the bike issue

Last year, in early December, I returned home from a red-curry dinner downtown with the old 'mates, San and Sarita (an adventure that saw me ducking a loogie catapulted at me by a homeless man who was offended that I had no cigarettes to give him), to discover that my bicyle was missing. I hadn't paid attention to it in days, perhaps weeks, owing to the cold weather, I told myself, but in fact more likely because I had grown weary of hauling it up and down the apartment stairs, a task which in my mind had taken on Sisyphean proportions. I was reminded of being entrusted, as a youngster, with the responsibility of caring for my sister's hamster when she went away for a while; as it lived in a room by itself, its well-being began to slip my mind more and more. How did I find it when the horror of my lengthiest period of absenteeism finally dawned on me? Belly up, natch. (Crudely fashioned, paper-eared pet yogourt containers and stuffed rats do little to assuage the guilt of that early neglect.)

How long had my bicycle been gone? The severed lock (here photographed in later winter), injured but still serpentine, held its silence. John's bike, parked in the alley below, had been untethered in the same fashion. This was Toronto, and Toronto, we knew but never really understood until now, was lousy with miscreants.

My bicycle; my sweet, cherished Raleigh! Bought with travel-scholarship money, with a bell that sounded like a baby bird's first clear melody, we had been through so much: you were my mount in two university towns, my hometown for one brief summer, and finally, this evil urban centre; we unintentionally overcame London's chained iron gates in the middle of the night -- you charged straight through them like a slimmer, more ergonomic, more lovely army tank! -- and crested the dastardly hill of Trois-Pistoles time and time again; you joined me in protests against the dominance of the automobile on Steel City's smoggy streets, and whispered an apology when you lost your chain; you never once complained, never once suggested medical attention, even as you wheezed your way toward University College. Dear, dear one, for whom do you gallop now?

But from pain comes art, as we all know, and my particular loss inspired this script, which is largely autobiographical (note the in medias res beginning, very Othello):

BUT FIRST, THE WORLD
(A Play in One Act)

Dramatis Personae
L, naïve young thing
A, older and wiser cineaste

[An above-store apartment kitchen. A man and woman are sitting at the sort of table found in church basements, engaged in half-hearted conversation.]

L: The Bicycle Thief -- isn't that an album or something?
A: [shocked] It's only a hallmark of neo-realist cinema!

FIN

But not all stories need end in tragedy! I must tell you about my new bicycle, a used, wonderfully high-handlebarred beast that I took home with me from On the Go just down the street several months ago. It took a while, but I've really warmed to the ol' gal. Just look at her, posing appealingly in my bedroom doorway, ready, like me, to relocate to a home with fewer stairs...