Death By Bike

Not too long after the mauling incident the assembly on Black’s bike hade begun. He was diligent in his quest for parts and I was eager to build it seeking yet another chance to set the ball of misfortune in motion.

My favorite part of those old back alley bikes was the break. They fascinated me. That nike swoosh looking thing that ran from the back wheel to the right underside of the frame. You could do so many things with it, it was great. While working on some one’s bike I could take it and spin it counter clockwise and it would tighten the entire rear wheel assembly. That was great fun. We would all go for a ride and the one guy’s whose bike I had just worked on would ride but he had to push hard to keep up. Nothing better than watching one of your friends bitching about his bike and not being able to figure out why it is so hard to pedal! They would stop and look, grow frustrated and keep riding it until they got leg cramps.

Then you could take it and give it a few turns clockwise and the break would work but you practically would have to jump on it to get it to engage and give yourself an extra half block of stopping distance. That’s where the real fun was, watching some one not being able to stop. You have to remember that we were just kids. They would know their brakes were not working right, see something shiny, get distracts and plow straight into the first object dense enough to ruin the rest of their day. Fear after all is funny when you are not one in fear! We would all be out and about and this selected person would inevitably slam into a parked car or hit a curb and tumble forward. There was always something to laugh about when I sabotaged someone’s bike.

Black’s inaugural run had to be spectacular. It could not just be a hitting of a parked car, flipping over a curb, or kissing a fire hydrant. It had to be big, huge, SUPER PRENOMINAL! Why, it had to be life endangering!
There was a little trick I learned with these breaks. They were self maintaining units. If you disconnected its anchor point form the frame, it would continue to work. The bolt connecting to the frame was more of a back up if anything. Three clockwise turns and it was guaranteed to fail unless it was connected to the frame. Turning it and disconnecting it from the frame essentially made it a time bomb. At first it would work and then it would completely fail. Perfect! Perfect! Perfect!

Black was going down and going down hard!

We selected a nice little hill for Black to race down and built a ramp for him to jump. Downhill speed, a ramp to jump and a brake that would fail. You know, a little boys life hardly gets any better than that! Pork chops and applesauce? Maybe. But, this was a combination made in heaven for me and my boys!

Perhaps I forgot to mention the selected street ran down to a major thoroughfare. If you failed to stop it is assured that you will succeed in getting hit - and that was the goal; to have Black blazing his inaugural run straight into that traffic. And the plan was perfect in every detail.
Since the mauling incident Black never really trusted me. He would test everything and double check what he checked. Anticipating that I figured Black would ride and slam on the breaks twice to ensure his bike would stop and thus only spun the break forward once; his two test runs would do the rest. Body bag bound Black did just that and backed the brake off just enough to fail on its next application. This was first class execution of engineering disasters! (And you wonder why toy manufacturers have so many recalls).

The one thing you can not help but love about Black was no matter what, he would go all in and give it 100%. I hardly thought that piece of crap bike could roll as fast as he had that thing going heading for that ramp; and subsequently the intersection. Head down, legs pumping, eyes fixed on the ramp; Black again was all in, 100% committed to allowing us to bring a early end to his miserable little life.

Up the ramp and in the air, standing so he could slam down on the brake as soon as he touched down.

[This is where I learned something about physics at such a young age. It is not you pushing down on the brake, it is the position of your body as the bike hits the ground. Your weight is distributed over the back half of the bike. When you land your weight forces the brake to engage; not your leg. Gravity; not will.]

And it was gravity that woke Black up to the fact that this was another attempt on his life. As soon as he hit, his rear leg went straight down with no break to stop it. The result was just as planned; a screaming Black racing towards the intersection dragging his feet out of desperation to stop. Our reaction? Laughter and anticipation of screeching car tires followed by a bone breaking thud.

Black realized that odds in making it through the intersection were about the same in him getting past his new friends injury free and immediately started looking for something to crash into. His first thought was a parked car and he started heading for it until he realized he was voluntarily subjecting himself to harm. He straightened himself and continued speeding down the street. At the last minute he attempts to turn into an alley. There was just no way in hell he was going to be able to make such a sharp turn at such a high rate of speed. But in the end, it is better to go down trying - especially when the alternative is a heavy trafficked four lane inner city street.

He swerved into the alley with barely enough angle to not hit the awaiting brick wall head on, but man did he ever hit it! Hit face took the most of the force, mostly his right eye actually. Nothing funnier for a group of kids watching a failed attempt at death by bike thwarted and settling for a runner up prize of a 30 mph head on slam into a brick wall! Except of course watching the would be body bag filler dragging his bike behind him with a knot on his head the size of a grapefruit!!!

Of course to most this sounds mean and most with sympathize with poor little Keith Black. But Black proved most resilient during those summer months. This was twice now that we had made an attempt on his life, and twice that he walked away from them. He was a formidable foe this Keith Black. His refuse to die spirit would soon win him favor within the group. He just needed some one to hurry up and move in because the attempts on his life would not stop until we had some one else to replace him.

By the time poor Black made it up to us his eye was swollen shut and his nose bled all over his shirt. Poor kid. The laughter went on and on as we denied any wrong doing or tampering with his bike. Slowly new injuries appeared. Blood here, blood there, scrapes on this, scrapes on that; they just kept coming and coming and coming.

And then it hit him. "You guys are trying to kill me!" His one good eye wide open with dismay. "You guys are trying to kill me!"

None of us were really trying to kill him. We wanted to see him get hurt, but were not out to truly end his life though as I look back we very well could have on several occasions. You see, Black was our source of lashing out at an unfair world. He was our beating post. We did to Black what we all wanted to do to our world - it is just that it was more fun doing it to Black.

This time I did not get in trouble. I knew going into it that no one could prove I rigged his break to fail. Even my friends watching it knew I did "something" but no one had any idea what and I convinced them that it was all just an odd turn of events. "He tested the brakes twice and they worked just fine." Hard to argue logic such as that when you have no idea what went wrong.

My friends were all years older than me and I was learning how to manipulate them by being smarter than them. I found a great sense of power and control in that. Power and control I liked because as a disadvantaged child those two elements were always missing.

As unfortunate as these events were for Keith Black, they were live changing for me. Through him I learned that I could change fate and destiny through the sheer will of being smart. Knowledge at that point became an insatiable quest. The more I knew, the more people turned to me, the power and control I had. Before long I was running the neighborhood - for better or for worse.

-T