An 11-year-old boy is frozen in the air for a moment. He has almost made it home, fleeing from a thug on a BMX bike. Thug began threatening 11yo from the first day they saw each other a few months ago. It started at the park. Thug asked 11yo a question about his bicycle, and “I don’t know” was perceived as offensive. What followed were verbal threats and shoving on a few occasions. Soon, 11yo learned to flee from Thug on sight, as he has done today.
Down Park Lane they ride, 11yo fixated on making it to his home as Thug closes the gap. In front of the mailbox, 11yo looks over his left shoulder at Thug. In an instant, 11yo is airborne over the handlebars.
This is the version of me I see every time I look over my shoulders from my bicycle. I don’t wear my hearing aids while I ride, so I have to watch the surroundings carefully. I cannot count on hearing a car approaching.
11yo doesn’t know what happened, but in an instant, he goes over the handlebars and lands face-first on the street. The bicycle tumbles over him, and the ensuing slide results in road rash to his face, shoulder, and knees. He is a bloody mess, and in an instant Thug is meekly bringing 11yo’s bicycle to the garage. 11yo stumbles into the house, where his stepfather takes one look at him and whisks him to the emergency room.
Thug is not the only bully in 11yo’s life at this point: The stepfather’s son is older and bigger still, and when the parents are away, brutality rules. Returning from the ER with stitches and bandages, 11yo learns that stepbrother has taken umbrage at another bully being in the picture. Stepbrother vows to get revenge on Thug.
11yo’s mother heads to the back yard to smoke, instructing the family to keep her son away, as he looks gross with the stitches and bandages.
**
I don’t know why I flew over the handlebars that day. There was no damage to the street, nor any obstruction I could have hit when I looked away. I wish I did not remember the pain of sliding down the street on my face.
I also know that I never saw Thug again.
I must look over my shoulders while riding, and I think of that moment in the air every time. I was going to be fine until I looked back.
This morning’s ride took me through the neighborhood where my estranged daughter is staying for the summer. There I was, effectively looking behind me even as what’s back there could hurt me today.
How often are you looking over your shoulders at what’s behind you?
