A Dare Park: Bikes, Time Machines, and choices

It's Sunday afternoon and the AC is busted at the Switchyards in Adair Park. You know that adage about a frog in a pot of slowly heating water? It feels like that. [ Side note: This is where someone will be unable to resist the urge to write in the comments, “You know Jon scientists have done this experiment and the frog actually jumps out of the water before it boils to death.” Yes I know. Also, maybe work on your irresistible urge to comment your every thought. Maybe start now.] So I leave my seat at Adair Park Switchyards and sit on a shaded bench in Adair Park. It's a beautiful Atlanta day. The temperature is in the mid to high 80's which should be comfortable. The heat index is in the low to mid 90's which is comfortable... in the shade. 

I'm sitting and thinking about a story idea that involves a new apartment (maybe condos?) complex that has been built, and fenced in like a precious puppy, at the top of Old National Highway near I-85. Just outside of those new, shinny, lemon-pepper free, domiciles is a motel that has served as a brothel, and financial under-girder of the Waffle House across the street, for as long as I've lived down Old Nat (that being more than 20 years). Just as I'm exploring the complex (no pun intended) relationship and dynamic that lives between what was, what is, and what will be two young boys enter the park on bikes with their uncle. 

The young Black boys look to be ten and twelve. Their uncle appears to be in his early thirties. I know he’s their uncle because they keep shouting back over their shoulders “Uncle Bobby…” this, that, and the other. These boys are a time machine back to when I was ten and riding bikes through Southside Richmond with my best friend Gregory. Their collective energy lights up the park like a fourth of July sparkler the second the tires of their bikes touch the sidewalk path. The twelve year old shouts, “Race you!” and takes off down a hill that takes him right past the bench I'm sitting on. He goes past so quickly that he leaves a much appreciated breeze in his wake. The ten year old sits on his bike. He stares at the hill and his sparkler energy has changed. Quieted. Dampened. His uncle shouts, “Stop being so scary and go! Catch him! You ain't never gonna catch him sitting there!” The ten year old puts his foot on the pedal, stands, and shifts his weight to launch himself down the hill, but then he takes his foot off the pedal and just stares at the pathway. His uncle shouts “Bwoy go!” and in-spite of himself he does.

This moment is, for me, a time machine as well. I wasn't what was widely considered a boy-boy as a boy. I didn't want to blow things up, pour salt on snails, and wrestle the shoulders of people and/or animals to the ground until someone counted to three. I just wanted to read my Choose Your Own Adventure books and dream up complicated vignettes with my GI Joe action figures. When my dad's friends would come over on Sunday to watch football and invite me to join them I'd decline and sit in my room building Lego. Eventually the request to watch football became less of an ask and more of an expectation. There were many things I did as a kid because that's what boys were supposed to do more than any innate desire to do them. Even riding my bike with Gregory started because I was told, “Go outside and ride your bike with Gregory.” I feel like I spent many days staring down one proverbial steep hill after another that I wasn't excited to descend. Just like this kid that’s launched himself down one in Adair Park.

The young man comes hurriedly down the hill. His eyes are wide and his legs are pumping. Then suddenly the front wheel wobbles. His eyes get wider and instead of hitting the brakes he puts his feet down and tries, to no avail, to regain control of the bike. The bike takes a path straight toward the bench I'm sitting on. I'm on the opposite side of the bench and brace for the impact. He crashes and slides to a halt a few of feet before he reaches me.

The vibrant park feels suddenly still. Then slowly he starts to stand up. From the street, over the boy's shoulder, I hear his uncle shout, “Get up!” The boy stands and I say, “Are you okay?” He looks at the ground and says, “I'm okay.” His uncle shouts at his back, “That was your fault! You gotta pay more attention!” I look him in the eye and say, “You sure you're okay?” He says in almost a whisper, “Yes sir, I'm okay.” Then I say to him one of the things I probably needed to hear when I was his age, “Listen to me. Remember this. The only person you're competing with in this life is yourself. No. One. Else.” He looks at me with tears in his eyes and whispers, “Yes sir.” The twelve year old begins laughing, taunting him, and takes off down the path toward the basketball court challenging him to give chase. He gets on his bike and slowly begins pedaling down the path toward the jungle gym. His uncle shouts, “Where are you goin!?” He slowly keeps pedaling.