Chapter 16

Wheelin' 'n' Dealin' was and still is the place to go if you're a serious cycler. That's obvious the moment you set foot on the sales floor, the front half of the Denzel brother's space. On the walls are bike posters and more bike posters; posters of road racers and track racers frozen against backgrounds so blurred you feel the wind, posters of BMX bikes and riders soaring off jumps looking so real you want to pick the dirt and mud off your face, barf-inducing posters of X-Game riders hanging upside down in midair above towering ramps, posters of mountain bikers plunging down cliffs, posters of suburban families touring country roads -- helmeted all, of course.

Below the posters is an ever-changing cast of Very Serious Bikes, some new, some used, neatly parked, the front wheels all cocked at the exact same angle. There are sleek racers, muscle-bound BMXers, sturdy recreational bikes, recumbent bikes that the rider steers with levers instead of handlebars. There are touring bikes with tires tough enough to handle broken glass, an occasional bicycle built for two, even adult-sized tricycles for the geriatric set. If it's not on the sales floor they either have what you want in the back room or they can get for you, given the time.

The only thing you won't find is chintzy children's bikes gussied up with tasseled handgrips and plastic fenders, bikes that wouldn't last a season. Those are left to the superstores. Even if it's a rebuilt used Schwinn, at Wheelin' 'n' Dealin' you get a bike that, treated right, could last another lifetime.

Darryl Denzel runs the sales end of the operation. He knows that any good showroom needs a focus to draw the customer in, and he provides it. In the center of the floor, with enough empty space to ride two abreast around it, is a podium just big enough to hold a bike facing the front door as if poised to leap into action. This stage is a place of honor, a throne, bathed in overhead track lights. It is usually occupied by some exotic machine with more gears than I have fingers to count with, a bike with a composite frame so light a breeze could carry it away, with a high seat and handlebars that dip low and curve under to tuck the rider into as compact and aerodynamic a shape as possible, a racing bike with a price that has four digits to the left of the decimal point. Or it might be a mountain bike strong enough to carry King Kong up and down Everest, with twenty-four speeds, yet light enough for me to pick up one handed.

But that day, the Monday I stepped through the door the breath caught in my throat, because on that podium there was a simple old Raleigh three-speed in all it's boxy, dowdy, upright, terribly British conceit. Its dark finish made the shining bits, like the handlebars, stand out even more, glittering in the spotlights.

All the bikes around the walls face that centerpiece as if paying homage to nobility.

"Bessie?" I whispered.

She was gracefully aging royalty holding court, surrounded by admiring subjects.

"Bessie?" I half-whispered again, afraid I was seeing things, afraid I'd break the spell. Shrugging out of my backpack and setting it down quietly by the door I tip-toed closer, cold sweat prickling my nakedness. "Is that you?"

It couldn't be her! When Maria and I had brought Bessie in last Thursday she'd been a basket case, and we'd been told it'd be at least a week, maybe two before they'd even have the parts, and who knew how long it would take to get her put back together. Maybe it was some other bike, an attempt to substitute it for Bessie. I'd heard of parents trying to do that when a beloved pet died, and it just isn't the same.

"Shit!" Horace snorted rudely, breaking the spell. "Can't be. We killed her."

I almost turned around and rearranged his nose for a second time. Not because he'd just flat admitted what he'd done, but because he'd said the "S" word in the presence of what might actually be a miracle. I grabbed a handful of his shirt and dragged him with me, my fist digging into his throat, choking off his protests. Reaching the base of the podium I shoved him to his knees, humbling him, leaving him to try to work out the dent in his Adam's apple that my grip had put there.

Because it really was Bessie! I recognized the ding on the head tube, just below the handlebars, where she'd deflected a rock that otherwise might have caught me right in the crotch. She wore that scar proudly. It was my Bessie, right down to the basket on the front! She called to me now just the way she'd called to me at that police auction, called to my heart and my legs, my lungs.

"Come ride me!" she called. "Together we'll see the world."

I stepped up on the podium to examine her, touch her, stroke her.

Hug her.

It was Bessie!

Oh sure, the wheels shone like new, because they were new, or at least rebuilt. She had new fenders, freshly repainted, as were the chain guard and the front fork. But the frame -- her skeleton, her very bones -- was the same frame. The sprocket with its crank arms and pedals -- her heart -- were the same. So were her arms, the distinctively graceful handlebars with the rise and spread of wings, complete with the little Sturmey Archer shifter within reach of my right thumb when I held the white rubber grips, my fingers touching the gracefully curved chromed handles of the handbrakes. The brake cables ran through new clean white guides, the front a graceful sweeping curve down to the caliper there, the one to the rear caliper clipped close to the frame.

