Friday, November 03, 2006
Inner City Bike Repair
My plan was to fix up bicycles in our inner city neighborhood. To help keep the kids healthy, out of trouble, maybe teach them a skill. But things got complicated.
DeMarcus’ bike looks like it got dragged by a chain on the toll road. I straightened the handlebars and found a seat, replaced the shredded tire. But the next day a bigger kid just took it from him. Shantall’s bike was lying in the tall weeds of her front yard and only needed a front wheel and a pedal. I scavenged parts and she rode off on Saturday. By Monday her cousin had let a large kid ride on the handlebars and the front fork snapped right off. Antoine’s bike had a jammed hub, something messed up on the inside. Strange. When I got the stripped axle nut off, incomplete parts clattered on the sidewalk. The bike wasn’t broken; it was burglarized. I couldn’t fix it. He dragged the bike back toward his momma, now waiting outside with her hands on her hips. I walked over to explain but she just looked at me, arms crossed. “Mmm hmm.” Later, she told Antoine not to let me mess with his bike anymore.
Then I found an old Schwinn lying in a deep puddle off Lincoln Way. I fixed it up and found DeMarcus. “This is a great bike,” I say. “It’ll last. Don’t skid the tires. Don’t let big kids ride it. Lock it up. It’s your bike.” But a week later Demarcus waves from a passing sedan with spinning gold wheels. “Where’s your bike?” I yelled. “My uncle needed it,” he yelled back. Later a neighbor calls me. “Hey, you know that Schwinn you fixed up for DeMarcus? Well, someone stole it off my porch in July.”
I slump on my steps and ponder all this. That evening some teenagers push a nice bike up the street, swaggering and shouting. Right in front of me one kid stops, hurls the bike to the ground and stomps hard on the wheel, over and over until the spokes pop. Another boy pulls off the seat and hurls it far over a chain link fence. The girls laugh and they move on, the maimed bike lying at the curb. I give up. I can’t win this game, or change the rules. I don’t even understand the rules.
Later that week I’m digging a deep posthole on my knees, and actually stick my head in the ground to measure its depth. When I sit up there’s TaTa, the littlest kid on the block. “You fix my bike?” he says. I look at it, another multi-gear cheapo discount store bike with the brake bent into the wheel and its rusted cable twisted around the frame. I’m tired. And I don’t have the parts left. What’s the point? I want to go back to my hole.
Then a shining minivan pulls to the curb, my daughter’s friend dropped off by her mom. TaTa and I watch them unload a new two hundred dollar girl’s bike from a real bike shop. “Be careful, honey” says the mom, eyeing the neighborhood as she snaps the girl’s helmet buckle. Her socks match her little outfit, as spotless as the pearls around her mother’s neck.
TaTa and I look at each other. “You fix my bike? he repeats. Without parts, the only way to get this bike moving again is to cut the brake completely off. In my world, an irresponsible, reckless act of child endangerment. But, I’m not really in my world anymore, am I?
I say to TaTa. “I’ll need your help, brother.” He lights up and runs for my tools. TaTa unscrews the brake, I cut the cable and he rides off, in the charge of angels. No brakes at all.
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A random selection from more than 300 Michiana Chronicles -- refresh the browser to see another set:
Joe Chaney -- More essays by Joe
Louise Collins -- More essays by Louise
April Lidinsky -- More essays by April
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Jeff Nixa -- Inner City Bike Repair / More essays by Jeff
Ken Smith -- More essays by Ken
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About the series
Michiana Chronicles is a series of radio essays by Jonathan Nashel, Louise Collins, Joe Chaney, Jeanette Saddler Taylor, Jeff Nixa, April Lidinsky, and Ken Smith.
Michiana is the region of north-central Indiana and southern Michigan roughly centered on South Bend, Indiana.
Michiana Chronicles airs on Fridays at 7:35 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on WVPE (88.1 FM), the home of public radio in Elkhart / South Bend, Indiana.
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