. It wasn’t the prettiest site—the rust infection was in its infancy, but still rather apparent; two horizontal gashes ran along both sides of the car, as if the previous owner had wedged it between two concrete pylons or, more realistically, two Hummers in the mall parking lot; and the bumpers sat rather askew, probably as a result of another unfortunate run-in with a pilaster or an H2. But still, it was a car. It was free. And, according to the vanity plate, it was a lady -- the Shelia-5. I couldn’t help but wonder at the whereabouts of Shelias 1 through 4.
My Pap expressed a heaping amount of sadness at having to part with his gem. He had bought it used for a song in the early ‘90s, and had kept up on it religiously. He apparently loved the thing, and, as we made our way to the title bureau, tried his best to guilt trip me into reconsidering. I almost did, save for the fact that I needed a ride back to Ohio, and taking this car was my only option.
At the title bureau, Pap asked me if I had the money to afford the insurance, as I sure as hell didn’t have the money to buy a car of my own. The title clerk looked up curiously, judging from my unkempt college appearance that I was destined for a life of poverty. I told them not to worry -- I would use student loans. The clerk looked at me sympathetically.
“I live off of the benevolence of others,” I said.
“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful.”
It was wonderful. I had fallen back into driving, though it took some time to grow accustomed to the mechanic issues. Take, for instance, the BATTERY light that flashed periodically when I applied the brakes. This began to surface about 6 weeks into my car ownership, and I -- quite mistakenly -- assumed that it was far too early for a problem. One night while taking me to the Circle K for scratch-off lottery tickets, Shelia became gripped by a violent seizure and died across three lanes of traffic. I panicked as a series of headlights bore down at me. I got out and pushed her back into the lot, corralling her into a parking spot. She would nest there for another week or so. Staying parked for extended periods of time became her favorite hobby from that point forward.
As opposed to dealing with the problem then and there, such as having it towed to a garage, I opted to have Shelia displaced to the carport of my apartment. Warm weather had moved into town, and I began walking places again. Plus, I didn’t like the idea of my car telling me what to do.
“If you want to play hard to get,” I said to her, “you can just stay there all summer.”
And she did, accruing an attractive layer dust to compliment the rust. Shelia’s ailment was rather tricky to diagnose. Originally, we thought she only needed a new alternator and a new battery. Simple, right? Wrong. At one point, I watched as the positive battery terminal glowed like a hot coal as a friend and I attempted to jump her back to life. Have it your way Shelia.
I left well enough alone.
But eventually, the lease on our apartment expired, and with it went my car’s free reign over the carport. I moved to Cleveland and left Shelia behind. I did not take action until my former landlord, Rillis Moneypenny, called to complain about the squatter taking up residence in the new tenant’s parking spot.
“Ryan, Rillis Moneypenny, I drove past the old apartment today. I see your car is still there. Looks like it hasn’t moved in some time. What’s it doing? If it’s not out of there by the end of the week, I’m going to have it removed.”
Moneypenny’s threat could have been a means to get rid of my car for good -- but I hesitated. For some reason, I was enamored with the idea of car ownership. Shelia had not moved for five months, and had regressed into a rusted-out jitney. But she had rusted out a special place in my heart. I had her towed to a Kent-based mechanic.
Even the repair process became a debacle, and Shelia sat in the garage for weeks. She was acting rather coy, and would not divulge her various ailments. Following several radically invasive surgeries, she was released and greeted me, upon her return, with an abrasively loud engine rumble. Apparently, her period of stasis had withered away the muffler and exhaust pipes and caused Shelia to sound, upon acceleration, like The Incredible Hulk.
As the mechanic backed her out of the garage, I had to comment, “Geez, I don’t remember her sounding this loud.”
The mechanic wiped his neck with an oily rag. “Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff wrong with this car. But let’s take it one step at a time. That’ll be 500 dollars.”
The free gift was becoming less and less economical. But, as I had just graduated from college, I assumed that I needed a car to get from interview to interview. Realistically, to be an adult, I needed a job. To find a job, I needed a car, right? Wrong. I needed a marketable major to find a job. As the only career opportunity that presented itself was a serving job around the corner from my new apartment, I left Shelia to once again relax curbside.
