I used to love riding my 10-speed bike around Boston. I’d take it down to the Charles River, across the bridge to M.I.T. and further out to Cambridge and Harvard. I’d ride it to Boston Commons and Beacon Hill, down Beacon Street towards Boston University and Kenmore Square. I’d go down to State Street by the combat zone, and look at all the hookers and weirdo’s. You name it; I’d been there in Boston.
Since I was stoned quite often, that meant I rode my bike high pretty much all the time. For the most part that wasn’t a big deal. I was good at operating heavy machinery and a 10-speed bike isn’t even close to being in that category.
For some reason, I’ve always been able to function quite well being high except once in a while I’d totally forget where I parked my bike. A few days would go by and I’d wake up in the morning in an absolute panic and realize — yet again — that I had no idea where my bike was parked.
So I’d think to myself, “Oh, no, I’ve done it again.” I’d scramble off to the general vicinity of where I thought I might have left my bike and pray to whatever God I had in my very unspiritual brain at the time that I’d be good and never lose it again, and either it’d be gone, or it was there but all the parts had been stripped.
Usually, it was just plain gone. Once in a while, I’d find it intact and chained to a tree or something else. Those times were lucky. I probably went through four or five bikes that way, which was pretty pathetic, to say the least, and a clear example of how being stoned 98% of the time was really beginning to make an impact on my bicycle riding serenity.

I was 13 when my first 10-speed bike was stolen. My biological father had given me a Huffy for my birthday. It wasn’t a great bike, but it was new, and it was mine, and it was from HIM.

It lasted two weeks.

I was an idiot and left it unlocked and someone stole it on the first day of school.

Looking for my bike in a panic and realizing that it was gone, I felt utter terror and hatred and insanity that someone would just do that to me. It was a sinking feeling in my heart and after the initial sadness and confusion and grief I finally came to one stark conclusion: I was finished with the regular world. I was done being a nice, conformist kid that went along with how things were supposed to be. That was the last straw. I was at war, man. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was going to start a covert underground army and do everything I could to undermine society, as we knew it. I was going to dedicate every ounce of my strength to creating total anarchy.
I didn’t want just one bike thief to suffer, either. I wanted our entire civilization to suffer the pain that I felt that day. When my first 10-speed bike was stolen, it began a regular pattern of antisocial behavior on my part. I can pin it all on that moment in eighth grade. I just snapped. I wasn’t going to take it any more.

About five years later, back in Boston, I’m cruising on my sky-blue Bridgestone 10-speed, the creme de la creme of all of the bikes I had ever owned. Since I was good with bikes I had gotten a part-time job at Community Bike on Tremont Street so that I’d be able to afford to buy my own, brand new, really nice bike.

So, one day I’m cruising along near downtown Boston on my favorite bike of all time. I was riding in the middle of the street in between some really tall buildings on a typical, busy, bustling day. I was just cruising along, not going that fast, and minding my own damn business. There wasn’t too much traffic and everything was just fine. For the moment, that is.

I looked across the street to my left and saw a really pretty girl wearing a tight business suit. I had to turn my head and stare at her great butt. The way she wiggled her ass was straight out of a 1940′s movie: the dame with the tight dress and the big ass and skinny little waist and high heels. She looked amazing from the front too; she had long blond hair and was pretty, maybe in her mid twenties, probably going to work with some pep in her step.
I stared just a little bit too long.
My head was turned all the way around, checking out this hot blond babe in the business suit, completely not looking where I was going. I maybe was looking at her three or four seconds, maybe even longer; I don’t know, time seemed to stand still, but however long I kept looking was too long.
Crash!
I rode right into a giant hole in the middle of the street! I literally rode straight into a four-foot trench, a massive ditch, completely unaware of the entire thing.
My bike nosedived straight down and I flew off over the handlebars and landed square on my forehead on the concrete. I was completely unprepared for the impact and I totally blacked out. In skateboard terms, it was called a head plant.
I don’t know how long I was out cold but I woke up all covered in blood and I didn’t know where I was. A traffic cop stood over me, directing cars away from the accident scene and he must’ve radioed in for an ambulance.
When I came to, the first thing I said was “Is my bike all right?”
The traffic cop just shook his head and said, “Don’t worry about your bike. You’re goin’ to the hospital.” He had a really thick, south Boston accent.
I could see the front wheel of my bike practically folded in half. The frame was all bent from the impact and FORCE of how hard I hit that trench. I hit it so hard that it bent a solid reinforced steel alloy bike frame. My favorite 10- speed of all time was totaled.
That was not a good day.
I still have a scar right near my left eyebrow. Guess I was lucky there was a traffic cop nearby; I could’ve gotten run over by a bus or car or who knows what. Since that day, I have a three-second rule for looking at chicks across the street.