Women and Men

rent

Rent a city, if you were rich enough.

Now use it. Take occupancy. Put things into it. Run it. Look at it. Keep it from others if you wish. Sublet it. Inflate it and paddle it. But if you sound funny here as if you don’t mean what you say, remember to be serious. Be objective.

He saw through the changing charm of his six-year-old daughter into the future, and he wondered what he had learned. He saw ahead to when they would come early to the park to get the best choice of bikes. But this time and last time he was renting just one bike. His daughter was learning. This time and last time they had come early to get ahead of the crowd in case other children were learning in the parking lot.

But as for getting the best choice, he saw that at that hour you couldn’t tell for sure which bikes were better. A hundred bikes were standing against each other in the rental shed near the boat pond, and they all looked pretty good. Collectively they looked quite new.

At that hour to reach in and pull out the bike you thought you wanted was hardly more difficult than to see one bike clearly from where you stood outside the door of the long shed. Jammed together to economize on space, the bikes fit together in a loose, extensive lock.

He had a Raleigh Grand Prix at home and he bicycled to work when he felt like it. But he wasn’t going to ride his bike thirty blocks to the park when he had Sarah with him because he wouldn’t carry her on it in traffic, not even on a Sunday. Now Sarah wanted her own bike, and he would buy her her own when she learned to ride. But that bike she didn’t yet have she wouldn’t be able to ride except when they went away for a weekend or she was out of town during the summer. She was too young to ride from the apartment to the park.

Last Sunday Sarah had told the man she wanted training wheels. He’d said training wheels wouldn’t help. Sarah went along with that. When they took the bike across to the parking lot Sarah was ready to ride. He thought she had a city child’s sense that the time was now and might not last. People might be too busy. The park might fill up with traffic. The bikes might not be for rent any more.

When she had begun, he’d given her long, running pushes, and each time she and the bike had keeled over because she stopped pedaling. She would be about to cry, then anger drove her onward, she said he stopped pushing — or pushed her so she fell. Two Puerto Rican kids passing through sat on the curb of the island that went most of the length of the parking lot. They laughed when Sarah fell, and she cried out mumbling somewhat incoherently, "You don’t even have a bike." Which embarrassed him, while the boys only shrugged to each other and sat waiting for the next development.

The next time she went down she got up and kicked her bike. He righted it for her. She flung it away from her and it clanked to the pavement.

"Damn you," he said.

The boys were laughing again.

But his anger and their laughter seemed to help her take their laughter as applause. She smiled at last. O.K., the thing was funny. Yet he knew she wouldn’t use it to clown. For she meant to ride. With his help she raised the bike and he gave her a long, bending, trotting push that left him panting and wanting a cigarette.

But there she was — up — leaving the last wobble behind her— accelerating — taking the upper turn at the end of the island, pedaling alone back along the far, slightly downgrade side, pedaling a little faster.

This time her turn was wide but no one was in the way.

She was coming toward him and the boys. She called that she couldn’t stop, and the boys started laughing again. He wanted to tell her to put on the brakes — when he realized he was thinking of hand brakes. The boys stood up and got out of the way, and Sarah went over onto the curb of the island just as he remembered the right words and said them: "Pedal backwards."

But she had not fallen; she found herself standing on one foot and supporting the bike naturally.

So now this second Sunday she wanted the same bike she’d had, a blue one with balloon tires.

The man was saying, "So aren’t you glad you didn’t take training wheels?"

"Daddy, you can take a bike if you want," Sarah said.

He thought he wouldn’t; he’d watch her — it was only her second time.

He and Sarah were practically the first here. His eyes were indirectly connected to her hand, which he held. But also between eye and hand he felt a gap, a nothing, and his gaze slid from one responsibility to another thought.

To his gaze the bikes gave a collective promise. Bright steel equipment, moving parts beveled, balanced, cogged, and slotted, polygonal, tubular, ringed, invisibly greased and able to lend power independently. So in the shadow of the shed they had that glimmer of many motions that you saw in the spokes of the racing bikes in the sun when you looked beyond the parking lot through the trees to the road that went through the park. It was a different road on weekends. The road with the cars was somewhere else. A road for bicycles and joggers went through here on weekends. It had been substituted for the other, and it went past the parking lot. It seemed temporarily unrolled through the landscaped rises and falls of a city park by the advance guard of serious bicyclists whose spokes spun in multiple superimposed illuminations and who always seemed to be racing those fine bikes of theirs, taking possession of what the city offered on the weekends, some with goggles on, and caps with the bills turned up, thick socks contained in striped shoes that looked like track shoes or bowling shoes, toeing ahead pumped by heavy piston thighs.

