Prologue:

For the first two years of my college life, I was so thrilled by the concept of a three month return policy on Walmart’s 40 dollar bicycles. Every third month, I would make a sacred pilgrimage to Walmart and return my bicycle and get a new one in exchange. The Walmart customer assistance never asked any questions and every bike I bought dutifully died within its three month returnability period.  I even stopped getting attached to my bicycles because I knew that each bicycle was nothing more than a fling…in three months, I would have my legs wrapped around yet another Mt Fury Roadmaster. And then, one fateful sophomore year day, a Walmart bike forced its way into my life. I had washed the jeans in which the Walmart receipt for that bike lay, rendering it un-returnable. I screamed in horror as I peeled the wet remains of the receipt from my jeans pocket…it disintegrated in my hand leaving an ink smudge on my fingers that read…well, nothing. It was just an illegible splotch of ink. Never again would I know the joys of mounting a new bike I had picked up on a Friday night and riding her multiple times all weekend. The Casanova had settled down. I had ‘knocked up’ my bike.

The Day She Died:

It was one of those freak Chambana days on which the sun shines through your window and the birds chirrup at ur sill. You’re overcome by a sense of being one with nature until you open the window and get hit by a blast of icy cold wind, causing you to subsequently slam the window shut while mouthing ghastly expletives. I wheeled out my old jalopy and biked off in the general direction of campus. I was pedaling furiously because I needed to drop my homework off in class before the professor walked in so that I wouldn’t feel guilty about walking out in front of his nose. Two blocks from my class, I heard a snap. The bike stand had come loose. Ignoring it, I continued to pedal. The next couple of seconds all happened in slow motion…arguably because I can’t cycle very fast. The bike stand got caught in the back tire causing it to lock up. I flew off the bike, did a neat pirouette and landed squarely on top of the back wheel completely mangling it in the process. Nearby, a Chinese kid grimaced, a squirrel looked startled and an Indian kid grinned ear to ear.

I disentangled myself from the back wheel and started dragging the bike towards class. I couldn’t roll it because the back wheel was in no condition to rotate. Another block of dragging the bike and BLAM! Friction had eroded the back tire because I was dragging it and it exploded. Even more miserable, I trudged along reconciled to having to sit through the lecture. Just as I was pulling into the parking stand, my professor walks past me, looks at the bike and says quite sympathetically ‘Flat huh?’ I grin weakly at him and continue to drag the bike wishing I had had the quick-wittedness to say ‘NO 36DD, whadaya think????’

Open Heart Surgery:

I promptly called DEO, my roommate from the summer on my cell-phone to see if she could be rescued. If anyone could fix her, it was DEO, the man who’s been to bike school. It would be tough to convince him to operate on a 40 dollar Walmart bike considering the fact that his clientele was comprised almost exclusively of Canondales, Bianchis and Huffies. The best doctors only work on clients with great insurance.

Surprisingly, he offered to take a look. At 4.01pm, I wheeled her to the operating theatre. Dr DEO looked at her and immediately declared that she would need to have a back wheel transplant. A few more frantic calls and we had located a suitable donor. My friend AK had a similar bike with a bad front wheel but a salvageable wheel. The donor bike was locked to a speed limit sign on the busiest intersection of campustown. The doctor crouched down near the backwheel and pulled up the collar of his jacket lest he be recognized. As the doctor worked, I and AK reassured passersby that it wasn’t as shady as it looked…hard to convince them since we were a motley crew of two Indians and a Mexican hunched over a cheap bike trying to jimmy out the back tire. After a couple of passersby, I started asking them whether they wanted to buy a bike for real cheap. That got some shocked looks. A couple more people, and AK started asking people wearing nice coats whether they HAD a bike, and proceeded to follow them.

The frustration was beginning to show on Dr DEO’s countenance. Finally, in a fit of exasperation with a tough bolt, he asked me ‘Did u ever grease this thing?’ ‘Oh yes’, I reassure him… ‘I douse it with cooking oil every week.’ DEO almost chokes in outrage. ‘COOKING OIL?????’ ‘Olive oil, actually’ I offer helpfully. The doctor has had enough. He gets up, throws the wrench to the floor, dusts of his jacket and says ‘I m sure you can buy another 40 dollar walmart bike and start your cycle of cosmic return karma again’ and walks off into the sunset.

Epilogue:

I knew I shouldn’t have told him about the olive oil. Heartbroken, I dragged my poor unloved 40 dollar bike back home and, as a last sign of good will to all bikers, I parked her in an unsecured bike stand with no lock so that some person who wanted to use her for parts could do so without having to struggle or look shady while procuring the parts. She was gone the next morning. Taken to that big bike stand in heaven where all good bicycles go….a place where even an old disfigured walmart bike can find love

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."