True thanks

November 29, 2013 § 31 Comments

It’s hard for people to understand the kinds of relationships that we build on bicycles. Let me try to explain.

This story really began with a belt tied into noose and looped around a light socket, dangling from a ceiling in a cheap motel room in Mexico. One friend found the other friend before it was too late. The affair put something of a damper on what had started out as fun three-day bicycle tour south of the border.

They took the guy who was almost on the clinched end of the belt back home to Texas. He promptly went to bed, and refused to get up. After two days of lying there, deep in the black place, there was a knock at the door. He never moved, except to open his eyes and stare blankly at the ceiling.

The ham-fist rapped again, then jiggled at the doorknob, which was locked. The hand hesitated, then twisted hard, stupid hard. The lock snapped and the door opened. He walked in from the brilliant sunshine to the gloom of despair.

“Hey, pal,” he said.

Nothing.

He pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat there, unmoving, for a full hour.

“What do you want?” asked the muted, angry voice.

“I want you to get your ass out of bed and make yourself something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I didn’t ask if you were hungry.”

The next silence lasted almost two hours. The big guy never budged from his chair. The sick man pushed back the covers and went to the bathroom. When he came back, the big guy said to him, again, “Go make yourself something to eat. Just a bowl of cereal. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

The slim man went into the kitchen while the big main waited in the bedroom. When he had finished the cereal, the slim man came back in and crawled under the covers. “Now go away, please.”

“Okay,” said the big man. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The things that matter

The big man had a wife, kids, and a job that started every day at two and finished at eleven. Every morning at nine o’clock you could find him at the slim man’s house, sometimes on the porch reading a newspaper, sometimes inside watching the TV. He never left his post before noon, and every day before he pedaled off he said the same thing. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

After three months the slim man would be up and out of bed when the big man got there. After four months he was showering every day and getting dressed. By the sixth month he was back in front of the computer in his study, working.

By the seventh month, the big man stopped coming around. The slim man had been pulled, inch by miserable inch, out of the pit. It’s a pit so deep and black and hopeless that only those who have fallen into it can even begin to understand. It’s a pit from which many never get out.

The big man has deep blue eyes, dark hair, and the warmest handshake you’ll ever get. He could crush your small hand in his bear’s paw, but he holds it gently so that all you feel is the warmth. He carries a lot of the world’s worries on his wide shoulders, uncomplainingly, hidden behind his smile.

Every year the slim man gives thanks, true thanks. The big man doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t need to.

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