Little Boy Blue and The Man In The Moon

Now I would like to relate a little vignette about my father. Living with my Dad has been quite inspirational, in a backward sort of way. I've mentioned that before and I think this story illustrates it.

My dad works 2nd shift at a local hospital, 2-11 pm. When the weather is nice he rides his bike. One evening in the late summer of 2008 I heard him outside of my room after arriving home from work, and I went out to say hi. I usually seclude myself in my room, but I try to come out to hang with the pops every so often. Its the least I can do considering he gives me a place to live, and I know I am the only sane and intelligent person in his life.

I went out into the hallway and Dad was there, standing at the top of the stairs.

"Hey Dad," I said. "How's it going?"

"Oh, Ben," he said, deeply depressed. "I just don't know."

He sat down on the stairs, obviously very distressed. I remember feeling like my chest was compressing, being sucked inside itself. The only thing that jumped to my mind that bring my father to this precise level of despondency was losing his job. This was the Meltdown Era and it seemed like a plausible thing to happen. At the time I was totally dependent on his support and if he lost his job it would be a disaster for me, not to mention my father and the rest of his family. These thoughts scorched in my mind in the moments before he related what happened.

"My bike was stolen," he said.

I was relieved. But my Dad in a rough place because of it. I asked him, and he told me what happened. He had stopped by the local convenience store on his way back from work to buy some beer. He had left the bike outside, unlocked, but never out of his sight. Because it was never out of his sight he was able to see it stolen. I should mention that he, and I, live in a fairly depressed region (it is far too large and decentralized to really qualify as a neighborhood) of West Columbus. Neither one of us needed to mention that leaving his bike unlocked was an invitation for theft.

I gave him what support I could, knowing that his foolish actions had led to this inevitable result. I told him he just needed to pick himself up, learn from this, and generally live his life with more vigilance and foresight. And, after all, it was only a bike.

But, the shitty things of it is, it wasn't just a bike. Well, it was, but to tell the story right I have to bring up so many other things, which is why having this bike stolen made my Dad so upset. It called to mind larger failures and mistakes. Put on a pot of coffee, reader.

He rode the bike to work because he did not have a driver's license. It was revoked as a result of a careless DUI. This was a source of shame to him. The bike had been a gift from his sister-in-law, and by all accounts it was very nice. (I never saw it, myself)

Earlier that summer, I noticed that my Dad had a bruise on his face one morning. I asked him about it.

"Ben," he said, "I'm gonna tell you about this and then I don't want to talk about it. I got beat up, and my bike got stolen."

The story goes as follows: He had been out riding in our decrepit neighborhood. A car of young hoods had driven by him on the road and a girl in the passenger seat had screeched at him. This startled him and more importantly it apparently pissed him off to no small degree. Deciding to take his measure of revenge, he trailed the car to a local eatery (KFC). While the car idled in the drive-thru Pops rolled past the passenger side, strafing it with his own scream. Apparently he really startled the girl. People in this neighborhood take such petty slights seriously. Hell, you might as well when everything and everyone around you is poor and run-down -- but I digress. The men, or boys, in turn followed my Dad on his bike, eventually running him off the road somehow.

"I tried to stop them," Dad related, "but there were two of them, and they beat me up and took my bike."

I have seldom heard anything more pathetically asinine. This was my father, too, a 50+ year-0ld man, roughed up, with his bike stolen in broad daylight. Emasculating to say the least.

Moving forward a few weeks later, my Dad was in a more jubilant mood. Fortune had returned his bike to him! Outside a different local convenience store he had seen it, lying outside the door. The shopkeep pointed out the bike's "owner" who had apparently got a "great deal" on it from someone. My Dad had called the police and this man, not wishing to violate his probation, had acquiesced to Dad. The bike was his again. He had been granted a second chance. His foolish behavior had been reprieved and he had his bike again.

But then, of course, he lost it once more through foolishness. That evening on the stairs what depressed him the most was not the loss of transportation but the realization that he had failed to learn from his mistake. Knowing that his bike could be taken from him he let it happen again. This time he wouldn't get it back. I wish I could say that the events of this story made him revise, even slightly, the way he goes about his life. I wish I could but I can't, because that would not be the Truth.

We only get so many second chances. I have had more than my fair share and I don't want to get myself into situations where I need any more. I don't want to leave my bike untended while I buy beer. I want to ride my bike home, save my money and my time for productive activities. Because someday I want to have a car and I don't want my life to be more, much more, than a series of cautionary tales such as this.