Two hundred of us stand in the eastbound lane of Bloor at Avenue Road, hands on handlebars.
A funereal chorus of bike bells accompanies a chorus of thoughts: What is it about bikes that makes people sexier? I don’t care who you are, this is universally true. Why do we say people “drive” cars and “ride” bikes? It’s clearly the reverse.
We’ve been here an hour. The police, uncommonly helpful during the memorial ride for Darcy Allan Sheppard, clearly want to go home. And we’re taking up a whole half-block in one direction. Commerce is probably grinding to a halt. We may have just extended the recession.
Another thought, especially clear: Where is it we’re all going so quickly?
“The more aware you are of being threatened, the more desperate your reaction…. Speeding is a form of aggression.” So wrote Chögyam Trungpa, in the somewhat self-?satisfied tone of a Buddhist rinpoche.
I don’t know if, as some say, Sheppard died because he was a cyclist. But I am reasonably sure he is dead because people drive cars. And I am reasonably sure I’m sorry for Michael Bryant as well.
Here’s an analogy: If I walk around pointing my index finger, which I repeatedly flex and extend, I’m a weirdo. Add a loaded handgun, it’s a shooting spree.
We don’t know exactly what happened August 31, but the wealthy politician in a convertible walked away, while the “troubled” (i.e., underprivileged) Metis man on the bike died. Just because it was a “freak” encounter doesn’t make it less instructive.
We don’t know Bryant’s mental state or what his actions were, but in general the issue in car-?bike spats isn’t anger, it’s the way big technology facilitates indulgence and infliction rather than reflection and reconsideration.
It’s a safe bet that every cyclist’s mind flew to an encounter of his or her own on learning of Sheppard’s death. Mine: cabbie guns the motor, swerves in front, slams the brakes, thinking he’s teaching me a lesson. But if there’d been just one less inch… What did I say to make him so angry? I don’t remember. Was I justified? Probably not. But attempted murder isn’t the wittiest rejoinder.
People like him are in the minority, and being hopeful people – we bike in Toronto, after all – we resist assuming everyone is a sociopath. This leaves one cause of these almost daily run-?ins: cars themselves.
Nor is the problem that cyclists “are blind to the rules.” Believe me, you don’t survive downtown cycling if you don’t have a system. Sometimes we roll through a stop sign (completely legal in Idaho, by the way). Sometimes you don’t wash your hands before you eat.
And in the rare cases when law-abiding does make sense, we may still find it safer not to – since, as in abusive situations, what’s expected vacillates wildly.
Angry motorists will, so to speak, inquire with interest as to where we acquired our cycling credentials, or firmly insist we observe the stipulations of the Highway Traffic Act but can’t always cope when we oblige. What the fuck am I doing? Making a fucking legal left turn on a green, thanks the fuck for asking.
Seemingly reasonable calls for cyclists to bottle up their “irrelevant” anger are really calls to ignore what’s swirling beneath this disaster. They are above all an anxious avoidance of slowing down and looking each other in the eye.
Trungpa, whom I quoted at the top, drank considerably, lost a tidy sum up his nose and died of liver failure before hitting 50. Did this make him a sham? Or was it troubles developed while fleeing Tibet that shaped him? In the end, I decided I didn’t care. The writings he left make it clear he was on to something.
From what we know, so was Sheppard. Now we’re called on to seek truth in tragedy, to find something in all this to make a more humane city. But we’re all moving so fast, and it takes so long to say – so it comes out as “more bike lanes.”
And that, officer, is why people aren’t leaving Bloor today. For pity’s sake, you can spare an hour or two. Or just go home, see your kids. We’ve done this before.
More bells, with the invisible concordance of sparrows flying off together. Mournful, celebratory, otherworldly. “Every time a bell rings…” From what I’ve heard, he’d already found his wings. We just like the sound – and know some of us may not be around tomorrow to hear it.
Things go by so quickly these days.
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