The Wheels of a Century
If you ask most people about a century they will explain the course of a hundred years. If you ask a cyclist about a century, they will explain a hundred mile ride, testing endurance, strength of will, and desire to see through. If you could ask Tom about a century he might tell you a story of a hundred miles of highway, cracked and worn back roads, in between, smooth rolling pavement. That century was a hundred miles of hauling a heavy mountain bike across miles of hills and valleys-for a reason. It started as most stories like this start, he would say, between a young teenage boy who was forbidden to see a girl, and the obstacles naturally between them. The physical obstacle was the distance of fifty miles each way, between two small towns. His town, or what; was soon to be just another place he lived, and hers.
The sun beat down hard on the gleaming red racing bike. He wished he had taken up road cycling as he hit his tenth mile on the open stretch of road. His heart beat fast for more reasons than even his own mind could sort out at the time. His mountain bike weighed far more than the kind he knew would get him there faster, but he chose this bike, and had loved it…until now. The thick broken tread of the tires made a soft hum beneath him as he pushed hard, down into each stroke of the pedal. A broken yellow line to his left separated him from the two lanes of traffic moving by in opposite directions, and a solid white line to his right separates him from the tall, green, and lush, grass of a Missouri embankment.
He thought back to the call he made the day before from the pay phone outside the town grocery. A call that for some reason seemed harder that day than ever before, something he felt inside. Maybe it was the pain of knowing he was leaving, maybe it was his own mind, asking himself if the words he was about to use would be needed, or if he would even notice in her voice if they weren’t. He remembered the time and place that she agreed to meet him when he got there. He just now wondered to himself how he would find it once he rolled into town. He thought of the hesitant sound in her voice after he made his promise to her he wouldn’t fall short of keeping. He shook it off with an unconscious physical shake of his head. The very thought drained the energy from the mass of his legs, driving him forward at record pace.
The beads of sweat forming on his brow caught the headwind he was riding into pulling them back into his short, now slick, wet hair. Even the headwind did little to cool his face as the humidity during an August month of Missouri was at least one hundred percent, with a temperature in the mid nineties. He occasionally looked down at the small speedometer that tightly gripped the top of his handlebar. He checked his avg. speed and time, calculating in his head whether he thought he would make it, or whether he needed to pick up his pace. He was constantly keeping check on his physical body, knowing the longest ride he had ever attempted was forty miles in a day. This and the fact that if he wasn’t keeping properly hydrated he would cramp up and be sitting in a ditch that was only a few feet away, and it looked more comforting with every mile. He adjusted his thought process as he adjusted his seating again. He could almost feel her arms around his waist, and his arms around her, holding her tightly.
He sat back in the seat and took a short breather as the strokes became lighter with a switch of his twenty one gears. Her face crossed his mind, with the smile and the taste of her lips the last night they spent together. A night stolen away from all the other nights he would lie awake thinking of her, due to the distance between them.
He thought back to that night, he thought back to climbing down a three story building from wooden slatted balcony to balcony, to steal his parent’s car. It wasn’t something he was normally up to, but with her, it felt right. It was a rush, a feeling of cool moist air on his bare chest. It was-until he dragged his chest across a wooden slat on the second balcony-tearing the first few layers of his skin in a long, bright, reddish pink arc, from his chest down.
“Damn it!” He said with a muffled laugh, holding onto the rail with one arm and two hiking shoes dangling twelve or so feet above the dark grass below.
“Just jump!” One girl called out, almost laughing at the spectacle.
He looked down seeing a yellow tank-t-shirt, barely visible except for the sea of dark void below it. Another girl was there also, next to her, with arms crossed in a position of impatience.
“Shh! My parents are going to hear you. I’m not gonna jump.”
He looked down over his shoulder again, unable to judge the look on their faces. Suddenly with an interest to please and impress, he pulled himself upward before suddenly pushing away, spinning down toward the two girls. They both laughed as he rolled to his feet and felt around for his shirt that he had thrown over.
