The Trike

The man got out of his car, closing the door nonchalantly.

June 1958

The tricycle was a deep, dark red, with white trim and white spokes. It did not have a horn or streamers at the end of the handle bars like I had seen on other trikes but I didn’t care. I didn’t even know that it was used. I was four years old and didn’t know the difference between new and used. I only knew that it was mine, not my brother’s or my sister’s. It was mine and it wasn’t even Christmas or my birthday. I stood on the back porch staring at it with a joy that made me shake a little. Dad stood by me, arms akimbo, and his glasses sparkling in the afternoon sun.
“Take care of your bike,” he intoned “don’t leave it out. When you’re done riding it, put it back on the patio. Oil the wheels once in a while.” We walked together to the garage where he found the oil can then came back to the trike. He turned it upside down and put three drops near each wheel. “Not too much. Just three drops, one, two, three. Know how to remember that?”
“Uh-uh,” I shook my head vigorously.
“Father, Son, Holy Ghost. One drop for each, get it?”
“Uh-huh.” I didn’t know what he was talking about but I was afraid if I said I didn’t understand he wouldn’t let me keep it.
“Good. Now, go ahead and get on the trike.” I approached it carefully, my beachwalkers clicking, arms shaking, heart beating. The seat had been warmed by the June sun and I jumped up a second after I sat down.
“You have to sit on the seat!” he snapped.
“Ok.” I whined.
“Put your feet on the pedals. And your hands on the handles. That’s it. That’s how you steer, ok?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Now push the pedals. That’s how you go,” he said, gently
With my head down to concentrate on the business of pedaling, the trike began to move forward. I was doing fine until I crashed into a patio chair.
“Watch where you’re going! You have to look up! Do you want to crash all the time?” he shouted.
“No.”
“Come on; let’s go out to the sidewalk.” I followed his brisk strides through the white gate, walking the trike, unwilling to take any chances with it. “Ok now, get back on. You can’t ride it standing there.” He straightened the wheel, roughly. The shade of the apricot tree and the smell of its ripe fruit was comforting. I felt better and was more determined to master the art of trike steering.
“Now just go straight. Ride down to Mr. Auperle’s driveway and then turn around and come back.”
And so I took off. The wheels squeaked mildly. I moved past our white fence, picking up speed as my confidence grew. By the time I was approaching Mr. Auperle’s driveway, I was moving fast enough to create a breeze. It was exhilarating.
“Now turn around,” Dad shouted. So I stopped, and suddenly scared I wasn’t going to be able to navigate a turn properly, I got off the trike and turned it around then got back on and headed back toward Dad.
“No! Not like that! Make your turn while you are riding! What’s the matter with you?”
I pedaled furiously to get back, my eyes not on the pedals but low enough to avoid Dad’s eyes which I presumed were angry. At the same time though, I felt good. I may not have turned at all but I did complete a journey from our back gate to our neighbor’s driveway and back. When Dad spoke it seemed that his annoyance with my lack of turning skills had dissipated.
“Take care of your trike. Don’t leave it out. Don’t break it. Oil the wheels. If you do that it will last a long time.”
“Ok.”
“Good boy. Don’t ride past Mr. Buckley’s house. When you see his house, turn around and come back. Don’t ride on the other side of the street, stay on this side. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Alrighty,” he began.
“Alrighty, one!” I answered
“Alrighty, two!” came the reply.
“ALLLLLLLLLLLLRIGHTY!!!” we shouted together.
It was a game we played when he wanted to know if I was onboard with his instruction. He must have been convinced by my enthusiasm because he turned and went back to the house, leaving me with my trike and half a block of Catalina Street
I rolled down my block, overjoyed. I alternately went fast, then slow, then fast again. The sky hugged me, the sun kissed me; the trees tickled my nose with a peppery smell as I went by. I went past the Auperles, past their neighbor who was blind, past the friendly old man all of us on the block called Grandpa Davis.
Kids and adults were out, standing and talking. I waved at them and they waved back. At the house before the Buckley’s several adults shouted at me in an alarming voice. I stopped. The adults ran to where I was and were clamoring about something but they were all talking at the same time and I didn’t understand what they were saying.
I got off the bike, trying to appease them, but the clamor increased. They pointed at me, at the trike and at a car in the driveway. Instead of getting the picture that I had stopped in the path of the car which was about to back out, I stood frozen, not sure what to do next. A man got out of the car—he was a neighbor I had never seen before—and began saying something to me in an angry voice. My knees turned to Jell-O, my eyes watered, and my heart was pounding in my throat. I tried to assemble what was before me—the trike, the driveway, the angry man, the neighbors-- and come to some conclusion but the emotional climate was clouding my thought process. Much to my relief the man stopped shouting, shrugged his shoulders and returned to his car. I walked away from my trike, in the direction of the cluster of neighbors but they were silent now.
They seemed to be waiting for something so I turned in the direction of the driveway and waited with them. The man got back into his black car. The enormous chrome bumper glittering as he backed the car out. I was standing by Mrs. Strang who lived next to the angry man, and when she gasped I looked up at her and she put her hand over her mouth. When I turned to see what was upsetting her, the car crushed my tricycle.
Except for the murmuring of the muffler, all was silent. It was like a dream about being in church, but the church was outside and the congregation was waiting for God to speak. The man got out of his car, closing the door nonchalantly. He walked slowly to the back of the car and wrenched the trike free, tossing it aside.
“I told you,” he sneered, but I didn’t hear anything else he said. I tried to right the bike but the frame was bent so severely I couldn’t even wheel it away. I dragged it away from the driveway and the backed into the street then took off down Catalina, heading for the second half of the block.
It took quite some time to get back home; I had discovered that in order for it to move at all I had to lift the front end of the trike as only the back wheels were functioning. My arms though were not up to the task so I would alternative between wheeling it in that fashion and dragging it. I was sad but not angry. I believed I had done something wrong that I didn’t understand, or maybe not understanding was what I had done wrong. Adults were hard to figure sometimes.
When I made it back I put the trike in the middle of the patio, sat on the edge of the chaise lounge and stared at it. I was hoping that if I looked at it long enough it would fix itself. I felt the same when I stuck a hole in Bobo the inflatable punching clown. One moment it was working; the next it wasn’t, and I discovered that some actions are not retrievable. At first I didn’t notice that Dad was standing on the back porch assessing the situation. Then I heard his steps coming off the porch, but he walked right past me, waved his hand in a derisive way and said, “That’s how you take care of your bike?” He kept walking, went to the garage and never mentioned the incident again. I felt like Bobo the Clown with the air seeping out. Dad had given good advice but he, like the man in the middle of the block, had also taught a lesson, and it may or may not have been the one he intended to teach, but it would take a long time to unlearn it.