Witnessing Greatness
Life is beautiful and life is tremendous. There are unlimited experiences out there if you are willing to participate even at the least possible level such as simply using your five senses (six for my clairvoyant friends) to experience wonderfulness. Hear a child laughing, feel a cashmere sweater (with permission, sleeve only), or watch a butterfly stretch it’s beautifully patterned wings across your windshield.
(I’m not smoking grass by the way. I just proved that I’m not smoking grass by referring to the action as “smoking grass”. Nobody that smokes grass calls it smoking grass, so I’m not stoned, which is a term also not used much anymore. I’m high on life… Proof number 3.)
There are amazing things everywhere. However, sometimes a spectacle is more, much more than just a forgotten pleasant moment amid a sea of sensatory data washing around in your gray matter. Sometimes you experience a scene that immediately embeds in your mind’s greatest hits real and remains in your quick access memory cache to speak about whenever the opportunity presents itself. I would like to share with you an experience I saw that occurred in front of me in the tempered town of Tacoma.
You need to know that it was a beautiful spring afternoon. I had left work to drive down to have a big family dinner at a factory that makes spaghetti and does so with a trolley car actually in the building. That’s wacky because trolley cars are supposed to be OUTSIDE, not INSIDE and how does a trolley help make spaghetti? Who knows? Sorry for the digression. I was going to dinner in Tacoma with Wendy’s family.
As usual when I drive to Tacoma, I take the wrong exit/street/route/bridge or whatever and this particular day was no exception. I plan for this with 10 extra minutes built into the schedule so there is no stress, and I wasn’t stressed on this particular day. I didn’t know I was going to see a thing so mind boggling that I would remember it forever. It was unexpected and horrific and beautiful and when the moment had passed, I was weeping tears of joy and laughter.
I turned my car onto a main drag of Tacoma through the middle of town lined with shops at the bottom of bulky older brick and concrete buildings. I knew I had about 7 or eight blocks of this street to drive down before I would turn again to get me to the one-way street that the pasta manufacturing plant was on. As I began down the straightaway the spectacle began.
A young man, early twenties, riding an 80’s era battered BMX bicycle pulled directly in front of my car causing me to pump the brakes. He immediately lifted his front wheel into the air and held his speed and angle while hovering over the seatless rear of the bike. He was wearing only sneakers and baggy jeans, no shirt. In fact it looked like he hadn’t worn a shirt in four months. He was overly tan and burned in some spots of his upper body with a tattoo here and there. I didn’t see his face right away so I couldn’t read his motivation, but whatever it was, it certainly WASN’T to stay alive because he just pulled out in front of traffic without a care in the world.
My first instinct was to honk my horn, but that may have scared him and make him lose balance and fall in front of my wheels. So I simply backed off of him and gave him some space. His wheelie continued.
The wheelie trick of keeping your front wheel off the ground for an extended amount of time is a skill that is useful for… for… it is not a useful skill. It is however, rather difficult to do for more than a few pumps of the pedals without pulling back to far or aborting back to the more sensible two-tires-on-the-ground approach. This skill should not be confused with riding a unicycle. They are very different. The Unicycle has a center of gravity directly below the person on the wheel. A wheelie involves trigonometry, physics and the ability to reach into your heart like a Buddhist monk and produce a feeling of one-ness with the frame and useless front tire of the wheelie bicycle. It defies the design of the bike, fights the natural order of the cosmos and has no reason for being. A unicycle is simply what happens when an inventor refuses to believe that their design doesn’t make any sense and spends thirty hours learning to balance on a circle to prove its relevance. Unicycles don’t impress people because everyone EXPECTS them to be difficult, but the bicycle wheelie is doing something completely unexpected by design and thumbing its nose at order and wisdom. The same principle made Fonzie cool.
My anger turned to interest when the man had held the front wheel up for more than 60 feet, then 100. I figured he would land it in a moment and I would get around him at the traffic light. Except, it didn’t end at the end of the street, he had the green light and he methodically kept his speed and angle constant and we slowly went through the intersection together without incident. Impressive.
I was rooting for the kid now. I didn’t think he could keep it up much longer, it takes upper and lower body strength to exercise that kind of control. I mean, he was balancing on the wonders of the universe with this bike. He had found the harmonious point where inertia meets gravity meets drag meets angle and he was THERE man. The young man was in the zone. I could see him making it all the way to the end of the second block if he so desired, and he did desire. Looking at him, I could see the adversity he would have to overcome.
His particular adversity happened to be his pants falling down. That made the situation hopeless as he attempted to keep that delicate balance while working against the pants slipping down lower and lower on his legs, limiting his range of movement. Complicating the issue was the fact that the young man had either forgotten or neglected to select underwear to go with the complicated ensemble of pants and shoes. Believe it or not, this is the first time I had seen the menace of crack in Tacoma. But this didn’t stop him.
The biker/magician made it through the second green traffic light, modifying his gate and keeping his eyes on the prize. The complicated web of decisions going on in this man’s brain must have been staggering; an unbelievable amount of balance, speed and control mixed with changing conditions, danger, hope, math, breathing, strength and now the addition of shame and fear of exposing his nether regions. Sacrificing his self respect for one epic, pointless bicycle trick the young man pedaled on through a third green traffic light.
