The Bike // Fiction //C.W. Bigelow
The Bike
The front door slammed, causing the old house under me to reverberate as I sat on my bed upstairs. It had been a good afternoon. I’d delivered the newspapers and was looking forward to dinner. “Tommy left his damn bike up at the Gordon’s!” my father screamed at my mom. She was always his initial target, as if my mistakes were somehow her fault.
He hadn’t taught me to ride the bike. I did that on the hill by the White’s on my third attempt, after sailing down their steep hill and surviving two crashes that scarred my knee for years. One miraculous day. An everlasting reminder of victory and self-sufficiency.
He did buy me the bike – a used Schwinn, void of any fancy changing speeds or handle brakes. “Pedal hard. It’s good for strengthening your legs,” he commented as he handed it over to me. I told him it would allow me to get a paper route. “This is a major responsibility. You must take care of it. You must park it in the garage each night. You must ride safely, following all the traffic signs and signals. Did I tell you I built my own bike when I was around your age.” With that he turned and walked away, leaving me with a cloud of unanswered questions. Where did he get the materials? And most importantly, why didn’t his dad buy him one?
“Tommy!” From the proximity of his voice, I knew he stood at the foot of the narrow, dark front stairs.
I jumped off my bed, his familiar tone of anger setting my nerves on fire and scrambled to the top of the stairs where I peered down the narrow tunnel at him. Tie-knot loosened around his neck and hanging askew across his white shirt, he stood red faced, fist clenched and veins popping from his neck. “What did I tell you when I bought you that bike?”
I wanted to remind him he had promised to teach me how to ride it and opened my mouth, but the words stuck in my throat, a deep seeded survival tactic.
“I told you I would return it if you didn’t follow the rules. Didn’t take care of it.”
Exactly what I would have said had I ignored my quest for survival, and he had given me a chance. Listening to me wasn’t his style. So, I took each step down slowly, each stair squeaking, and watched suspiciously as his large hands flexed from long fingers into grapefruit size fists. Very familiar with his signature move of grabbing me by my right hand and picking me high off the floor, before spanking my butt with his paddle size open hand, that sent me into an endless pendulum motion, before hitting me again at the proper juncture that set the whole swing in motion again. I paused three steps out of reach.
I cleared my throat. “Can I show you something?” My words tripped over my tongue in a squeak.
He tilted his head. I don’t know if it was curiosity or just a pause to catch his breath, he pondered a moment before he stepped back. “I guess.”
During this moment of ceasefire, I slipped between him and the end post of the banister, scooting ahead of his long reach. “Please follow me, sir.”
I kept my distance as I led him out the back door. I knew I should have held it open for him, but I would have given up my distance advantage. Even so, I could feel and hear his hot huffs and the quickening slap of his irritated steps on the thin sidewalk that led over the lawn to the garage.
So excited, I couldn’t help but skip toward the garage, noticing his car sitting in the driveway. He must have been too upset at the sight of the bike up at the Gordon’s to have pulled it into the garage.
“What are you doing?” he called as he picked up his pace, closing in on me.
I reached the garage side door and pulled it open just as he reached me. “In here.” I jumped hastily into the damp darkness and pointed to my bike parked in the rack, exactly where it belonged.
“How did you get it down here?” he asked as he stood over it, still unable to fathom its appearance.
“Parked it when I rode it home after my route, like I was told.”
“But it was up at the Gordon’s when I drove past.”
“Johnny Gordon has the same bike.”
I squelched a victorious grin and kept my mouth shut. I averted any eye contact for fear celebrating my triumph would turn against me. The late afternoon sun drifted through the windows and engulfed the bike.
In a different family, in a different world, I would receive a heartfelt apology. But it was my family. It was my father. He took a deep breath, staring hard at the bike, as though he was taking a photograph. He slowly turned without looking at me and walked out of the garage without a word.
The sunlight had moved toward me, immersing the bike and me in its radiancy.
I watched him stomp off through the shadows until he reached his car. I heard the engine roar and slipped out of the garage as he guided it inside and parked it right next to my bike.
After receiving his B.A. in English from Colorado State University, C.W. Bigelow lived in nine U.S. northern states before moving to the Charlotte NC area. His fiction and poetry have most recently appeared in The Blue Mountain Review, Midway Journal, The Write Launch, Drunk Monkeys, Ponder Review, The Saturday Evening Post, Hare’s Paw, Hole in the Head Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Glassworks, Blue Lake Review, Remington Review, Last Leaves, Aether Avenue Press, Backchannels, Frost Meadow Review, Bare Hill Review, Discretional Love, Beach Chair Press, The Heartland Review, Litbreak Magazine with a story forthcoming in The Avalon Literary Review.
