Thursday, July 1, 2004

I'm riding my bike down Damen Avenue, past the Kedzie Industrial Corridor or whatever it is called (this is in the city of Chicago) and down by the United Center. There's not a whole lot of stuff along the right side of the road (if you're heading south) on that stretch of Damen and the sun has just gone down and it's just gotten dark, and as I am passing this empty parking lot to the right, an old blue pickup truck pulls up like it's going to come right out onto the road, so I slow my bike up a little just in case the dude doesn't see me/doesn't care. As I get closer, I see that the dude does see me, and he's an old black man with a grey beard. Then I notice that there's a yellow rope tied between two poles blocking off the exit that this truck is aimed at, and I figure that the guy has slowed up not so much because of the white kid dressed like a little boy who is coming down the street on his bike, but because he noticed the yellow rope, too. But I am wrong. After I pass him, he drives out onto the street, and I look back over my shoulder and watch the yellow rope snap SPI-GANG! He pulls out fast and then rides pretty slowly in the far left lane, never passing me, a guy that's just on a bike, all the way to Roosevelt.