by Dennis Rink
“Don’t ride or can’t ride?” The Leader mocked.
“My mother won’t let me ride – she says it’s dangerous.”
They all laughed. Scarhead, on his oversized mountain bike, had returned to the crowd, wondering why the other boys weren’t impressed by his wheelie.
“Well,” said The Leader, “just give it a go.”
Like an adolescent noticing a girl for the first time, Icarus felt that sudden tug of attraction, the desire to do something he had never done before. But his mother was nagging at his shoulder, her warnings surging into his head, scrambling his thoughts.
“I can’t,” he gabbled, grasping for some reason that might save him from the unknown. “My mother says that potholes grab at wheels as they go over, and eat them up.”
“What rot,” sneered The Leader, to a chorus of snorts and guffaws.
“You’re crazy,” said Scarhead. “Watch this.” He pointed his mountain bike towards a grassy knoll just in front of them, where there was a small hole in the ground.
“Stop,” shouted Icarus, but he was too late.
The boys were all laughing at Icarus’s dismay as they watched the bike roll towards the pothole. As he was about to pass over the dent in the ground, Scarhead pedalled down hard, at the same time pulling up the front wheel as he had done before. He appeared to have cleared the pothole when, almost in slow motion, the front wheel was sucked down into the ground, disappearing almost completely. Boy and bike swivelled in unison over the fulcrum that was the front axle. Midway through the arc Scarhead released his hold on the bike, which continued its passage to thud onto the grass, while the boy sailed on head-first through the air. As he approached the landing, Scarhead tucked his misshapen skull down to his chest, performed an acrobatic double forwards roll and landed sitting on his backside, facing away from the trapped bike, looking slightly puzzled.
He turned round to see his bike spewed out of the pothole. He could have sworn, which is something he did quite often, that at that moment he heard a soft, earthy belch. Icarus ran over to the boy, then to the bike. The boy appeared to be okay but the bike’s front wheel was buckled, the tyre missing.
“See,” said Icarus, “I told you so.” He looked sternly at the others. They all looked slightly shaken, their earlier swagger melting in the hot afternoon sun.
“It was just a fluke,” said The Leader, but he did not look quite so certain.
Scarhead finally got to his feet and walked over to his bike. “My Dad’ll kill me,” he said, over and over. “My Dad’ll kill me.”
“You should have been wearing a helmet,” said Icarus. “You could have been seriously injured.”
“How do you think he did his head in before?” said Shorty.
After some tut-tutting and commiserating the group’s interest in Scarhead evaporated and their attention refocused on the stolen bicycle.
“So,” The Leader asked Icarus, “you’ve really never ridden a bicycle?”
“No.”
“Not even sat on one?”
“Nope.”
“You gotta at least try sitting on it,” said The Leader. “Just swing your leg over the crossbar …” Icarus felt a shudder run through his body at the sound of that word, “… but be careful that you don’t crack your nuts – the saddle’s sharp as a knife.”
The Leader wheeled the bike around so that it stood between him and Icarus on the slightly sloping grass. “Just try it,” he pressed Icarus, “just stand over the crossbar and feel the grip of the handlebars.”
Icarus felt that surge of desire again, a tickling in the lower regions that he could not understand, and which he had never felt before. But still, there at the back of his mind, was his mother, tugging at his conscience. Stop the nagging, he thought.
“C’mon,” the others began to chant, “c’mon.” Icarus hesitated.
“Look,” said The Leader, “either you try it, or I’m going home. This is getting boring.”
Icarus was afraid. He was afraid of mounting the bike. But he was also afraid of losing sight of this vision, this beauty, this first love.
“Okay then,” he said, “but just for a moment.”
He swung his leg over the saddle, just as he had seen many cyclists do. The bike was exactly the right size – his crotch cleared the crossbar by a whisker.
“Lean forwards and grab the handlebars,” said The Leader, “feel the brake levers and the gear changers.”
