eddy has a soul
The waves buffeting us on a Sunday
Saturday afternoon & evening delivered a proper Highveld pour. By Sunday morning the sky had cleared, the roads were still damp in places, & the air carried that clean, post-rain sharpness.
Alec messaged early: still on for the crank?
100 percent, I replied, & loaded eddy into the car.
We met at Bidon & rolled out at seven. The place was thick with cyclists in pink. Whole groups of them, all matching, all cheerful in that early-morning way.
“Heck,” I said to Alec. “Did their mothers & wives dress them today?”
eddy, never one to miss an opening, piped up: “Well, you often wear that pink shirt Kath gave you.”
Exactly.
Eventually we worked it out. There was an event on, the Pink Ride. We were sharing the roads with a small army of them.
As we cranked up Satellite Hill I held forth on the eternal truth that you can read a person’s car from his bike. Specialized riders drive BMWs because they are, by and large, assholes. Bianchi riders favour VWs. Trek & Scott tend toward Fords. Alec listened with the patience of a man who has heard many theories postulated from a bicycle’s saddle.
He dropped me on the climb up to the towers & waited at the top. A full refreshment station for the Pink Ride was set up there, tables & volunteers & the usual cheerful chaos.
Just after I arrived, Alec overheard two women in difficulty with a Specialized. The wheel wasn’t a quick-release; it needed a tool. He offered his. I stepped in, full of confidence.
“I’m good at this,” I announced. “Give me those tyre levers.”
A film crew had materialised & pointed cameras at us. The pressure was on. I approached the job the way Schumacher used to approach a Ferrari pit stop, focused, slightly theatrical, certain of my own brilliance. First attempt was messy. I reset, breathed, & went again. In my own estimation it was Formula 1 standard. The ladies seemed pleased enough.
“You were quicker putting it on than taking it off,” someone observed.
eddy pissed himself laughing & said that sounded about right. For once I was glad no one else could hear that cheeky bike.
As I mounted up again I mentioned that one of the women had invited us for beers at Syringa afterwards.
“So we going?” eddy asked.
“No. There’s a problem with the M word.”
“Masturbation?”
“No. Chop. Married.”
I told him the old story from Madison Hill, near where I grew up. The butcher found his wife in bed with another man. The interloper had to escape through the window. The version that went around the district was that he was rescued kaalgat, with shotgun pellets in his backside. Some lessons stay with you.
We continued onto the back loop. Alec announced we were doing the full fifty today, out to the caves & back.
“eddy will appreciate that,” I said. “He’ll be a happy soul, seeing his clan.”
Somewhere along the way I brought up Spinoza. The Jewish philosopher who was excommunicated for daring to say that inanimate objects had souls. A rock, a table, a plant, an animal, each has its corresponding idea, its mind, in the attribute of thought. In the Ethics he writes that all things, though in different degrees, are animated. Omnia, quamvis diversis gradibus, animata tamen sunt.
eddy, a bicycle has a soul.
Finish & klaar.
Alec considered this. “I disagree,” he said, “but I give you eddy. He is famous.”
We rolled on. At the field with the enormous concrete cock opposite Nirox I had to explain the local protocol of the penis salute. It is not a Navy-style drop of the pants. That would be sommer wrong. It is simply a tip of the cycling helmet, delivered with appropriate solemnity.
On the next hill I snuck past Alec & claimed King of the Mountains. He objected, citing Satellite & the towers. I ignored him. Titles are temporary, but while you hold them you may as well enjoy them.
We passed the fields where the donkeys usually stand. They were missing.
“Aha,” I said. “The Chinese have come to boil them for traditional medicine.”
Alec was appalled. “That is shocking. Don’t say that.”
On the way back a peloton of pink riders came past us on Stampede Hill. Alec latched on & disappeared up the road. I fell off the back, as one does.
You know, eddy, everything in nature & in life happens in waves. One moment you are King of the Mountains. The next you are sucking the hind tit of a dead donkey at the bottom of a climb. It seems so mathematically clean. Sin & Cos all over the place.
On the next wave, eddy, I’ll buy you a Bianchi to keep you warm at nights.
Jabonga, Mastelek. And you?
I’ll settle for a Scotch next to Loch Lomond & take it from there.