FRESH YARN presents: Three Questions ... by Pamela Ribon

FRESH YARN presents:

Three Questions
By Pamela Ribon

The last time I was on a bicycle I was twelve years old. I rode a pink and gray Schwinn ten-speed, one I had earned from a combination of babysitting money and incessant pleading. Until that day, seventeen years ago, the biggest accident I'd had on my bike was when I thought it'd be cool to take both of my feet off of the pedals at the same time. Not knowing where else to put them, I figured I'd BMX it by touching my toes together in front of me.

A constant problem I have is that I only think things through to two. I ask myself two questions, and if both answers suit me fine, I go ahead with whatever it is. Often in retrospect I wish I'd asked myself a third question. My father once told me that the reflective bumps on the road were in order to assist the blind when they drive their cars. I asked myself, "Is it like Braille?" Yes. "Do the bumps become more prevalent when closer to stop lights or the middle lane?" Yes. Therefore, the conclusion: Dad must be speaking the truth. If I'd only asked one of the many third questions that leap to mind when pondering this alleged piece of trivia for more than six seconds. "How do they know when the light is red?" "How does it work in reverse?" Or maybe the most pressing question raised by this factoid: "How do they know when they've gotten to where they're going?"

Back to me wanting to look cool on my Schwinn. First I asked myself, "Would my feet touching in front of me be cool?" Yep. Then: "Wouldn't it be awesome if my feet were touching between the spokes?" Oh, yeah. I touched my toes together before asking that all-important third question, "How will the wheels keep spinning if my feet are jammed between the spokes?"

The bike stopped short with a lurch and a loud popping sound. I fell sideways to the street. My right hip was pretty banged up, my pinky toes were bruised to an alarming purple-black hue, and I lost three spokes from my front wheel.

A series of clever lies, and an obstinate claim of short-term amnesia, kept me from getting into any serious trouble with my mother. Once my bike was fixed, I was immediately back on it, filled with an eleven-year-old's enviable sense of immortality. This was a time before moms loaded their children in over-protective gear. I was a kid on a bike -- no helmet, no pads, no SPF 60. It was just me and the gravelly road.

It was a hot summer afternoon in Jackson, Mississippi, less than one year later, the last time I ever got on that Schwinn, or any other bike, for that matter. I was dicking around on the street in front of my house breaking at least three rules, if I remember correctly. I was supposed to be inside cleaning my room. I wasn't supposed to be wearing my newest outfit (a super-clean white tank-top and a pair of Dirty Dancing denim shorts). But most importantly I wasn't supposed to ride my bike in flip-flops. Mom often declared seemingly arbitrary rules, like how I wasn't allowed to write on myself with marker or pen because that was the gateway to getting a tattoo. I couldn't get my ears pierced, wear make-up or even nail polish until I was at least thirteen because those accessories were an announcement to boys that I was the kind of girl who wears earrings, make-up and nail polish. Guns of any kind were also forbidden in our home, including water guns or a threateningly-held banana, because even pretending to shoot your sister is just as bad as pulling an actual trigger. So when Mom warned me not to ride my bike in flip-flops, I figured this was more of a fashion rule than a safety issue.

I asked myself: "Is it more of a hassle to go change shoes since I'm only going to ride my bike for a second?" Yes. Then: "Am I about to get off my bike and go clean my room anyway?" Yes.

I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but my left flip-flop got caught somewhere between my bike chain and the underside of the pedal. Panicked and confused, I hit both brakes at the same time. I then flipped over the handlebars and slid across the gravel. On my face. The left side of my body felt like it was on fire as I stood up, pieces of road falling from my cheek. Through my hot tears I could see my left knee was bleeding. I limped into the house, where I found out just how bad my injuries were by the decibel level of my mother's scream. She asked me a breathless question that held all of the words she needed to ask me at once: "What-did-how-why-you-okay?" She led me into the bathroom, randomly spitting out those words. I saw my face in the mirror, blurry from my wailing. My skin was a mixture of dark reds, purple streaks, black dots from gravel still sunken into my cheek. It was not pretty.

