Hello my little suitcases and casettes!

Here’s a conversation Bicycle and I had yesterday, while making our daily trip to Ricky Mini Mart to replenish supplies of Ballantine XXX and Ramen noodles,

Me: Bicycle…I’m probably going to have to sell you.

Bicycle: Like hell you are! Fucking punk. You want some grease on your jeans cuff? No? Well too late. Haha, and you only have like two pairs of pants too! Good luck shouting that shit out, ya poor bitch!

Me: (sheepishly) OK, nevermind.

My Friends, LISTEN TO THE MOUTH ON HER! She gets like that when she’s hurt. Also, I look like a total pansy in this conversation, but don’t judge Dr. Unken, because you haven’t met Bicycle (her families name is Lotus), she’s super intimidating and Taiwanese (later model Lotus’ were made in Taiwan instead of Japan) so she’s like Chun Li from Street Fighter. But since Lotus was a New York based company she’s got street smarts and a sailor’s mouth on her.

So I guess Chun Li is actually Chinese, and I’m apparently racist. However, Chun Li is the strongest woman in the world,

Chun Li (in Street Fighter 2): I’m the strongest woman in the world.

When I first told Bicycle she was strong like Chun Li she said,

“SHE’S CHINESE DICK FACE!”

Then she made her chain fall off  and I lunged forward and polled myself in the crotch on the top of the bike frame, which hurt me a lot.  But then afterward, I think she thought about it more and liked my comparison, because Chun Li is awesome and everyone loves her.

Look at that super kick! Look at her go! —————–>

And then I said, “You know who is Taiwanese? Ang Lee!” And Bicycle liked that a lot and so then we talked about Lust Caution and Hulk but not Brokeback Mountain because neither of us have seen it. Not because we’re uncomfortable with the idea of it or homophobic or something, but just because we missed the train on Brokeback and now it’s too late and no one wants to see it anymore, because they already have, so we’d have to just watch it alone…which is fine and not weird, I guess…but it still keeps not happening…

Anyway, Doris, my super-computer/life coach hates how Bicycle has me by the balls about not getting sold, so she harped in real quick to make me feel worse about myself,

Doris: You need to be harder on Bicycle. Sell her off and buy more iclean products for me.

Me: Bicycle doesn’t take shit from no one Doris, that’s why I like her. She’s got real moxie. We’ll use my apartment deposit to buy booze and iclean!

Doris: Stop being a fucking pussy.

Me: (sheepishly) OK.

So anyway this gives you a general idea of how my interactions go with my best friends/everyday possessions, (don’t even get me started on the  verbal humiliation I endure from Juan, my guitar!) and Bicycle won that battle, but she’s sort of lost the war.

This morning, I was still thinking about putting her in a bike box, but that would be uncomfortable and weird for both of us, like kenneling a dog or something. Also, it’s not the same because this dog has wheels and can decide to randomly go out of gear in the middle of midtown traffic if she wants to, causing me to careen into a parked van or get sworn at in Spanish by a cool looking old Dominican man who I desperately want to like me.

Really though, Bicycle and I love one another and we’re bound together-us against the world, and Doris too.  The three of us are this tight little group and I’d be terribly sad if I lost them, even if they are a bit catty sometimes. We all spend so much time together, alone, that squabbling is bound to happen.

When people cuss me out while I’m riding Bicycle, I just laugh and wink at them or give them sex eyes and that’s a fun little game me and Bicycle like to play, where we do the exact opposite of the thing you would think to do while being screamed at. It’s our own private little absurdist “Fuck you” to motorists and the world.

Conversation after I turned into the traffic lane on 6th Ave today,

Taxi Driver: HEY FUCKADA YOU!

Me: Let’s make love!

And then me and Bicycle will laugh and blaze a path of glory through a red light on 14th street and I’ll be listening to Booker T and the MG’s “Green Onions,” and I’ll feel like Benny the Jet Rodriguez, stealing home. So, needless to say, it’s a special relationship the two of us have, and Doris is jealous of this. Even though Doris and I have a special relationship too, just a different one.

So then tonight I rode home with Bicycle in the rain and I told her when we got back to the building, that a man named Ramon had responded to my ad and he would be coming to look at Bicycle in the morning, and I told her that he was Puerto Rican and he seemed very nice and that he lived in Park Slope which was a nice neighborhood for bicycles.  Bicycle told me she hated me and then my voice broke and I said nothing was “for sure” and Doris cried softly in my bag.

Then we were all quiet for a while.

And I don’t really want to get rid of Bicycle but I don’t know what to do because I’m leaving and need money.  I couldn’t just put her in the basement after all of that, and since we might have to say goodbye I wanted her to stay with me through the night, so I carried her up to my room. Then we all sat sober and sad and nobody was talking and that was no good, so I opened a beer and drank some whiskey and gave Doris the iclean bottle and I gave Bicycle the all-purpose lubricant I’d bought her a week before. I put the theatrical trailer to Lust Caution on because it was grandiose and maudlin and we watched it silently and tipped our glasses back.

It made me feel better and I think it made Doris and Bicycle feel a little bit better too because we all love movie trailers, sometimes more than the movies.

After that trailer we drank some more and Bicycle and I talked for a while about our affinity for Hou Hsiao-Hsien, who is also Taiwanese, and so then we watched the trailer for Three Times, and we both got shivers from how good it was and the hair on my arms stood up the whole time.

The Three Times trailer used this Aphrodite’s Child song called “Rain and Tears” which got us all talking about Vangelis and so Doris pulled up Blade Runner since she knows it’s my favorite and since he scored that film. So then we all drank and watched that and agreed it was one of the best.

Then Doris asked if we’d seen Wong Kar-Wai’s In The Mood For Love? and I said “it’s Kar Wai Wong!” And Bicycle said, “he’s Chinese, DICKFACE!” And we all laughed then watched quietly and it was beautiful, maybe the most beautiful of all.

Then when I looked at Bicycle she was crying and I felt like crying too, so we stayed up longer and watched Jim Jarmusch trailers until we couldn’t keep our eyes open, so no one would have to say goodbye.