By now I was ready to hoist this man on my shoulders and celebrate him through the streets of Tacoma. I gave him extra space as I crept behind him in my car, blocking the line of angry cars behind me who could not see the inspiring event happening mere feet from their swearing and impatience. I wanted to reach for my cell phone camera, but decided against it in fear that I would run over the very person I hoped to immortalize. I drank in every second and never wanted it to end. It had to end though, but what else could I do to help him?
At the fourth green light, I was hit by a thought: Did he will the traffic lights Green or was he given the go ahead from upstairs? Was God manipulating the street lights? Did this Miracle-of-the-Wheelie prove the existence of God? Yes, yes it did. And now with his pants down exposing as much as they did, I realized people watching this from the front were now free to speculate on what religion this man was using rarely exposed information. From the rear, it was just a sideways smile staring at me saying, “I got this.”
His legs were slowing and must have been pumping on sheer determination. The wheel dipped slightly but did not touch the ground. I found myself screaming in the closed cockpit of my car, like some super fan at their team’s playoff game played in honor of the mascot who had tragically died the day before. I was going nuts in there. “COME ON YOU BEAUTIFUL, AMAZING KID! YOU CAN DO IT! GO GO GO GO!” He might have heard me, might not have. I’m not going to take credit for what happened next.
The wheel rose as the fifth red light changed to green only feet from this young man’s rear tire reaching the second stripe of the cross walk. One more block, one more shot of greatness, one more chance of being backed over by someone pulling out of their angle parking space. If I had an EMP device that I could disable ever car and electric device in a 10 mile radius, I would have set it off without question then and there to buy this kid an extra 50 yards. Luckily, or perhaps with divine intervention, the kid didn’t need it.
Pants at his knees, the shirtless daredevil stomped on both sides of his bicycle frame. Both hands tight on the handlebars and now weaving slightly from side to side, he put everything he had into the bike. This would be the part of the movie where the camera would focus on a tear struggling to stay in the eyelids of his determined face. A boys choir would hold a single falsetto note as the camera shifted to the feet losing balance on ill repaired pedals and a slightly rusted gear sprocket and chain. There would be no shot of the gratuitous nudity appearing only 12 inches above. Because even though the bare-butt funniness would be laughed about later, the moment was never about the indignity. It was a moment that was like the end of Rudy and Brian’s Song and when Han Solo fly’s in to blast away the fighters trained on Luke Skywalker as he blew up the Death Star all rolled into one fantastically real moment in time. This unknown young man was creating a thing of beauty, a moment that will inspire me for years to come, and hopefully through this blog others and future generations who will hear his story.
He was at the end of the block and the stale green traffic light turned to yellow and then to red as we neared the end. “It’s okay kid! You did it! You beat them all!” I cheered. I was filled with joy, filled to the top. “Just land it and pull up your damn pants before that cop on the corner sees your junk!” Again, I’m sure he couldn’t hear me as the pounding of his heart channeled through the blood vessels in his brain must have been deafening. His pants dropped below his knees and the young marvel veered hard to the right.
He landed the front wheel hard in the last angle parking stall reserved for motorcycles. With his pants around his calves he struggled to put on the brakes of the bike and not plant his bare naked posterior on the harsh, seatless bike frame. The bike stopped and lay with its rear wheel spinning on the pavement and the young man put his feet firmly on the ground. The police officer and several onlookers a few yards away on the corner were distracted with the walk/don’t walk sign to the 7th block, and this gave the skinny kid a chance to cover up his shame.
In one fluid move, he reached down with one hand and yanked his big jeans up his body as he thrust one triumphant fist into the sky. I could hear him cry out with the pain and pleasure of a man who had just peaked. Peaked at the top of a mountain, yes, but I hoped it wasn’t the peak of his life. I hoped this would show him a path to success and that he could do anything if he put his mind to it. It was a primal scream that echoed off the downtown Tacoma buildings and attracted the attention of the police officer on the corner who shot him a look of, “What’s this meth addict yelling about?”
I moved my car slowly around the young man covering himself and laughing jubilantly through panting gasps of air and I pumped my fist in solidarity with him and yelled incoherently at him for I had not the words to express the emotions passing through my heart. I was visibly upset, in a good way, and tears streamed down my cheeks. He probably thought I was angry at him for making me drive seven miles an hour behind him for six blocks.
It was my right turn to get to my destination, and I took the free right against the red light to allow the backup of cars behind me to go about their business at a normal speed. I wanted to park and relive the moment with him, possibly buy him a sandwich and a pair of underpants. But I wanted him to know that someone was with him and appreciated the greatness of what had just happened. I was it. I was the only other person who saw the entire thing and if I could download my memory of it so that he could keep it forever, I would.
I want to go back to that corner and fix a large copper plaque to the cement at the cross walk that might read:
On a warm Spring day in 2006, an unknown, three-quarters naked man did the impossible with only a broken bicycle and an iron will. He rode six blocks on one wheel through rush hour traffic. He dreamed the impossible and created a spectacle of beauty and a life worth living.
Things of beauty and inspiration come in all shapes and sizes. This was certainly unconventional, unexpected and a surprise to be sure. Then again, most beautiful things are, and that’s the Damm truth.