damonjustisntfunny.com

After I had learned to ride a bicycle on my gravel driveway in Illinois, my parents began taking me out onto the road for short trips past the farmhouses and fields of New Berlin. I would wobble about near the side of the road and if ever a car approached my mother would holler and I would put my foot down or careen into a ditch and collapse in a dusty heap. There was little fear of my being hit by a car, for the roads were so very straight and flat that an approaching vehicle could be identified in the morning for an afternoon arrival. And because the roads were so very straight I never had a chance to learn how to turn my bike — all I ever did was pedal straight for a good long while and then stop, dismount, play in a dirty pesticide infused stream, point my bike in the opposite direction, and return. I was programmed, from a young age, to travel forward. When the moment came for me to learn how to turn my bike around without dismounting in the middle of the road I was horrified; and when I finally accomplished the task I was at once ecstatic but wary. Turning around on the road was not in my blood — it was not something I was ever truly meant to do.

During the Summer of 2005, the Achilles tendon on my left ankle became the most debilitating injury ever had by me on a bicycle. I couldn’t walk without a limp and couldn’t pedal without a pain and as I lay on the bank of the river and soaked my foot the joy I had felt from gliding down miles of winding hills faded and a sour taste began to rise in my throat. Misery flapped its icy wings and settled upon me and I realized that while I could not sit still long I also could not turn back. And it wasn’t just the pain in my ankle or the fact that #6 was driving in the opposite direction. There was something else wrong with our trip. There was a different sort of pain that both Ben and I were experiencing and it didn’t come from our ankles or our hearts. It was a pain that came from riding with too little joy, with too little laughter, with too great an effort and too much silence. But all either one of knew to do was to continue forward as we always had — to keep pedaling.

And when the pain becomes unbearable; when the sadness becomes too great; when the loneliness and hopelessness of existence becomes overpowering; when there is nothing left; then, and only then, does hysteria set in. And for us, hysteria came with the setting of the sun on a day that started out with such promise and turned into so much sour milk.

DAMON: 4:13 on June 26th. Ben and I have reached a peak at which we are delirious and giggling and laughing and almost hurting ourselves [burst of laughter] doing foolish things like riding up little tiny paths trying to get a glimpse at the map that almost certainly says nothing we want to –

[Break for laughter]

BEN: Why do I have to be in this? This is the one time it was not me. I stood in the road like a sensible person.

DAMON: He only stood there because he’s too tired to move.

BEN: Yes.

DAMON: We have literally gone up hill all day. And — it’s getting dark! [laughter] And we are like twenty-five miles from any semblance of food [broken by laughter]. And … oh god. We have another ten to fifteen miles just to get to the campsite.

BEN: Oh no not that far.

[Dead silence. Long serious pause.]

DAMON: Fifty miles from Carson to get to the campsite. Oh it’s misery. Absolute misery. I love it. Over and out.

That was a lie. I didn’t love it. I loved the laughing, sure, and I enjoyed the insanity of it, sort of. But that was all. By taking my bicycle up the dirt path and flipping myself over in a dangerously roundabout way, I was subconsciously attempting to seriously injure myself to a point where there would be no option for me but to return to Issaquah. Oh what a joy that would be! Ben wondered why it was I insisted on being the one who rode in the middle of the lane during heavy traffic. Well Ben: now you know. Now you know.

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