Icarus thought he should tell The Leader that the bike did not have gears, but somehow, that didn’t matter now. Instead, he caressed the yellow-taped bars, a young suitor fondling his beloved’s breast. A tingle ran through his fingers, his arms, his body. This all seemed so natural, as if it were meant to be. How could this be wrong? he thought to himself.
The Leader took a strong grip of the handlebars and the saddle, bracing himself to support the bike, and he ordered Ginger to do the same on the other side.
“Now just ease your bum up and back onto the saddle,” he said, “see what it would be like to ride. Come on, guys, help me to hold him up.”
Icarus could not believe how good this all felt. For all of his mother’s nagging, he could not resist. This will be my secret, he thought. He put his left foot on the pedal, and hoisted his backside up and backwards, onto the saddle, then lifted his right foot onto the other pedal. Shorty ducked down and turned the pedals round, so that the toeclips were over Icarus’s shoes, and he pulled the straps tight.
Icarus gripped the handlebars more tightly, and wiggled his bum to get comfortable. He noted, almost blissfully, that his nuts seemed to rest comfortably on either side of the saddle. For a cycling virgin, it was like touching first base – and he knew he did not want to stop here. He would be tortured by the experience, he would not be happy until he had gone all the way.
Icarus closed his eyes so that he could better savour the moment, and he allowed himself to slip into a state of consciousness where he was detached from the tensions, the dynamics, of all those around him. Already the wings of the Condor had transported him a million miles away. He was in dreamland – his ecstasy had transported him to another realm, where fear and apprehension did not exist.
It was Scarhead, still standing open-mouthed in front of his ruined mountain bike, who first noticed them. “Oh crap,” he shouted, “the pigs are here. Scarper.”
Icarus’s eyes flew open. Immediately he was back in the park, surrounded by this motley crowd. For years he and his mother had lived in their flat opposite the park, and never once had he seen livestock here, apart from dogs – and their walkers. This really was becoming a day for firsts. He looked around rapidly, but there were no pigs in sight. All he could see was a pair of portly policemen puffing across the grass towards their small throng.
“Shit,” said Ginger, “I’m on an asbo. I’m buggered if they’re gonna get me.”
Icarus did not share the general sense of panic, at least, not until he realised that those who had been supporting him on the bicycle were suddenly fleeing in all directions. This is it, he thought. This is the moment that I’m going to fall. This is what Mother warned me about, this is what she told me, and I have chosen to ignore her. I’m sorry, Mother, for not listening to you. I’m so, so sorry I’ve been such a bad boy. Icarus shut his eyes again, and waited for the moment when he would collide with the ground.
But at the instant when gravity appeared about to draw Icarus sideways, The Leader, the last of the group to make his escape, gave the bike an ever-so-gentle shove, a mere nudge, that was enough to set Icarus rolling gently down the grassy slope. Eyes shut tight again, Icarus waited for the fall, the crunching contact with concrete, but it did not come.
Slowly he opened his eyes.
I’m flying, he thought. I’m flying, I’m moving, I’m riding a bicycle. Such a feeling of awe, of wonderment, of pure joy ran through his veins that he was unable to stop himself from releasing a whoop of delight. Icarus was pumped up on adrenaline, a drug that he
had never experienced before. And he liked it. He liked it very much.
And that is how, quite by accident, Icarus Smith, pursued by two portly, panting policemen, found himself riding a bicycle for the first time in his life.
2. A GATHERING OF MOMENTUM
As Icarus became aware of what was happening, he wondered if he was in a dream – or perhaps even a nightmare? After all, he had spent most of his childhood listening to his mother’s warnings about the dangers of cycling. Now he found himself on a bicycle, and he didn’t know what to feel. His brain was spinning faster than the bicycle’s wheels, and with every rotation his emotion switched between fear and elation.