The scab that eventually formed went from my left temple down to my chin, resembling in shape the continent of Africa. One particularly witty nemesis of mine began referring to me as "Scarface Al Capam." It took over a month for it to finally heal. A month of wearing a stiff skin mask that itched and drew more attention than I'd ever had before. People would openly stare at me in school. My mother stopped taking me on errands with her, as she would receive accusing glares, silent judgments from complete strangers. When the last scab finally fell from my body, I was left with scars on my knee and shoulders. I still have one black line at the edge of my left eye that people often mistake for a pen mark. It's a reminder that my mom is always right.

This is the memory that came flooding back to me yesterday morning. I was running a bike trail, my fiancé Stephen slowly rolling next to me on his bike. He was complaining about the size of the helmet I had bought for him, and now force him to wear, as his head is the most important head in my life. He was pointing out other bike riders, comparing the thickness of their mushroom-shaped, brightly-neon colored gear. "See? They look normal." Stephen spoke with a boyish bravado, having never experienced an emergency landing on his face. I tell him how much I love his head, and how, if I was allowed, I'd strap six thousand pillows to it before he got on that metal skin-ripping machine.

"I think you should try this," he then said, stepping off of his bike. The wheels click-click-clicked! their menacing taunt as the bicycle eased closer. My toes ached in their cross-trainers at the sound of the spokes, my sense memory intact.

"No, thanks."

Stephen was already lowering his seat, apparently the ultra-large helmet muffling any sound reaching his ears. "Get on," he said.

"I don't..." I started. My face was throbbing. I remembered the cold sting of the rubbing alcohol, the wetness of my blood dripping down my neck, my mother's frantic brow knit together in sorrow. Her baby's face was bleeding. Her baby's face was broken.

Question one: "Is this something you're afraid of?" Yes. Question two: "Is this something you thought you'd never do again?" Yes. I take a moment and ask myself the third question. "Why shouldn't you do this?"

"It's just like riding a bike," Stephen said, answering my unspoken query. He held my hand as I lifted my leg over the boy-bar. Chuckling, he repeated himself so I knew just how funny he was. "Just like riding a bike."

When two people begin dating, everything is as fascinating and fun as it was when you were five years old. The summer I began dating Stephen I confessed one day while we were swinging at a playground that I'd never flipped over a stationary bar. I used to admire the girls who would flop one leg over the schoolyard bar at the knee, spinning circles around the metal rod over and over again. Their ponytails would fly in golden rings. Their tanned legs would be locked firm over the steel-gray pole. The girls would swoop again and again, their heads dangerously close to smashing on the dirt beneath them. They never paused to be afraid. I, however, knew if I had tried it I'd certainly crack my skull open.

Stephen had jumped off of his swing, walked over to the stationary bar (are they for anything other than girls swinging at the knee?), pressed his hips to it and spun, head-first, in a quick, perfect circle. "I haven't done that in years and I'm a foot taller than you," he said once he was standing again, the blood draining from his face. He smiled. "You can do it." He spotted me, his sturdy hand on the small of my back as I took a deep breath, hoisted myself up, locked my knee and spun. He was right; I could do it. I spun over and over again, taking back all of those recesses when I was too scared to be one of those girls.

And now here he was again, holding another playground instrument that had power over me. He stood a few inches away and watched, that gigantic plastic half-globe towering over his head. "You can do it."

I put trembling foot to pedal and eased my thigh into action. The wheels spun. A breeze lifted under my arms, cooling the sweat from my skin. I raised one knee, the knee with the small white scar. I pushed down. The wheels were spinning. I was riding a bike. The fear was still there, coming out of me in a low moan.

"You're doing it!" Stephen said from somewhere behind me. "Go fast! Go fast!"

I looked over my shoulder and saw him cheering as if I was in a triathlon. The excitement was contagious. He wasn't there the day I gave up riding bikes forever, but he was the reason I suddenly wanted a bike of my own, to race him to the end of the block and back, to ride over dirt and grass and even gravel. This is why that man, in less than six months, will be my husband. Because even though I know he can't always be right behind me, he'll never let me fall.

I stood up in the pedals and coasted, the fear easing away as the cool air rushed over me, Stephen's voice fading out as I pushed the bike faster and faster, my muscle memory instantly returning. I had ended seventeen years of fear in less than thirty seconds. I was riding a bike and I wasn't falling and all the skin on my face was still there. I had asked myself three questions and answered them all correctly and was now doing the thing that scared me the most and I was okay. Better than that: I was free.