Sarah looked up at him when a blue bike with balloon tires was wheeled out. She said it wasn’t the one she’d had, and he remembered that in this place they had the nerve to hold your ID along with the deposit, and he asked the man to look again. He pointed out to Sarah that this bike had a bell. She rang it. The man took a quick look and said last Sunday’s bike must be way back in the shed — he didn’t have many of the small bikes. Sarah said she liked this bike, the seat wasn’t so high.

They wheeled the bike across the path that led off down to the cafeteria. Sarah said, cT’m not sure I remember." He didn’t smile, but she didn’t look at him. Distances multiplied between them and he was very far from her and very close to her. He looked at his watch and thought he’d like a container of coffee.

She remembered how to ride. Coming down the far side of the island she stepped back on her pedal and the bike slowed. She did this again. When she slowed the bike she seemed to be daydreaming, to have forgotten everything except this. It came to him that she could be more free than her mother was.

A loudspeaker blared in the distance, and a lanky black boy coasted off the road into the upper end of the parking lot where he stopped his bike and looked over his shoulder. Then he brought a walkie-talkie up to his mouth. He had a first-aid kit on the back of his bike.

Two women — one fat, one thin — had come in at the near end across the pedestrian path and were trying their bikes out. Sarah passed the fat one who shrieked at her friend as Sarah came up and passed her very close. It was like a race with Sarah lapping the others. As she came up on them again, the women rode slowly out the far end of the parking lot into the road and he saw that the boy with the first aid and the walkie-talkie had left.

Near the exit Sarah slowed almost to a stop, but then she lost control. She tried to pedal as she and the bike went down hard.

He ran toward her. Her leg was under the bike. She was still headed away from him. He’d urged her to wear jeans instead of the shorts. She was tall for six. The loudspeaker seemed now to come from the whole city. Sarah wasn’t looking back.

He got to her. She frowned. He said, "O.K.?" He pulled at the seat and handlebar; her right leg was over the bike and when he lifted, she came with it; so he lifted the bike and her.

She wanted a Band-Aid, but the tar-smudged bruise beside her knee and along her thigh hadn’t cut through the skin.

"That’s how not to stop," he said. He was going to say take a break, but she was on her seat and this time she stepped on the pedal and got going herself. She now knew how to start. She passed the road exit, turned past the end of the island, came back along the far side of the island, and then, coming round toward him, passed a small black boy and a woman entering from the rental end with a bike. Sarah went around again and then she came right up, slowed almost to a stop, put a foot on the ground.

"That’s terrific. Now you know how to stop."

"How long have I been riding?"

She wanted a hot dog and a drink. It was too early for lunch, but he asked her if she wanted to turn the bike in before they went to the cafeteria. She looked off toward the bike road and asked if she could keep the bike while they had lunch. When he said O.K., she looked back over her shoulder at the boy standing beside his bike which was like hers.

The woman with him was sitting on the outer curb of the parking lot. She was much lighter-skinned than the boy. Her olive-green raincoat was open over dark blue slacks and pale blue turtle-neck. She was speaking in a low voice. He wore gray corduroy trousers and he had a baseball cap with a monogram.

Sarah said she would practice some more.

The boy did not straddle his bike, he put the wrong foot on the down-pedal and pushed with the other foot as if he had a scooter. Then he looked the bike over, turned it around and did his one-foot-on one-foot-off scooter push again. Then he fell.

He fell on top of the bike. He kept both hands on the handlebars.

The woman said, "You going to ride that bike?"

The boy, who was smaller than Sarah but seemed older because he seemed in the tilt of his head to have thought more about how he might be able to do this, straddled the bike and walked it along.

"Go on," the woman said.

"I will," said the boy.

Sarah passed the boy and gave her father a smiling shrug.

He thought he might get her to go to the museum restaurant. The park cafeteria had hot dogs, greasy hamburgers, frozen custard, Coke. He stood up as Sarah came by again. He swung his hand through to touch her the way he did when she was going high enough on a swing and wanted a push to go higher. Next Sunday they would ride together.

The boy tried something new. He ran his bike a ways as if to jump on it when it was moving; then he stopped and turned it around and ran it back toward where his mother sat. He turned it around again and looked it over. He had it, he could see how it worked.

But he was in a tight spot.

"I’m paying for that bike," the woman said. Her perfect curls were sprung out in a high bell-shape. The boy was not afraid of her. "You ride it now," she said. He was not afraid of her so much as of not doing what she said — or of not knowing how to.