Beside that the shift cable ran along the top tube as well -- she's a boy's bike, remember -- over a little white plastic pulley under the seat, down the seat stay to where a tiny turnbuckle linked to the seemingly delicate chain that ducked into the center of the rear hub, where the planetary transmission did its magic. No big, open derailleur for her! Bessie might be a boy's bike but she was a lady with her special bits tucked demurely away, out of sight. I still remembered how Carl and I had deciphered the mysteries of that marvelous mechanism one rainy weekend.

There was a new seat, of course, with a soft fake fur cover to welcome my so often naked tushy. I hoped it was washable, 'cause sometimes I do leak a bit.

I had to ride her. I just had to. Nudging the kickstand back I bumped her gently down the two carpeted steps to the glossy showroom floor, swung my leg over her. The seat welcomed my bare ass warmly. A light push and my feet found the pedals and I slowly began to circle the floor of the showroom, past the front windows, then down the rank of parked bikes, watching the smooth spin of the front wheel, no off-kilter wobble there.

She was the Queen reviewing her troops. Coasting, I backpedaled just to hear the comforting clickety-clickety-clicktey of the gears.

It was only when I reached the back of the showroom to curve past the counter that separated it from Weed Denzel's repair shop that I discovered we had an audience. From the moment I'd entered the shop I'd only had eyes for Bessie. They'd probably been standing there the whole time, watching me make a fool of myself slobbering over some silly old bike.

Only they knew this was no "silly old bike," because the only reason they'd be here was if they had fixed her. Somehow they had fixed her, or I couldn't be riding her now. But how?

They reached out to me and I slapped palms with them as I pedaled slowly past. I was so excited almost forgot to turn, and I barely avoided piling into one of the three-wheelers. Grinning like an idiot I shot a look back over my shoulder at them as I began a second lap around the store.

It was my lunch bunch -- who else? -- and John, and Mike Collins! In the middle was Missy, tears of joy running down her plump cheeks. Beside her towered Weed, who could fix any bike in the world in his cluttered back room, given the parts and enough time. He must have overseen the work, but where had they found the parts, and how had they gotten them assembled so fast? Someone must have spent the whole weekend working on it, while Missy and Maria had kept me distracted.

With a whoop I jangled Bessie's bell, the familiar ching-a-ling. I coasted once more around the floor to pull up in front of my friends. I carefully got off, set the kickstand, and then threw myself at Missy, both of us slobbering and crying like fools, and she didn't mind when I kissed her and kissed her and kissed her right there in public.

But then, of course, I kissed the rest of them, too, Fran and Inez and Peggy and Cindy and John and Mike. I'm an equal opportunity smoocher.

And Weed! God bless Weed, so tall I actually had to reach up to him! No one knows his real first name, and unless you need a bike fixed you might never meet him. He lived in the back room, tending his patients. It took a major event to get him out front in the showroom. Missy must have physically dragged him out. He was tall and lanky and bashful, with knobby legs and arms and hands like giant spiders, his long fingers so deft and gentle that they could thread the tiniest needle or replace the most miniscule setscrew, yet strong enough to loosen a stubborn nut without a wrench.

I grabbed him by his ears -- they stick out kinda like Bessie's handlebars -- and gave him a smooch like he'd probably never had before in his life, while he flapped his long arms, unsure whether to touch my naked body or not. Maybe some of his other customers were as grateful as I was, but I don't see how they possibly could have been, and if they had kissed him I bet they weren't naked.

When I let go of him he was blushing right to the tips of his ears.

The bell over the front door jingled.

"Chiquita! Is this a private party or may I join in?"

"Maria! Look, look, look! It's Bessie! It's Bessie! She's okay! She's okay!" I was dancing, positively giddy, I admit.

"You don't go anywhere." She shoved Horace down with a hand on his shoulder as he started to get up. "You do not want me to have to chase you down! Sit, you... ," there was a string of Latino that I made a note to learn from her as soon as I could. Good cuss words that wouldn't get me in trouble at home were hard to come by.

"Okay, Missy, I owe you one get outta jail free card," Maria, my lover -- well, one of my lovers -- went on to my bestest forever friend. "You did it. I don' know how, but you did it!"

Missy blushed prettily. "Actually it was my mom who found the parts."

"Your mom did this? For me?" Missy's mom was not one of my fans.

