The Red Bike

The sun was just barely peeping through the Elm trees when he dressed in the half light. Quietly Haskin slipped out the back door to the freedom of the street.

"Will Happy be up?" he wondered as he headed up Hood Street to the small house where Happy worked his miracles by turning other people's junk into wonderful things. Just yesterday, Haskin and his best friend Dave had been watching Happy carefully applying paint, mostly red but a little white, to a shiny, bright bike he had assembled from scrap.

Haskin was at the age where he felt he needed a bicycle, and so some months ago he began a relentless nagging campaign for his mother to buy him one. He knew a new bike was beyond his family's reach, but hoped to buy a used one the next time Happy had one available. Finally his mother relented, saying that she would give him the money to buy one of Happy's used ones provided it cost no more than five dollars. Telling Happy this at the time, the simple but good-hearted man told Haskin he thought he could piece one together that would cost five bucks.

Now that the bike was getting its finishing touches, Haskin asked his mother for the money. His Grandfather DeGriere was against spending that much money on a bicycle. "Infernal machine!" he exclaimed, "All ya do is pump the hell out of your legs to give your ass a ride! Can't tell where the damn front wheel is gonna drag a body." 

His mother ignored her father as she checked her purse, which yielded four wrinkled four dollar bills. Next she took a half dollar out of a cracked cup on the kitchen shelf, then added three liberty head dimes she had hidden in her dresser, and finally fifteen pennies from Haskin's own savings. They were still five cents short. Rising from his chair, Grandpa DeGriere walked over to his grandson and silently handed him a buffalo nickle.

Haskin raced down the street to present the money to Happy. But alas, he could not ride the bike home just then because the paint was still wet. Haskin would have to pick it up the next morning. So at the first rays of the rising sun, Haskin was out the door and running towards Happy's house. He knocked, and Happy came to the door looking like he had just woken up. "Want yer bike?" he laughed. "I hope you can ride it okay." Haskin wasn't completely sure he could. This was a twenty-eight inch bike, where he had never actually ridden a bike larger than Dave's twenty-four.

"Sure," Haskin bluffed, "just help me get started." He jumped on the bike and Happy gave him a good shove.

Boy and bike flew forward, heading down the driveway and making a wide right turn onto unpaved Hood Street. Hanging on to the cold metal of the handle bars, Haskin sped down Nathanial Street and towards Silas. Haskin was having a little trouble steering, with some slight wobbling to the left or right, but the ride was becoming smoother as he rode on. Successfully making the wide turn onto Silas, Haskin then turned towards Eastland.

As he drew near the corner of Eastland and heavily traveled Berkshire Avenue, Haskin decided it would be safer to continue on the sidewalk. He attempted to jump the curbstone as he had seen Dave do several times. Haskin pushed hard on the pedals and pulled upward on the handle bars. With a jarring jolt, the curb was behind him. "I made it!" he congratulated himself,as the bike continued down the sidewalk at high speed. But his victory was short-lived.

Haskin suddenly became aware of a large Elm in his path, but not soon enough. He jerked the handle bars to the left, escaping a direct collision, but pain ripped across his knuckles as his left hand scraped the rough bark of the tree. In a panic and desperately trying to stop, Haskin tried dragging his feet on the ground, but only succeeded in ramming the cross bar into his groin. Boy and bike ended up stretched out on the sidewalk, the front wheel still spinning as the bike lay upside down. It was enough to make Haskin wonder whether his grandfather had been right about bikes after all.

Haskin turned the bike upright and climbed aboard, pumping the pedals until he was thrust back into motion. He turned into Marsden Street and then, despite the mishap, or perhaps because of it, Haskin discovered a new sense of confidence. As so often happens in life, once the mishap you fear actually occurs, you never have to feel afraid of it again. Haskin zoomed along, exhilarated by the full realization of the freedom his new bike gave him - the freedom to move through Pine Point further and faster than was ever imaginable in his bikeless past. Turning down Bay Street back onto Hood, Haskin looked at his old, familiar world with a thrilling new sense of expanded possibilities.