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Loco Roco the Snow Buster

Recently I made friends with a unique entity – he called to me because he wanted me to take him out snow bustin.  I was leaving Briggs Library the other afternoon – I had happened to catch a ride to campus that morning because I woke up two minutes before my class started – and as I was leaving the library, planning on walking home, this bike and I caught each other’s attention. 

This bike was completely trapped underneath a huge snowdrift, except for its handle bars poking out of the disgusting snow – this drift was one of those beasts that’s been melting and refreezing for months, accumulating a porous crust of dirt suspended in diseased, late-winter sidewalk ice.  This bike looked like it had been burried up to its neck in sand by a tribe of malicious librarians – waiting for carnivorous ants or the scorching January sun to deliver a cruel death.  Little did the primitive librarians know how resilient this breed is; only weak bike species die this way. 

This one looks at me cautiously, but he recognizes something; he is both pleading and challenging.  An unlocked lock curls around one of the handlebars peaking out of the snow, flashing like a “Vacancy” sign on a seedy motel that doesn’t really need to clarify – it’s obvious no-one’s using or caring for this property. 

I plung into the drift, getting in up past my knees.  I can feel snow pouring into the tops of my shitty, unlaced Nikes.  I grasp the handlebars in one hand, plung my other hand into the snow and search around until I find a grip on the seat.  I wiggle it loose, than change position, jerking it out by the rear wheel like a Lab playing tug-of-war.  I finally drag it out of the snow. 

“Oh, thank you,” the bike says shakily as I pick it up and gently drop it on the concrete, bouncing it to shake off the snow and ice.  His voice sounds like the Tin Man, except he’s obviously Hispanic.  The brand is an unrecognizable Wal-Mart type with a blue-green color scheme and the kind of “X-treme” lettering I haven’t seen since the mid-nineties.  The handlebars are just straight, metal tubing, with no rubber or plastic grip-pads. 

“I’ve been in there since November.  I thought UPD picked up all us loose ones over Christmas Break”, he says.  

“I think the school is trying to cut a budget or somethin lately - everybody’s talkin about some recessed economy shit”, I explain. 

“Oh… Huh.  Hadn’t heard about that”, he ponders, “News about that stuff doesn’t make it into the cycle world really.  I don’t pay much attention – don’t concern me”. 

“I dig that”, I reply.  “Wanna ride?” 

“Fuckin duh, homes”, he chuckles and shivers with excitement.  “Let’s make this ice and snow our bitch.  I’ve got a a bone to pick”. 

I find out his name is Rocinante, and he is an amazing conqueror of winter terrain.  His gears don’t shift, but they’re pretty much locked in a one-to-one ratio, good for peddling in low traction situations.  Just one brake works, and that’s only if I squeeze with every muscle fiber in my forearm.  He’s heavy, but this, along with fat, thick wheels, makes him an unstoppable beast – crashing through drifts and over bumpy, wet ice patches.  Energy surges through my frame and his, fusing into a manic snow bustin session.  “I would have loved to meet you as a kid,” I yell down to Loco Roco, as I have started calling him.  I lean into a turn through a deep puddle in the MetaBank parking lot.  I feel a back wheel sliding from under me on a hidden ice patch as a wave soaks our left flank, than the wheel catches on a crack or bump down there.  I grip the handlebars and jerk Roco straight – somehow not crashing.  “Holy shit, you’re amazing”, I congratulate him on his rock steady handling.  

“That’s nothin bro”, he replies. 

When we get home, I clean his gears and oil is chain.  “Hey man, I don’t need no lube – What kinna jerk off you think I am?”, he pretends to be a tough guy, but I can tell he likes the loose-juice.  I can’t fix the brakes, but figure the intense grip required ascertains that anybody riding Roco is up to his standard of toughness.  It makes a loud, rusty squawk when it’s engaged – should alert any pedestrians that a crazy dude’s bustin through on a bike and may not be prepared to stop gracefully. 

So I’ve been snow bustin around on Loco Rocinante lately.  He’s not my bike, but I’m afraid to leave him sit somewhere.  I’d hate for some imperceptive soul to deem him waste and trash him.  But he’s not mine either, so I park it in front of the library, or the rotunda, or the coffee shop, or the bar, and I jam him in a snow drift – no kickstand or bike rack, just standin up straight and challenging with his tires half-stuck in the snow.  I leave the unlocked lock dangle on the handlebar, and when he wants, he’ll send that look at some other crazy mutha and they’ll take a new trip. 

If you’re that lucky one, I just ask that you oil his chain.  For me, please.  I don’t have to ask you to be crazy or ride hard on him.  The only people who get on bikes like this are on a different level, a higher energy.  Feel me if you got the vibe, keep lookin if you don’t.  But lube the gears and chain – it doesn’t have to be the perfect weight of bike chain oil; you can use WD-40, dribble some used motor oil or dab some Vaseline on the cassette, fuck, use lotion if that’s all you’ve got -

It’s better than nothin.  When you’re on this trip, you appreciate everything above nothin.  Roco’s a stallion of the streets, an alley-blaster, a curb-jumper.  His story is mine and yours – it’s the kid’s with thousands of dollars in credit debt, gettin kicked out of another apartment, had no money for years but always got a buzz - the single mom who works at the call center, livin with her three kids (three dads) in Mobile Manor, only in her thirties, but loosing her teeth and throat and organs and soul to menthol cigs, trippin cid on motorcycles, Southern Comfort, and that glass-nasty go-fast, but hasn’t touched a video lottery machine since she got a mouth to feed - steady loosing grip on the delicate margin between used-up junk and an angel of the streets – but the brightest burnin adrenaline buzz in a dull, slushy world. 

Ride him – listen to the story about bustin ice and stayin unlocked.