"Oh, Dee, don't be silly. She knows how much Bessie means to you. I told her what had happened the moment I heard. She knew someone at her hairdresser's who knew some old geezer who has a barn full of old bikes and bike parts. She put the wheels in motion, you might say."

Weed's Adam's apple bobbed nervously. "These guys o' your'n showed up Sat'day mornin' with a pickup load a' parts and he'ped me fix 'er."

It was the longest sentence I'd ever heard him string together.

I wanna go for a ride! I wanna go for a ride!

Oh shut UP! I told The Stick, just as I realized that she actually had a good idea. The whole damn town had to be thinking that my bike -- and maybe The Program along with it -- was dead. Somewhere out there someone was gloating and I wanted to give 'em a poke in the eye.

"Who wants to go for a ride with me? Preferably naked."

My crew didn't need a second invitation. No one has friends like I do.

Only Maria balked. "I can't, I'm on duty. And you can't take my prisoner with you. He's wanted downtown. Mrs. Devers told me what he did. It's a parole violation, so he's busted -- again. Plus we have some questions for him."

Actually I was relieved. While I'd thought of having Horace stripped naked and strapped to my bike like some hunter's trophy or bungeed into the front basket, the wires cutting a waffle pattern in his bare ass, I really didn't have the heart to do it to him. He was sitting on the bottom step of the podium, his head hanging in defeat. When, oh when was he going to learn to quit making such dumb choices? Even Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber -- sorry, Cagney and Lacey -- had caught on faster.

"He's all yours," I told her.

"I'll see you later, Chiquita. Save a place at the dinner table for me."

Only a few minutes after she led him away the rest of us were saddled up, and I led them out the door to take a tour of the town, every single one of us naked, some on borrowed bikes. It was as good a promotion for The Program as any banner could have been, and Darryl didn't mind lending us some of his stock since those bikes had his tag dangling from the handlebars. He knows good advertising when he sees it.

Damn! Here I was doing it again. In middle school I'd led the Dirty Dozen out into the halls in the name of Sex Ed. Now I was leading a parade of naked teen bicycle riders through town to prove that The Program lived. It was late afternoon, rush hour, and we tied up traffic with our tour, down Main Street, around and back up through the plaza, past the "birdwatchers" under the ficus tree -- who gave us a standing ovation -- turning the heads of the shoppers with their last minute purchases before they headed home for supper.

Someone must have alerted the press. As we cruised past the newspaper building a photographer was there, snapping pictures. I took a "look ma, no hands" pose as I sailed past, my arms spread wide to embrace the air rushing over me, my stiff nips breaking the wind, stray breezes playing insolently with my naked pussy. Then it was back to Wheelin' 'n' Dealin' to return the borrowed bikes before I rode home. Darryl, keeper of the books, even tore up the bill, since the parts had been donated and most of the work had been done by my friends.

I was on top of Old Bessie, on top of the world.

But if I thought of that ride was a victory tour I'd soon learned otherwise. Maybe we'd won that battle, but I was soon to find out that the war was still on.

Supper that evening turned out to be a series of revelations, not all of them pleasant.

Maria was there, and House Rules applied, of course. That meant we were nude, that what went on at home stayed at home -- not that I expected much since it was a Monday night and I had homework -- and no Program talk during supper. We'd reached the burping and wiping our lips stage when Maria dug into her bag and pulled out...

"A rear view mirror for Bessie?" I asked.

"You need to watch your back."

I groaned. "What now? Did that little shit sing?"

"Like a canary," Maria answered. "But that's not why you need to watch your back."

"Do tell." Mom was all ears, and so was Elaine, of course. Mom two -- or should that be "too?" -- takes her role very seriously, and I love her dearly for it.

"Which end you want me to start from, the head or the tail?"

Maria was asking me? "Which end is Horace? No, let me guess..."

"The tail," she confirmed before I could say it.

"Figures. Where else would you find an asshole like him?" I grumbled.

"He tells me you're the one who broke his nose! Really? According to him it was a cheap shot," Maria reported slyly.

"It was an accident! Or self-defense. It's a little hard to tell which, but I didn't mean to. Doesn't anyone ever listen to me? Listen to me!"

I drew a deep breath. "Short version. He was trying to rape Missy. I came to her rescue, pulled him off her and -- what's that word the Secret Service uses? -- interposed myself between them. So he tried to pull me off her -- or maybe butt fuck me, it was hard to be sure, his aim was so bad -- only my head got in the way of his nose."

"He was trying to rape you with his nose?" Maria asked teasingly.

"It's complicated," I protested, trying to get her to move on by making a winding motion with my hand.