New Bike?
July 2, 2006
Having had a previous motorcycle stolen (not to mention my car), there was no way I was going to keep this one on the street. I had investigated my options before bringing the bike to Brooklyn and found a garage not too far from my apartment. Once I had the bike, I was eager to get it there as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I had to wait a couple of days before I could get everything sorted out, which meant some sleepless nights with the bike locked up like Pee Wee Herman's bicycle in the side courtyard of my building. Despite the garbage and broken glass, there are a few other motorcycles parked there, as well as a dozen or more bicycles.
The first thing I did was lock the license plate with a small padlock. I locked the fork, chained the rear wheel to the frame, chained the frame to a window guard of one of the first-floor apartments, covered the whole mess with a ratty-looking motorcycle cover, and hoped for the best. After the first night, I woke up early and went outside to check on it. I was relieved to see everything untouched. After work, I checked on it again and found the cover lifted off. Not blown off by the gusty winds we'd been having, but obviously, intentionally peeled off by another human being. Someone curious about what was under there? Looking for some parts to take? Checking out the lock situation? I had no idea and wasn't keen to find out, but there was still one more night left before I could move it into the relative security of the garage.
I unlocked everything and took the bike for a ride as an act of reassurance. "Just one more night," I said, "and then you'll be safe."
"Want to come?" I asked Deborah. I'd taken the bike out a few times alone to get used to it, and knew Deborah was eager to go for a ride.
"Yes!"
I wheeled the bike to the street and started it up on the first kick.
I warmed up to old Triumph's right-side shift much quicker than I expected, but I still had to think twice about the left-side brake pedal. With Deborah's added weight lengthening my stopping distance, I took it nice and slow as we rumbled over the patchy streets and around the pothole puddles left behind by the day's rain.
"That was fun," I said when we returned. "But now what?" If I could, I would've ridden it all night long to avoid the hassle of a million locks and the worry that I really needed a million and one.
"Maybe put it against the other wall," Deborah suggested. "Behind that other bike."
There was just enough space behind one of the other motorcycles for my bike to hide. "Good idea," I said.
"And then I think you should lock your bicycle to the motorcycle, too. No one is going to want to deal with all of that."
The next day, everything was still there, though fucked with once again. The bicycle had been turned over and was crammed in between the motorcycle and the wall. "What the fuck?" I mumbled as I lifted off the cover and undid all the locks.
Two guys entered the courtyard. "Whoa, nice bike," one of them said.
I just nodded. I didn't want to be rude, but I was a little suspicious.
"How long has it been hiding there?"
"Too long."
I held my breath as I rolled it over the impossible-to-avoid broken beer bottles scattered in the narrow alley that leads to the street, and a few kicks later, I was on my way to the high-security, top-secret bat cave.
The next day, Deborah called to tell me about the cops and robbers in our hallway.
"Let's move," I said.
July 4, 2006
Although I hate sleeping with the air conditioner running, I hate sleeping in a damp bed of sweat even more. And since the mercury has been bubbling near ninety lately, my air conditioner chugged and whined all night long. When I woke up, I climbed down the ladder and walked to the window to give the overworked machine a rest. As soon as I flipped the switch, I heard yelling from the street. I pulled back the curtains and looked down in time to see a cop run up the street and jump into the passenger side of a cruiser. He slammed the door, and the car took off the wrong way up the one-way street. A second cop car followed, and both of them squealed around the corner. A third cop car— unmarked and unnoticed until it hit its lights — peeled away in the other direction.
"More action on the street," I said to Deborah, who was waking up.
"What's going on?"
"I can't tell," I said. "Looks like we're in the middle of a crime wave."
By the time Deborah and I got dressed and walked to the corner for our morning coffee, the street was quiet—no sign of anything, no clues about what had been going on.
"I'm addicted to these things," Deborah said as she sipped her iced latte. "I can't start my day without them anymore. Aren't they so good?"
"They are," I said. I usually stick to hot coffee in the morning, but the early morning heat convinced me to copy Deborah and order an iced latte, too. "I see how you got hooked."
"What are you going to do today?" she said.
"What do you think?"
"A motorcycle ride?"
"You guessed it. Wanna come?"
"No. I can't."
Like me, Deborah has been working a lot lately. Her busy schedule has left her little time to work on her jewelry. With a couple of new stores interested in carrying her stuff, she was eager to stay home and create some new pieces.
"I'll bring the bike by later. Maybe you'll take a break."
When I came home, Deborah was on a roll with her jewelry and didn't want to stop working, so instead of taking her for a ride, I parked the bike in front of our building and tinkered with it for a bit.
As I sat in the blazing heat, tightening screws, polishing chrome, and sweating my balls off, a few people passed by.
"Nice bike," said Adrian, who was with about a half dozen people I'd never seen before. "You know why the British never got involved in making computers?" he asked. "Because they couldn't figure out how to make them leak oil."
I might've laughed if I wasn't ready to pass out from the heat. No one else laughed, either, but they probably weren't familiar with Triumph's reputation. Adrian unlocked the front door and held it open for his entourage. "See ya," he said.
A girl I'd never met before, an earth-mother type with a gauze skirt, sandals, and a few tattoos, said the same thing Adrian did. Not the joke, but "Nice bike."
"Thanks," I said.
"Is it new? I've never seen it parked here before."
"It's new to me, yeah, but you probably won't see it parked here much."
"I was gonna say. I mean, when I saw it, I was thinking, 'Is that guy new to the neighborhood or something? I hope he doesn't think it's safe to park it there.'"
"No, I know. Believe me."
"Do you live in the building?"
"Yes," I said, wiping my forehead with a relatively clean corner of a greasy rag.
"Did you hear about the break-in this morning?"
"No. Is that what was going on? I saw a bunch of cop cars, but I didn't know what happened."
She didn't know much and was curious to hear about what I'd seen, to add it to the other snippets of information she had. I asked if she'd heard about the hold-up. She hadn't.
"Shit," she said.
She continued on her way, and a few minutes later, another girl came by. "Hey, nice bike," she said. "My girlfriend said that you saw the cop cars this morning."
I told her I had, but that I hadn't seen much.
"And she told me you said there was a robbery or something last week?"
Again, I told her yes, but that I didn’t know much more than that. "They caught the guys, that's all I know."
"This area has been known as the ghetto ATM for a while now, but it's getting ridiculous."
Happy Fourth of July.
