The Bike Rider

Green light.

Traffic stood still. Twenty seconds passed, and all three vehicles remained in line, static. The swaying of trees and running of engines were the only perceptible indications of life underneath the silver moonlight.

Honking began from the pickup truck sandwiched in the middle; the head of the line remained still. The third drove around them both and continued on its way. A middle-aged man wearing a trucker hat popped his head out from the window of the pickup.

“Hey, man, what’s the problem? We need to get going!” he yelled.

Nothing.

He thrust both hands on the horn and held on; the sound exploded through the night.

Nothing.

“God damn, it,” the man mumbled.

He grabbed a shotgun from the back seat and hobbled his way to the driver’s side window of the unmoving 2007 Honda Accord. Approaching the car, he heard a faint, rumbling bassline and muffled dance vocals emanating from inside.

“Hey, what’s the prob—

James McCullough sat curled over in the driver’s seat fast asleep, freshly dried tears staining his face.

***

Abrasive sunlight enveloped the room, and there was no longer any choice; James had to get up. With no phone and no alarm clock, the harsh penetration of the all-encompassing sunlight was his only signal to wake, and even that wasn’t enough to get him out of bed most of the time. Shirtless, he sat up on Alice’s living room futon and rubbed his palms over his eyes until he saw kaleidoscopic patterns of all sorts take shape.

“Woah, trippy,” he said.

The patterns reminded him of wild times from his teenage youth, bringing a smile to his face. Quickly, his smile dissipated as his pain sensors starting firing up as a product of his slowly-awakening mind doing its job. He gently massaged his left shin, rubbing his fingers along the skin where a titanium rod lived underneath. James, now twenty-five, often marveled at how an accident at a family ski trip nine years ago changed everything.

Suddenly, he got up in haste, grabbed his jacket off the floor, and ran his fingers through the inside of the left side chest pocket, pulling out crumpled receipts and chewing gum wrappers.

“Fuck, fuck,” he murmured, pacing frantically around the room. Buzzing back and forth, he began working himself into a frenzy like a nervous fighter about to compete for a world title in moments.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said, his voice deepening and loudening with each subsequent word.

Then, full-stop.

James dashed to the living room and found his worn-out Levi’s lying on the floor. He turned over every pocket until he found two lint-covered capsules, swallowing them immediately.

“Thank, God,” he said, lowering his shoulders and letting out a sigh of relief.

Staring into his light brown eyes in the mirror, he leaned over the sink and went nose to nose with his reflection. Fine freckles formed a dotted strip that covered his high cheekbones and went across the bridge of his nose. They were sprinkles of cinnamon that rested upon the pale backdrop that was his face. “Baby, your freckles are extra pinches of intellect and willpower God sprinkled on you when he was done,” his mom used to say.

Taking a long, evaluative look at himself, thin streams of tears began seeping from his eyes. He dipped his head over the sink and watched as drops fell from his face into the bowl. Eventually, the drain will swallow them all, he thought.

***

James went to the kitchen and found a note on the wooden dining room table.

Hi, Jamesie, there’s some leftover casserole in the fridge. Save some for me, yeah? Love you. Don’t forget your meeting at six. Also, our anniversary is coming up in three days, so you better plan something! Eleven years is important!!

Love,

Alice. C

He stood stone-faced. The thought of Alice and her casserole, his favorite, almost forced a smile, but the mention of his Narcotics Anonymous meeting repulsed him, keeping his expression unchanged. At one point, his attendance at these meetings served to appease pleas from loved ones now they were court-ordered. James stopped attending weeks ago and had no plans of going that night or any other night.

Yanking the fridge door open, he grabbed the cold casserole, a fork, and devoured it in its entirety without taking a seat. He closed his eyes and savored the final bite as if it were the last thing he would ever eat. The taste of Alice’s handiwork brought a child-like grin to his face.

“Damn it,” he said, his expression changing on a dime.

He tossed the Tupperware and fork into the sink, ran over to the dining room table, and continued writing where Alice’s note left off.

Hey, I accidentally finished all the casserole. I’m sorry! I’ll make it up to you next time. Maybe? Hopefully? You know me, but I’ll try. Love you, baby.

Love,

James

Don’t apologize, do better, James thought. The phrase came to his mind in Alice’s sweet, silky voice. A sweetness he couldn’t believe was still there after all these years. The thing is, baby, I don’t know if I can do any better, he thought as if replying to Alice telepathically.

He quickly dressed, grabbed his backpack, pulled out an unlabeled prescription bottle, popped two more capsules in his mouth, swallowed, and made his way out the front door.

***

His hair flew in the wind as he rode downhill, hands off the breaks, with a frightening velocity. Having to maneuver around the outstretched town on his six-speed was a pain James slowly embraced, eventually transforming it into a pastime.

