Hoisted On My Own Petard

I need to start out by saying that I was NOT drunk, OK? I’d had maybe two beers at the time and I could totally recite the ABCs backwards while balancing on the end of a cop’s nightstick if I had to. Unfortunately, that was the least of my worries.

The night started out promising. Me, “Twickface” and “Hipster Scientist” bike over to Billyburg to go to this kid’s going away party: a purported “Mexatravaganza” complete with a bathtub of beer, a huge outdoor courtyard, live music, and tons of kids slugging beers and having a pretty good time. I run into two friends I hadn’t seen in a while. My boy’s band Professor Murder plays. (Technically it was their rap/mashup side project, King Oppression, but what do I care?) All in all, it was gearing up to be a swell Friday night.

Then they shut the shindig down. Too noisy. Too outdoors. Fortunately, everyone is cool about it, no yelling, no cops. Half the party files indoors, the other half out front to contemplate the next move. There’s word that some are heading over to Levee’s, a bar on Berry and North Third. Me and Hipster Scientist say “why the fuck not?” We’ll bike over. It’ll be swell.

Now keep in mind I’ve only been biking in NYC for a few weeks, following a long non-biking existence in Washington, D.C. I’m a little rusty, and I’ll be the first to admit it. But I want to be able to find my way around the city, I want to be able to bob and weave with the best of them. I want to thumb my nose at the long pathetic parade of clods clogging the streets with their polluting, gas guzzling crap-mobiles. But until then, I have to rely a little on my friends, who’ve lived here longer than me and have also been riding longer. Anyway, we’ve got that little disclaimer aside. On with the boring, self-centered story.

So Hipster Scientist and I are cruising down Union, and the night is beautiful, and the lights, and New York, and...wow. I love it, right? I can’t get enough. Biking in this city is just...right on. I’ll admit that I’m a little star struck and I’m not paying a lot of attention to the road, to HS in front of me, to the cars whizzing around me, etc. Translation: I’m being a real fuck-tard on the road. So, Hipster Scientist slows down a little, a red light or whatever, I’m not paying enough attention, and our tires connect, his back and my front. And I start to lose balance. And I’m flying over the handlebars. And I hit the ground. Hard. Boom. Ouch.

My red flashy light shatters. Good old HS swoops in to make sure I’m OK. And this “concerned” couple who saw the whole torrid event stop to see if I’m OK. I’m on my feet, my pride and testosterone demanding I suck it up and admit no hurt whatsoever. “Oh man, you OK?” the man asks. I nod and immediately start gathering the pieces of my red flashy light. “Well,” his girlfriend/wife/concubine (whatever she was) says, “you shouldn’t be biking drunk.”

Now, like I said before, I’d had maybe two beers. I certainly wasn’t drunk. Yet this nosy and apparently clairvoyant woman automatically assumes I’m drinkin’ and peddlin’. What the fuck? Am I stammering? Is my nose colored red? Are my eyes watery? Do I smell like the inside of Mel Gibson’s car?

“I’m not drunk,” I say, still picking up pieces of red flashy light. “I’m just clumsy.” I’m wishing they’d just go away. No one wants to have an extended conversation with someone who’s just witnessed them take a spectacularly embarrassing nosedive off a bike. “Well, just so you know, don’t bike drunk,” she repeats. What’s with this woman? Was my accident so ridiculously inept that it could have only be perpetrated by a drink-sodden buffoon? Thanks for the vote of confidence, random pedestrian.

On a lighter note, my red flashy right is fixed and working like a charm. And I have a bunch of awesome scars on my legs. Badges of motherfucking honor. I’m totally into it.