What Happened When I Went Looking For A Stolen Bike

The message came in while I was reading online student drafts, seated at the table on my porch. It was spring in Tucson, and snow-melt was running in the Rillito. Sun shone. Gold finches, cardinals, Gila woodpeckers, and Gambel's quail chirped and squawked and sang. The fountain gurgled its happy little melody.

Over this halcyon moment hung a pall of quarantine from COVID 19, the novel coronavirus. We teachers and other non-essential workers were "sheltering in place" to keep the virus from infecting so many that the healthcare system would be overwhelmed. That fact stuck in my joints, made me feel tight, confined, resistant to any movement.

The message overrode the quiet moment with the urgency of a distress call. Ricky I. was following someone riding one of our stolen bikes. He wanted to contact me and didn't know how. I switched from reading student papers to fight/flight/chase mode with all the adrenaline that comes with that. I punched my phone number along with "I'm here." into the social media post. Immediately my phone rang.

"I saw your bike. I know it from the photos you sent out. It's a positive ID. Definitely the bike. The guy riding it is way too big for it too. It's clearly not his bike," Ricky said. "He took it down to a homeless camp in the wash by Tucson Mall, Stone Avenue, near the bus transit center."  

"Thanks," I said. "I'll head over."

"You want me to wait here?"

"No, I'll take care of it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

I had no idea what I would do, but grabbed a phone, a camera, and my folding knife. I got out of my stay-at-home shorts and put on some jeans and a tough looking t-shirt. I didn't know what I was getting into.

I called Sean and Aaron, my sons, and we all agreed to meet up at the transit center and head over to the camp.

Sean brought a big u-lock and a key to lock the bike if we found it. Aaron brought a can of pepper spray in case things got nasty. I had my GoreTex hiking shoes and grungy baseball cap.

Sean and I arrived first and walked over to the railing above the camp. I could see the makeshift shelters and some movement below between the tarps and the tents.

"Hey," I yelled. "You have my stolen bike and I want it back. Bring it out or I'm calling the cops." I held up my phone. "It was seen here a little while ago. We know you have it."

A young, tough-looking guy in a wife-beater stepped into view. I could see tattoos and well-defined muscles. He was carrying a glass pipe of some kind. I guessed he had just taken a hit of something.

"Come on down," Tough Guy said, somewhat threatening, "and fucking look. We don't have your bike. And I didn't steal your fucking bike."

He stood there below me, in the brush, defiant in the sun, a young man used to confrontation, ready for anything, pipe in hand.

Another young guy joined the first, then a third. It looked like there were quite a few, and things were getting a little tense.

This was a standoff.

"I'm not coming down," I said. "I just want the bike."

I decided to dial it back a bit.

"I didn't say you stole it. And if I did, I apologize. But we just want the bike. It's a red mountain bike with a white fork."

"We don't have it. That guy left. He took the bike with him."

The tone changed and became more of a negotiation, an exchange of information.

"It's my wife's bike. I want it back."

"It's not here."

As we talked the second guy was approaching and climbing the bank of the river toward us. He had a closely shaved head and tattoos. He was built low and tight, like a boxer. He did not seem threatening though, just on his way somewhere.

I noticed others leaving the camp also. Women, men, older and younger. The camp had more people in it than I thought possible given the size. They were dressed for work, did not have the tough or druggy or gang-banger look of the other young guys. There was more going on here than I thought.

"Your bike is across the river in the tunnel by the Quik Trip," Boxer Guy said as he approached. He was giving me intel., trying to help out.

"It's behind the dumpsters in a tunnel. That's where you'll find the guy who took your bike."

Through all of this Sean had been watching, holding his phone, ready to shoot video if necessary.

Tough Guy had turned and gone back to the shelter of the camp. Boxer Guy offered his hand for a handshake, but I declined saying "It's this virus thing." He nodded with a look that said "whatever," and rode away on his BMX  bike.

Sean and I headed back to the cars to follow our tip, the insider info, and where it pointed: Quik Trip. Across the river. Behind the dumpsters. Into the tunnel.

What we would find there was more than we would have ever guessed.

(To be continued... )

Social Distancing -- Day Six

My thoughts have oscillated between denial, dread, and wonder at the changes wrought by the pandemic. Beneath those thoughts, when all clears for just a moment, is the awareness that this virus might kill me or others I know. Following that thought is the corollary of how to live the days I have if they are only a few. That sobering realization is more than I stand, so I quickly change channels to something more palatable. I have not yet really made the mental transition to being in quarantine. I still roll out the habits of distraction -- going out to eat, dawdling at coffee shop, working out, driving to get groceries. This helps time pass, but I know I need to look this thing in the face and act accordingly. So I self-isolate, aware that I am not alone in the project. The fact of trying to change the behavior of an entire country's worth of people sits heavily with me. The enormity of social behavioral shift is not unlike that of trying to do u-turn with an oil tanker. They don't just turn on a dime. Neither do people. Yet, I and they are doing it, sort of. We'll see what the numbers say... Two weeks from now -- once the real casualties begin to add up -- the ones who are most cavalier about distancing will be out enforcing the practice with the vehemence of their fists. We'll see.We'll see whose turn it is when the virus comes knocking.

