Scaggsville: Reaching for the spokes.

The new and not yet opened interstate was a broad, empty band of fresh white concrete that reared up from around a gentle bend in the distance and disappeared over the next gentle rolling hill, heading down to where the dam penned in the river. We followed the freshly-painted lane lines on the family Schwinns, me buckled into in my child seat on the back of my mother’s bike and my sister marking an invisible wavy line in a continuous slalom through the dashed lines.

“He’s at it again, Cleve,” my mother said, and my father turned back, slowing down just enough to sidle up and reach over to make sure I was still properly strapped in. Their bikes were a matched pair of metallic blue Deluxe Varsity Tourist models with chromed fenders and bulbous headlamps powered by bottle-shaped generators that tipped into the tires to generate enough electricity for a weak wash of warm light, and they gleamed in the sun, aromatic with the scent of metal polish and oil.

“I don’t think he can reach, hon,” he said.

“He's sure trying, though,” she said, and they chuckled at the sight of me hanging off the back of my Mom’s bike, as far as I could reach, struggling to do myself an injury. I looked up, furrowing my brow and glaring at my dad, then went back to that irresistible project of attempted self-mutilation.

We breezed southward in close formation, crossing over where the abandoned track of old Scaggsville Road was cut off by the new pavement, and went as far as the dam before heading for home with the setting sun warm on our backs. The road was raw and perfect, still untouched, an empty place that would soon be roaring with traffic.

In the golden light, I grunted and writhed, struggling furiously against the straps on my seat, trying as hard as I could to jam my feet into the spokes, to what end I hadn’t the slightest notion. It was just a goal, a tantalizing bad thing to do, and I yearned for it, desperately.

One day I’ll do it.

I’ll do it.

Just wait.

© 2024 Joe Belknap Wall