I felt a little guilty, passing her on the sidewalk each day on my way to work.
“I’m sorry, Shelia, I never meant for it to work out this way.”
Then, one day, she was gone.
There were no shards of glass littering the curb around her former home, no crowbar left in haste by the frantic thieves. Police Officer Shwartz of the CHPD arrived on the scene. She told me that the car had not been towed the night before. This left only one other option -- theft.
I was saddened at the loss, but my time with Shelia had been one of abuse and neglect. I couldn’t help but think that her new owners were appreciating her more than I had. I envisioned a utopian world, in which a homeless person had stolen my car, not only as a means to make it to job interviews on time (provided the car didn’t break down, which it had a habit of doing), but also to keep a roof over his or her head. The front bench seat was quite comfortable to sprawl out on. He or she could become more cultured and articulate by listening to my NPR presets on the stereo and slowly reenter society.
P.O. Shwartz said that stolen cars are usually taken on joy rides and turn up abandoned once they run out of gas.
I said that Shelia didn’t have much gas in her, but was confident the new owners would stop to fill her up on the way to getting the oil changed and wheels aligned.
Schwartz asked if there were any distinguishing marks on my car or something that would set it apart from other cars on the road.
“Um, it needs a new muffler, so it’s pretty loud. Like abrasively loud. If you just want to tell your peeps to keep an ear out for it, that’d be great too.”
“I’ll put that in the report, Mr. DiBiase.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, you might want to call your insurance company, too. Let them know about this theft.”
“Insurance, riiiiiiiiight. . .”
At three in the morning a few days later, I received a call from P.O. Shwartz. She informed me that they had found my car at a place called the Boneyard in Mayfield Heights. Assuming she meant the car had been found in an actual boneyard, I breathed a sigh of relief: Shelia really did take care of herself. Then came the realization that The Boneyard is actually an entertainment venue, much in the same vein as Dave & Busters. These guys really were on a joy ride. Huh.
Shwartz recited a laundry list of damage to the car. Somewhere near the bottom, she hit the new stuff.
"They punched the passenger door lock and stripped your steering column."
"Huh," I yawned, "sounds like a lot of work."
"Not really. Late model American cars are very easy to steal."
"Well go figure."
The intrepid police officer gave me directions to the Mayfield Heights PD and the impound lot where Shelia had been secured. I needed to procure the vehicle's title in order to receive a release form for the impound.
Upon arriving in Mayfield Heights, I told the officer behind the desk that said title lay in the glove box of said stolen car.
She, in turn, informed me that, "Keeping the title in the car is basically like writing a blank check for it."
I replied, "Maybe, subconsciously, that was the point."
She phoned the impound lot to see if the title could be located in the vehicle. It was, and following a gracious fax of the document in question, Shelia could be released back into society.
I asked the officer what would have happened had I neither reported the car stolen nor came back to claim it. She said that the vehicle would be filed as abandoned and after a few months, I would have been sent an invoice for towing/storage fees as well as criminal charges for having abandoned my vehicle. It seems the system is built to prevent easy disposal of your car. All this time, I had no idea.
The next afternoon, I reached the impound lot and after some failed negotiations, I provided $100 (for towing and storage fees) to have my car released. It felt like I was bailing Shelia out of jail. She hadn't been driven in six weeks, and during that span, she had behaved magnificently. Maybe I had trusted her a bit too much, for as soon as I turned my back, she was off gallivanting with a bunch of dirty crooks and owing money all over town. Who is left to pick up the pieces? Me.
Someone from the impound lot showed me how to start the car, as the column had been stripped and the key no longer worked.
"Just finger the little latch on the left hand side," the guy said, "and she starts right up."
"Well, I guess that’s one less step. To think, the last thing I had replaced was the starter.” I paused. “Do you know of any junk yards between here and Cleveland Heights?"
He shrugged.
I surveyed the flotsam left behind by the assailants: crushed cans of Colt-45, Icehouse bottlecaps, cigarette butts, empty boxes of Black & Milds. Nowhere amongst the vagrancy did I see a job application. My theory was voided. They had even changed my NPR presets to urban commercial stations. Hooligans!
