Bundled up, I am a rainbow: yellow coat, pink hat, gloves in two shades of blue. I have a green backpack. I'm ready to brave the cold and ride my bike to work.
I hop on my bike, begin to pedal. No soft clicking. The chain is off. I'm immobile.
I hop off, pull at the chain, and snap it back onto the gear. On again, click-click-click-click, the soft sounds of the gears pick up pace until they whirrrrrrrr, and I race to get to work, to make up for the brief delay of the off-chain.
Click-click-click-click, the tempo increases, but the sense of urgency is pulled back, slowed, by the soft huuuuh, of each panting breath. Click-click-click-click-huuuuuuuuuuuuh.
The rhythm is Zen, and I'm lost in it. I can't even hear the irregular wuuuuusssh of the cars passing by because there's only the clicking and panting. All other sounds are blocked out. The blood rushing through my ears denies them entry.
But the light up ahead turns yellow. I stop pedalling and the click is silenced, but my breath is still going...huuuuuuuuuuuuh, pause, huuuuuuuuuuuuh.
I squeeze the brakes kshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The noises of the city regain hold--all sounds of the movement of cars. No birds. No wind stirring grass or trees. I alone seem to be living in the concrete and rubber and metal.
A small man, wearing all blacks and greys, shrunken into himself with the cold, crosses the street, and as he steps up onto the sidewalk in front of me he looks up and says, "Don't ride too fast now." He smiles. I smile. Though silent, the smiles sing, they blare joy as loud as any trumpet. Two races, two classes, two genders, two ages--two worlds in fact, but this man is my neighbor, and I love him for silencing the city with his smile.
He continues down the sidewalk, and the cars resume their insect buzzing. The light changes. Cliiiick-cliick-click-click-click-click-huuuuuuuuuuuuh. Gone is the city once again. There is only me, the pumping of my calves, and the rushing of my blood.
But a few blocks later a light goes amber, kshhhhh. An abrupt cutoff of my inner beat. I focus on the orange hand, telling me not cross, holding my pause. This light is my conductor, and I am frozen until it releases me to continue the song.
Beebeeeeeeep! I look right to see the driver of an SUV waving at me and pulling up along the curb nearest my bike and me. I think he needs directions, so I unstraddle my bike and walk over.
"I've seen you before. And I wanted to stop because I didn't think I'd see you again. My name is Akeem. Can I give you my number?"
I'm awkward so I take the torn corner of a book cover with his number hastily written on the inside and find myself offering my own name and number. I am not interested in a date, but I have an irrational fear of confrontation, so I default to being congenial even when I just want to mind my own business and maintain seeming invisibility.
He drives on. I look up. The orange hand tells me to stay where I am. I missed my cue and must wait through another light.
When I resume pedalling there is no click, no panting, no rushing blood. The city has broken my song with intruding thoughts of "I should have said no." The words sever the beats of my rhythm all day.
When I ride home, the halting thoughts are still there, alongside an urgency to outpace the fading sunlight. There is no music for this ride, so loud are my worries. As I pedal the last block, in my rainbow of winter gear, the unsettling knock of "I should have said no; I need to get home" is interrupted by a long deliberate haaaaaahaahaaaahaaaaaaaa.
A head stuck out the window of a red truck is laughing at me. What do they find so funny? Do they think because I'm riding a bike in the cold that I cannot afford a car? Is that funny? It shouldn't be. Regardless, I am riding a bike in the cold because it is good. My blood is flowing. I am healthy. No noxious fumes do I throw in the air.
No matter. I am feet from my door. The ride is over. The day is done. The city has won, and its song is in my head--a steady drumming of anger offset by irregular taps of anxiety.
My beat is off from this city. My rhythm cannot move here, cannot play out a song.
