I could have been seriously hurt or worse today. This
morning, I came downstairs to go to work. I went to the bike rack in front of
the house and my bike wasn't the only one locked up. There was the yellow
mongoose that I hadn't seen for weeks locked up on the other side of the rack.
When I first moved into my apartment about 2 months ago, that yellow mongoose
was locked up to the rack all the time, every night. I assumed it was someone
who lived in my building. A few weeks ago it disappeared. I figured the person
who owned it brought it inside due to the weather, same as I did a few weeks
ago. When the weather improved at the end of last week and the snow started to
melt away, I brought my bike out again and have been using it pretty much since
Friday.
So I unlocked my bike but before I got on it to ride off
I noticed something. The quick release handle to lock the back tire in place was
open. I took a closer look and someone had nearly completely loosened my back
tire. I say nearly because if they had loosened it completely the nuts and
bolts would have fallen out/off. Also the back tire wasn’t in the fork on one
side. Intense anger started coursing through me, someone sabotaged my bike!
Were they hoping I would have just gotten on, tried to pedal and do a brutal
faceplant? I was fortunate I noticed it was tampered with. Once I re-aligned the
back tire and tightened it, I begin my ride to work. I was seething. If only I
had caught the person doing it. I would have beat them to an inch of their
life. How dare they!
I got about a half block down, barely able to focus on
what I was doing when I looked down and my mouth hung open. The handle on my
front tire was open and that tire was loosened too! And I’ve been riding for a
half block on it! I stopped immediately. In my anger I wasn’t thinking clearly
enough to check other parts of the bike before departing. Thankfully I hadn’t
made and turns or sudden movements. I was just coasting that half block. Again,
the tire was loosened but not all the way where the nuts would have fallen off.
The person who did this knew something about bikes. I tightened the front tire,
checked everything else on the bike and then finally made my way into work.
Although at first I thought it might have been one of the
drunk people coming out of the bar next to my building late last night, the
precision in which this was done makes me think the person who did this knows
their way around a bike. They knew just how to sabotage it to make it less
noticeable. They had a working knowledge of quick release bike tires. The anger
had me throbbing. I would never do that to someone else, why would someone do
that to me? Because my bike was there? Truth is… they wanted me to crash. They
wanted me to get hurt. Now I BADLY want to know who did it.
I’m a loving person. There is a lot of light within me
but much like the course of a day, there is also night. I have a dark side. I
do my best to hide it, to suppress it, to keep the nights short but external
forces pull it out from time to time. I am afraid of it. I’m afraid one day it
will get completely loose. There is so much rage and anger inside of me for all
those times I let people get away with rotten things. For all those times I had
every right to be upset but I fought back the urge to lash out, explode, seek
revenge or retribution and took the high road. It’s all stored within me. I’ve
never forgotten a person who wronged me or whose injustice was never answered
for. People say; you have to learn to let it go. If it were only that easy. Tell
Batman to let it go. Tell an elephant to let it go. I remember emotion easier
than anything else. I’ve been thinking about this, stewing about this all day.
Why would someone want to sabotage my bike? If someone did this to another
person’s car, it would be a felony wouldn’t it? Attempted assault! Who would
have a motive to hurt me?
I’ve barely spoken to the people in my building and the nearby
ones. As usual, I’m not friendly but I am nice. I’ve held doors for people; I’ve
helped carry things for others. I’ve even redistributed the mail and given
people theirs when the post office mixes it up. I don’t know and haven’t seen
everyone in my building, just the 2 neighbors closest to me on my side of it.
On the other side of the building are 3 more apartments, including apartment
number 10. In case you didn’t read my post the other day, I had a problem with
some neighbors blasting music that was almost at nightclub-like levels. I left
an anonymous note outside their door mentioning how I thought the music was
really loud and asked them to “please consider your neighbors”. I hand wrote
the note and didn’t think anything of it. But outside of my apartment door I
have something written on it. It didn’t occur to me until a few minutes ago
that the handwriting would obviously match and I wrote both in cursive and both
with the same black sharpie. If someone was wondering which neighbor wrote the
note, it’s probably not a tough thing to figure out. So that makes me wonder,
was this payback for the note? That’s kind of thin but I can’t think of anyone
else who would want to sabotage my bike. I’ve never seen who lives in apartment
10 nor do I know who owns the yellow mongoose bike outside locked up next to
mine. Is it a coincidence that someone with bike knowledge disabled my bike
when a bike I hadn’t seen for a long time reappeared next to mine? Maybe it was
a drunk from the bar. That, in fact might be the best case scenario. If someone
who lives in my building is so petty that they tried to take me out like that,
I don’t think I’ll be in that apartment too long.
I was going to bring my bike into the apartment tonight
anyway because some snow is supposed to return tomorrow but man I can’t stop
thinking about it. This isn’t good for my high blood pressure. This isn’t good
to keep my darkness at bay. This just isn’t good. Most likely this person will
get away with it and all I can do or say is feel fortunate that I caught
everything before I crashed in traffic and was hurt or even killed. The world
is a fucked up place. People seem worse than ever, at least in my lifetime. I
try to keep my head down, never bother anyone, never hurt a soul, help when I
can but I cannot expect the same from everyone else. I cannot expect people to
treat me as I would treat them. I cannot reconcile this anger that is brewing… and
my patience is running out.