Once again, Shelia came to rest at the side of street in Cleveland Heights. I put a CLUB on the steering wheel. Ironically, it had been under the front seat the entire time. And so Shelia sat again. For weeks, I was torn over what action to take. I could have attempted to fix the damage, but investing money in something you got for free kind of defeats the purpose. I scanned Craigslist for a homeless shelter in desperate need of a jalopy. No such luck.
In the end, I ended up taking her to a junkyard in Parma. As compensation, I was awarded $150. This sum came about after a round of intense bargaining.
“How much will you give me for it?” I asked.
“Uh, $125,” came the gravel-truck response.
“How about $150?”
“Um. . .okay.”
I felt bad receiving money for Shelia, as she was a free gift to me, and I, likewise would have liked to bestow her upon someone else. But given her current state, she would serve society much better from the confines of a Parma junkyard. Divvied up for parts, she could spread her benevolence all over Northeast Ohio. Maybe, even, the world. When a homeless man needs a new alternator for his stolen car, I want him to know that he can break into that Parma junkyard and steal one from my car. It’s okay, Len. You can do it.
Although I was a bit saddened to see the gate shut behind Shelia as she was driven into the yard, a great weight had lifted from my shoulders. Over the last year, she had proved to be more of an albatross than a peregrine falcon. It became too much work to maintain the gift. One problem after another. Now, that problem was gone. I glanced up at the sky, as the overcast parted for just a moment, allowing a ray of sunshine to descend upon the bustling Parma junkyard. I sucked in a lungful of healthy Cleveland air.
I turned to find a bus stop.
I was free.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Transit
Climbing the escalator out of the depths of Tower City, I dusted another afternoon commute on the RTA from my shoulders. The polished brass sidewalls of the mechanical stair are sumptuous, farcical. In the earlier days of my commute to work, before I discovered the joy of cycling, I would climb out of the Tower City Station every day. On most days, either the ascending or descending escalator would be out of commission. Sometimes, both were busted. The area in question would be secured by a waist-high curtain that apologized profusely but curtly for the inconvenience -- So Sorry, But None Shall Pass. The barrier would stay raised for the better part of a week, then would switch sides. It seemed that the Cleveland RTA was on a biweekly rotation. It was either easy to come into the city or easy to leave the city. One or the other. Sometimes, rarely, it would be as easy to come as it would be to go. But those times were few and far between.
I took the train to work today because it was blustery and the leaves were whipping about, collecting (as I’m so fond of saying) around storm drains and the corners of buildings. I felt introspective. Today was a day that was easier to come into the city than to leave. The up escalator was working; the one down, not so much. An old man with a cane took each metal step one at a time. Cane-stepstep-cane-stepstep-cane-stepstep. As we drew parallel, the old man and I, a line had begun to file in behind him. I turned to look back as one of the younger folk attempted to squeeze past. I didn’t catch the result of the push, because my journey had reached its terminus and I accelerated away from the mobile staircase.
Walking out the doors onto Public Square, I thought, as I did every time prior, This place should be a train station. I thought this because the place should be a train station. I realized, of course, that it was just that in a previous life. But still, it should be.
Public Square today was cause for celebration. The fences had been removed, the square was open for travel once more. I recalled when they sealed the place up in late July, put up fences as an inner boundary, then, a few weeks later, expanded the territory to secure a much wider swath of land. Commuters like myself were herded like cattle through a network of fences until we reached the freedom of Soldiers and Sailors, when Cleveland opened back up to us again.
That first day of the fences, back in July, I followed a man off the train. He had boarded at the E. 105 stop clutching a sheathed Black & Mild, which he carried up the marble steps (the ascending escalator being out of operation that week) and along the concourse leading out onto the Square. When we exited and were greeted with an endless stretch of temporary chainlink fencing, he turned and said, to no one in particular, “Man, this is bull shit.”
These days, as you climb out the RTA pit in Tower City, you are beholden a tremendous banner in the colors of our fair flag: RTA VOTED BEST PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEM IN THE NATION. ‘How could this have possibly happened?’ you ask, not actually realizing that you have never been late for work because of the train. The escalators, maybe, but never the train.
