Truesday: Them's The Brakes

I propose that if they hadn’t converted that into a goddamn pay lot, three things would still have some measurable momentum.

1) Waterloo would still be offering shuffleboard and curiously warm beer out on the veranda.
2) Intel would still be building their shitskraper, therefore the tech boom would never have ended for anyone in the universe, further ingratiating hundreds of thousands of poorly planned retirement portfolios the world over.
3) Clinton would be currently leading this country after re-running for presidency halfway through GW junior’s term, magically winning, and then declaring the United States as a Totalitarian Regime replete with due and proper felatio at every Driver’s License renewal.

But then there’s the break of the brakes.

Remember when the Yellow Bike Program seemed to be in full swing? Those fuckers were everywhere! Some even had cake-like painted tires.

“Hey, are the tires on that bike painted yellow?”

“Looks like it.”

“With spray paint?”

“It’s thick. Maybe house paint.”

“Wouldn’t that slide on wet pavement?”

“Looks like it would.”

“Isn’t that a liability or some shit? Like leaving a box full of aluminum bats, jars of rabies, and razor blades sitting on a playground?”

“Probably. But it’s free.”

“So’s a punch to the face.”

“…”

“Death’s free too. For the die-er.”

“…”

“Not cheap for the family though. Coffins are estate killers. There’s all types of irrationally exuberant finishes you can get. Oak. Mahogany. Black lacquer.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s house paint.”

There were bikes all up and down the drag. Like wheeled bees buzzing around a hippy honey hive. You’d see one dude ride up to Wheatsville on one, lean it against the Thrifty Nickel bin, and some other happy shirtless kid with a fistful of granola would ride off on it. No one seemed to mind the incidental nature of the experience. They were herpes popular, those bikes.

But one day, you started seeing yellow-painted bikes chained to shit, and the chains were not painted yellow. Or there’d be nothing more than a chipped and stomp-bent yellow frame, stripped naked, chained to something tragic. Chained to an abandoned water heater. No more yellow painted tires and rubber handle grips that got paint chips all in the cracks of your palms. No more free-wheeling homeless kids migrating from spot to spot with their leashed dogs trailing behind. Instead you’d see your asshole neighbor ride up his driveway on one, only to see him park/hide it in his garage. HIS yellow bike, apparently. Suddenly “free” meant “owned”.

The goddamn morality brakes.

I can think back on a time, not so long ago, that I had a smatter of light plans for a birthday celebration. Something involving absinthe, fire, karaoke, and maybe some hedge trimmers. I didn’t really have it mapped out. Like I said, it was more of a smatter. And smatters can be delicate things when their kindling-thin underpinnings are subjected to the harsh flames of reality.

So instead of an indulgence in lofty smattering, there’s the wonderfully-timed failed parking brake on Red Rocket. I tried to park, but the listless little dude preferred to keep on truckin’. I’ve since been using two large stones to keep him from rolling off and finding us a sweet lawsuit. It’s quite the scene, getting those rocks in and out of safe placement. Motherfucker.

It’s running me $450 to fix, because taking a truck like Rocket into a mechanic's shop is like taking a man like me to Octoberfest: there's nothing but temporary treatments for the limitless symptoms of the real problems in the joint, it will end poorly for everyone but the vendor, and the final solution will involve sheets of tears and/or photos of errant genitalia. I have no idea where that comparison was actually trying to go, but I swear it works on a couple of levels. I mean, do you realize how many Cambodian sex slaves* $450 can get you? Like, fifty probably.

Total guess right there.

The mechanic tried to convince me that I needed new shocks too. After looking at Red Rocket, dude should have known that was adding insult to injury. I was like, “shocks? Are you shitting me? Apparently I’m lucky if I’ve got brakes on this thing, so I’m not going to sweat the comfort of the ride. Beyond the correction of real safety issues, I don’t think I’ll be investing any more than harsh criticism from here on out.”

[actually, I was stuttering-sticker-shocked so I probably just answered with a terse “nah, and I'm considering sticking with the rocks too.”]

“You sure about that?”

“I’m riding it until the wheels fall the fuck off it.”

“Yeah, that’s funny young fella. Might be sooner than you think.”

“Well I’m not slowing down my own momentum for the sake of this truck, my man. Got things to do. Places to see. Bridges to burn.”

“I see. But then there’s the brakes…”

*by “slaves” I am referring to any of the following: cleaned goats, large wombats of dubious mental faculty, Sears mannequins, and youngish or diseased tigers.