I really wish I didn't have to say this: Charlie died last night.
No, I wasn't there when it happened. However, I feel pretty certain that he died some time around 8 p.m.
I was pedaling home from work when, all of a sudden, I burst into tears. I was crying so deeply that I could barely see in front of me, much less control my front wheel.
I spotted an ATM I sometimes use, opened the door and wheeled my bike in. I sat in a corner of the vestibule, my tears rolling from my cheeks, down my neck and onto the collar of my jacket. I don't know how long I was there and I don't think anyone came in to use the machines, in spite of its location in the middle of a commercial strip that remains busy well into the night.
When I thought I had my crying under control (a completely unrealistic assumption after my operation and years of taking hormones!), I wheeled out of the vestibule and stepped over the bike's top tube. I rode about two blocks before I saw a tortoiseshell calico in a store window. Even though she looked nothing like Charlie, the faucet was turned on once again. And my legs developed the firmness of tapioca pudding.
Fortunately, there was a subway station only another block away. When a middle-aged woman starts crying on New York City transport, some passengers will look away or pretend not to notice (or, perhaps, will actually not notice), others will give you the widest berth they can, and one or two will give her looks of sympathy. Now, if you're a middle-aged woman with a bike and a helmet dangling from the handlebar, some will react as if a giraffe got on the train, or like Agent Scully from the X-Files.
A Latina who looked about ten years older than me gave me a tissue.
By the time I got home, Charlie was lying on his side, with his rear legs crossed as if he'd taken a tumble. He may very well have done just that: he was lying on a blanket and sheet I used to leave for him on my sofa, and they--and he--were on the floor. I'm guessing that he might have tried to climb on the couch, and when he clawed the sheet or blanket, they slipped off the cushions. I don't know whether that is what killed him, because he didn't look as if he had wounds caused by such a fall. However, as weak as he was, he may have simply not gotten back up.
Anyway...What's the point of playing detective now? He's gone, and I can't stop crying. He's been in my life for six years. Even though I had two other cats, whom I loved dearly, for much longer, I think I developed a bond with him that I have not developed with any other animal. Part of it has to do with the time of my life in which he accompanied me: He came into my home about two years after I started living as Justine, and was with me through all manner of change in my life. And, he curled up by my side, in my lap, or even on my belly when I was lying down, during those days when I was recovering from my surgery.
That he never showed me anything but affection is all the more remarkable when I consider how he came into my life. My friend Millie rescued him from the street. How such a loving--and handsome--cat ended up on the street is one of those mysteries I'd rather not ponder: If someone abandoned him, I don't want to think about the sort of person who would do such a thing.
When I think about that, I think that in my next life, I'd like to have a farm with a bunch of animals, especially cats. When animals attack each other--something Charlie never did, by the way--they are only doing what they are made or hard-wired (or whatever you want to call it) to do. They are not capriciously cruel, they don't maim or kill for fun or profit, and they don't invade other countries whose citizens never harmed them.
After being, possibly, abandoned on the streets, Charlie was always sweet-natured and never wanted anything more than to be fed, stroked, spoken to gently and cuddled. People sometimes come from far more fortunate circumstances and are pointlessly mean and avaricious. Or they simply think only about their own happiness, others be damned.
As I sit and write this, I have my shoulder bag in my lap. It just doesn't feel right.
When you commute, you think a lot about timing. You know that leaving a few minutes earlier or later might put you into, or keep you out of traffic, on some stretch of your ride. You may also notice a temperature difference. In my case, I had completely different weather than I'd've had had I left fifteen minutes earlier than I did.
When I'd originally planned to leave, rain was falling and the temperature was about to fall below 45F, where it had been (give or take a degree or two) through the morning and the previous night. And the air was still calm.
However, I misplaced a couple of papers and searching for them put me about fifteen minutes behind schedule. By then, the rain had stopped and temperatures below freezing were forecast for my commute home. I can live with such conditions, so I decided to chance the weather.
I hadn't counted on one other condition mentioned in the forecast: the wind. I must have had a steady 15MPH (25KPH) stream at my back for the stretch from Woodside all the way to my job. Gusts of at least double that speed turned my back into a sail by the World's Fair Marina. So, in spite of leaving late, I arrived at work early.
I'm still there now, dreading/anticipating riding into the wind that blew me here.
At this early stage of 2012, it probably wouldn't surprise you to know that most of the miles I've pedalled this year have been on my commutes. That got me to thinking of some bikes I've ridden to and from jobs past.
Here's a bike I haven't thought about in a while: a Miyata three-speed. I'm guessing it was the 1981 model shown in the catalogue page above because it matches, in every detail, the bike I rode for about two years.
It actually was a classy-looking bike: Were I wearing suits to work, I would have had no difficulty riding it--or the ladies' (non-mixte) model were I wearing skirts and heels. However, I was working jobs that had no dress codes, and even by those standards, I didn't dress particularly well.
Still, I recall enjoying the ride of the bike very much. I think it had a somewhat tighter geometry than other three-speeds like the ones made by Raleigh, Peugeot and Schwinn. Equally important, the frame was made out of lugged chromoly tubing, which was considerably lighter than the frames on those other bikes. Plus, most of the components--including the rims, cranks, handlebars, stem, fenders and chainguard--were made from aluminum alloy rather than steel.
Back then, 3-speeds (or any other commuter-specific bikes) weren't "hip:" thus, I was able to buy mine when it was about two years old for about 50 dollars. (If I recall correctly, it sold for about 300 dollars new.) Occasionally, someone would compliment it on its looks; more often, though, I found myself defending it when someone wondered aloud why I didn't get a racing bike (which I had, in fact, in addition to the Miyata three-speed). And I enjoyed knowing that I was riding something not many other people--at least in America--were riding.
However, the bike shared one shortcoming with many other Japanese bikes of the time: its wheels. Japanese rims and spokes of that time were heavier but not as strong as their European counterparts, and the Japanese "stainless" spokes often corroded, even on bikes that weren't ridden in the rain and were stored indoors. Within a few months, I had to re-spoke the rear wheel with a new rim. In fact, it was one of the first wheels I laced myself.
In lacing a new Weinmann concave rim to the hub, I discovered that the largest-gauge DT spokes available were too small for the spoke holes in the Shimano three-speed hub. Fortunately, I hadn't tensioned the wheel, so it was relatively easy to unlace them and re-fit the hub and spokes with washers between the spoke heads and hub.
Then I discovered that the Shimano three-speed hub simply wasn't as strong or reliable as the Sturmey-Archers on the old English three-speeds. I don't know how many models Shimano made then, but the one I had seemed to be the only one exported to the US. This was in the days when Shimano was notorious for not making spare parts available. So, unless you knew someone with a pipeline to the factory in Japan, you were SOL if something wore or broke down in the hub. And it happened to mine within a year after re-lacing the wheel.
I should also note that those were the days when Sturmey-Archer's quality declined precipitously, and I'm not sure whether SunTour was still making three-speed hubs. Sachs, common on bikes in Germany and Benelux countries, was all but unavailable in the US. So, if I wanted to keep the bike a three-speed, my best option would have been to find a Sturmey-Archer from the 1960's or earlier. I never took on that project, for someone made an unsolicited offer of 400 dollars for the bike. Being the Starving Artist I was then, I took him up on it.
But having that quick but classy commuter probably had more of an effect on me than I ever realized it would: It's probably the reason I ride Vera to and from work now. She's even quicker and classier than that Miyata could have been.
