I bought a bike for $25 this summer. I tricked myself into buying a bike by reassuring my out-of-shape body that with a financial commitment so minor, even I could afford to never ride the bike. The bike was an unwieldy, steel framed, monstrosity of a cruiser. The second time I rode it, I got a flat. The third time I rode it, I got another flat. The frame was bent under the seat, so the seat post could not be lowered. Eventually, I took a hacksaw to the post and cut it down. The whole contraption creaked and complained every time I rode it, more so in the mornings and the cold.
When people asked me why I didn’t get a new bike, I said my bike and I were similar. Together we loudly and relentlessly objected to continued existence. Yet, we persisted. The truth was that I simply couldn't afford anything else.
Summer waned in spurts until finally it was gone. Like a child, I lost summer all in one night. When I woke up in the morning, some day in August, it was fall and I was a student again. My bike awaited me in the cold early morning light, equally unprepared for the 5 mile trek to university. I had put off cycling the route until that morning. I preferred dreading the journey in abstract terms.
That first morning I rode slowly. I missed the bike path on my first pass, and had to loop back. My legs ached before the first mile. Probably before the first quarter mile. I mentally counted the days I'd committed myself to, telling myself how many hundred times I'd pass every tree, every intersection, every fence, and every cozy house that I would never enter. I tried to savor the novelty, knowing that I would see these items hundreds of times. I admonished myself for not getting a parking pass. I mourned the footwear I'd have to abandon for this. Hundreds of days without my wedge sandals; without my black patent leather heels; without the open-toed stilettos I, inexplicably, could dance in. I sweated and panted, hard. My eyes watered in the wind. And then, I was at the university.
I rode home in the evening, noting miserably that in the winter, I would likely make both journeys in the dark. By the end of the week my thighs ached constantly. I schemed ways to get out of this. I wondered if some fluke of my physiology could serve as a suitable excuse for my abandonment of the whole enterprise. Until, without my notice, my legs stopped hurting, my knees stopped cracking on every down-stroke, and my eyes stopped watering.
Somewhere in that time, I came to delight in my bike's noisy protestations. I imagined families awaking to its painful creaks every day, at some ungodly hour. Someone spray painted “go fuck yourself” in elegant cursive across the bike path. I imagined it was written for me. My legs changed shape, and I realized they were strong. Really strong. Those legs and my ever-put-upon bike carried me 50 miles a week. I marveled at this fact, and then got bored.
The mornings grew darker and colder, as I had dreaded. The trees gave up their leaves, littering the path. I discovered the exquisite joy of crunching through piles of freshly fallen debris. Invisible seed pods popped and cracked, while leaves and twigs snapped. The whole mess of sounds joined the squeaks and creaks of my bike. I loved the unified sound. I wanted to keep it with me forever. I wanted to ask it to marry me. Squirrels chattered their objections, before dashing away.
On the 79th day, the sun never came up in Chico. There was light, yes, but a black haze engulfed the city. I squeaked and crunched my way to university, and my lungs burned. Students stood outside of empty classrooms taking pictures of the sky. Something was burning. Something massive and very very near. No one knew what to do, but someone decided to call it the “Camp Fire,” so we did. In the early hours of that morning it burned the town of Paradise to the ground. All day, it waited on the bank of the river that divides Chico from Paradise, before turning south a day later.
I biked home, through the leaves, and the “go fuck yourself,” even past a curbside mattress some more-or-less fortunate or unfortunate fellow slept on. The glow on the horizon might have been the sun, or it might have been the fire. I suspect no one can say. Ash fell from the sky. I coughed black paste and tied a scarf across my face. My heart, my lungs, my legs, my bike carried me to my car. And then, after 79 days, I drove. I drove, first through, then past, and finally out of a literal hellscape.
I followed the news from far away, like a stranger, because ultimately, I am. After a fortnight, the Northern California sky opened up and rained. The collective population of the state took a deep breath of fresh wet air, and sighed in relief. The university notified students, staff, and faculty that school would begin again. We all saw an unmarred winter sky, and genuinely felt thankful in a time appropriately related to Thanksgiving. And someone told me my bike was destroyed.
I looked at photos of my friend's homes, reduced to ash. I said conciliatory and supportive words. I told myself that, really, all I lost was $25. I believed this, because technically it's true. I mourned anyway. I bought a new bike, a perfect bike. It's so sleek it just looks fast; it's the correct size for my body; it weighs just this side of nothing; and it never complains in its perfect silence.
The rain soaked the fire and the refugees indiscriminately. It puddled in the roads and on the bike path. It rotted the leaves and carried the seed pods to safety in the soil. It washed away the final remnants of my daily reminder to go fuck myself.
95 days after I first lurched my way along the Chico bike path, I woke up in the dark, layered coats, hats, scarves, gloves, and stealthily biked to the university in the rain, soaking up more silence and loss than rainwater. A wet leaf fell and hit me in the face. I appreciated its moxie. Rain tapped a quiet, erratic rhythm on my raincoat. As I bent to lock my bike to my customary post, I marveled at the new clouds of vapor my labored breath created in the cold air.