As we already know, Icarus had studied his pile of pilfered magazines and books. He knew just about everything that there is to know about bicycles. He could discuss at length the merits of certain gear ratios, talk about the advantages of tubular tyres, the development of the derailleur gear-changing system. He knew how Marco Pantani had conquered Alp d’Huez, how for nearly a decade Lance Armstrong had virtually owned the Tour de France. He knew of Big Mig Indurain’s remarkable eight-litre lung capacity that gave him his incredible time-trialling ability, enabling him to win the Tour five times in a row. The only thing that Icarus could truly not understand was the ingestion of illicit substances – by cyclists or anyone else. He had despaired as he read about Armstrong’s confession of doping. He could not imagine taking any kind of drug, allowing it to take hold of the body or mind. He wondered if the adrenalin that coursed through his veins at this moment constituted an illicit substance. He thought about it, and realised that he didn’t really care.
But all of that reading, all his knowledge of the mechanics of cycling, his study of the mores and the lore of the road, could not prepare Icarus for this moment. Icarus was suddenly flying – well, he was riding a bicycle, but to him it was as if he had grown a set of wings and was flying. He shuddered momentarily at the thought, but quickly let it go as he allowed the experience to take over, envelop him, cocoon him from the rest of the world, which was flying by rapidly.
And so Icarus moved slowly, almost regally, down the gentle grassy slope, rolling at probably no more than seven or eight miles an hour. Behind him, and unbeknown to him, the two policemen puffed and heaved, slowly catching up to him. But then, just as they were close enough to catch his proverbial coattails – had he been wearing such an unusual garment, suitable only for the riding of a penny-farthing – the gradient of the slope increased, and Icarus slowly picked up speed, swiftly stretching beyond the reach of the law, whose long arm appeared to be not quite long enough.
At the bottom of the hill was a thick mass of rhododendrons. Icarus was aware that they were approaching rapidly. He opened his eyes as the big, red blooms loomed into view, closer and closer. He knew that the bike had brakes, but how do you use them? He realised that he didn’t have a clue. The magazines told you how to fix your brakes, how to replace the component parts, but never did they explain how to use them. What to most cyclists would be pure instinct, to Icarus became an matter of blind terror. To add to his alarm, Icarus had been told by his mother never to go near the bushes at the bottom of the park. “Many small children have gone missing there,” she had scolded him when he attempted to retrieve a missing tennis ball. “If you go in there, you may never come out again.”
His mothers’ words were remembered and forgotten in the moments that the red flowers became so close that they went out of focus. Icarus shut his eyes again and, inside his head, he let out a piercing scream.
The two policemen had given up the chase the moment that Icarus had appeared to accelerate away from them. They stood bent double, hands on knees, wheezing. They had forgotten about Icarus, and the only thing they were trying to catch now was their breath. The first policeman, glancing up, saw the young fool on the bicycle sailing into the distance. It hadn’t crossed their cloddish minds that Icarus had not been trying to evade them. So they watched, breathless and open-mouthed, as Icarus sailed down the hill and was slowly swallowed up by the rhododendrons. A terrible shriek then burst forth from the greenery, followed by several small rodents and a pair of mating pigeons, all a’flutter. The policemen looked at one another, looked back down the hill, then chased off, panting, to see what had become of the missing miscreant.
Icarus, meanwhile, was unable to move. His arms were pinned to his sides by sinuous tentacles. He opened his eyes, but all he could see was a green blur. I have been bad, he thought, and now I must be in hell. Although he did consider that it looked rather green, from what he had read about hell.
After the telling-off when he had tried to retrieve the lost tennis ball, Icarus had looked up the meaning of rhododendron – it came from rhodos, the Greek for rose, and dendron, meaning tree. As he remained there, trapped in the shrubbery, he remembered looking at the encyclopaedia, and thought: a rose tree, but not a rose, and not a tree. Thank goodness this one does not have any thorns, he thought.
The rhododendron had seen the boy careening down the hill, out of control. To save itself, and the boy, the shrubbery had stretched out its branches to cushion the impact, using its supple young shoots to absorb the blow. As boy and bicycle nestled into its depths, the rhododendron wrapped its branches round him, leaves licking the tender young flesh.
