The tale of the bicycle saga

Get it?

Tale of a saga?

Anyhow, it's a tale of tragedy, betrayal, misfortune, and misdeeds, though none of the misdeeds were heroic. It's filled with guilt and love and money, and the strength of brotherly bonds. Well, not strength, exactly. And a mother's sorrow. It's based on a true story.

The night was dark, as they often are.
The children scattered and haphazard, as they often are.

The day was wonderful for spring and the boys were out on their bicycles all day long, riding and laughing and playing. Turbo was excited because he knew he was getting a speed bike come spring break (we have spring break late here) and Bear didn't care, because he didn't want one. He loved his bicycle. The green gobliny looking thing.

Nighttime came, and the boys locked up their bicycles, and came in.

Only...

One didn't.

One boy forgot one night.
The next morning, we were one bicycle less.

The one boy who forgot, looked at his lone bicycle, no longer leaning against his brother's.
His brother, who never. ever. ever. forgets to lock his bicycle.

There was rage.
Tears.
Fury.
Confusion.
I sighed.
I got in my truck and drove around the 'hood looking for the bicycle, knowing the outcome already, remembering the giggling punk-teenage boys I heard the night before, thinking nothing of it. Grumbling that a simple door-open would have sent them scurrying...

Alas.

I said, let it be. It is a thing.
Bear said 'I know. I know.'  He was taking it far better than I expected, and wasn't quite sure what emotion to express. Mostly I think he didn't believe it. How could it be? What depraved minds would steal an 11-year old's bicycle? Ah, the sadness then, of having the safe world shattered.

I can't let a child suffer some one else's bad decision. I do believe that actions like that - stealing a bicycle or something that doesn't belong to you, taking what isn't yours, thinking it's a game, it marks you, it catches up to you at some point. I believe in a way they are lesser people (duh) devoid of the character traits that make people, well, people of strength or integrity or whatever.

Regardless, the bike is gone, someone stole it, and I said, well, this is a hard lesson to learn - but there really are people in the world who don't do the right thing. The bike is replaceable, and we'll replace it, but now, unfortunately, you understand why it's important to lock it up everywhere you go.

And then I bought him a bicycle.

I went to the bicycle store with my 11 year old and announced, while pointing to the youth bicycles, that this young man next to me (emphasizing the man, as he has longer hair than I do and may or may not have been wearing a pink shirt) needs a bicycle.

The bicycle guy looked him up and down. He looked at me. He looked at the bicycles I was pointint at.

"No. He needs an adult bicycle. How much you think he's going to grow this summer?"

What? He's 11. He's a boy. A youth. There are youth bicycles, right there.... cute ones.

But they were too small now, just like his bicycle was too small, so I had to get him a... a real bicycle. A bicycle that will last him through middle school and high school. His teenage-hood bicycle.

When we got home, and he hopped on that thing, riding it all around the neighborhood, the biggest kid on the tallest bike, he looked exactly like what he was. A boy on the verge of teendom.

I am currently feeling sad. I'm on the other edge of it now, the other side of babies and children. I'm on the short-path to empty nesting. I've got boys who this summer will shoot up, who will next year be in 6th grade, who may or may not have crushes, and who have opinions on hair and clothes and bicycles and oh so much more.

Yikes.