On Sunday, the day before "the 4th" (American Independence Day), I rode La-Vande, my Mercian King of Mercia, to Point Lookout. I have taken that ride many times, on every one of my current bikes and several I've owned previously. Although the weather was just a bit warmer than I like, the skies were clear and bright and the temperature dropped as I approached the water. Best of all, I was pedaling into the wind, blowing from the ocean and bay, most of my way out. That meant, of course, that I rode with the wind at my back for most of the way back.
Still, I couldn't help but to notice something that distrubed me. Perhaps the holiday, and its associations sensitized me to it. A ride I took the other day--the day after the Fourth--confirmed my observation.
Holidays like the Fourth, Memorial and Veterans' Day and, of course, Flag Day, bring a lot of Stars and Stripes out of closets, attics, trunks and storage lockers. People hang flags in their windows and on their doors and fly them from awnings and poles. I couldn't help but to feel, however, that the way those flags were displayed was more ostentatious and aggressive than usual.
My Point Lookout ride takes me through strongholds of Trump-mania: Broad Channel, a Jamaica Bay island between Rockaways to the "mainland" of Queens, and the Long Island South Shore communities of Long Beach, Lido Beach and Point Lookout itself. Just past the Long Beach boardwalk, one house flew a flag so wide that it unfurled over the sidewalk in front of it: Anyone walking by could have been brushed by it which, to some, would have been offense--by the person brushed, mind you--against the flag and therefore the nation. I noticed many other flag displays that were disruptive or simply more in-your-face than ones I saw in years past.
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But the incident that showed me that the flag has gone from being an expression of patriotism or simply gratitude to one of agression and hostility, or even a threat, came the other day, as I approached an intersection in Eastchester, a Westchester county town on Negrosa, my vintage Mercian Olympic. Something that looked like a bloated pickup truck--it was nearly as wide as the two eastbound road lanes--pulled up behind me, veering into the shoulder where I was riding. From poles driven like stakes into each corner of the rear flatbed, American flags fluttered. Another banner, about the size of those four flags combined, visually blared, as loudly and ominously as the revved-up engine (which seemed to lack a muffler), its message: Let's Go Brandon. That, of course is a code for what the driver bellowed at me: "Fuck Joe Biden."
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I pretended to ignore him. I guess I'm not a very good actor: I noticed him, the truck, the flags--it was impossible not to. Eyeing my bike, he growled, "If you hate this country, leave it."
"I am here because you have the right to say that. And I have the right to disagree with you. Members of my family fought for both."
He eyed my bike some more. "At least it's a 'Merican' bike. To be fair, he's not the first person to read "Mercian" as "American" or "Murrikan."
"Have a good day, sir."
With a perpexled look, he motored away. I hadn't felt such relief in a long time.
In 1983, people--including some friends and family members--begged, cajoled and even tried to strong-arm me into not moving back to New York. In those days, the news, movies, television and other media depicted my city as a lawless hellhole where people were robbed, raped, stabbed or shot. The implication, of course, was that the victims were like me--a mild-mannered white person (I was still living as male) and the perpetrators were drug-addled black and brown thugs.
The irony is that some of the people who were sure I'd be dead within a year of moving to New York--and other people who think like them--voted for Donald Trump, a hero to the fellow who was using his truck--and the flag--to intimidate me.