He straddled the bike again. Sarah came by and called out, "That’s the one I had last time." She seemed to be racing the boy who was standing still. She made the turn and came down the back-stretch. The woman got up off the curb as if to enforce what she’d said. The boy saw her over his shoulder and tried to move the bike, stepping on the up pedal; and when the bike moved, the other pedal came up and hit the back of his leg and he almost slipped.

"What’s the matter?" the woman said. The boy got his foot on the up pedal, which was on the other side now. "Look how she rides her bike." And suddenly the woman gave the boy one tremendous shove and stood watching.

The boy pedaled four, five, six times without faith, and Sarah instead of overtaking stopped while the boy’s bike ran across from the outer curb to the inner one of the island as if in some trial of its own; but his frowning eyes found those of the only father present and the boy stopped pedaling and the bike went over with a clank.

A two-wheeler takes confidence as long as you don’t have it; later— which is, after all, very soon — a two-wheeler uses the confidence you’re not conscious now of having. Bikes come and go, but if the sense of how to ride is constant, why should this be puzzling?

He picked the boy up. "Keep pedaling," he said. "Don’t think. Just keep pedaling."

The corners of the boy’s mouth were turning down against the equal but other force of this other adult.

"Get on, and this time never stop pedaling."

Sarah came by now, coasting, and she made the road-exit turn to come back along the other side of the island.

He started the boy. He ran him along holding the seat of the bike, feeling as if with his hands the boy’s narrow ribs and shoulders, and then the boy’s pedaling got away from him and he lost his footing and let go, but the boy was going. He hit the top turn pedaling like a cross-country racer and came down the back stretch just as a white motor scooter with a red-faced policeman upright in the seat buzzed in and stopped.

Sarah came by like merry-go-round music. "I like this bike," she said.

The woman had a paperback book in her lap. She was laughing as the boy made the bottom turn and came around toward her and Sarah’s father. "You got it, Mark." Laughing so hard that Mark started laughing himself. And as he came up with her he seemed to be thinking about an injury, an adult pain. The woman was seated on the curb; her legs were together, gracefully turned to one side as if she were picnicking in a field overlooking a valley.

The policeman had walked away toward the cafeteria.

Mark got himself out from under the bike, and the woman said, "You all right?" He sniveled. Then, seeing one adult coming and the other staying where she was, he watched to see what would happen next.

The woman put her book on the curb. "Don’t pull that crybaby number, I’ll slap your face." She got up and walked toward Mark. "You ain’t going to get your real bike till you know how to ride this one, now you get on that bike and ride it."

The other adult had stopped halfway, but he spoke to the woman: "Those rental bikes take a beating." She had looked up as the words were said, and she had to answer. She shook her head: "At least they don’t get ripped off."

"Oh they probably do."

She told Mark to get on his bike — did he expect to learn?

Then Mark said, just loud enough to be heard, "My daddy’s going to buy me my real bike," and the woman slapped him on the cheek as he was getting his leg over the saddle. She put her hands on her hips. Mark’s trousers were torn. She got her palm on the back of the bike seat and this time she gave Mark a running push and she held on for a few steps, but she didn’t want to play in front of Sarah’s father, or so he thought, and she let go and stood leaning on one hip.

Mark veered over into Sarah’s bike and fell.

"See what you did," said the woman.

"That’s O.K. Let me give him a push."

This time Mark got going. She went back to where her book was and seemed to look only when Mark came around the bottom turn and pedaled past her to the top turn. Sarah rode after him.

"Stop pedaling and coast," she heard her father call to the boy.

The woman looked up at the words — not toward him but toward Mark, who was pedaling faster to keep up with the bike.

"Stop pedaling and coast."

"Like this," called Sarah.

The boy was staying in front of her and on the turn nearly went over into the pedestrian path where people were passing with a transistor.

What book was the mother reading? She would be just as well-dressed on the subway in the morning. She wasn’t comfortable with the book, but it wasn’t the book; it was how time that she was spending was occupying her. He tried to repeat the thought. Possessing her. He looked at his watch. Two dollars, two-fifty. Next Sunday, double that for the same amount of time.

The boy wanted to stop; he’d done many circuits and other people were in the parking lot now, and he wanted to stop.

"Sarah, want a drink?" He thought she called back yes. The boy now coasting up past his mother looked toward him; the boy had an idea how to stop; he slowed way down, way down, then let the bike go over and jumped clear.

He looked down at his machine. He came and sat down on the curb.

He was close enough to be spoken to quietly so the mother didn’t hear: "Say, you better get it out of the way there."

The boy shrugged.

"I’ll show you how to stop."

The woman was watching. Sarah called.

He held the bike with the boy on it and got him to balance with his feet on the pedals, then drop one foot to the ground. The woman watched.

