Maj checks the fit of her helmet and reaches to squeeze one bicycle tire and then the other, “Mother, did you check these tires before we left the house?”
“Yes.”
She gets on her bike and rides a short distance, checking her brakes and then returning to where Kallan and I are still getting organized, “I want to be the leader today.”
Kallan snorts, “I like how you say today like there is any day ever on which you do not want to be the leader.”
Adjusting her sunglasses, Maj explains, “I am good at leading.”
“Correction,” Kallan says, “You are good at being in front. That is not the same thing as leading. Leading suggests you have some sort of responsibility for the people following you.”
“It’s a bike ride, Kallan . . . it’s the real world . . . every man for herself.”
Kallan turns to me, “Will you ride behind me, Mom?”
“Like always, babe.”
“OK, then,” she turns back to Maj, “You be in front, and Mom will do the actual leading from the rear.”
“Whatever. Long as I don’t have family ass in front of me, I’m good. Because the Maj requires an assless perspective.”
I’m not sure I have heard this last part correctly, “Hey, Maj? What did you say?”
Maj recovers quickly, “Well, I know I didn’t say ass, if that’s what you were thinking.”
“Good. OK, so we haven’t been on this path before . . . but according to the map, it’s basically one giant oval back to the parking lot, so Maj, if you run into a problem, just pull to the side and wait for us to catch up.”
Maj starts to ride away, laughing dismissively, “As if, Mother. As if.”
Kallan and I watch Maj ride away, and Kallan sighs, “That girl annoys me.”
“Come on . . . let’s follow.”
After a very short while, we come upon Maj, who is standing on the side of the pathway, glaring down at her bicycle, which she has flung into the dirt. Kallan and I roll to a stop, and Maj flings her arms out in frustration, “Mother, my bicycle is broken.”
“What do you mean, broken?”
“I mean it won’t switch gears correctly. It’s broken.”
“Huh. Well, can you get it into a gear and just deal with it?”
“Deal with it? What do you not understand about the word broken?”
“So you can’t ride it at all?”
“AUGH. THERE IS NO POINT IN EVEN TALKING TO YOU. FINE, I WILL TRY AGAIN.” She picks up her bicycle and rides away. Kallan and I watch as she shifts rapidly from gear to gear to gear . . . her legs pinwheeling wildly one moment and then moving so slowly the next that she has to stand to gather the strength to pedal and then she is pinwheeling again. I can hear the gears shifting. Maj screams back at us as she pedals in fast-forward speed, “SEE? ALL MY GEARS ARE BROKEN!”
“Maj, just choose a gear! Why are you zipping from one gear to another like a loon?”
“BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL BROKEN!” She throws her bicycle back down in the dirt and waits for Kallan and I to ride up to her, “BROKEN, MOTHER. READ MY LIPS AND READ MY SHIMMERING TWO-WHEELED AURA OF FURY — BUURRR . . . OAK . . . EN.”
Kallan sighs, “Maj, you want to trade bikes with me?”
“NO, I DO NOT WANT TO TRADE BIKES WITH YOU. YOUR BIKE DOESN’T HAVE AS MANY SPEEDS AS MINE DOES.”
“OK, but Maj? You just said all the speeds on your bike are broken. I’ll trade you if you want.”
“NICE TRY, BIKE-LUSTING CHILD. NICE TRY.”
Kallan starts to protest, but I wave my arms for quiet, “Maj, your bike appears to go into gear. I watched you . . . if there is an issue, just pick a gear . . . any gear . . . and use it.”
“Mother, listen to me closely. ALL OF MY GEARS ARE BROKEN. NONE OF THEM WORK.”
“That’s not true, babe . . . I saw you riding your bike. In gear.”
Maj wails and picks up her bicycle, “NOBODY LISTENS TO ME! ALL THE SPEEDS ARE BROKEN! MY BIKE IS BROKEN! BROKEN IS NOT A DIFFICULT WORD TO UNDERSTAND . . . HOW ARE YOU NOT UNDERSTANDING? BROKEN!”
She rides angrily away in what appears to be 1st gear.
I look at Kallan and shrug my shoulders, “I do not even know what’s wrong with her. Come on.”