It should be said that I was surprised when I walked onto Public Square and found it open again. I utilized my old diagonal route past the fountain, through the intersection and into the tree-lined quadrant where all the homeless people hang out after hours. Naturally, I don’t take this way on the return trip at night. Too many homeless people. Too many variables. Plus, it’s Cleveland, and sometimes it’s harder to stay than to go, and the routes of ingress and egress are rarely in equilibrium.
I took the train to work today because it was blustery and the leaves were whipping about, collecting (as I’m so fond of saying) around storm drains and the corners of buildings. I felt introspective. Today was a day that was easier to come into the city than to leave. The up escalator was working; the one down, not so much. An old man with a cane took each metal step one at a time. Cane-stepstep-cane-stepstep-cane-stepstep. As we drew parallel, the old man and I, a line had begun to file in behind him. I turned to look back as one of the younger folk attempted to squeeze past. I didn’t catch the result of the push, because my journey had reached its terminus and I accelerated away from the mobile staircase.
Walking out the doors onto Public Square, I thought, as I did every time prior, This place should be a train station. I thought this because the place should be a train station. I realized, of course, that it was just that in a previous life. But still, it should be.
Public Square today was cause for celebration. The fences had been removed, the square was open for travel once more. I recalled when they sealed the place up in late July, put up fences as an inner boundary, then, a few weeks later, expanded the territory to secure a much wider swath of land. Commuters like myself were herded like cattle through a network of fences until we reached the freedom of Soldiers and Sailors, when Cleveland opened back up to us again.
That first day of the fences, back in July, I followed a man off the train. He had boarded at the E. 105 stop clutching a sheathed Black & Mild, which he carried up the marble steps (the ascending escalator being out of operation that week) and along the concourse leading out onto the Square. When we exited and were greeted with an endless stretch of temporary chainlink fencing, he turned and said, to no one in particular, “Man, this is bull shit.”
These days, as you climb out the RTA pit in Tower City, you are beholden a tremendous banner in the colors of our fair flag: RTA VOTED BEST PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEM IN THE NATION. ‘How could this have possibly happened?’ you ask, not actually realizing that you have never been late for work because of the train. The escalators, maybe, but never the train.
It should be said that I was surprised when I walked onto Public Square and found it open again. I utilized my old diagonal route past the fountain, through the intersection and into the tree-lined quadrant where all the homeless people hang out after hours. Naturally, I don’t take this way on the return trip at night. Too many homeless people. Too many variables. Plus, it’s Cleveland, and sometimes it’s harder to stay than to go, and the routes of ingress and egress are rarely in equilibrium.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
The Man in the Quarry
One warm afternoon in early June, Amy and I decided to go for a bike ride. She called off work, I called off work, and that was that. The day was ours. We stood in her kitchen and drank iced coffee to prepare for the excursion. Planning went no further. We would go where our cycles took us, hell to all.
Amy and I departed with the hope of stumbling onto a paved trail that led west along the Mighty Cuyahoga, toward Stow. Instead we found ourselves ineffectually navigating the back roads of West Kent. Amy couldn’t quite remember how to reach the trail, so we let our adventurers’ spirits run wild. We crossed a dilapidated bridge that had been blocked with 3’ tall dirt mounds at each side to impede the progress of intrepid journeymen like ourselves. Passage was not that difficult. We were able step over the far edge of the mound where the dirt was not piled as high. Then Amy handed me the bikes. The bridge spanned a series of railroad tracks below. We stopped in the middle, hoping to see a train rattle past.
Our attention wavered when a guy on a motorcycle jumped the mound at our left. He had his girlfriend step off the back of his cycle before he did it. He executed the task with aplomb, as the front tire came down with a squeal upon the wooden surface of the bridge. Then he accelerated again and catapulted himself over the second jump. His girlfriend ran after him and became a bit tripped up when confronted with the dirt mounds. She gave us a breathy and uncomfortable “Hi,” as if to say: “He does this all the time.” We wondered how far she would have to run that day.