“I have it-it’s right here,” she smiled as she held out his dark red colored shirt that contrasted sharply against her yellow.
He couldn’t see her smile without the light of day, but he knew it was there-he knew her-it was Delilah. It was his girl, the girl that he could hear smile when she spoke.
Her friend had already started walking by this time, and was probably waiting for them around the corner of the building. He wondered why she separated herself from them, and if she was upset by something, but he stopped anyway, before putting his shirt on. Delilah stopped with him, long enough to pull his lips into hers, sucking in his desire for her, and releasing him slowly, before they started walking again.
Normally he would have never risked breaking or rolling an ankle. That would have kept him from his training, his twenty plus mile bike rides-every day-into the rich thickness and cover of nature. But she meant so much more to him, she became his escape now.
Tom stood up again, switching gears as he smashed the pedals down picking up speed.
He looked down and saw that he had hit the thirty six mile mark. He suddenly felt as if he had enough energy to ride three hundred. A smile crossed his tan face as he reached down for the bottle below the top bar, pulling it from its cradle. He took a drink as he rolled down a long hill; a graceful chance to coast. When he placed the bottle back, he looked up and saw a fork in the road where the highway split going off into two opposite different directions.
“I shouldn’t have come to the split in the road yet,” Tom said to himself aloud.
If this is it, then I already passed the gravel road I should be on, he thought looking down at the odometer on his bar again.
He tried to remember the directions that he got from her friend’s mother. She mentioned something about a shortcut into town through a gravel road along the side of the highway. It was before where the highway came to a split, she had told him His bike slowed to a stop with his breath almost picking up pace with the yellow dashed that were once snaking along next to him. He could just see himself standing in her kitchen getting the directions, the day before. She offered to write them down, but he didn’t want to look like he couldn’t take directions from memory, besides it was hard enough for him to even ask her. He turned and looked over his shoulder at the stretch of gravel that lead to the road he was on, then ahead at the stretch just past where the road split. His stomach sank as he looked down at the time on his computer then back at the road behind him, he didn’t have much time, and if he took the wrong road he knew he would never make it.
There was a small gas station after the fork ahead of him that looked as though it were out of place. One of those small mom and pop stores out in the middle of nothing but green pasture, and rolling hills.
Stopping to ask a simple thing, like directions to a local small town should be simple to most, he thought. If she could ever know how hard such a simple thing like this was for me, then maybe she could understand-understand how I feel for her.
“Damn!” He looked back at the loose golden road behind him.
He wondered, Maybe I should just take a chance for a change. I could turn back after taking it a mile or so, if it doesn’t continue the direction I know I need to go.
He looked hard across the grassy hill to his right for the answer, seeing nothing through the barbed wire fencing, but more grass over a larger hill. There was no way around the sudden psychological wall that he was forced to face. That is, if he was to see through to what he needed, what he had to tell her.
“Damn it!” He repeated again, then stood up starting to violently force his will forward, toward the small gas station.
The closer he came to the little building the larger it seemed to be, as if it were more than just a building, a mountain, an insurmountable hunk of rock that looked like nothing he could climb. It stood in the path of what his soul needed most. His heart raced again, but not for the idea of what he desperately needed to do at his destination, but what he needed to do to get there. He rolled slowly into the small paved square where the two pumps sat before a little building with hand written signs advertising specials on beer and soda.
He could see an older man behind the counter through the store window. It seemed he held a scowl across his face, as if he were just as unhappy with the idea of seeing him, as Tom was with having to be there. He jerked the handle of the old wood frame door. It moved freely under his hand, almost smacking itself against the wall. He looked across the rack of candy and gum that lead his way to the counter. He questioned over and over what he would say and how he would say it. The closer he got to the counter, the more his manners and upbringing forced him to draw his eyes up from the rack to the old man’s face. He exchanged a nervous smile with the same cold scowl of grey eyes in return.
