Broken Bike, Lost Identity

            On Monday morning on my Christian’s Translations blog I fine-tuned the placement of the chords of the second verse of “J'suis snob" by Boris Vian.

            I posted the lyrics to my translation of “Oh mon amour baiser” on Facebook.

            I started looking for the lyrics to “Banana Boat” by Serge Gainsbourg but every site that claimed to have them had instead the words to the traditional Jamaican “Banana Boat Song" made famous by Harry Bellefonte. At the end of the hour that I allot myself for these Gainsbourg translations I finally found the correct lyrics in a YouTube video.

            I pulled my couch out to the middle of the living room and washed a section of the floor, eight boards by about one metre. 

I threw out my old Lexmark printer-scanner and moved my Martian Bouquet sculpture into its place.

            I had chickpeas with flaxseed oil and garlic for lunch.

            At 16:30 I went out to stand in front of Bike Pirates to make sure I would be one of the first people in line. There was one guy ahead of me whom I’d seen there on several occasions.

            When they opened up, the volunteer in charge was a woman I hadn’t seen before. She was very authoritative almost to the point of being militaristic but very knowledgeable. She had one policy that I especially liked. She insisted that none of the other volunteers help the people that she had already begun to help because it just causes confusion. A lot of volunteers tend to get caught up in helping one person but she seemed to be quite conscientious about dividing her time equally. She would usually give me enough to do that by the time I’d finished she was already coming back around to help me.

            She had me remove my crank arms but the drive side one was very tight. She brought out a tool that made it easy but once it was removed I couldn’t get the crank arm off the tool. She took it to the vice and struggled with it but when a big guy swept in and tried to add more torque to her tool she firmly explained to him that on of her rules is, “Don’t help me unless I ask for help." She got it off.

            She was also able to remove the cup on one side that had refused to come off before. I had always had to put the ball bearings in from the other side of the shell. She used a tool I hadn’t seen before and had no problem.

            She told me that everything between my crank arms was too worn out to put back in. She was about to look for a used bottom bracket when I asked if I could buy a new one. She said that would make things a lot easier and she got me a cheap cartridge style bottom bracket with the ball bearings already installed for $15.

            I had been at Bike Pirates for three hours by the time I was done. I said I was going to take a test drive to the bank machine to get some money for them. I rode to Freshco but noticed on the way that my bike was shifting at the back and feeling like the wheel was going to come off just like it had been before I’d changed the bottom bracket. There was someone breast feeding a baby on the bench beside the ATM. The baby began to cry as I went into my backpack to get my wallet. It wasn’t in the front pocket where it usually is. I looked through the whole pack but my wallet wasn’t there. I figured it must be at home but I went back to Bike Pirates first. When I told my volunteer that the same problem was persisting she assured me defensively that I had definitely needed a new bottom bracket. I had no argument with that but the fact remained that my problem was still there. She looked and saw immediately what the problem was. "You're frame is broken!" She showed me where it had cracked at the dropout. She said I could either find someone to weld it for $100 or $200 or find another frame amongst theirs and transfer my parts. There was no time to deal with that then because they would be closing soon. I left the bike there and went home to get my wallet but it was nowhere to be found. I remembered that my upstairs neighbour had recently had a break-in and thought that maybe someone had stolen my wallet, which contained every piece of identification I had. I went back to Bike Pirates and explained my situation. I said I would try to get a new bankcard the next day and pay them then. My volunteer was sympathetic about my loss. She offered that they could remove the bottom bracket and give me my money back. I took my bike home and ransacked my place but my wallet did not turn up.

            All I could do was make dinner and try to relax. I would deal with what I was going to do about my bike and my identification the next day.

            I had three little potatoes, two chicken drumsticks and some gravy for dinner and watched an episode of Wagon Train.

            The story begins with a smooth talking conman named Riley Gratton in jail and looking out through the window, as the angry townspeople are enthusiastically preparing a tarring and feathering for him. Riley had sold worthless land to them. The young man with the keys to the jail had been Riley’s friend up until his arrest. He gives into Riley’s charm and opens the cell door, saying he had already gotten his horse ready for him an hour before. Later we see Riley ride up to the wagon train. It turns out that Riley served in the Civil War with the Major. The Major is glad to meet an old fellow soldier and invites Riley to stay the night. Riley meets a beautiful young woman named Sarah who is travelling out west in the wagon train with her two brothers. She finds him very charming and he seems to like her as well but not enough to not con her brothers and some other train members into buying the same worthless piece of land he’d sold before. The wagon train is camped out as the men build a bridge to cross a fast river. A few members of the train give Riley a total of $850, which is like $17000 today. Riley hightails it for the nearest town where he loses it all on a crooked roulette wheel. The Major goes after him and gives him a bit of a beating but mostly insists that Riley get the money back from the owner of the saloon. Since the roulette game had been fixed he is not stealing when he goes into Joe McSorley’s office, pulls a gun and takes the $850 back. He gives the money to the Major but gets shot in the shoulder, as he’s getting riding away. Riley heads back to the wagon to tell Sarah he's gone straight. As the Major and Charlie are riding back to the train they are met by McSorley and his men. The Major sends Charlie to the train. McSorley takes the money back from the Major and they get ready to hang him. When Charlie comes back to the train alone Riley knows the Major is in trouble. Riley and Sarah's brothers rescue the Major just in time. Everyone gets their money back and Riley and Sarah get each other. Riley stays with the train and Sarah. The Major tells Sarah's brothers that if they keep Riley with them chances are they’ll end up owning half of California.

            Sarah was played by Karen Steele, who started out as a model. She was in the film “Marty" and played Eve in the Star Trek episode, “Mudd’s Women". She later did TV commercials. She did charity work and married a psychiatrist.