On a Saturday in 2020, I biked into Haleiwa — a small town on the North Shore of Oahu. I mailed prints of my art. I bought a rose quartz for my girlfriend. I headed home.
A black truck was leaving the gas station to my left. It wasn’t moving. I rode on. I saw the driver looking to his left, checking for cars.
The truck advanced into the side of my bike’s back wheel. I put my right foot down on the street. The truck stopped moving.
I got off the bike, walking it ahead.
“Are you okay?” said the driver, looking out his window. He wore a baseball cap, had a beard, seemed around sixty.
“Yes,” I said.
“How about your bike?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to see.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t see you.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know whose fault it was. My mom had always stressed to never apologize during car accidents because it could be used against me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this advice.
“You don’t need to stay,” I said. “You can go.”
“Are you sure?” he said, looking concerned.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Alright,” he said.
“Have a good day,” I said sincerely, realizing it probably sounded sarcastic, due to the situation and my muffled tone.
I walked my bike on the sidewalk. The back wheel was bent. I tried to unbend the metal with my hands and feet.
I rode slowly, the wheel catching the frame with each wobbly revolution. I got off and walked, holding the bike’s handlebars.
A black truck parked ahead of me. A bearded man in a baseball cap walked toward me, holding a metal bike rim.
“Is it the right size?” I said, thinking he’d seen my wobble and coincidentally had a rim he wanted to sell.
“I think so,” he said, holding it to my bike’s bent wheel. “Do you need a ride? Do you live nearby?”
“I live in there,” I said, indicating an area past a yellow gate.
“Alright,” he said.
“Can I buy this from you?” I said about the rim.
“You can have it,” said the man.
“Thanks,” I said, feeling a little guilty for taking it for free.
“The least I could do was give you a new rim,” he said.
“Oh, you’re the guy who . . . I thought you were just some random guy.”
“Sorry,” he said about earlier. “I didn’t see you.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t know whose fault it was.”
He drove away. I rode carefully, holding a handlebar in one hand, the rim with the other. I thought about what to tell my girlfriend. I was glad about the rim; it gave me something positive to say.
We lived in a studio with a wall that didn’t reach the ceiling. On one side was the bedroom. The other side had a bathroom, kitchen, and sofa. After showering, I sat on the sofa and typed an account of what happened.
Then I ate jackfruit while reading an article online about Project Serpo — an alleged U.S. exchange program with a planet in Zeta Reticuli. Then I researched how to unbend wheels. The process was called truing.
My girlfriend came out of the bedroom — where she’d been working — lay her head on my lap, smiled up at me, and asked if I’d eaten mushrooms. I said I had. A small amount.
“A car hit my bike,” I said, and smiled widely.
My girlfriend’s cheerfulness left suddenly. She asked if I was okay. I said I was. She got up and said, “Can we go look at it?”
She’d biked in New York City for maybe over a decade. She seemed to have a fraught relationship with drivers.
We went to the bike. I answered questions about what happened. The rim from the man was obviously the wrong size.
“Did he say sorry?” said my girlfriend, seeming upset.
“Yes,” I said in a depressed tone.
I followed her inside and sat on the sofa beside her. I put my computer on my lap. She saw that I’d typed an account of the accident.
“Can I read it?” she said. “You won’t tell me anything.”
“I won’t tell you anything? I just told you.” I gave her the computer, frustrated that she seemed more distraught than me.
She read my account, which ended before the man parked on the side of the road and gave me the rim.
As she read, I mumbled that my parents would have “been supportive,” even though I knew they would have reacted like her. Further, they would have told me to be more careful. She hadn’t, but I felt as if she had.
“So you haven’t gotten to where he gave you the rim?” she said.
“No.” I said I wanted to finish typing my account. She went to the bedroom. I felt discouraged about what was happening. I seemed to be blaming her for ruining my calm acceptance.
She returned to the sofa. “Did you have your phone with you?”
“I don’t want to tell you,” I said. I owned a flip phone. I often borrowed her smartphone to do smartphone things.
“Why?”
“Because you’re not making me feel good about it. Who wants to tell you about any accident when it’s like this? I processed it and looked up what to do about the wheel. I felt great until I told you.”
“You did?” she said.
“Didn’t you see me smiling?” I could sense I was being unreasonable, but I couldn’t stop. I felt this often that year — our last full year together.
She picked up one of the cats who lived on the property and walked around a little, looking at the cat, calmer now than me.
The next morning, I finished a draft of my account and emailed it to her. Later, she said, “It was accurate.”
Referencing my defensiveness, she said she hadn’t felt any blame towards me at all. She’d been upset at the truck driver.
I said I’d felt defensive in part because of my parents — I was used to them telling me to be more careful when I had accidents.
“You told me they wouldn’t do that.”
“They would,” I admitted. I hadn’t added “even though I knew they would have reacted like her” to my account yet.
She said she was biking to town for tampons and eggs. She stood. I stood and said I hadn’t known she was upset at the driver, not me. I could feel, however, that on some level I did know this.
I hadn’t wanted her to be upset at all — not at the truck driver, not at anyone — because it disrupted the good mood I’d created for myself. This type of thing seemed to be partly why I liked being alone.
She said she was careful not to blame others after accidents; she knew how it felt because when she was a child her mom blamed her for everything, even when she got colds.
I knew that. I said my dad habitually blamed others too, as she also knew. She said her mom and my dad probably didn’t want to blame others — they just didn’t know where to direct their upsetness.
I agreed. We hugged.
She got ready to leave.
“I’ll miss you,” I said.
“You will?”
“Yes,” I said.
Tao Lin is the author of ten books, including Leave Society and Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change.
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Intriguing. A truck hits your bike. But the real drama lies in your relationship, and the way you communicate the facts and feelings of a truck hitting your bike.
Enjoyed this! Keep up the good work, Tao.