A California Closing

by Robert Wintner

  Below the Big Boys on the two-wheel totem are the Vaginas, a group of young, urban professional men who self-deprecate to one-up the Big Boys, again lowering expectations to set the stage for victory, for coming up when nobody is looking. Deprecation notwithstanding, the Vaginas are way too fast for the likes of Michael Mulroney, which he senses straightaway as a Vagina invites him to ride—nothing too tough, maybe thirty at fifteen. Mulroney declines, at least till he gets the feel of the thing. “This bag of bones needs some shaping up first.” He imagines these guys going all out and calling it casual, just to show what a young man with discretionary energy can do.

  They size him up, briefly. He returns the assessment—better to get this over with than drag it out. Michael Mulroney could buy and sell these pussies, but he can’t keep up with the Vaginas. So? So what? What else you got? Little fuckers. At least they put out the invitation. That was friendly. But fuck a bunch of splits and steeps and whozits at whatsits. I want to ride my twenty-grand bike in the sun. Is that okay with you? Oh, don’t you worry; it’ll go twenty.

  The difference between two approaches to bicycling—joyful on the one hand and painful on the other—is more than meets the eye. Accepting the pain challenge on pace, ascent grade, distance or any combination thereof is a standard to live by, for which to strive and grow. The level of difficulty is a matter of choice, self-inflicted, because no matter how low the body fat, how sculpted the thighs or lumpy the calves, the miles will be too few and too slow for some guys. Personal best can always be better yet but can never be best enough. Denial of pain is a measure of machismo, unspoken and also denied. Farther faster is the Holy Grail here, with sparse dialogue among compatriots who know the self-internal, whose inner-connectedness is best expressed in performance stats on distance and pace, with special emphasis on searing potential in a sprint or a climb.

  A few riders stare at the old guy in tights and cleats. The stretch material grabs Mulroney like someone else’s hands. Riding shorts feel like support hose, with foam padding thick as the yellow pages between his nuts and his butthole. Among those who stare and wait is Franco, who senses discomfort but stays mum, till Mulroney shrugs. “A guy hung like a billy goat won’t get far in this rig. You want to wedge a bicycle seat up there too and then get the legs to move?” He lifts a leg to demonstrate the difficulty.

  Obviously, Franco went too far, standing by with chamois cream, as if Mulroney would grease his thighs up around the arch of the taint like one of the Big Boys. Setting the cream on the nearest shelf, Franco says, “Don’t worry. Cyclists have worn stretch shorts for decades. We’ll fit you up.” And he goes to the non-performance rack for a pair of stretch shorts in XL with no yellow pages. Mulroney nods and puts them on. Fuck it. This is all he needs. A pair of fucking shorts. Fucking yellow pages. Fuck. He hefts his nuts in one hand like a heavy hitter, seeking a more nuanced adjustment, and nods again, with room enough for a bicycle seat now. He looks around to see who’s still interested and if they’re getting the picture: he’s not so different, not as fast or durable or physically fit or young as he used to be. But he’s still hung and still game—till he passes a mirror and sees the old guy in tight shorts, till he moves along. Nothing improves with staring.

  The shoes are clip-ons. That is, first come the shoes, then the type of clips, then clip quality as a sub-set of type, though in this case the quality quotient is foregone: supreme excellence and nothing but. Waiting for the installation of clips onto shoes, Mulroney recalls installing a water pump on a ’59 Dodge or a ’65 Chevy with fair certainty he did it quicker and with fewer wrenches. He tries the shoes on and takes them off and waits in his socks, then changes his socks, saving the hula girls for special. Maybe he’ll save them for Hawaii, once he offloads the motherfucking barn at the top of the hill. He slips into more sedate blue sox with sharks circling the ankles but decides to save those in the tropical trousseau too. He slips into a pair in chartreuse with black bands on top showing Godzilla whacking a skyscraper. As he stares, a Big Boy eases over and says his five-year-old son would like those. Mulroney doesn’t look up as he stipulates, “These are my sox.”

