Life Explodes

2 August

Further on up the road someone’s gonna hurt you like you hurt me.
Further on up the road someone’s gonna hurt you like you hurt me.
Further on up the road, baby, just you wait and see.

You gotta reap just what you sow; that old saying is true.
You gotta reap just what you sow; that old saying is true.
Just like you mistreat someone, someone’s gonna mistreat you.

You been laughing pretty baby; someday you’re gonna be crying.
You been laughing pretty baby; someday you’re gonna be crying.
Further on up the road you’ll find out I wasn’t lying.

Further on up the road someone’s gonna hurt you like you hurt me.
Further on up the road someone’s gonna hurt you like you hurt me.
Further on up the road, baby, just you wait and see.

(Further on Up the Road by Joe Medwich Veasey and Don D. Robey)

*****

May 2009

I knew him better than I knew her. On my first B-level ride he made sure I wouldn’t get dropped. He helped teach me how to mountain bike and led us through the Pinelands. He went on my rides in the spring. He cracked jokes and drank strong coffee in Lambertville. And even though he could ride much faster than the rest of us he never showed it off.

Things had started to change in the fall but we didn’t really notice. He skipped out on us when he was supposed to lead a ride. When we saw him on the road with his faster friends a few hours later none of us believed what he said when he told us he’d gone to work in the morning. At our house on New Year’s Eve I called him a fink for it. He protested a bit too much.

He had a secure job. The house was paid off. He got new toys: two fixed-gear bikes and a sports car. He turned fifty and his wife threw him a party. A bunch of us got together and had leggings custom made to match one of his bikes. He wore them as he stood in the kitchen drinking with his fixed-gear friends. I saw the pictures later and realized that we weren’t his inner circle anymore.

He spent more and more time on his fixie with the Fixies, less and less time with his wife, and none at all with the rest of us.

Now she tells me about one more new toy and swears me to secrecy. Her life is full of cracks now. She is crying, crying, crying.

*****

June 2009

She and I talk a lot. Maybe I’m the one person from his old life he’ll listen to. But what should I say? What can I say? I like them both. I care about them both. How do I get in the middle without staying in the middle?

It takes me weeks to figure it out.

I leave him voicemail, shaking in the hallway at work after hours. I’m at a company party, mandatory, when he calls back. I sit in the grass away from the crowd and listen. He sounds, drunk, sad, remorseful, but I don’t know if it’s an act. All I can do is tell him to go back home, to fix it. He says he wants to but he can’t figure out how. I tell him to just go home, go home, go home.

*****

28 June 2009

The woman in pink has a loud voice. Everything is exciting to her. In today’s group she is the only one none of us knows.

We're flying down a southbound road somewhere east of Chesterfield. The tailwind pushes us and her voice forward. At the top of her lungs she announces what is still a secret: “----- and ----- are together!”

“You do know they’re both married.”

“----- is?”

“They both are.”

“Ohhhhhh!”

*****

3 July 2009

This is the weekend her life finally flies apart. It is public now and the exploded pieces land on all of us. Surprise, astonishment, outrage, sympathy, disbelief, and her shattered life and crying, crying, crying.

We talk to her, to each other. We do what we can to pick up her pieces but none of us really knows how to put her life back together. All we can do is to be there as she tries to rebuild.

*****

July 2009

Infidelity, that breach of trust, is the worst thing one can do to another person. Abandonment, rejection, empty hours, an empty house, and an empty life are all that is left. That and hope that he’ll come around.

They still talk, she tells me, but he spends only time enough with her to keep her hopes up and in tears when he is gone. He sees her and the house and he sees what he has done. He can’t handle it. He runs to the other one. Biking, drinking, fucking, running from the truth, numbing himself, running from himself, biking, drinking, hiding.

His so-called friends leave it alone. It’s his problem, they say, let him deal with it; we just want to do our ride and go home. It’s none of their business, they say, and he hasn’t made it their business. He’s in trouble and maybe they know it, but he’s safe with them because none is friend enough to acknowledge what is happening.

Over here we react differently. Her problem is our problem. We hardly knew her but now we know her. I’m thinking about it all the time. Everyone else is too. We see her but none of us has seen them.

Some of us were angry with him right away. It takes some time for me to get there. I have to wait until nothing has changed.

Twice I dream that I do see them. I approach and let loose my fury. I circle them as my tirade goes on, trapping them, wrapping them in my words. But when I wake all the words are gone.

*****

1 August 2009

I know there’s a good chance I’ll see them today, maybe at registration or on the road as they fly past us. Of all of us I am the only one ready to let the rage escape.

But what would I say? Invective might feel good for the moment but it would be entirely unproductive. Lecture them? There would be neither time nor space enough on the road nor at a rest stop. Should I say nothing? A cold, hard stare? That would only delay the inevitable confrontation.

On a quiet road in a paceline north of the Pinelands I land on it: One word.

One word will be enough. The word is the whole story, the truth, unavoidable, and it will be said where they have been hiding. If they have to wonder what it means then they’ll have to spend time wondering; and if they know already then it will go straight to where it needs to go without the wondering. Either way that one word will be enough. Maybe they will think I’m crazy but I never did care what she thought of me; what he thinks no longer seems to matter. With this one word I will have taken sides and will have said all that I need to say.

We’re at the first rest stop when one in our group says he’s seen them here.

“Where?”

“Up by the food,” he says.

I move in that direction. “There’s something I need to say to them.”

He puts himself in front of me, pushing me back with the side of his arm. “No,” he says. “Don’t start a fight.”

“I’m not starting a fight. One word.”

“No.”

“Just one word.”

“No!”

I stop and he stops but he doesn’t see that they’re walking towards us, one on each end of a line of four.

I step into their path. First I fix my eyes on him until he sees me. He looks miserable. There is no other way for him to look once he sees me. I turn towards her as she approaches. She starts to work on a smile but I stop her with one word, my voice a monotone, impassive. Behind me he says hello with the same impassive voice. Again the one word and they walk around me like a wave past a rock.

But one word isn’t enough. Their backs are to me now but they are still close enough for my voice to reach them, surround them, pass them: “It will be on your conscience forever!”

The one who tried to stop me is now trying to talk to me but I’m dialing. She picks up on the second ring.

“I saw them.”

“What did you say?”

“One word.”

“What was it?”

“I said your name.”