The townspeople looked away when they saw James speeding away on his bike, as they shuttered to look at what’s become of the, one time, brightest student in the town’s only high school. He felt as if his community had collectively seared a scarlet letter across his forehead with so much malice and vindictiveness it marked him down to the frontal lobe. They let him down, he thought.

The sun had started setting, and the cold, fall night had begun to take over. James was on his way to see his mother for the first time in a year-and-a-half despite living a twelve-minute drive from one another.

He drifted to a stop at the mouth of a gravel driveway and surveyed the dilapidated two-story box of plywood he called his childhood home. A 2007 Honda Accord in the driveway was the most well-put-together thing on the lot.

Walking up to the porch, he met Roger, a husky, stone slab of a man, puffing on a cigarette, lounging in a rocking chair.

“Where’s my mom?” James asked.

“She doesn’t want to see you,” he shot back, staring past James to the trees on the other side of the road.

“Bring her out here, I wanna see her,” James said.

“I told you, kid, she doesn’t wanna see you, so get out of here,” he said, taking a drag of his cigarette, still staring into the forest.

Then, Darby poked her head from behind the screen door.

“Who’s that?” She said, closing the door behind her and making her way onto the porch.

She had on small square glasses, and streaks of grey lined her sandy brown hair. Her pale face shone with an aged, faint hint of luminosity. A tight t-shirt clung to the pouch of belly fat hanging from her abdomen, and a pair of black gym shorts rested along her mid-thigh. James looked at his mother and could still see remnants of the beautiful, young woman who raised him.

“It’s me,” James answered.

“I don’t have any money, I wish I could —

“I’m not looking for money.”

“Well, what do you want?” She asked.

“I just wanted to see you.”

“You’re fucked up,” Darby said, examining her son. “Look at your eyes.”

She looked at the glassy fixtures on his face. Thick liquid coated both his eyes completely, like marbles dipped in olive oil.

“Don’t cry, son,” Darby said, grabbing her son's hand with the both of hers, pressing firmly.

“Is this what you came here for, just to stir up some shit, and make everyone uncomfortable?” Roger interjected.

“Roger, get out of here, will ya?” Darby said, shooing Roger off the rocking chair.

Roger stepped off the front porch and made his way around the house to the backyard.

“What’s going on?” Darby asked.

“I miss you,” James said.

“Then why don’t you talk to me?”

I didn't want you to see me like this,” he answered. He sank his face into his mother’s chest and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“I don’t want to feel this anymore,” he said.

“Then why do you keep doing this to yourself?”

“I don’t know.”

They both stood in a silent embrace.

“Listen,” she said, grabbing his shoulders, and pulling his face into view

“As much as it hurts to say, you don’t have many chances left, baby."

James stared into his mother’s eyes.

“There are only three ways I see this going. You're either gonna get serious about getting help or one day you are going to wake up broken, hurt, and embarrassed enough to finally just quit. The third, I shouldn‘t have to explain.”

He nodded and took a step back.

“I’m leaving,” James said, rubbing his hands across his face, attempting to regain his composure.

“Where to?”

“I’m going for a drive. I need the car.”

“I can’t give it to you, not in your condition,” she said.

“I’m fine, just give me the car and let me go.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t. Roger and I need it for work.”

“Give me the keys,” James ordered.

Darby shook her head.

“Mom, please.”

She shook her head again.

James grabbed the rocking chair and flung it from the porch onto the front lawn, breaking it into large pieces. She saw a look in her son’s eyes that she had seen a million times over, decades prior with her first husband, and now with his seed.

“What’s going on?” Roger asked, hurriedly making his way back onto the porch.

“James is taking the car,” she answered.

“Fuck no, he isn’t,” Roger said.

“Yes, he is.”

“Darby, are you crazy?”

“Here are the keys,” she said, pulling them out of her gym shorts and placing them on the ledge. James grabbed them and started making his way to the car.

Roger brought Darby in close and whispered in her ear. She paused for a second, took a long look at her son, and walked through the front door. Roger turned to the young man, defeated.

James watched as Roger begrudgingly made his way inside the house. He stared into nothingness for a few minutes, then sprang into motion. He downed the remaining capsule from the bottle in his backpack with an orange soda left in the cupholder and backed out of the driveway, crushing gravel underneath the tires as he drove off the lot.

He drove down a long narrow road, his childhood home fading to black. The road, trees, and darkness went on forever, he thought. Alice, life, family, these thoughts rushed past his mind like traffic posts along the street. There were now two cars behind him. Pain and misfortune, he thought — they were never too far behind.

Sweating profusely, he turned on the radio to try and drown out the noise from his thoughts but couldn’t muster the strength or concentration to turn it up to anything more than a light buzz. Tears gushed from his eyes as if the levees from his soul had finally given way. With tears dripping off his face and an increasingly drowsy feeling overtaking his body, he approached a red traffic light and came to a stop.