  And these are some nice sox. He can decide later which to wear and which to save, but fuck it; he can get more. So he checks out for now, grateful that Frankie glanced at the ticket without wincing or murmuring the first peep over so many thousands of dollars, passing it over the counter top for review, acceptance, and payment in full. That would be cash or, of course, credit. Mulroney reviews briefly and slides it back across with his plastic on top. “Let’s see if we can fit that little devil right on here.” Mulroney knows it will fit right on there. Then he hopes it will fit right on there. Then he fears it won’t, and he’ll be rendered lower than old and fat and in denial of a greater pain. But somehow, some way, the little devil fits, and the little machine hums its emotionless mantra, capturing another electronic draft for the betterment of all. Franco goes to the half smile, which is half on each side, reflecting neutrality in a trade of many thousands of dollars for equal value shaped as a bicycle. He is a consummate closer and more, a poker player protecting the best interests of the entire table. Not a single ripple on his entire countenance divulges the magnitude of the sale, which must surely be his biggest of the morning. That’s tasteful, even if the Big Boys see and know.

  VI

  Mulroney on Wheels

  Then it’s the middle of the night, not that night but two nights down, bicycle eve. Mulroney can’t sleep, but he often can’t sleep for an hour or so around two or four, no big deal. The same shit wakes him up for sorting, but tonight some new shit takes the lead, pulling out like a drugged phenom on a fresh transfusion. Big M Michael Mulroney is excited about a new bicycle. Fuck, he thinks, but not in a bad way; he thinks this round of insomnia fresh and revitalizing, a youthful invigoration of the spirit, possibly already worth the twenty grand. He likes it and has only a few more hours till opening time. What will he look like a month down the road? Oh, baby.

  •

  Pressed to rate his bicycle purchasing experience to date, Mulroney would have scored Frankie eight out of ten on the front end; he was cocksure confident with laser focus on closing the deal. And he did wow the customer. But it was a tad slick, a bit over-confident, a smidge condescending and a whole heap of unhumble. Nobody should do that, but frankly, Mulroney must fess up to his own in flagrante on the woefully low humility issue. Whatever. Eight for ten is a score to be proud of.

  Arriving at The Spokesperson at two minutes to nine, Mulroney finds the doors open and a steaming latte waiting—and a gleaming CX-61 by Olioglo sitting front and center on the showroom floor, glistening with life, veritably roaring its brilliance and seething with hunger for miles. A few of the Big Boys lean on a display case but don’t glance at Mulroney. They stare, not speaking, but their thoughts seem nearly audible, so keen is their focus on the new rig. It’s the rig of dreams, nay fantasy, verging on the face of Bicycle God. Keen and envious, they struggle internal, begging the question: Who more than each one of them could warrant such a righteous ride?

  Franco lets the scene set like the maestro he has proven to be—the total bicycle purchasing experience surges to ten for ten, as Franco reaches for twelve, coming in a minute late, allowing the audience to murmur with restlessness as the caffeine, mechanical excellence, Italian beauty, perfection and lust course through the collective bloodstream before calling out, “Michael! Amico mio. Buon giorno. La bella, si?” Even the guinea horseshit seems right, and without stopping, Franco wheels the new rig out the front door.

  Finally dressed with minimal but unavoidable self-consciousness and a modicum of blushing, mounting his high-end, high-tech, state-of-the-art, world-class, top-o’-the-line, featherweight Ferrari space-age rocket ship of a two-wheeler, Mulroney moves. Equally unavoidable is blending with the spirit of weightless propulsion, of excellence, in essence, of a storm surge in nuance and overtone. He presses the shifters—they buzz their faint whisper ever so
briefly, shifting up or down, talking to each other until agreeing on the precise adjustment. He finds a resistance that feels mildly amusing and surges with low-end torque. Oh, it’s an acceleration common to riders fresh from the bicycle shop but uncommon to a man recently renown for used car sales. He will ride the twelve miles home in an act of sheer rebellion. Twelve miles seems like a stretch his first day out, but what the hell. He can go slow—and should go slow in sight of the shop, where more eyes watch than not, to size up the old guy, see what he’s got, if he’s a ringer from way back or just another wad o’ dough out to embarrass everyone, beginning with himself.

  What can he do, twelve at eight? Ha!

