ON HIS BACK WHEEL

(Photo by Sandis Helvigs)

There's a fight a few doors down between a man and a woman. The man shouts, “I PAY FOR EVERYTHING! THE CABLE, THE INTERNET, THE CELLPHONES!” Then the woman slams the door in his face. And I’m sitting at my typer, quiet, listening to all this as I try to delve into the heart of myself. Now, all I can do is wonder, how do such people cohabitate? How do they live with such fire and fury aimed at one another? There’s enough of that in the outside world to have to deal with it at home, especially with those that know us best and can hurt us the most.

Moments earlier, I was in my usual constipated process of delving. This features a series of simple, interrelated questions that I ask myself: What are you feeling now? What would you like to say about it? Will anyone care? Though the questions are simple, the answers are difficult. Most of the time, I feel void of thought and emotion. I have nothing to say about anything, and I lack the talent to pretend that I care about something when I do not. My best writing comes naturally. Whether it's a poem, a blog, or a story, everything I've written that's worth a damn has fallen from my fingertips without effort… So, this is one of those nights I feel empty, like a Tin Man who’s swallowed a rock. Clankity clank clank. And then nothing.

In my emptiness, a vision comes to me of cycling with my father as a young child. I see the photograph Mom had taken of us on our bikes along Diamond Lake in Oregon. The sun is bright. The water glistens behind us. Dad is smiling beneath his bulbous plastic helmet, as am I. I am three, maybe four years old. Training wheels straddle my back wheel.

Dad was always happiest on a bike. And he was fast. He'd fly down the road between 20 and 30 mph, pulling me through the headwind. I drafted him as long as possible, but I couldn’t keep up, not even as a young man in my twenties. I got the distinct impression that I was holding him back, especially when other riders would pass us and he’d tear off after them, leaving me in the dust. Once he reached their back wheel, though, he'd stop pedaling and coast back to me. Of course, he would brag to Mom when we got home, and he'd be in a good mood for the rest of the night, raising our spirits with that contagious laugh of his. I like to think of him in those days, not much older than myself currently, still swift and powerful, ready to bend the world to his will.

It sounds stupid, childish even, but I think a part of me, one that I cannot consciously control, still strives to please him. I want to make him proud. I want to prove that I can make it on my own, that I don’t need him to PULL me anymore. I want him to look over his shoulder and see that I’m still on his back wheel and, over the rushing headwind, say, “That's my boy.” Something I tell my own son every day. He will never know the pain of being abandoned, ostracized, or disowned. Even if I die early, Mandi will bare witness that I loved him more than anything in this world or the next.

This pain… this twisted psyche… I hope it dies with me.