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Adopting Lovely Lilly
by Lizette van Hecke
My bike’s name is Lilly. It’s a white beach cruiser with pink rims and cute brown leather handlebars with pink Hawaiian style flowers. She kept me sane.When I couldn’t handle the loud and dirty dungeons of New York’s subway anymore, I knew I needed a bicycle. No more underground, where the temperature is always thirty degrees higher than a normal person can stomach. No more waiting for a train that might never show up, rubbing shoulders with thousands of uptight salary slaves. No more being late for class or appointments…
Lilly was waiting for me in Williamsburg, where a girl was ready to give up her bicycle after moving in with her boyfriend. I am still grateful she put Lilly up for adoption on Craigslist.
From the moment I picked her up we clicked. She took me over the Williamsburg Bridge while a heavy breeze was trying to blow me off, but Lilly’s fat wheels and steady grip steered me home to the Westside within twenty minutes.
For years I had cycled all over picturesque Amsterdam, but there is nothing like New York City’s skyline. Outside on the neatly paved streets the air is crispier and the view more vibrant than underground. And I don’t need a helmet, thank you very much. The Dutch have helmets built in by birth.
My experience overall has been purely positive. Peddling for hours when stuck in writers block, finding hidden visual treasures of New York and literally cycling into new stories.
The first week I took Lilly out, a cab on Eighth Avenue cut me off. I slapped his trunk and shrugged my shoulders with a “what do you think you’re doing” look on my face. The cabbie immediately jumped out and started swearing as if I had just spit in his face.
Quickly after I recovered from the shock I looked him straight in the eye and said: “If I were you I would step back in your car, because I am on a cycle path and WILL sue you…” And so he did. The words automatically rolled off my tongue, as if I had used that combination of words many times before. Suing somebody. It led me to write a little commentary on the oddity of this aspect in the US public life.
Another story Lilly found me was the growing number of pedicabs. These big bullet-like bicycle taxis have two seats in the back and a retractable parasol to keep clients dry in case of rain. After a couple of weeks on the road Lilly started to get recognized by the bicycle taxi drivers. “Hey, I love your bike! …Very pink.” I would smile politely and ring Lilly’s adorable bell. Standing still in front of traffic lights, I slowly started to learn more about the pedicab driver community.
Many pedicab drivers were youngsters that liked to be outside the whole day and didn’t take well to a boss above them. “There’s a whole bunch of us living together, you know,” Christofer, a 25 year-old Canadian said. “We share a couple of bikes and rotate, take off whenever we want and start late. I would say it’s the last bohemian job left.”
Most of the cabbies would gather in the Russian Bathhouse in the East Village every Monday night to sooth sore muscles. I got invited on several occasions, but Lilly declined with a gracious tingelingeling. Because her bell has such a friendly ring to it, Lilly doesn't piss people off. On the other hand the bell is too sweet to let jaywalking pedestrians or double parked cars know she is coming. For those risky moments I got her a pink horn with a loud hooting sound. That works much better.
Lilly is wonderful in making contact. She receives so many compliments you’d think she’s a puppy. Even big hairy tattooed bad guys can’t resist her. I found that out when I moved to an apartment across from the headquarters of the Hells Angels in the East Village.
I made my move with a taxi and told him stop next to the Harleys that are parked in front of my front door. Big mistake! Apparently the Angels don’t like other motorized vehicles parking anywhere near their beloved Harleys.
“Move!” a scary looking hooded figure dressed in black yelled. “Move your f*cking car!” The cab driver was taken at back and stuttered: “But, but she has very large bags that she needs to…” He suddenly finished his sentence when he looked out of the window and saw how tall the two Angels were. “It’s ok, just take it a little further,” I said and added semi-seriously, “They’ll help me carry.” Which, surprisingly, they did.The next morning I was unlocking Lilly when I heard a low whiskey voice across the street shouting something. “Yo, lizard.” It took me a couple of seconds to realize he was calling me. “Yo, lizard… Hey, I see you are a biker too!” It was Vinnie, one of the scary Angels from the night before, who seemed real pleased with the joke he just made. Lilly had, once again, made friends.
So a few weeks later, when the NYPD blocked off the street to raid the Hells Angels after they supposedly beat up a woman, I wrote a hard news story about it and got a great quote from Lilly’s “friend” Vinnie.
Long story short: get yourself a bicycle!
A white one, with pink rims, if you can find another one…
illynoiz |
Latest page update: made by illynoiz
, May 3 2007, 10:22 AM EDT
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bicycle
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