We Ride Bikes

By W. Todd Kaneko

We ride bikes. We ride fast, taking jumps over potholes and ditches. We ride bikes up and down your driveway because we can, and nobody can stop us. Sunlight glints off our handlebars and illuminates the little orange flags that rise from behind our seats. If you listen, you can hear the playing cards flapping in our spokes—it is the sound of rumbling engines and thunder. It is the sound of trouble as we ride our bikes past your house everyday. You watch us from your living room windows, from your workbenches, from your gardens, and you shake your heads as we ride by in the mornings, our shrill voices echoing up and down the street. You think we should wear helmets, but we don’t need helmets. We are young, and we are reckless. We are invincible.

We careen around corners and circle the cul-de-sac, then rocket down the street toward the park where we ride bikes across the lawn, our fingers gripping the handlebars and our legs pedaling furiously. Our tires spin across the grass, spraying pieces of dirt and lawn behind us. We spoil picnics and family outings. Your children watch us ride bikes as they eat sandwiches and drink sodas. They want to be wild and free like us. You tell them that you love them, and you tell them that they should eat their lunch, but it is to no avail. They watch us turn the green lawn into a jumble of mud and sod. They wish that they could ride bikes.

We ride past the library, past the post office and to the mall. Sarah May’s cheek is smudged with grease and her jeans are ripped at the left knee. She has a cherry Popsicle, and her tongue and teeth are stained red. Red is the color of anger and blood. It is the color of trouble as we roll through the mall parking lot heedless of the white and yellow lines drawn on the pavement. White and yellow are colors for cars and responsible people. They are the colors of safety, but we are restless and crazy. With baskets on our handlebars and brakes worn thin, we coast up to the front door of the mall and you look at us, annoyed that we ride in your midst. We ride bikes where we choose because no one can stop us. We leave our bikes unlocked in front of the doors. Locks and chains are for houses and pets, and we ride bikes. 

Once inside, Artie leans against the wall in front of the record store, his thumbs hooked through his belt loops, his cap worn crooked on his head. Artie laughs and swears loudly for everyone to hear. Shoppers steer wide of us. You with your bags of clothing from Sears and Old Navy. You with your Cinnabuns and double lattes. You wonder why we are not in school. You know that we are up to no good, but don’t look at us directly because you know that we ride bikes. We are trouble. We intrude on you, who would otherwise be shopping in safety.  But we don’t shop. We ride because no one can stop us. We are untouchable because we ride bikes.

We never ride bikes on freeways, because freeways are for people with pressing duties and urgent destinations. We ride down dirt roads, leaving a cloud of soot and dust in our wake.  We ride on cobblestone streets, up sidewalks, and over railroad tracks. We ride on the wrong side of the street, mayhem on two wheels, forcing the cars and mini-vans to give us a wide berth. Oliver’s front wheel wobbles when he pops a wheelie because he leaves his bike out in his backyard when he goes in for supper. The chain is rusted, and the chrome bumpers are burned brown with rust. But it doesn’t matter how Oliver’s bike looks because Oliver rides fast. We ride fast. We have bikes and we know how to ride them. Nothing can stop us.

On our way home, we stop at the 7-Eleven for a Slurpee. We fill our cups at the machine and if the man at the counter isn’t looking, we quickly drink some of our Slurpee and refill the cup before paying. We always get cherry flavor so that our tongues and teeth will be stained red. We always make sure to smile real wide when we pay for our Slurpees, and nobody says anything about our tongues and teeth stained the color of trouble. You say nothing because you know that we ride bikes. We are rough and tumble outlaws rolling down the street two-by-two, our little orange flags waving behind us as we ride. 

When we ride home, the sun is already beginning to set. The once blue skies have faded into a purplish-orange—almost the same color as the reddish bruise on Artie’s left kneecap, the bruise he got while playing Evel Knievel last weekend when he tried to jump his bike over six kids at the park. We don’t have lights on our bikes because we ride too fast for lights. And as the town grows dark, we blend into the night and we blend into each other. We sit on our bikes at a stop-light, and we take up a whole lane of traffic. A girl crossing the street looks at us. She rode bikes once when she was young and reckless. She has outgrown riding bikes, but we will always ride wherever we go. We will always ride in front of your homes and minivans, past your office windows in the afternoons, and through your backyards because we are unstoppable. When the traffic-light changes, we point our bikes west, the direction of home and supper, and we move in that direction together. We point our faces west, and we ride bikes.

W. Todd Kaneko currently lives and writes in Tempe, Arizona.  He is an MFA candidate in creative writing at Arizona State University, where he teaches writing and serves as a Fiction Editor for the literary magazine Hayden’s Ferry Review.  He has been riding bikes for nearly thirty years, the last fifteen without training wheels.