Kinda reminds me of my father, he thought quickly-before realizing it-then dismissed the thought.
Each step was forced as he thought of how to approach the man with such a simple complicated question.
This would be easy for most people, Tom thought as he quickly turned towards the left at the edge of the counter without a word. I should buy something. I don’t want him to think I’m some dumb kid coming in here to ask stupid questions and waste his time, he thought.
He walked towards a small, floor cooler, with drinks in it, nervously hoping it held something that he wanted or needed.
He slid the glass top door to the side reaching down and randomly grabbing a Gatorade.
I guess I’ll have to drink this down before leaving, he thought remembering that his two bottle cages were holding his two water bottles already. He carried it to the counter looking at the ingredient label and almost knocked over a small, cardboard, candy display. Tom turned seeing it settle back into its place before putting the drink on the counter in front of the man. “That it, young man?” The old store owner said with a slight smile warming his face.
“Uh, ya. Hey-uh-do you know which one of these gravel roads will take me to Longmont?” Tom pointed out toward the road.
The shop owner looked down at the drink and then back in Tom’s eyes as he looked back at the man.
“I’m sorry-I got it right here” he said pulling some money from his pocket and handing it over the counter.
The old man made change and held out his hand dropping it into Tom’s hand without care if he touched the greasy leather on the palm of his cycling glove.
“Ya, Longmont, they’re havin a festival there today, ain’t they?” There was a slight pause before he spoke again, as Tom thought of what to say in reply to the man’s friendly small talk. “Well anyway, if you take the highway here-south-back toward Palmyra, you can catch that gravel about-uh-three quarter miles that way, and go ahead’n take a left onto it. Then just follow it till ya hit a split in the road, just like this one here, but go right at the fork, not left, or you’ll be going the wrong way. Got it?”
Tom looked out the window with his heart racing, only hearing small pieces of what he said. His own mind questioned his promise to Delilah, and his ability to keep it. He looked back at the man now looking him squarely in the eyes.
I’m not asking him to repeat it, I’ll just pick up my pace and figure it out, Tom thought to himself.
He stepped outside looking down the highway where the gravel pulled away from the smooth road. He took two drinks from his Gatorade bottle before tossing it in the steel drum for a trash can that was next to him.
He jumped on the bike heading towards the gravel road at a good clip.
Tom thought back to the last night he spent with her, once again,
“Let’s go get some coffee at the country kitchen, we can hang out there a while” she said looking at her friend.
Tom took the opportunity of her looking away to slide his fingers across the skin that was torn on his chest, with a slight flinch.
“That’s cool with me,” he added. He looked at both Delilah and her friend for a final decision.
“How are we going to get there? None of us has a car,” her friend said coldly as she looked down at the ground a moment.
“Tom has a car,” Delilah smiled at him coyly.
“That’s his parent’s car!” she said in reply looking at Delilah sternly. She waved her hand toward the car and cocked her neck at a sharp angle to the side.
“Ya, but I have the keys. If you want to go, I can drive. I have my permit.” Tom exchanged glances between the two.
He reached into his pocket to be certain they were there.
“It’s cool, he can drive, they’ll never know…”
Delilah’s friend walked away, as Delilah exhaled with a hmmph, looking at Tom.
“Fine-we’ll go without her,” she said walking up to him. She put her hands on his waist looking up into his eyes questioningly.
They took the car and they returned without anyone knowing they had left just like she said. It was over that coffee, six months after their relationship began, he explained to her that he couldn’t stay. He held her small delicate hand in his and made his promise. He made a promise that he wouldn’t leave without seeing her again, one last time, no matter what it took.
Suddenly, his eyes fell deep into hers, seeking the words he thought would follow, only to hear her say, “But, you don’t even have a car, she said with a slight sound of sympathy. And you know my parents are picking me up in the morning. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, she said looking at him more playfully, then her tone changed again to something softer, something more real, It’s okay, let’s just enjoy tonight together.”
