Today's prompt was to write about a memory:
The Bike
I.
One time I was taking turns riding the bike with two friends – who were sisters -
and we were riding in the circular concrete driveway
of the business next door to my house. Suddenly a car veered
into the driveway. Our parents watched from my front porch
as the car came straight toward us girls. I was on the bike.
I pedaled and they ran. One of the sisters lost her shoe and it got run over.
Our dads jumped in a car and followed the car as it sped away.
They got the license plate number and even though they shouldn’t
have been able to, they got the address of the minor
male that owned the car. They went to his house and talked to his dad.
I don’t remember his punishment, but our dads were satisfied.
II.
We had to move out of state when I was twelve.
I threatened to move in with Leslie and her family
and I think they may have let me. I stayed with them for two weeks
and when my dad came to pick me up I told him I was going to stay.
Leslie’s dad said I could stay awhile longer,
but my dad said Mom really missed me
and I had to come home. So I left with him and we went to
a different state. And we lived in a rented spot
in an R.V. park in my grandparents vintage travel trailer.
There wasn’t much to do but ride the bike. I rode the bike
all over the trailer park. Up and down and back and forth.
I rode and listened to George Strait on my Walkman.
I was riding early one evening and one of the neighbors I had seen
a few times asked me if I lived in space number whatever
and I said, Yeah I did, and he asked me if I was a Mormon girl
and I said, No. He looked a little surprised and said that he and his family
thought I was a Mormon girl because I always wore a long braid.
III.
My grandparents almost always lived very near to us or with us
when I was growing up. For a while they slept
in the garage on some property we rented. We were looking
for a permanent home at the time, so the garage also stored
some of our stuff. But there was enough open concrete space
for me to ride the bike in tight circles when the weather
didn’t permit riding out of doors. When the weather
was nice, though, I rode the bike up and down the long dirt road.
I was supposed to put the bike
back up in the garage after every ride,
but sometimes I forgot.
I would just lean it up against the side of the garage. I left it
there overnight once and when my dad
went outside to leave for work the next morning
he could clearly see the tire tracks in the deep sand
where someone had simply walked away with it in the night.