After about 15 minutes, Amy and I decided to abandon the train idea, and crossed the bridge. Immediately to our right was a tree-lined dirt road that led down a ravine. It screamed for cyclists, so I signaled with my right hand and turned inside. We made sure to casually ignore the ‘NO TRESPASSING: THIS MEANS YOU!’ and ‘HOURS OF OPERATION: [blank]’ signs that lined both sides of the road. I assumed that the signs were geared more towards solicitors than a pair of benign bikers. The road dipped in front of us and we rode down a steep hill and across some railroad tracks. An attractive McMansion sat at the bottom of the ravine. The house butted against a man-made pond. A dozen or so geese relaxed along the water’s edge and I used my momentum down the hill to scatter their ranks.
“Whoa!” I yelled, kicking my legs as if I were out of control.
Amy laughed.
We found a road that led behind the house and began a climb above what appeared to be a rock quarry. To our left, up a bit higher, ran the railroad tracks we had crossed. A few hundred feet to the right, on the other side of the quarry, a red pickup truck sped back toward the house. The dust trail lingered long after the truck had gone. I began to worry about the signs that marked the entrance to this place.
We stopped before the road turned us back toward the entrance. Just beyond the turn, a diesel tractor hacked at high grass in a sloped field. Amy and I hoped to find a path at the tree line bordering the pasture. Very much wanting out of the place, we rode, as best as we could manage, through the high grass. We made it about halfway before the drone of the mower ceased.
“Hey!”
I turned and saw Amy drifting over to the man on the tractor.
“How did you two get in here?” he asked, removing his Caterpillar cap and mopping the sweat off his bald scalp.
Amy pointed vaguely in the direction we had come. As she was a woman (and he, an older man; lest a heavy-set older man; lest a lonely, bald, heavy-set older man on a tractor), Amy was better suited to do the talking. “Do you know how we can get out of here?” she asked.
“The way you come in,” he said, irritated at our lack of direction.
“Okay,” Amy began speaking rapidly, as she had a habit of doing. “We just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a path back here that we could take.”
“Uh-uh,” the guy grumbled, “only one way out. I’m surprised the owner didn’t see you. He was just through here in his truck. He doesn’t take kindly to visitors. I’m working. Only reason I’m here.”
“Well, we’ll just be on our way then.” Amy climbed back on the pedals. “So, that way?”
“Yeah, and I’d hurry if I was you. He’ll run you right outta’ here.”
We began to retrace our tracks. Luckily, the terrain allowed us a down slope so we could pick up some speed before passing the house. There would still be that steep climb to get back onto the main road. It could cause a problem if the mysterious owner attempted pursuit. But we’d climb that hill when we came to it. Our dust trails rose higher and higher as we began to pick up speed.
I looked over at Amy.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” she said.
“Full steam ahead, I guess.”
A train whistle sounded in the distance. The flight began. The shifters clicked. The chains shuddered into high gears.
We hit a straightaway that put us in a direct line-of-sight with the house and the red pickup truck that had come to rest beside it. We were exposed for about a minute-and-a-half as we pedaled as fast as we could down the hill. To reduce drag, I tucked my body low to the frame. Amy and I flew past the house and had reached a healthy speed to carry us most of the way up the hill. The problem was that a passing train had cut off our intended exit vector.
The road forked at the crossing: turning right would run us into the train, turning left, though potentially dangerous, would afford us some more distance from the house. Instead of waiting for the train to pass, we continued our burn past the crossing and along another dirt road, which continued to leave us exposed to the man in the truck. We were still making good progress, but had begun another climb. Our momentum waned. We were in uncharted territory. My legs burned and I turned back to see how Amy was faring.
The red truck, right behind her, spat dust trails at it approached. The cab bobbed up and down in a frenzied rage. I stopped. It pulled alongside Amy, nearly knocking her over. We had been caught. The old man in the truck wasted no time.
“What the fuck you doin’ here?” he belted at us. “Can’t you read or you just ig’nant?”
Amy was a woman—he, an old man. I thought it best for her to field this one. She shrugged jokingly. “Eh. . .”
He wasn’t laughing. I glanced inside his truck. It was covered in dust: caked across the dashboard and steering wheel, the inside and outside of the windshield, obscuring the mirrors, over the visor of his John Deere hat. I imagined a permanent layer smeared against the walls of his nasal cavity and lungs and innards.
“Well, we got lost in the woods,” she lied breathily. The recent exertion had caused her to speak even faster. “We found a path that came out over there.” She gestured vaguely in the direction from whence we came.