"But you got to be moving," said the boy.

When the time came you didn’t really think.

Sarah was watching too, but she was in motion coming round the bottom turn by the cafeteria path; she wasn’t watching where she was going, yet he saw that she’d made the turn and was approaching slowly. The boy looked back over his shoulder like a motorist.

Two other kids racing each other came up behind Sarah and it was a sideswipe squeeze, close enough to bump her knees or lock axles — well hardly — and when they got past her she seemed released as if other hands had been on her handlebars, and luckily no one else was coming up behind her for she turned across toward her father just as — he didn’t believe it — the black boy he was holding up suddenly decided to take off — the face would have been worth seeing — he staggered against the absence. But Sarah had forgotten how to stop or was thinking of something else, or maybe had been aiming for the black boy who wasn’t there.

"Daddy," she called, and he found he couldn’t get out of the way, and they would both have fallen if he hadn’t braced himself and caught her head-on by the handlebars.

She got off the bike. He was holding it.

She showed him where the wheel rubbed against the fender. She wanted something to drink.

She asked if they could go on the road next time. He said sure if she thought she was ready. She asked when she could ride one of the bikes with thin tires. He said those bikes were too big; she said no; he said they had hand brakes.

Maybe, she said (making a joke), they would just go on renting a different bike every week.

The thought consumed him. All those bikes. A chain of bikes. The city’s endless claim. But Sarah’s childhood was not endless.

But which was the thought that consumed him?

Sarah’s mother, ten blocks closer to the park, would say — he knew what she would say — Be a hero, if you want to shell out the money; but why buy her a bike now?

Well, he wanted the kid to have her own bike. But she would soon outgrow it, wherever it was at this moment. Well, what was money? No— he meant, what was it exactly? Like time, it had a claim on him to be used and not to go unused. These rental bikes had no reflectors apparently. His Raleigh had three red, two orange. He saw himself lifting the wheels out of the frame, holding the chain off the rear wheel’s gears, flagging cabs until he got one to stop — disembarking uptown, fixing his wheels back in, and renting a bike for Sarah.

Money was time — or had used to be, when there was money, before money had disappeared into an expanding cloud whose only bearable promise was that money might vanish into psychic barter. Well, if time was money, time spent thinking without success about how to avoid wasting money was money wasted. The thought was worth something. A medium of exchange. But hold on — the black woman had stood up to stretch — her head went one way, her hips the other — if wealth was a claim on someone else’s labor, what was he able to claim here but somebody’s exertion getting a bike out of the shed, and what was he paying for but someone to take his money and his identifying credit card and make an enterprising note of the time? Dumb question. Inflated thought. He felt himself — it made no sense at all — the most silent person in a radius of fifty miles. Dumb feeling, he thought. But then he remembered he was getting also the labor expended in order to buy the bikes — house them — fix them. He felt the sequence. He fitted into it. The owner couldn’t ride all those bikes — now or someday or once.

"Let’s take the bike back first," said Sarah.

How about a long-term lease at a lower rate? Or a quitrent!

Sarah was saying she wanted — Sunday dinner, he thought — a hot dog, taco chips, and an orange drink. Mark’s mother had her hands on her hips— if she was his mother — as she watched Mark pass. "What the man say to you?"

Listen, the rental people exerted a claim on your labor; for your labor such as it was was where you got the cash to pay.

But Sarah’s claim was greater and she wasn’t paying.

In fact, he paid the rental people so that he would then be able to give Sarah his labor.

O.K. But give?

Say he rented her?

When good neighbor Sally had rung the buzzer last night and had said to Sarah, "Darling, might I borrow your father for ten minutes?" Sarah had said, "Nothing doing." Her new phrase.

He remembered that the park cafeteria had beer. Sarah wheeled her bike. He looked at his watch and Sarah looked up at him and he thought he knew what she was going to say, but he was wrong. She said, "We’re both walking."

What did it cost Sarah to rent him?

"You and Mommy would never slap me on the face," she said.

They were passing Mark’s mother when Mark came up and skidded to a stop.

"That’s great, man, you’ve done it all — ride, start, stop — all the first time."

"Well it isn’t the first time I forked out a dollar and a half an hour for a bike," said the woman. "Mark, you thank the man for helping you."

The book was a book of modern plays.

"Let’s go," said Sarah.

They crossed the pedestrian path on their way to the bike rental, and he got a whiff of mustard and meat. "You never forget how to ride a bike once you’ve learned," he said.

"That’s a likely story," said Sarah.

Sarah thought she would not go on the road next time after all but have one more time in the parking lot.

Good, if that was what she wanted.

And would he ride with her in the parking lot?

Sure.