Quadriplegic

My other vehicle is powered by tostadas fried in coconut oil.  That's the bumper the sticker I need on the Veggie Bus.  Peddling south from the Fort Collins northern city limits, where my family and I have lived since 2001, I nearly decide to skip gathering signatures for the 5-year fracking moratorium.  One right turn onto the dirt road would place me within a few minutes in front of that beauteous tree swing arcing over the Poudre at Legacy Park.  One can drop about 15 feet if you let go right at the apex.  But I am on a mission.  A gentleman, a long greyhair, standing against the bridge railing over the river, calls out to me as I cruise by, "Sir I'm a quadriplegic I don't have a cell phone Do you have a cell phone I can use?"  he calls out furtively, a gravelly crescendo plea. "No, sorry,"  I call out, riding past, noting his arm braces.  Sometimes I just don't want to deal with people.  I do not have a golden heart, only sometimes.  The last time I gave it was a pie and $5 to a homeless man at the corner of Hwy 1 and N College, last winter.  Now they have a little camp under a tree near that intersection.  I've seen him and his buddies, blasted at the end of the day, probably after spending their day's loot.  I felt burned when I saw that.  Homeless, anything helps, said the sign.  Anything will help ease the pain, I think.  I have needed such numbing.

I arrive at Old Town and consider catching the early Foodie Walk crowd.  I had decided to ride out to Harmony Library, where I've never been, to try my luck.  Emails suggested it to be an untapped location for signatures.  At Laporte and Whedbee I spy some free boxes with rain-soaked clothes.  I pick out a patched-up black jacket, a pair of canvas flats, and a child's-sized pair of snow pants, and throw them on my rack.

On southbound Shields leading up to campus, one has the option of guerrilla biking without a lane, or taking some of the scenic side streets.  I like to check out the work going on in frontyards.  I see new porches and walking paths going in.  A woman reclined beneath a massive arbor of grapes.  Is that a Long Island Ice Tea she's sipping?  Some of these yards are suitable for getting gussied up and playing croquet to the tune of gypsy jazz.  Back on Shields, it feels like the weekend has begun in earnest, and there is that hustle-and-flow feel of Friday.  I ride a long, unhurried line south, noting the handiwork on the new Spring Creek bridge, the manicured playing fields of Rocky Mt. HS, the quietude of my old neighborhood, when our girls were small and frolicking, and life was a hazy dream.  From Horsetooth on, someone is building a pipeline.  More infrastructure to bring tar sands gas down from Alberta?  I think of those National Geographic spreads of inky black landscapes where tundra forest once stood, around the Edmonton play - huge swaths of land and its people in the midst of an apocalypse of our own accord. 

And finally, Harmony Library.  I sit on a bench outside the back entrance, writing.  After a while a woman calls out to me from the door, "Is your name Danny?"  Yes, I say.  "Your wife is on the phone.  She says you left your phone, and you took the car keys."  She seems upset.  Can I use your phone?  I ask.  "Yeah, hurry, we close in 3 minutes."  I make my apologies, saying I'll head home.  I check my backpack after hanging up, discover I don't have the keys, then cantor back to call again.  The librarian is incredulous that I want to use the phone.  "None of us get paid to be here past 6:00."  She stares about, wide eyed, looking for some understanding.  It will only take 30 seconds, I offer.  "I could get in trouble.  I wasn't even supposed to let you use the phone in the first place."

On the ride back, it occurs to me that this was justice for not stopping for the Quadriplegic.  It didn't matter that I really didn't have my phone.  It only mattered that I stop and look.  There are people, like the librarian, like me, that will go a mile, but not the extra mile.  And yet that's what people need in order to be helped sometimes - that 2nd mile.  It is a long ride home, but the overall ride is worth the lesson.  The more I put myself out there, the more I will learn.  And so I think an overnight sojourn approaches.