Beneath the Shadow of a Pandemic

We had planned this trip months before the virus became the central feature of our lives. It was a chance to connect with family seldom seen. As the trip date approached, fears of the epidemic simmered on the edges of our attention, but we opted to risk a visit to Los Angeles, to make the most of a spring break. 

Early one morning, we walked along the Seal Beach Pier as light rain fell. It was March, the first month of the exponential rise in cases of Covid19, the novel coronavirus, and the epidemic was there with us, in our talk, the way we kept our hands from the railing, the way we kept distance from other walkers, avoiding in particular those with a cough or hang-dog look of sickness. 

Rain had washed debris down from inland hills, and white plastic bags hovered below the surface of the water like jelly fish, like ghosts rising from the inky depths. A sign warned us not to eat fish caught from the pier because of contamination. Huge cargo ships squatted on the horizon waiting their turn to load or to drop their stacks of containers to be loaded again onto trains and shipped to the hungry consumers. 

We knew that over there, in the city, worry had reared its head, pushing people to grasp and hoard. Screens ran the real time numbers of increasing cases. We cited the numbers to each other, chapter and verse, puzzling at them for the meaning, trying to glean some insight or direction with no success. The human tribe was on the move. Shelves were empty, and lines were long as people hoarded goods for the coming quarantine. Air carried an electricity of fear born not knowing. A pall moved over the city, a shadow, of the bird of death, mortality, and chaos. Too many people. Too few cures. 

News was a barrage of announcements, each more inconceivable than the last: stock market imploding, mass sports events cancelled, schools suspended, travel restricted, space suddenly a precious commodity. The world had pivoted into a new and frightening dimension. And we were here, in one of the epicenters. New cases every newscast. Numbers, graphs, talking heads trying to find a way to name this new beast surrounded us like the rain. We were stuck for the time being with nowhere to run or hide. 

So we walked and took pictures and tried to see the beauty of the waves, the grace of a surfer gliding down the face of a weak breaker as the rain came down. What comfort we might find came from the company we kept, the gift of sharing a moment here strolling along the rain swept boards of the pier. The rhythm of the waves, the call of the hungry birds. 

Below us, fish swam unaware of the sickness spreading above them, the sickness that passed from gathering together, of being social animals. Up here, the hurts and wants of a life in progress rose to the surface where they manifested in tears or laughter.  This was a moment to reflect and to imagine what might be, how a past might be resolved or repeated. We each carried a past that colored our views of the future. No one was neutral in this heightened moment of opportunity shake loose and move. Some found comedy where others saw only tragedy. This was a reminder, a test of mettle, of what we have made of ourselves and each other. How we might move forward from here formed the question we strove to answer, to imagine.

I worried that the excesses of greed had left us unprepared for the coming need for common concern. The loaves and fishes would not be passed from hand to hand, but instead held close for fear of not enough. We would see. We would see. I hoped we might learn. I was as caught up the flow as anyone, and fate would do with me what it would. I could only see what was here in front of me, my vision blocked by a future too opaque for me to imagine. I had to think, or try to think, and to listen, and move, one foot in front of the other. It was time to break out of the shell of habit and to respond to this new thing, this new way of being and doing, and to compose a narrative big enough to embrace the possibilities it opened up.

We could see this as a calamity or a chance to coalesce as a society. We might find some strength in leaning toward a common good. This is a time needing massive cultural, social, and political shifts if we are to grow and survive as a species. The coronavirus might just be a chance to wake up to the power we gain from caring for each other.  

Nobody There to Tell the Story

In the end, it was sad, beyond sad. You gave it all you had. It just didn't result in anything. You saw past what people felt safe with and they didn't want to hear about it. The tidal wave was coming and they just didn't care enough to move, save themselves, get out of the way. The priests and chiefs felt threatened by you and took away your post, your title, and threw you into prison, maybe even tortured or killed you for your trouble, for your honesty. It's a high price, this looking at things a bit too closely. You can live with all of that, but the one thing you can't abide is that no one was there to tell the story. Oh, there were stories raining down in a torrent, but they were all safe, unchallenging things to entertain people, rather than wake them up. You tried a bit of that yourself, to no avail. As you let go of this realm, you see that it's just the way things are, that you need to move on, to let it all go. You just wish that someone would see, would tell the story of what happened here.

The Three-Headed Monster With No Name

As we watch the stock market dive and the presidential debates heat up, it seems that things have gotten a bit… well … intense.  I hate to say it, but these issues are not even half of the story. We are standing on the precipice of an abyss, and a monster with three heads stands ready and waiting to push us off. The problem here is that this monster has no name because media and candidates at the podium barely mention the threats it poses; no one wants to talk about it. He stands there, aloof and off the popular radar. One head, the one with power to immediately send us into the stone age, is the threat of nuclear war. Trump has made it his business to undo treaties and to heighten the threat so that we are closer to midnight on the Doomsday Clock than we have been in history. The second head is global warming. Yes, it is that bad, and we may have gone too far into rising temperatures to reverse anything. Yet the words “global warming” and “climate change” are redacted from official government reports on the subject. Finally, there is that pesky income inequality. The world’s 4,000 or so billionaires now own more wealth than the bottom 4.6 BILLION (60% of world’s population) people. That gap translates into global control of message and government policies. It’s time to care about what to do about this monster, I think, even if no one wants to talk about it.  