Maj rides ahead of us, but barely ahead of us, weaving back and forth across the path as she shifts crazily from one gear to the next, “NOTHING IS WORKING! NOTHING . . . IS . . . WORKING!”
Kallan and I pedal and ignore Maj as she raves, “IF THIS WAS KALLAN’S BIKE, I BET WE WOULD ALL BE GATHERED ON THE SIDE OF THE PATH TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS. IF MOTHER’S BIKE BROKE? THAT WOULD BE THE END OF THE BIKE RIDE. BUT NOOOOOO . . . IT’S MAJ’S BIKE AND SO LET’S KEEP GOING! BECAUSE . . . OBVIOUSLY.”
I am a bit out of breath, but I call up, “Maj, just walk the damn thing if you need to, but stop yelling at us. Save your energy for the bicycling, for god’s sake.”
Kallan just pedals.
Maj weaves back and forth, and we ride in silence for a few moments, a silence broken only by the sound of Maj’s bicycle obediently shifting gears at Maj’s repeated pointless request.
And then Maj screams out, “AUGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHH! NO ONE ELSE IS SUFFERING LIKE I AM SUFFERING! I CAN’T GO ON LIKE THIS!” She pulls her bike to the side of the path and throws it down again, standing over it as she screams, “I REBUKE THEE, SATANIC BICYCLE! I REBUKE THEE!”
Kallan and I roll to a stop once again, and through heavy breathing, Kallan observes, “Yeah, because that’s normal. People ask what I did today, I am so going to tell them I helped my sister rebuke bike demons.”
“STOP MOCKING ME! I AM HAVING A PROBLEM HERE!”
Kallan shakes her head sadly, “Yes, that part I get, Maj.”
“MOTHER, REBUKE THE DEMON CHILD OF SARCASM!”
I sigh, “Maj, stop rebuking and being weird . . . try to find some words other than broken to describe what’s going wrong with your bike.”
“MOTHER, THAT’S THE ONLY WORD THERE IS.”
I lay my bike down and pick hers up, “Fine. Let me ride it for a minute and see what’s going on.” I pedal along the path on Maj’s bicycle, shifting smoothly through the low gears as I ride away and then through the higher ones as I turn back and ride to where Maj stands, “Maj, as far as I can tell, your bicycle is working perfectly.”
“THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE, MOTHER. IT’S LIKE I AM RIDING THROUGH MUD . . . ALL THE GEARS ARE HARDER THAN THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE. WE’VE BEEN RIDING FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES AND I AM EXHAUSTED!”
I think for a moment, “And you’re sure that’s not just because we’ve been going uphill the whole time?”
Maj stomps her foot angrily, but then pauses, “Wait . . . what?”
Kallan shrieks with laughter, “Are you kidding me, Maj? It’s been all uphill since we left the parking lot. How do you not know this?”
Maj looks at me, “Is this true?”
“Yes, babe. A slight incline the whole time . . . I think we’re almost at the point where the path heads back down into the woods.”
Kallan can’t believe it, and she can’t stop laughing, “Seriously, Maj? SERIOUSLY? Your gears aren’t broken? You just don’t know you’re riding uphill? Seriously?”
Maj checks the tightness of her helmet, tucks in a few stray strands of hair, picks up her bicycle, “Well, this is a little embarrassing.”
Kallan and I giggle helplessly as Maj protests, “Someone needs to tell me when the perspective shifts! Someone needs to tell me when the next part is going to be harder! Someone needs to tell me when we are going uphill! Someone needs to tell me so that I can marshal my resources!”
She gets on her bicycle and rides away, choosing a lower gear and working to climb what is left of the hill, “Come on, people! I am leading here! Let’s get going!”
We ride to the top of the hill and then pause for a moment to stare down into the valley into which we will be descending. Maj turns to me, “It messes me all up if my perspective is wrong. Tell me if the world tilts, Mother. Tell me if I am riding up a hill. I need to know these things.”
I consider, “Hey, Maj?”
“Yes?”
“Just so you know?”
“Yes?”
“The road ahead is mostly uphill. The world? It so tilts.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mother.”
Sigh.