  He can call Allison or one of the service guys at any of nearly two dozen car lots for a ride if he gets tired. Well, he can call Allison. The service guys don’t need to see him in a moment of weakness, and they don’t need to see a bicycle that cost more than some terrific pre-owned cars with Mulroney dressed like a ballerina. If he makes it home, he’ll be averaging seventeen hundred bucks a mile. Fuck it; he’s not really wearing frills or chiffon. He’d draw the line on that shit.

  And the average will improve. And it’s like the Zen guy says: you gotta start somewhere.

  Besides all that, he will make it all the way home on pedal power, because it feels simply amazing, everything coordinated in grace and movement, getting him flowing down the road with a spirit too long gone. Road? Whoever thought the access road could be a thing of beauty? Who would ever take a car down these tree-lined, empty byways?

  And think of the fricken’ MPGs!

  Componentry is all Campagnolo as ordered, including the derailleurs, the bottom bracket and (carbon) brake levers, carbon bars and bar stem and carbon wheels with some space-age spokes for hardly four grand more and intricately complex hubs. In a steady rhythm he tracks stats on his digital instrument panel that shows him holding fifteen with a max of twenty-two seven minutes in at 9:19 a.m. Sure enough, just under twenty grand went a tad over with the extra sox, gloves, spare tube and nine-function speedo, wireless, with a heart rate function, which is great, Franco said. “You’ll be able to tell how you’re doing!” Fuck it—it only added eighty-two grams, and that’s only three point fuck-all ounces. Mulroney could take a three-beer whiz and save enough for a down payment on an old Vette—or a new Vette if he could pedal this bitch back to 1965. It feels light and effortless enough to travel back in time. But it can’t.

  Fucking nuts, but the guy was good, maybe great, planting those little seeds at just the right places. Why can’t I get my guys to do that?

  Shit. Twenty grand could have got scratch in all four gears off the showroom floor with some money left over for a tank of gas, a case of beer, and a motel in ’65. And a house. A little house, maybe, but fuck.

  Did Connie Conklin hold up or decompose like everything else? Would she turn up on a Google search? What would we have done afterward? Watch TV, drink beer, fuck some more and take showers? Walk around the block? Hold hands? She would have smoked a carton of cigarettes to get through her poses. Fuck. She’s got to be dead by now. Must be—or at least mostly decomposed. Corvette ain’t what it was either—out of the box’ll run eighty grand now, give or take. You can’t get a 427 anymore, but who needs the guzzle? They still handle better than a Batmobile, slightly. Mulroney could walk in, pick a color, and write a check. But scratch seems as tedious as a manual transmission. Here he’s got, what, twenty gears? Maybe more? And this is different—none of the old gear jamming here; he presses the shifter slightly and the chain slides into place like clockwork. Youth came and went, and here he is, getting his jollies on a bicycle. Sunny day, a little breeze, blue sky. He could do a whole heap worse. He could go quicker than youth, drop fucking dead in a heartbeat. Or a blink.

  So?

  It comes down to life and no alternative but to pedal up this fucking hill. Besides, Big M OK Cars might sound like a used car lot, but it’s times two dozen lots across town and into the hills. And online, now with CARCHEX, Auto Corroboration, Moto History, and Pre-Owned Zone. Which is something, and he’s still frequently soft spoken, reasonably fit, not a bad looker, and quick on the draw. So you got to ask yourself: is the Big M himself a fucking four-star, bona fide cash magnate Big Boy, or is he a buff motherfucker or both or what?

  Damn.

  It’s all the same: Vettes, Connie Conklin, bicycles. It’s the reach for something new. That’s all it is, all it was and likely will be. The motherfucking world goes away on you unless you keep pedaling, find something new to hump and get it on. Fuckin’ ay! Life is for the living. You never really want a Vette—you just want to feel it around you, make it lunge anytime you want, for a while, till everyfuckingbody has a chance to see you behind that wheel.

