By Jim Hagarty
2008
There is a man in my neighbourhood who tempts fate way too often and I am very worried about him.
I fret because this middle-aged fellow rides his well-used bicycle through the busiest intersection in my city as if he was, at that moment, piloting the only vehicle on the road in the entire municipality. Mammoth trucks tickle his earlobes as they all but squish him like a bug in their rush to get by him and he pays them absolutely no attention. It hasn’t been a good week unless there’s been at least two pile-ups at this corner but the bicylist I’m concerned about rides around the carnage unmoved, seemingly in total disregard for the concepts of caution and safety.
He simply and utterly pays no heed to the chaos and potential mayhem in his environment as lights change and stressed-out drivers hurl their two-ton tanks into the death-defying battle that is the modern-day street corner.
Is it uncommon courage that causes such remarkable calmness in the bike rider I fear for? Is it blithe ignorance of the brutal realities of present-day city life? Is it stubborn defiance of the insane forces that rule all our lives in these troubled times?
No, in fact, it doesn’t appear to be any of these things.
The truth of it is, my daredevil cyclist friend is busy on the phone.
Several times I have seen him now, as I wait on foot for the lights to change. He pedals and talks, talks and pedals, cellphone pressed to one ear, and somehow survives to do it again another day.
Now, being a man forever on a search for the answers to things, this spectacle leaves me with enough questions to keep my inquiring mind in gear for many an hour.
For starters, to whom is my phone-addicted pal talking as he cycles through Accident Alley? Is he calling his life-insurance company with instructions to up his total benefit amount, as he expects to be cashing in on it soon? Is he phoning ahead to the funeral home to arrange a booking? Talking to a tombstone engraver, perhaps?
Or is he discussing with someone the boneheaded penalties the referee dished out in last night’s hockey game?
I would really like to know this.
Who and what could be so important to cause a man who is guiding fifty pounds of paper-thin steel and rubber through modern motoring’s Gates of Hell to reach down into his pocket, pull out a little black gizmo, and start yakking away as if he was reclining at home in his bathtub?
And this brings up one other major incongruity. What is a man who is so busy that he has to take telephone calls while he’s in transit, doing riding a touring bicycle? Except for those crazy, scrawny guys in France with the tight bums who race their itsy-bitsy bikes through the streets like hamsters on ferris wheels, don’t most of us associate bicyle-riding with leisure?
If this guy’s so darned pushed for time that he has to multi-task his way through the bombed-out battlefield that is the corner near my home, why isn’t he at least astride a souped-up racing bike?
But, no, there he goes again, calmy pedalling and prattling as if he was riding down a deserted one-lane road in a lonely outback in Australia.
The guy I lose sleep over is not talking to his stockbroker, I’m pretty sure of that. He’s not arranging another blockbuster deal with a Hollywood magnate. He isn’t doing a Live at Five feed for Channel 97 news.
And another thing. Does he simply take all these calls or does he place some of them? Knowing the answer to this one might help me decide if my time-saving buddy is only half-crazy or right off his stick.
This is all driving me around the bend.
So, what I hope to do is this. I’m going to somehow find out that man’s number and then I’m going to give him a call. Something tells me, no matter the time or the place or what he might be doing at that moment, he’ll be more than glad to talk to me.
That’s just the kind of guy, I figure, that this guy is.
You know.
A busy guy.
