Black Friday



The Jeep, a 1994 Iron Horse bought at a department store

The plan was to resist Black Friday, and seek the clear, blue sky.  I've been riding the Gitano, so light and free, but The Jeep sat forlornly in my garage with a flat front, for about a month now.  It was neglected, and anyway it was time to hop back in the saddle, for snow is just around the corner.  I got a much later start this day, thanks to a veritable deluge of wine the night before.  Thank you, in-laws...for bringing us exactly what we needed.  Good company, unexpectedly mellow company, grateful, and bearing wine.  Our daughters took care of the brunt of cooking, so my wife and I could sip coffee on the front porch...for like, an hour.  What have I done to deserve this?  My intention was to let this mellowness spill into my ride.

What a pleasure to ride down N College now.  At night we have all those nice lamps.  The lanes are wide and well demarcated.  I spy a real bodhisattva at the new bridge, headed towards Legacy Park with a giganto pack.  I am not ready to speak to these people as I once did, out of fear or a feeling of unworthiness.  I do note the downward look for grace, and I am humbled to do the same. 

I decide for some reason to note the times.  I had been doing it all day.  At 3:35, writing here at the library, I got to witness a young man ride up to two older gentlemen, and beseech them:  You don't do that!  That's not right, you don't go around scaring people like that!  He was enraged, and looking for some response from these two, who were running away from him.  Hey, I said, you're scaring people, too, like these children around here.  He shot me a confused look.  It was true, though.  Their parents took them in a wide arc away and then back to the front to enter the library.  There must be some reason I bear witness to strange characters who seemingly come out of the woodwork.  If not, then perhaps there is still something I can pull out of it.  Kierkegaard says become the truth, don't just know it.  The truth was, I didn't know how to intervene effectively, so I was disregarded.  I apparently am not properly armed for all that may happen, and thus have work to do.

Here is something strange.  I am constantly accosted by churches.  They slow me down.  I have a photo collection of church doors, through which I rarely feel inclined to walk.  It may be that soon I'll seek them out.  I looked up The Church of the Brethren once, as I was reading a book by Vernard Eller, and the wiki page featured a tiny stone church in Hygiene, Colorado.  Might have to cruise out there Spring of next year.  These churches slow me down.  I read the block to see when they were established.  1914.  Isn't that when the revolution began?  Trains propel us forward and backward through time, if you have ridden them, but churches somehow stay me, and I have learned to be cautious about them.

Down the sidewalk along Riverside, trying not to look like that one guy in the poster who cruises all our sidewalks.  3:52 at Houska's.  Pay your debt to Blockbusters at exactly 4:00 - you probably shouldn't see the new James Bond.  Save your money, wait for the $2 theater, and rent another Sam Mendes film instead.  Let this be the last time you rent at this Blockbuster, for you never return your movies on time.  Note the sky, less blue now.  Note how quickly the moon is rising.  You will never get out of this town before the moon reaches the other side.  It is now 4:20 en punto. 

Stop at Black Pond, 4:32, change hats, don another layer.  Smirnoff Raspberry and salmon-purple sky.  This time yesterday the turkey was pulled from the oven.  Ride long and far, and have slow-food parties where you teach one another to cook new things.

Cattail Chorus Natural Area.  Who knew that the trail stretched behind all those clinics?  Perhaps not enough people.  I see all this river rock and am tempted to take it.  Load up the basket with river rock and build me something in the front yard.  I imagine another passerby drawn off the concrete trail, down among elm and cottonwood, towards the water, and...What the?  It looks like someone came in here AND TOOK A TON OF RIVER ROCK!  I hesitate briefly, take a snapshot, run.  It is only 4:45.  This is not what it was just prior to the Great Ending of Daylight Savings.  It has become utterly linear and confused once more.  Do not be fooled by the seemingly linear arc.  Haven't I been here before?

At the Colorado Welcome Center, an orange panorama of the Front Range.  It's like Bob Ross and the Painter of Light dude got together and raised a daughter who, imbued with both their mad skills, swathed a fat stroke across the horizon, orange tinged with purple, then painted the darkly silhoutte of the mountains just beneath it.  Does this place actually have a restroom?  Smirnoff Orange waits for no one.


Some day-after-Thanksgiving I shall like to hunt me a goose or two, knock them out of the sky with one of those bludgeoning arrows, or perhaps with stone and slingshot.  All is deep purple and shadows, but I hear you, geese.

The road over I-25 is like a borderline.  Is this road new?  I peddle, looking down into my circle of light, and just watch as the white line runs beneath me.  Up on the right, THE MOST COMFORTABLE-LOOKING HOUSE I'VE EVER SEEN.  A soft, yellow glow emanates from within, but there is no sign of anyone.  Glancing, riding, it appears like one of those homes in Sunset magazine, like a breezeway modular, with tall ornate grasses for privacy, and a shed turned into an artist studio.  CR-5 and Prospect.  All these cars, one or two every minute.  Haven't you seen someone sitting, writing, sipping vodka at this intersection before?  Smirnoff Coconut.

Follow the white line.  Peddle, peddle.  On vodka legs, peddle, peddle, peddle.  The little lights of Timnath seem so yonder, you peddle furtively.   Finally, at the community garden, I pause, park, note the alternaria having taken over two huge pumpkins posted at the entrance, then make my way to the pergola, where I've always longed to sit.  Someone stops, approaches the sign at the entrance of the garden, notes my bike, then pulls a sledgehammer from beneath a trenchcoat, and starts banging downward on the signpost.  It echoes and fills up this whole area.  He goes at it for perhaps a minute, then, satisfied, hops in his truck and drives off.  Such is the Friday nightlife in Timnath these days. 

Smirnoff Melon for the ride home, for I will not make Windsor tonight.  Perhaps some night somone will open a little minibar in the grange building.  I will have a little whiskey, then look downward, gracefully, note the white line wavering and rolling beneath me, the line to Windsor.  I heard it told that there was a fracking site somewhere in Windsor where they tapped into the landfill, and hypodermic needles got pulled along in the frack waste.  The site was close to a stream that traipsed down to a neighborhood...

Timnath Presbyterian - organized 1883, church built 1858.  Those were significant times, as all times are significant.  6:29 and just out of town, no one is on the road, so take it over.  Your new line is yellow and dashed.  Peddle like your childrens' lives depended on it.  Slow now, huffing, and fall into a graceful cantor.  There are coyotes.  One is howling and the others are running.  You hear yipping.  Get moving again.  Peddle, peddle.  You careen between the dotted line and the solid one on the right, concentrating on peddling, and gasp for air.  Middle-Aged Man Brought Down by Coyotes.  Finally I reach the comfortable, well-lit house, rest across the street, next to the canal.  The yipping has subsided and feels distant.  At 7:00 I chug from my water bottle, amazed to find big chunks of ice there.  My throat clenches, and my tired body absorbs the cold.  Right on Timberline off Prospect, over to the tracks at Vine.  The normally quiet Plummer School is lit up now, a big flatscreen flashing.  I've always wanted to sit on that swing, but not this night.  The house across Timberline is dimly lit, as if by candlelight, and shadows or ghosts within twirl a pas de deux.  I have known since drinking wine on this lawn, on rides past, that this home is haunted.  I dwell here only momentarily.  8:07 and Bullfrog Wine & Spirits again.  Sit at bench and eat.  Greenbean casserole, cold.  Wild rice, cold.  Cranberry sauce, freezing, but delicious.  8:28, home.  Smirnoff Lime, followed by Levity.