“Where?”
“Over there, by the guy on the tractor. He told us to come this way.”
“Didn’t fucking think to go back, or you just stupid? You from ‘round here?”
“We go to the University. We didn’t know—“
“You fucking kids think you can go wherever the fuck you want. Just do whatever. So fucking free and easy. I’m just some fucking asshole who lives down here. Don’t give no shits about nothing. Never—“
Amy cut to the quick. “Sir, how do we get out of here?” She said this quickly.
“Fuck you.”
“So, straight then?”
He gestured in a way that could be vaguely considered a nod. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“We were leaving anyway,” Amy said. “So, this way?” She pointed more directly.
“Get out.
Get out.
Get out.
Get out.
Get out.”
The old man in the quarry faded into the distance, as we spit our own dust trails back at him. A hundred feet later, we reached a locked gate that led onto the main road. I bent low and crawled beneath the rusty arm. Amy slid the bikes to me.
“Another hundred feet and we would have made it,” I said.
“Yeah, fuck that guy,” Amy said after she slid out.
Our bikes had become covered in dust that dried out our chains, gears, and bearings. Our throats were dry; our zeal was dry. The dust had inundated every facet of our beings. It had settled into our innards. Amy and I squeaked and groaned the whole way back to her house. We sat on her front porch, drank iced coffee, dusted each other off, and reflected on living life free and easy.
Amy and I departed with the hope of stumbling onto a paved trail that led west along the Mighty Cuyahoga, toward Stow. Instead we found ourselves ineffectually navigating the back roads of West Kent. Amy couldn’t quite remember how to reach the trail, so we let our adventurers’ spirits run wild. We crossed a dilapidated bridge that had been blocked with 3’ tall dirt mounds at each side to impede the progress of intrepid journeymen like ourselves. Passage was not that difficult. We were able step over the far edge of the mound where the dirt was not piled as high. Then Amy handed me the bikes. The bridge spanned a series of railroad tracks below. We stopped in the middle, hoping to see a train rattle past.
Our attention wavered when a guy on a motorcycle jumped the mound at our left. He had his girlfriend step off the back of his cycle before he did it. He executed the task with aplomb, as the front tire came down with a squeal upon the wooden surface of the bridge. Then he accelerated again and catapulted himself over the second jump. His girlfriend ran after him and became a bit tripped up when confronted with the dirt mounds. She gave us a breathy and uncomfortable “Hi,” as if to say: “He does this all the time.” We wondered how far she would have to run that day.
After about 15 minutes, Amy and I decided to abandon the train idea, and crossed the bridge. Immediately to our right was a tree-lined dirt road that led down a ravine. It screamed for cyclists, so I signaled with my right hand and turned inside. We made sure to casually ignore the ‘NO TRESPASSING: THIS MEANS YOU!’ and ‘HOURS OF OPERATION: [blank]’ signs that lined both sides of the road. I assumed that the signs were geared more towards solicitors than a pair of benign bikers. The road dipped in front of us and we rode down a steep hill and across some railroad tracks. An attractive McMansion sat at the bottom of the ravine. The house butted against a man-made pond. A dozen or so geese relaxed along the water’s edge and I used my momentum down the hill to scatter their ranks.
“Whoa!” I yelled, kicking my legs as if I were out of control.
Amy laughed.
We found a road that led behind the house and began a climb above what appeared to be a rock quarry. To our left, up a bit higher, ran the railroad tracks we had crossed. A few hundred feet to the right, on the other side of the quarry, a red pickup truck sped back toward the house. The dust trail lingered long after the truck had gone. I began to worry about the signs that marked the entrance to this place.
We stopped before the road turned us back toward the entrance. Just beyond the turn, a diesel tractor hacked at high grass in a sloped field. Amy and I hoped to find a path at the tree line bordering the pasture. Very much wanting out of the place, we rode, as best as we could manage, through the high grass. We made it about halfway before the drone of the mower ceased.
“Hey!”
I turned and saw Amy drifting over to the man on the tractor.
“How did you two get in here?” he asked, removing his Caterpillar cap and mopping the sweat off his bald scalp.