The Last Red-Eye

My cafe is closing. Today is the last day, and this steaming cup is my last red-eye here. For six years I have opened this place up at six a.m. to brood on the coming day, gather my demons together so I can see them clearly, identify what is important to me, pray a little bit, and write. It's been a kind of sacred ritual that will have to change, as all things must. So, I say goodbye, give a farewell kiss to  those mornings when words came to me. To all of those friends who I would never have met -- Gail, Bruce, Daniel, Chris, Danica, Cheryl, Sarah, and others -- I wish you well as we part paths. The coffee club disbands and life goes on, changed but aware of what is lost and what has been gained. Adios companeros.

Time to Throw Down the Gauntlet: A Time Trial Duel With The Donald

Dear President Trump --

In your State of the Union Address, I found many of your claims patently false, distorted through the megalomaniac lens through which you see the world. I guess I expect more of the President of the United States and still suffer from a quaint notion that leaders like you are supposed to tell the truth to the best of their abilities. That truth thing has stuck there in the craw of my brain, and I've been trying to figure out a way to get you to meet the truth head-on, even in an unorthodox way. 

I don't want to labor those points here, because I propose instead a kind of duel, after which the winner gets to present, with real -- i.e. reliable, legit, hard, researched statistics and data -- his case to the loser. No Sharpies. No numbers just pulled of thin air. No cherry-picked, maudlin, sappy tear-jerker examples of charity and nostalgia for an America that used to be so great.

I feel that climate change, for example, is one of the greatest threats to global security and economic justice that has ever faced the human race. You still see a future in fossil fuels. (There are many issues, which we can discuss at your leisure after our duel.)

Here is what I propose:

Because you are great at everything you do, you should be great on a bicycle too. You can train if you want, but you're just the greatest ever, so that would likely be a waste of time. 

We race a time trial of at least forty kilometers on lonely, mountainous, remote Arizona highways; or, better, on winding desert single-track, out in the open, like cowboys on pedal ponies. Forty K is long haul, and you would suffer. We both would. I would let you draft behind me if you needed to, but then pull away in the final kilometers. That would really hurt. If I saw that, I might be able to better understand how it is you see the world as you do. (Rush Limbaugh????)

The winner will have the undivided attention of the loser for no less than two hours. In those hours, the winner can bring whatever forms of evidence to support the viewpoint of the winner. The loser has to listen in good faith and entertain the validity of counter claims.

You've pretty much had your chance already; I'd like to earn mine.

Just for the record, I am recovering from a bout with pneumonia; in fact, I'm still feverish and on antibiotics. I can barely get out of bed. It would not be fair that way, but you don't really like things fair anyway.

So, what do you say? Let's go mano a mano in a race of truth. (I like that designation.) Out there, it's just you and your heart and your lungs and whatever gas you have in the tank. You would be on your own, no daddy to lift you up with a million bucks, no blue-blood billionaire bullies to ridicule and discredit your opponents, no pit bull lawyers to take the fall when you go too far in your cheating -- just you. You. Alone. The race of truth. Nowhere to hide. No tricks or distractions or insults or cover-ups.

Let's duke it out like old warriors from different tribes with bones to pick. Let's pick dem bones. You're a guy who likes to win. Let's take it to the mat, to the tarmac, into the wind, my wheezing, you zipping along on your e-bike. (I know how you like to cheat so would expect a motor somewhere.) You could take your speech to a new level, if you win, really stretching to prove your belief and commitment to your vision, to someone doesn't get it.

Also, I am still dealing with stiffness from an old surgery, so that would be another "trump" card just to sweeten the deal.

But I'll do it, no matter my condition. I am not a ringer or accomplished bike racer. The thought of meeting you in a real contest would be worth all the risk, all the pain of anaerobic effort. The regular, working-class guy versus the demagogue, the Teflon Don, the BS king. Just think of the PR possibilities.

Don't you think it would be great though? January in the Sonoran Desert would be a great backdrop for another Trump enterprise. My hacking and spitting into a hanky on the sidelines would provide the extra drama. 

I hope you will consider my offer as fellow "macho hombre," though I don't quite fit that designation.

If you have another suggestion, golf, perhaps, I would be glad to consider your offer, provided that I would be given time to acquire the equipment. But that doesn't have the cachet of the Old West, six guns at the ready, facing each other on the dusty Main Street at sunset, helmets fastened, legs ready for the lactic burn of oxygen debt, for the red zone where there is no room for anything other than truth, the truth, dammit! The truth, for once. 

I eagerly await your response,

Erec Toso