December 30th, 2004
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Song of the city, song of the road
It is a rare subtle thrill to ride through the city on mellow trance, piping muscles on tinging pads that resonate with a sensual multiplicity matched only perhaps by the same on motorcycle, a pleasure I have not known in two years since tearing over the foothills of Applachia on 90cc’s of carbureated intoxication.
But for now the bicycle is my sword, and narrow asphalt arenas my theatre for a singular stretching of nimble-bladed aplomb. Morning begats noon which begats eve which begats night, through which all I cruise unhindered, a rushing wind independent of time, light, or man.
Across the walk I drive, muscles tense and shoulders crouched angular in apprehension of the violating car that breaks only in my mind. Drag around a curve, the frame bends, and supple Chinese tires spread slow-wearing indifference to the pebbles and gravel that spray under tread. A bump, a jostle, one of forty dozen curbs I’ll hop today, auxiliary sweater and camera rustle inside the grey, glazed basket. Up on knees, here comes another, and with the down tempo the fork springs ever upwards, to come down in a thud that transmits up to my young knees. Elbows out, chin forward, the wax rolls on and on like my wheels, a treble punching through dimensions analog and digital, filtering down to tiny protein cilia oscillating in carbon caverns.
And the tune goes on, and on, I cannot stop, grind up the hill out of Minami-Azabu, swoop down brick pedestrian dovetails, and zip through a dead crosswalk signal undaunted.
Roll, beat, swing,
roll, beat, swing,
roll, beat, swing,
Through the shadows and over sun-drenched bridges, swerving and skidding from north to south, follow the Meguro river to the bay, then bunny hop and toe-in four feet from the water. Unwind cap with lithe, leather fingers, feel the cool of green leaf octane pouring into an engine so distilled and taut from pace.
Cool, quench, liquid, air. Gasp, sting, cap. Go.
Twisting an imaginary throttle beneath my chapped and damp right hand, torque the balance to the front and kick the tail around with my left heel. The drum roll pleases and the bass resumes, in concert with music playing in and outside of my head, the horizon is there, beyond my vision, beyond this moment, four hours after I can see it, the lights blurring and saturated in my weakened vision. The pace, a bell, threading my verve through a catheter.
It grabs and tosses me forward, the smell of sulfur and spread road salt thick in my nostrils and charged compulsion drumming on my patience. Wanton, the sensations are everything and the reason is nothing, it’s only moving forward, to be. Evolved states of comprehension fade away, and the dance is made only through existence, no other form of interaction is possible. Not even a line, but a ray, a pinhole in one dimension stretched out onto infinity. The path is before me, with no sense of then, only a now.
