2006-10-04
on wheels
We rode all the way to Hirni's fruit stand. "Ten miles," according to Thayer, whose looked like a turtle in his lumpy backpack. We bought strawberry shakes and sucked them so fast, our brains froze.
Across the street, a bunch of Gulliver boys were making noise, zipping around on Razor scooters. They chased a duck through the parking lot and left their Yoo-Hoo cans on the sidewalk. Thayer got so mad, he yelled at them. Then he picked up their cans and tossed them in the trash.
We pushed off toward the canal. I kept looking for manatees but I never see them. Over the bridge to the rich people's houses in Snapper Creek, one of those gated communities with wall-to-wall McMansions. By this time, the sun had started to melt. The air smelled like October: like green acorns and dragonflies.
I stared at a bunch of balloons tied to a mailbox. Somebody was throwing a party in the backyard. An old man stood in the driveway and tried to teach a little boy in a Spiderman t-shirt how to ride a two-wheeler. I listened to them chatter in Spanish.
The boy wobbled behind us, smiling so wide, his teeth gleamed. Then he toppled into the grass.
Thayer was going on about Critical Mass--some event where throngs of crazy people take over the highways, competing with cars. I couldn't picture it happening in Miami.
"Who taught you how to ride a bike?" Thayer asked.
"Nobody," I said.
I looked over my shoulder. The little boy was still there. I watched him get up and go inside the house. He left his bike on the lawn, the wheels spinning in the grass.
He never came back for it.
f-i-n at 1:55 p.m.