  Same thing with Connie Conklin—proving the power. She would have been fun, but she wasn’t nice. She was a rough, chain-smoking, foul-mouth bitch with the tightest little body ever seen. He could Google her. Nah. He can fantasize what slipped through the cracks, like he might go back for some sweet bye and bye, but he can’t. No life is free of loss. Let’s say he found her. Let’s say she looks good and dresses well. She’s an intellectual vegetarian with no moods, no demands, a magnanimous outlook, and no strings. Let’s say they have an excellent romp. Then what? Snacks and a little late TV before bed? Maybe they’d go again next week?

  Or maybe she’s a fat chain smoker in a doublewide three months late on her payment with a fouler mouth than before, with dirty dishes and feet. And twelve grandchildren. On their way over.

  You get down to it; the single, lasting loves are the dog and the wife. It’s the home pack you most often share the three bonding behaviors with. That would be sleeping, eating, and playing—not sex. Sex occurs best between members of different clans, herds, flocks, and groups to fend off the retardation, sometimes.

  The dog grew old too. That was tough, much tougher than this hill, which is nothing but physical, and that’s the easiest thing to counter in a world that keeps coming at you with another toll to pay, as long as you show a pulse. Come on, hill. Is that all you got?

  Things clear up at the crest, where gravity finally benefits the home team and warrants a higher gear. Downhill. Overdrive. It feels like the last day of school, ever. The only climb here is the speedo—to twelve, fifteen, nineteen—get it on, bitch! Speed is freedom, like closing the deal right now and real money … till Mulroney squeezes the brakes and pulls over, twisting his cleats free, desperately dodging his first dose of road rash as the little phone plays its sonata between the spandex and spare tire. Mulroney finds footing and plucks it free and slides his finger, and a little voice sings: “We have a counter!”

  Mulroney says, “Hello.”

  “Yes!”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s your real estate professional! We have a counter!”

  Sometimes practical advances seem most available by ignoring technical advances. For example, what would he have lost by leaving this thing at home? “I’m waiting.”

  “They came up! All the way up to your compromise price!”

  “Pulleeze. I didn’t have a compromise price. You have a compromise price. What is it?”

  “Two million, four hundred sixty-nine thousand dollars! We did it! Congratulations, Michael. We really are a great team.”

  Question: If a man on a bicycle sighs into a cell phone, can the sales professional on the other end really hear the message? “Look, Marylyn … We could be a great team, but we’re not yet there. A team divides the labor. So far, I’m the only one working this deal. You represent me, not the buyer and not the deal. Me. You have yet to ask for mo money. Capiche?”

  “This is a good offer.”

  “It’s not my price.”

  “You don’t want to sell.”

  “That may well be. Deliver the message.”

  VII

  Spandex Monkeys

  Mikey’s first bike had a girl’s frame and came secondhand with training wheel
s, but who cared with mobility at last? The trainers got wrenched off halfway through day three. Mikey was six already and nobody’s fool. By seven he made his case for a Schwinn English Racer, the most desired bicycle in the world, which was known as the world back then and not the planet. It was a place where nature and adventure still waited. The Schwinn English Racer had a Sturmey-Archer three-speed shifter on the handlebar near the right handbrake. The shift linkage was chain-pull, inside the rear hub. Twenty-eight-inch wheels on a twenty-six inch frame were too big for Mikey to reach the pedals from the seat for four years, presenting a difficult choice: he could coast in style while sitting on the seat with his feet dangling, or he could stand on the pedals to gain propulsion, rolling his little huevos over the top bar.

  Juvenile billy goat huevos?

  Oh, baby. If they could only see me now. The descent accelerates to forty, pulling a G-force grimace in high-speed youth recalled. Tears stream—of joy—though Mulroney wonders who will cry at the used-car magnate’s funeral if he French kisses a eucalyptus doing holy screaming Jesus on his fricken’ fucking fly-weight bicycle. Creamed Mulroney has a certain feel to it, but who’d show up? I mean, besides Allison.

  At age twenty Michael paid eighty bucks for a Peugeot UO8, a ten-speed in modern format that got him through two more decades till he sold it for three bills, a margin he couldn’t refuse, though he’d now pay triple to get that bike back. Quintuple would be better than what he ended up paying for this new rig, which was what? Fucking exponential is what, which is more than any kid’s toy should cost.