you're a killer, and that's why i can't let you marry my daughter.

i almost killed a man today. fucking cold steel rain turning our roads to battlefields. nothing we can do, the front drivers and rear drivers among us. almost at school and up the hill, sweeping corner, and hyrdroplaning. jesus, almost lost it, got a little hairy, but we reeled it in. this ain't no Lancer, friend. he was on a yellow bike. a messenger's rig, road bike with no markings, no brakes (he stops with his foot; thanks pop). looks like he's straight out of the '30s, rides in and out every day, on choked byways that are dangerous no matter the weather. better man than i am. thanks to marlboro reds, even walks to class can feel like k2 treks. so hopping on a road bike for a dash to the market is out of the question.

wasn't always that way though. i used to ride my bike from school with my old man, from the time i was about 8 or 9 til i was 12. while all the other kids were getting packed into their volvos and ford tauruses (SUVs were still a few years off kids), i waited for my old man to ride in, mr. mom, with my toddler baby sister strapped to his stomach and my bmx bike strapped to his back. always garnered stares from curious and admiring private school housewives. but it was my own quiet misery. of course looking back i appreciate it, especially since so many brothers don't know their old men, let alone have the luxury of having them ride along with them on the way home. but still, it was hell on earth: a vietnam vet drill sargeant, avid cyclist for a dad, expecting a kid to keep up with him. hell he used to ride to dc from bmore every year, rode in the snow with studded tires, even during the blizzard of 93, got a cover shot on the Towson Times haha. hellish weather. pounding pavement amidst barking dogs, baltimore crackheads, and rush hour traffic, scared shitless. borderline child abuse. there was a nice fruit stand that we stopped at on particularly bitter days, maenner's market. closed now, but a hell of a place run by some real first class blokes.

all this nonsense got me fit though. i was the fastest kid in my class (which is important out there on that blacktop), but maybe that was b/c i was the only black kid in my class until i was 12 or 13. who knows, the point is that there is no way in hell i could ever beast out like that again. the deterioration is too far along. gonna go have a marlboro red. go to bed.