Nice, thought the rhododendron, but then its tendrils tasted the bits of metal and rubber that seemed to be attached to the boy. Yuck, it thought, and spat out the whole lot.
Icarus found himself ejected from the bush, dumped unceremoniously on the grass, his feet still trapped, strapped tightly to the pedals. He lay back at an awkward angle, and looked up at the sky. For a few moments he could see clouds scurrying by, but soon the light was eclipsed by two dark blue police helmets.
“Gotcha,” said the first helmet.
“What he means to say,” said the second helmet, slightly more grizzled than the first, “is that you’re nicked. C’mon, on your feet.”
Icarus found that he could not move – his feet were still held tight in the pedals, and the more that he struggled, the more the straps tightened.
“Looks like we got him red-handed,” said Helmet One.
“More like red-footed,” said Helmet Two, laughing at his own cleverness.
“Come on, get up,” said Helmet One again, “or we’ll have to charge you with resisting arrest, on top of everything else we’ll have to charge you with.”
Icarus struggled, but could not move. “I’m stuck,” he said, “I can’t move.”
“He’s stuck,” said Helmet Two. “He can’t move. I suppose we’d better give him a hand.”
The two policemen took Icarus by the arms and lifted him, bicycle and all, so that he was suspended between the two of them, and began wheeling him down to the police station.
“Sarge will be pleased,” said Helmet One. “This one comes with the evidence attached.” Helmet Two laughed at his colleague’s humour. “Good one,” he said.
Icarus’s mind was still in confusion – he could still feel the rush of wind past his face, the embrace of the rhododendron, and his sudden ejection, to find himself deposited on the grass.
“Did you rescue me?” he asked the two helmets.
“Er, I suppose so, in a manner of speaking,” said Helmet One.
“Most of your lot who disappear into those bushes never comes out again,” said Helmet Two.
Icarus shuddered. He knew why. He remembered the warning about lost tennis balls (he had never been allowed the rough and tumble of football).
Icarus turned to Helmet One and said: “Well, I thank you, sir, for saving me and,” turning to Helmet Two, “I thank you too. Are you taking me home?”
The two helmets were puzzled. Most of the young criminals that they dealt with were rude, violent and abusive, and used every trick in the book to try to escape. This young felon was polite, compliant, even, er, quite pleasant. He clearly had never even seen the book, let alone tried any tricks from it. Unless …
“Tennis, sir,” said Icarus. “Mother won’t allow me to play football, and I find a cricket ball rather hard. So she and I play tennis every Saturday afternoon.”
“Is ’e being funny?” Helmet One asked Helmet Two.
“This’ll clear things up,” said Helmet Two, and with a sweep of the arm he gave Icarus a thump on the side of the head. Icarus slumped forward, senseless. The two helmets simply tightened their grip on his arms and continued wheeling him down to the police station.
3. PARABLE OF THE TALENTS
When Icarus came to he found that he had been detached from the Condor Paris Galibier. He was lying on the top of a bunk bed in a room with dark green walls. He wondered if he was in hospital. He had never been in hospital, only to the dentist’s, and the walls there had been of a similar drab shade.
Icarus lay still. His head and neck ached from Helmet Two’s blow. He looked about, moving only his eyes. Above his head, high up, was a naked light bulb; on one wall, just behind his head, was a barred window; and down there, beyond his feet, was a large metal door, apparently shut tight. To his right he could make out another bunk bed against the opposite wall.
Icarus was parched, and his head throbbed terribly. He had never been ill, nor known such pain, and in these unfamiliar surroundings he did not know what to do. Finally he decided to call for a nurse, because surely he was in hospital, and it was what he had seen done on the television, on one of the rare occasions when his mother had allowed him to watch.
“Nurse,” he called out, quite softly. He waited for some response, but none came, so he called out again, slightly louder.
A few moments later he heard a noise. A small flap in the metal door slid open and, even from his lying position, he recognised Helmet Two’s eyes. “You being funny?” the voice thundered through the flap. “Do I look like a bleeding nurse?”