Safe Adrenaline

Will this light never change? I’m sitting next to Tsubasa who’s chatting away about the modifications to his bike. But I’m not really listening. It’s too fucking hot in this suit in this weather to listen to anything. My hands tap my theighs. I want to go, to get the wind moving through my jacket. I’m biking away from where I should be but it’s good. More air here if that makes sense. I can’t wait for the light to change, to watch the city open up to me, every time like a new sexual experience. I’ve done it, biked into the heart of the city and watched the office buildings give way to inviting shopping districts which move to decimated parks and then to quiet neighborhoods, many times. I’m a biking cassanova. Oh man that’s a stupid thing to say. It sounds like something Tsubasa would say.

He’s still talking. He’s wearing cooler clothes. He looks like the kind of person people expect to see on a bike. He even works at a convience store. It’s odd that we’re still friends after all this time. If it wasn’t for bikes we probably wouldn’t have that much in common. But the prospect of living with Tsubasa is better than living at home with my mom. I highly doubt she’d let me keep a bike. Knowing her she’d probably drive me to work everyday.

Like us, our bikes are very different. Tsubasa’s bike is the kind of bike you get with a Conbini salary and a bookstore salary. He works two jobs to put gas in his bike and help with rent. I pay most of the rent. He’d have to sell the bike without me. I’m indespensible to him. It kind of makes up for the fact that I’m so easily replaceable at work. The light changes and I fight every urge to quickly accelerate and just leave Tsubasa in the dust. No, that wouldn’t be any fun and above all else it would be dangerous. Granted, riding a bike has a certain element of danger but in and of itself it isn’t too bad. Accelerating too quickly at the busy intersection of Hiroshima station around a curve of waiting taxis and streetcars, that’s bad dangerous. I like my adrenaline like I like my bike: safe.

It is a safe bike. I’ve put every instrument on it I could find. I know exactly how quickly I’m accelerating, the speed I’m currently going, everything. I’m even thinking of putting in a GPS but I don’t really use my bike to go anywhere but around the city. I can’t take my bike to work, no where to park. Some men in my office have affairs, I have my bike. I ride past the love hotels they seacret with my helmet down so they won’t know it’s be and my affair going past theirs. I’d like my bike to not be my dirty little secret. If I had my way, I’d take her to work (at least I think it’s a her. I haven’t really named her, but calling it “it” makes no sense). One of these days I’m going to take her on a holiday to Miyajima. I’ll bike all the way out to Miyajima port and we’ll ride to the beach and I’ll camp out. I’ll be away from the city, we’ll be free.

My string of green lights ends and I’m stopping again. I’m not free, not really. Even on her. She’s safe, the kind of bike I’m expected to have if I were a bike owner. I have intstraments that tell me everything. I’m even biking in a suit with a huge helmet. That’s why Tsubasa annoys me, even with his financial worries, he’s free. That’s why I sometimes contemplate moving out, then he’d have to worry. Then he would finally not feel safe in a way that scares him. He’d have to sell his bike, find a new apartment, a new life. But knowing him he wouldn’t really care about starting over. He’d live in a cardboard box as long as he had his bike. I hate that he gives himself so hole heartedly to things, including me. The trust he has, that I’m really his friend, that I’ll pay a little more of the rent, that I won’t just pick up my toys and go home, make me sad. He trust his bike, as rickety as it is and the bike gives him speed. I don’t trust anything, that’s why I have my instruments. That’s why I can’t take my bike on a romantic camping trip to Miyajima. I told a friend at work I felt free on my bike, that I liked the rush. I’m not free and my bike is not reckless. My bike, me, we’re safe with well regulated adrenaline pumping through us.

The city rolls back her shoulders and lets us in. I get annoyed that Tsubasa goes first.

On the way back from the train station I saw a guy in a suit on a huge bike waiting next to my taxi. It looked like one of the bikes I’d seen driving the distance from Illinois to Kentucky. He and his friend, on a much smaller bike with less bells and whistles, seemed to race out to the center of the city. We parted ways when I went toward the bus center and they continued past. His friend looked like he was having more fun but to be fair, if I were in a three piece suit in the summer heat, I’d be pretty uncomfortable too.