He kissed her at the door. The door to the apartment of her friend where she visited, long weekends over the summer. He kissed her, and she kissed him back. They held each other close and he brushed the hair from her forehead with his cheek as he whispered.
“This won’t be our last kiss. I will find a way to see you again before I move away.”
She looked into his eyes and it seemed her eyes were pools of beauty, deeper than his own soul, a beauty filled with loss.
“I’m going to keep that promise!” He spoke loudly to himself as the gravel sputtered to both sides of his tires down the lonely long road.
Those words became the only energy he had to push on, in the last miles of that road. Then came the small town, in a lush, green valley. It came into sight over the top of a long slow climb. A small white one room church sat along the hill with a rod iron gate and small green field of markers outside. The air tasted sweeter suddenly, as he coasted down the road, the pain in his leg suddenly lost its sting. The pavement was welcomed along with the smell of Bar-B-Q and hay in the air.
He followed the small road, from one side street, to the next, until he reached the center of town. The crowds of families that grew up together and celebrated together were all there, just like last year. Husbands and wives with small children playing carnival games and paying small fees to take hay rides, even though they could any time of the year, this time was special.
Tom pedaled hard towards a lemonade stand that was described perfectly by her over the phone, even though he could have sworn he heard a tone of boredom when she told him about it. He looked down at his wrist watch. He was only a few minutes early and the feeling that whirled in his stomach was much like the drink that people lined up for next to him.
Maybe he could surprise her yet, he thought pedaling up next to the stand. He looked at the face of that same watch a half hour later as if it lied. He looked at the young girl squeezing lemons next to him in an old fashioned hand press.
“Without the slightest hesitation he spoke, “Do you know Delilah? Have you seen her at the festival today?”
“Delilah Miller? She was here about an hour ago. She went to Nicole’s down the street. Do you know her?”
“Ya, I was supposed to meet her here at the festival today.”
She looked back at him as if the words crossed her wryly. “Are you sure, she said she would meet you here?” the young girl inquired.
“Where did you say her friend’s house was?” He asked with a sudden warm feeling replacing the cold hole that he felt he was falling into.
She leaned over the counter and pointed down a side street.
“Down that dead end street right there and then on the right corner, the big white one about a block and a half down.”
Tom smiled back at her as he stood up forcing his now spent legs to the bottom of his pedal stroke. He came to the corner of the dead end street and stopped. He saw her, but she had her back turned to him, talking with another girl that was standing with a boy. He knew it was her because he could hear her smile when she spoke. Another young boy about his age, he thought, suddenly walked out of the front door of the house. He walked straight up to her grabbing her and lifting her up into his arms before setting her down and kissing her long and deep. Tom looked down at his foot now at the top of the small circle that propels him, then back up at them as if his eyes were failing. She reached forward holding the boy’s waist as they kissed again, and then a third, before they broke apart and continued the conversation. She laughed again as they stood talking. His stomach sank in pain as if he were falling straight through the ground that held him above his bike without moving.
What am I going to say, what…what should I do, he thought, he felt.
Tom pushed hard, down deep on the pedal that propelled him sharply forward onto the road towards his girl, toward closure. In the next moment he could see a slip of gloss black from the corner of his eye when he pushed hard down on the opposite pedal. The next thing he heard was the screech of tires, and the next thing he felt was pavement sliding across his bare face! He turned his neck towards her, as he felt a warm stream of what felt like sweat, rolling down his face, a slight breeze hit him, but this time he didn’t need to be cooled he had already grown cold. She spun towards the sickening sound and stood in awe of the moment, the boy that stood there with her, held her in such a way as to shield her, but her face shown through, just the same, just enough to see, what was left of him, what was left of his love.
The End
© 2009 Adam C. Powers
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