Why so much death? Because I am afraid.

Then, like an idiot###, I picked up myself and walked back toward the men who shot me. Only one of them shot me. Armwise. I walked back toward him and the other men, winged, bloody, in shock, expecting they’d have realized their error, they didn’t mean it, thought I was someone else, they’d like to help out. I walked stably. Maybe I could have pulled up my bike and glid home, all down a slight hill, but still was I a few blocks out and doubted could I make it. I figured could they give me a ride. Their car was so nice and cavernous like a gold-trimmed ambulance. But black like a hearse, too, sure, although I didn’t think of that then, like an idiot##. I picked up myself then and walked back toward the man who shot me, one of them, but another man stepped forward expecting to realize my error. I thought I was someone else. Maybe could I have pulled up my bike down a few blocks, leaning bent like a winged man ahorse, or in their big black car, like an idiot# I thought finally then.

Review: Falling Off My Bike

The incident in question is falling off my bike, not the bike, but the falling off. That ought to be clear. Certainly it was see-through to the high school attenders who stood by bent-kneed and achuckle. They knew, happily, that what was at stake had rather nothing to do with a bike, but wholly with a falling off.

Which itself (falling off) isn’t accurate. ## One, the reviewer, me, could say rather (rather!), one could say a sort of leaping was involved. A sort of projected reaching. This sort of sort of way of talking### ------It was falling off, we can settle it imperfectly, it wasn’t falling off exactly but that’ll do if falling off equals launching up and over then finally down, then finally across, then finally stopped.

All of that. All that is in question. How was it####? Go

(end here -Mayhem)

A Flight and a Crash

One morning I was riding my bike to work in downtown Baltimore. It was a chilly morning, and I didn't want to ride my bike, because I never want to ride my bike, because only one brake works, and I don't know how to shift the gears well. It's an old ten-speed. It has twelve speeds, but it's a ten-speed because it's shaped like the bike I had when I was a youth, which was a ten-speed. When I was a youth it was a Panasonic, blue. Now I ride a black Raleigh. This morning on my way to work I was riding it, and I wiped, and it was awesome. Sometimes I beg a ride from my girlfriend, about half the time, but this morning we weren't speaking because she was asleep. So I rode my bike, which I never want to do, because it makes my legs hurt.

I should be writing this in Danish. In fact, I originally wrote this in Danish, but it was translated.

Luckily, I didn't have my video camera taped to the front of my Raleigh. One time I thought about how a good movie would be to videotape my ride home from work, because I ride from the glittery Baltimore inner harbor into the shabby east side, where my girlfriend, Tiffany, and I live. My name is Adam Robison. On this particularly morning, however, I did not have my video camera, because I do not have a video camera, at all. One time my friend Ryan said he was having an art crisis. At the time he was a photographer but now he plays the Moog.

"How come you are having an art crisis," I said.

"Because I cannot find my camera."

For similar reasons, I have not yet made my movie. Once I do, though, it will be a scathing look at economic inequity in Baltimore, an extremely unequal town, economically. But I do not complain, because I am currently employed to much gain. Not only that, but I also don't complain because I think there are better ways to enact change. For instance, one could live in a poor neighborhood, like I do, and sweep the trash from up off the street every once in a while. One could staple poems to the abandoned houses. I did that, both of those things. I think the poems really made a difference. One of the abandoned houses was demolished.

So I was cruising down this hill while I was riding my bike, a shallow hill, an old bike, a bad shifter. The Ravens, who are the Baltimore football team, were scheduled for a playoff game the following Saturday. Everyone in town, even the poor people and the druggies, were psyched out. They were really looking forward to that game. I was even a little excited, although I don't like purple (the Ravens's color) and never watch football. But then I decided I would try and go into tenth gear, because I was enjoying my ride, my girlfriend and I had ridden together the night before after sushi eating, and I realized how fast I was compared to her, so I was knocking myself out with my speed, so I switched it into tenth gear. I'd quit smoking the previous Friday, not that it matters, but just so you know.

Then get a load of this. Before I could even put my hand back on the handlebar the front wheel cocked itself perpendicular to the bike frame. "Well, here I go," I thought. "Fwoop." I flew through the air like that muthafudge Santa Claus and landed on the ground. It was the street, but it couldn't stop me. I just slid across it on my chest and pants and scarf. All the high school girls went "Do do do do," and I jumped up and said "Hey baby, please don’t knock on my bike ride."