The Bike Lock - pt. 1

So this morning, having purchased a bike yesterday for $140, I stepped out of the house on a mission to walk to some legit bike shop and find a lock. I brought my camera along with the intention of snapping for this blog and for FB, what you see playing down the left side here is the product. I began in Katie's neighborhood, just picking pretty things out of the air, and moved on down toward where I thought the bike shop ought to be. Clearly, and no one should have to guess (it's my way), I got lost. While I was preoccupied with frames and angles I was fine but the moment my tummy started to protest things started sliding downhill.

Before all of that, though, I had myself a nice tour of the city. I must have been boppin' along, because people were just kind of saying hi to me as a sort of expected courtesy, or exchange when the sun's shining. It's funny; the white people I've passed on the street so far have been kind, giving me the ol' head-nod you'd expect out of everyone in Indiana. The random black people I've met on the street, though, have been like, "What's up, brother?" and "How you doin', man?", and this guy this morning was walking with his friends, and I mean these look like a trio of kids just younger than me and all bagged out with do-rags and hats and all that MTV jazz and we looked at each other and he stopped and it's "what's up with you, man," and a fist-bump and we go our separate ways. They were sort of laughing when I walked up; it's likely they could tell I was new in town, but what the hell; no one's given me any shit so far, rather, everyone's been really cool. People here seem happy to be here, and are generally better disposed than Hoosiers are, which is saying a lot. I'd be happy to wake up here, too.

I found Colfax Street, which I've heard is the place to find dives and safe sketchyness, and oh yes, was it sketchy. Lots of cops on bikes, people kind of milling, leaning against buildings, just...not working seemed to be the order of the day down there. I walked by the City Grille, which proclaims to prepare the best hamburger in all of Denver, and thus it's on my list. I was pleased with the ambiance of that place, especially. It seemed like a local hang-out and perhaps for that less touristy than Capitol Hill.

If you look up bike shops in Denver online, none of them get a particularly good rap, for somewhat of a ubiquitous reason, at least as far as bike shops go: they are populated, bar none, by pretentious bicyclist pricks. I don't question for a moment that these hipsters-on-wheels know their shit; by Christ's first tricycle they do and they aren't afraid to scoff at your ignorance should you commit the cardinal sin of opening your mouth. In manner, I suppose, they're not unlike their clinically technical brethren, the IT maintenance toads. It's the "you should know this because I'm SO BUSY WITH MY LATTE I CAN'T DEIGN TO ADDRESS YOU PROPERLY" vibe, but with the latter it's comics or porn, or better, some Japanese merger of those arts. But the bike geeks, damn them, remain unbearable for the contrast between common conception of what a bicycle is - a tubular frame shod in wheels, with handles anything with thumbs can grasp - and their manner, which would suggest expertise in rocketry or brain science.

Fine. You understand bicycle mechanics. That makes you...a fucking bicycle mechanic. Get over yourself.

But enough bad noise. What I'm telling you is that I convinced myself, perhaps subliminally, with every word I read of these online reviews of these prospective bike shops, that I'd be better off leaving them a mystery. This attitude set me on a course for downtown, somehow, or at least that's where I found myself for before me from nowhere rose the golden dome of the state capitol, through the trees on its grounds. This was the only place where I saw other people taking photographs...well, here and I saw a girl with her camera in the splash zone of this stone-and-water sculpture, but she looked way into it. As I meandered around the heavy iron fencing, I came upon Denver's obligatory "taste" festival, which in appearance looks like Chicago's but I understand it to be even more state-fair-ish than its famous Midwestern counterpart. It costs nothing to enter but to eat you must buy tickets. I wasn't called, so to speak; it was around this time that I realized where I was, sort of: I had been drawn back to the region which houses Nallen's, my first Denver pub.

Peckish is the word, I think, and the bar, being a genuine Irish pub, serves nothing solid. I stepped instead into this little yuppie square: American Apparel, an ice-cream/smoothie place, and this little cafe, something "colore". Italian fare, so perhaps it was named something Italian. The hosts wore jeans and sunglasses, and there were two of them because one was tagging along, in training. I was seated and approached finally by this tall, Nordic-descended waitress, sweet as pie, and then after she brought me a beer and took my order, I was approached by a second waitress, bearing a salad and perhaps baring some UK in her eyes, or some German. Finally, a third waitress, this one perhaps first-generation Indian or at the very least Middle-Eastern, came with whatever I ordered (the special: it was noodles and salmon in pesto, and perhaps was expensive. A male server was on duty, but he perhaps hadn't any recon to run that day. I mean, it's flattering and perhaps I shouldn't have told Savi about it but I thought it was funny that they each had come when with the other patrons they came two deep at once, when it took four hands. Two pints later I needed a box and was off, promising to come back  sometime this month. Right.

Heading home happy. Gave up on the bike lock. Used the compass on my phone rather than Google Maps.

This fellow I met on the way home, he was a panhandler; no doubt about it. 65 year-old black fella, with a sweater and a can of Steel Reserve, had his arm around this young guy, getting his change when he saw me walking by. It was all "hey man!" and "what do you know?" and it was bro-grabs until he looked me in the eye serious as death and started singing. I don't remember the song, but it was your typical Kasey Kesem Top-40 something-or-other and knowing the song, I cast in with him and sang along. He was doing this hobo dance and tossed his hat off in the grass and I grabbed it and fit it back onto his head and the song, at its close, came with a demand for fifty cents. Okay. I had a pocket full of bills and knowing one was a five, I hoped that the one I was fingering was less and it was, finally, a single. He loved the hell out of that and asked my name, and when I told him (stupid, yes), he told me since he was a Virgo he'd call me Leo from here on out, and only we would know. Okay, buddy. He asked and when I told him vaguely where I was going he wanted to follow along, and so here we are strolling up the street and this guy's saying all kinds of things, not one of which follows the thing which preceded it. He pulls me in and our eyes are about six inches apart and he says, "Don't drink nunna that otha shit because you know? I'm a Budweiser man," and I'm like, "You're damn right you are, man. Fucking Budweiser!" This is when we see these kids up on a porch and he starts shushing me, saying "just be cool, shhhhh" and so I clam up and he prepares to work his routine.

These kids, when this guy starts in, roll out their "WTF" faces and Virgo just goes and goes, at one point stepping back into the grass by the street and hopping up and landing in a splits. "I just got outta jail!" he says when he gets back up.

About this time a couple women come up asking where Virgo's been. He looks at the kids up on the porch and points to the older of the two, who's maybe a shade younger than he is, and tells them never to believe a woman when she tells you she ain't got no money. The younger one demands two dollars for a beer and he jealously guards it, but finally peels off the dollar I gave him from...nothing. It was the only dollar in his pocket and she got it and at that point I said "see y'all later" and that, as they say, was that.

Successful Coloradan afternoon. Good nitrogen ratio in the air.