THE BAD-MANNERED BICYCLE

- a story by Darcy Moore

          "Get out of my way old man!" It was the first school day after the Christmas break and Barry had his carpenter's sawhorses set up along the side of the shed he was building, on the path the kid liked to take. There was plenty of space to go around but, in habitual contrariness, the kid insisted on riding his bike between Barry and the shed, brushing the big man with the handlebars. Barry instinctively reached to unseat him, but his hands groped at emptiness, the bike was well past. For a moment he considered giving chase and jerking the child off his bike, but he knew he wouldn't catch it.
        The bike stopped abruptly outside the shop just twenty metres beyond the shed. Propping it up against the window the rider looked quickly in Barry's direction, judged he was safe, then went into the shop.
        "Yer not going to let him get away with it are yer?" Wayne Topping owned what there was of the shed, and had seen it all. He stopped next to Barry, eyes swinging from Barry to the shop, and back again. "He needs a good belt around the ears, that one. Little shit!" Barry listened, but didn't respond, so he went on. "He's only about nine and look how he's behaving, and I bet his parents don't give a damn." Still no reaction. "Yer put up with that sort of stuff and he'll only get worse."
        "That's a nice bike he's got!"
        Wayne Topping was puzzled. Barry was a farmer, and could do anything with his hands. But beyond that he knew the man to have a firm sense of right and wrong. Surely he couldn't ignore such bad manners, but Topping was getting nowhere with this line. He shrugged, "He rides it to the bus stop in the morning, then home again after he's dropped off, in the afternoon. Yeh, it's one thing he seems to treat with respect, I suppose."
        Barry asked a few more questions about the boy, and the bike, then turned back to his work. Wayne wandered off, disappointed, and a little disgusted even, in the limited reaction.
        Had he been out later that morning he would have seen Barry select a few spanners and walk over to the bike. He would have seen the shop keeper come out of the shop and talk to Barry, out of a sense of duty. Though the man had no tender feelings for the kid he felt obliged to keep an eye on his bike. It was a matter of sanctuary.
        "That bike belongs to one of the school kids!"
        "Yes, the one with red hair and freckles, and a bad mouth."
        The shopkeeper was a little confused as to how he should respond. "Yeh, but what are you doing to his bike?"
        Barry's face set in a deep smile. "Oh, I just noticed he seems a little low in the seat." The other man was still uncertain as he watched Barry raise the seat by a miniscule amount. But Barry hadn't harmed anything, indeed his action seemed pointless.
        "Why are you doing it?" The tone was milder now, and curious.
        "Oh, I feel a bit sorry for him. He needs a bit of a hand, just to help him learn a few manners. You know." The shopkeeper nodded, in empathy, but no more enlightened.

        That afternoon the boy spilled off the bus and emptied the scraps from his lunch box on the footpath, a step away from a bin.
        "You pick that rubbish up and put it where it belongs."
        "How do you know it was me?"
        "I bloody well saw you. If you want the bus to stop for you here you keep this area tidy."
        "Why are you always blaming me hey? What did I do?"
        "Clean it up and shut up!"
        And the boy knew he had no choice, for the moment. He muttered a half intelligible curse, but removed his litter. As he left the shop on his bicycle he shouted back, "You're all the same you old people. They ought to put you away!" With his head skewed he was so intent on massaging his wounded pride he only just saw the plank, spread hip height, across his path. The bike skidded to a halt inches away.
        "Shit!" There was the big man from the morning just past the plank, holding a power tool. He was watching. The boy had an impulse to kick over the saw horses, but the big man looked straight at him, impassively. The kid flinched, suddenly aware of their relative sizes. He retreated around the obstacle and directed a stream of swear words at Barry as he rode past, but they were cautiously indiscriminate. He rode furiously up the road.
        "His mum will cop it tonight and wonder why," Barry thought. "But she deserves it."
        "Good on you mate!" He turned. The shopkeeper stood squarely in his doorway, and jerked his forearm in a token of satisfaction. Barry smiled, and switched on the drill.

        Each afternoon the three adults watched; but not too obviously. They were so low key the boy became more brazen and contemptuous when he happened on one of them. But as the days passed, controlling his bike took a greater and greater effort of concentration. He was soon too preoccupied to bother the adults, and gave Barry a wide berth.
        He never saw the three of clustered around his bike each morning, or heard them talking and laughing. Barry said very little and only ran to a bemused smile.
        "Yer don't think that's too much?"
        "He knows what he's doing, it's hardly anything. The kid won't notice."
        "I don't know how he can still reach the pedals."
        "He's just about falling over the front wheel."
        And it was true. By the end of a fortnight, when Barry put his spanners away, the boy looked like a spider when he mounted the bike and rode off, legs straining to touch the pedals as they descended, and arms stretched forward to grasp the distant handle bar grips. He couldn't understand. It had been so gradual that his body didn't consciously notice the awkward extreme it was being forced into.
        But the boy laboured away. The bike began to be less an instrument of pleasure and freedom, and more a contrary and painful object he was forced to depend on and, to retain his sense of manhood, control. His love for, and sense of attachment to it began to wither. Finally it was carelessly flung on the pavement, begging to be stepped on and abused. Around the shed and the shop at least the main prop of his rebelliousness had been removed. He grew subdued, and although he could not be called well-mannered, offered no cheek. Barry learnt that the bus and the school were a different matter and was reassured. He had no desire to break the boy's spirit altogether.

                It was several week's later and Barry's last day on the shed. He watched the boy working furiously to control his bike as he came past the shed in the morning, head bowed and body spreadeagled in a total application of tissue and will. At mid-morning he stopped for a break, took out his spanners and strolled over to the bike.
        "G'day Barry. We won't be seeing you much any more, so Wayne tells me."
        "No, I finish up today."
        "I'll miss your company."
        "Thanks."
        "What are you doing anyway? He won't be able to ride it at all if you raise it any further." He watched, curiously. "You're not. You're lowering it, all the way!" It was somehow blasphemous - after all the subtle adjustments - to see the full shank of the bike seat sink in one fell movement.
        "Yes." The shopkeeper wasn't sure he understood or agreed, but he'd come to respect Barry.
        "Oh well, I suppose it was your idea anyway."
        Barry smiled. He handed a cone spanner to the man. "Here, keep this. In case you need it."
        The man shook his head as Barry walked back to the shed. "You're a strange one," he muttered, and chuckled to himself.

        Barry had his truck loaded, all his gear stored on board, by three o'clock. He idled away the next forty minutes inspecting his work. Being a perfectionist he was never wholly satisfied - he felt a twinge when he saw a bolt that had gone down a little too far and bent the metal, and a shard of corrugated iron that hadn't been cut quite cleanly.
        When the bus came he stood by the side of the shed. The kid dragged his bag down the steps and walked, without enthusiasm, to his bike. He jerked it roughly up off the ground, secured the bag on the luggage rack, mounted it and pushed off. A look of shock transfixed his features, then Barry could almost feel the joy that coursed through him, ending at his cheeks and eyes, as the bike moulded into his spirit, as its size and shape and its rhythm matched his own again.
        The kid seemed to dance in the seat, gave what seemed to be a couple of whoops, and performed several daring circles of rubber about the busy highway, to a chorus of angry horns. Then he straightened and headed towards Barry with a ferocious pummelling of the pedals. He deliberately rode between the parked truck and the shed, with Barry in between. "Get out of the way old man," he yelled in the throes of a blood lust as he skidded past, grazing the rear vision mirror.
        Barry allowed himself a broad smile, and looked towards where the shopkeeper waved in acknowledgment. He climbed into his cabin and turned the ignition key.