Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

When I first saw the bicycles unlocked around the campus at USC, I was very confused. I thought, are these University bikes that everyone can ride and that’s why they aren’t locked? I mean, we are in the inner-city of Los Angeles. In New York City, the man at the bike shop sold me this twenty pound thick chain to wear around my waist because the U lock wasn’t strong enough.

I asked a man walking through campus what the deal was. He said, “These are rich kids. They have their bike stolen, they just buy another. What’s a hundred bucks to them? Nothing.”

When my sister was in high school, she purchased a ten-speed from K-Mart on sale with money from her paper route. She painted it red and bought yellow foamy pad for the handle bars. Someone made fun of it, that it was a Ronald McDonald bike. She was so very hurt. The irony is, one summer night, she and her best friend rode their bikes to McDonalds for ice cream. She leaned hers against the glass window with the painted golden arch so she could sit at a table against the window and see her bike. She saw a man ride off with it.

She was traumatized. My parents yelled at her, that it was her fault for not locking it up, even though it was her money that bought it. I just remember shame. Her heavy shame, sorrow, and beating herself up over the lost bike.

My car window was smashed on the street in Venice by my apartment. My hat, school bag with student anthologies, and Thomas guide were stolen. I guess the criminal wanted to know where to drive to next? I went in to teach that day, grieving my hat. My favorite hat! Who steals a person’s hat? My inner-city student said to me, “At least you have a hat to steal.”

When I was living in NYC, I had a wool hat, with a round rim, that everyone referred to as a condom ready to roll down. I LOST that hat. Tragic. I just wrote a boy from junior high on facebook that took my friend's flower in eighth grade. He asked her if she had a "hat." I didn't know about those kinds of hats.

I was too busy pondering, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle."