Chapter 11: San Francisco
Just before the Golden Gate Bridge, at some amazingly complicated interchange of highway exits and on-ramps stuffed chalk full of automobiles and diesel fuel, Ben and I stopped to remove an article of clothing to account for the heat. Across from us, a trolley-car-turned-tour-bus was waiting for the light. Two women, hanging gracelessly from the trolley-car door, whistled at us and cried for us to “take it all off.” Take it all off. One shook her mammoth chest and the other swung her cashmere sweater above her head whooping enthusiastically.
Ben and I looked away. We were ashamed. We had arrived.
We had gone from one city to another; from Seattle, WA to San Francisco, CA. We had made it to our journey’s end and found it much like our beginning. And much like our beginning it came upon us so suddenly that it made us wonder if it ever wasn’t; if all the moments in-between had been like a story in a book that we had read in our youth and recounted in old age, embellishing upon the details and adding to the plot where we saw fit.
After three weeks of relative solitude and silence, without cars or buses, or people, or places to be and things to do, we were back in the middle of where we began. The people in cities were all the same to us — a faceless mass of miserable men and women all having overlooked the important fact that they were animals outside of their natural habitat. 1,100 miles of pedaling through mountain-ranges, deserts, coastal hills, and redwood forests had brought us only to where we started and where we started was looking at all these people with a distinct feeling of unease. Nothing had changed.
We ate in their restaurants and viewed their city; we watched their movies and rode on their buses; we packed our bicycles in their shoddy cardboard and hiked them to the shipping center where we bid them farewell and safe travels without us; we peed in public restrooms, no longer afforded the joy of letting loose wherever we pleased; we watched television for hours, not knowing what we saw or what saw us; we listened to the ever-present noise, hum, drone, whine of San Francisco.
We did not resist the ineluctable influence of the modern world; instead, we watched it wash over us, both slowly and sadly, and saw ourselves being pushed through the machine, another lump of batter being smoothed out for a warm crust of American Pie. We saw our country-men and women riding their faux-trolley-car tour buses and taking their one hour sight-seeing trips on their day off from work, and we said nothing of our three weeks in a tent; we saw them riding their three thousand dollar carbon-fiber bicycles and when we passed them, on the left, with our seventy pounds of gear in tow, we did not mention that the yellow jersey they wore tucked into their tight spandex to hold back to the bulge of the fast-food bellies looked ridiculous; we saw them next to us, sitting on a cross-town bus that we had waited forty-five minutes to ride to a destination we could have walked to in thirty. We were back to the race for more money and better health insurance; for more knowledge and fancier toys; for more sex and less conversation; for more friends and less time to spend with them.
We were aware that we had come from a place much farther than a day’s ride; much farther than the fifty miles to Point Reyes, or the seventy-five miles to Tommy-toes, or the five hundred miles to Crater Lake. It wasn’t the distance we had traveled but the way we had traveled it. Without the phone, without the pager, without the 2-way and the walkie-talkie; without the noise, without the hurry, without the schedule. It was the journey in and of itself that had set us apart — but it would not last long. Not long at all before we were taking public transportation, waiting to buy a pre-cooked meal, and watching our curious tan lines fade away.
As suddenly as it had all begun; as suddenly as your first kiss with your new love; as suddenly as death and birth; our bicycle trip was over. I had found #6; we had found San Francisco; we had pedaled as we said we would and were better friends for it.
We had arrived.
DAMON: July 18th, it’s the morning. Ben and I’ve been in San Francisco now for three days. Been staying in a cozy studio apartment where we have been sleeping long hours, watching lots of television, and overall being just — well, indulging ourselves in the decadence of human creation. We went for a bike ride yesterday and, pretty much, we fell apart. My front brakes didn’t work, Ben’s whole front chainset stopped functioning. It froze to the point where he could barely even release it. Then we caught up in a plastic bag — first it attacked Ben’s brakes, which I tried to salvage, but then — much to my wondering eyes did appear — another little bag got stuck in my tiny little gear. That was horrifying. Things were rattling, my rack almost fell off. We didn’t have the multi-tool with us. My brakes were squeaking, my rack was rattling, my chain was barely staying together. Quite a mess. We finally got back and were just happy we made it and weren’t stuck pushing the bikes up the hills. Today we are just hanging out, probably going to go to a park somewhere where it is sunny, read a little book, throw a little Frisbee, do what we do best, and then tomorrow we have to pack it all up and Wednesday we have to take it all to the airport and then that’s it. That’s the end. That’s where the end begins. Over and out.
Leave a Comment