Amy pointed vaguely in the direction we had come. As she was a woman (and he, an older man; lest a heavy-set older man; lest a lonely, bald, heavy-set older man on a tractor), Amy was better suited to do the talking. “Do you know how we can get out of here?” she asked.
“The way you come in,” he said, irritated at our lack of direction.
“Okay,” Amy began speaking rapidly, as she had a habit of doing. “We just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a path back here that we could take.”
“Uh-uh,” the guy grumbled, “only one way out. I’m surprised the owner didn’t see you. He was just through here in his truck. He doesn’t take kindly to visitors. I’m working. Only reason I’m here.”
“Well, we’ll just be on our way then.” Amy climbed back on the pedals. “So, that way?”
“Yeah, and I’d hurry if I was you. He’ll run you right outta’ here.”
We began to retrace our tracks. Luckily, the terrain allowed us a down slope so we could pick up some speed before passing the house. There would still be that steep climb to get back onto the main road. It could cause a problem if the mysterious owner attempted pursuit. But we’d climb that hill when we came to it. Our dust trails rose higher and higher as we began to pick up speed.
I looked over at Amy.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” she said.
“Full steam ahead, I guess.”
A train whistle sounded in the distance. The flight began. The shifters clicked. The chains shuddered into high gears.
We hit a straightaway that put us in a direct line-of-sight with the house and the red pickup truck that had come to rest beside it. We were exposed for about a minute-and-a-half as we pedaled as fast as we could down the hill. To reduce drag, I tucked my body low to the frame. Amy and I flew past the house and had reached a healthy speed to carry us most of the way up the hill. The problem was that a passing train had cut off our intended exit vector.
The road forked at the crossing: turning right would run us into the train, turning left, though potentially dangerous, would afford us some more distance from the house. Instead of waiting for the train to pass, we continued our burn past the crossing and along another dirt road, which continued to leave us exposed to the man in the truck. We were still making good progress, but had begun another climb. Our momentum waned. We were in uncharted territory. My legs burned and I turned back to see how Amy was faring.
The red truck, right behind her, spat dust trails at it approached. The cab bobbed up and down in a frenzied rage. I stopped. It pulled alongside Amy, nearly knocking her over. We had been caught. The old man in the truck wasted no time.
“What the fuck you doin’ here?” he belted at us. “Can’t you read or you just ig’nant?”
Amy was a woman—he, an old man. I thought it best for her to field this one. She shrugged jokingly. “Eh. . .”
He wasn’t laughing. I glanced inside his truck. It was covered in dust: caked across the dashboard and steering wheel, the inside and outside of the windshield, obscuring the mirrors, over the visor of his John Deere hat. I imagined a permanent layer smeared against the walls of his nasal cavity and lungs and innards.
“Well, we got lost in the woods,” she lied breathily. The recent exertion had caused her to speak even faster. “We found a path that came out over there.” She gestured vaguely in the direction from whence we came.
“Where?”
“Over there, by the guy on the tractor. He told us to come this way.”
“Didn’t fucking think to go back, or you just stupid? You from ‘round here?”
“We go to the University. We didn’t know—“
“You fucking kids think you can go wherever the fuck you want. Just do whatever. So fucking free and easy. I’m just some fucking asshole who lives down here. Don’t give no shits about nothing. Never—“
Amy cut to the quick. “Sir, how do we get out of here?” She said this quickly.
“Fuck you.”
“So, straight then?”
He gestured in a way that could be vaguely considered a nod. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“We were leaving anyway,” Amy said. “So, this way?” She pointed more directly.
“Get out.
Get out.
Get out.
Get out.
Get out.”
The old man in the quarry faded into the distance, as we spit our own dust trails back at him. A hundred feet later, we reached a locked gate that led onto the main road. I bent low and crawled beneath the rusty arm. Amy slid the bikes to me.
“Another hundred feet and we would have made it,” I said.
“Yeah, fuck that guy,” Amy said after she slid out.
Our bikes had become covered in dust that dried out our chains, gears, and bearings. Our throats were dry; our zeal was dry. The dust had inundated every facet of our beings. It had settled into our innards. Amy and I squeaked and groaned the whole way back to her house. We sat on her front porch, drank iced coffee, dusted each other off, and reflected on living life free and easy.
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