Confessions of a Cyclist
JONATHAN LIEBSON teaches writing, literature, and culture at Eugene Lang College of The New School and at NYU’s School of Professional Studies. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post Book World, Tablet Magazine, Time Out New York, and The Georgia Review.
Sixth Avenue, also known as Avenue of the Americas, starts in Lower Manhattan as a modest offshoot of the busier Church Street. Within a few blocks, the three-lane artery quickly fills with taxis and trucks that come piping through SoHo, roaring into Greenwich Village, and racing uptown as fast as the streetlights allow. Amid this frenetic speedway you’ll sometimes spot a lone figure on two wheels. Head down, torso bent low over the handlebars, he slips between cars like a nimble fish among a school of sharks. Meet the bicycle messenger. His disregard for traffic is so absolute that he either rides around with a death wish or has somehow discovered the secret to invulnerability.
Countless times I have ridden a bicycle up Sixth Avenue, but never once have I braved its central rapids. Even when pedaling alongside traffic, the sense of being expendable is never far from one’s mind. Such awareness was lodged in me many years ago and has stuck with me ever since. I’d been riding along the left-hand side and was nearing the intersection with Greenwich Avenue when a snub-nose delivery truck shot past me on my right—and then darted left like a bull out of its chute. If I hadn’t pumped the brakes right then, the vehicle would’ve sheared me off my bicycle and pulled me under.
Afterward, watching from the curb, I felt a quivering in my arms and legs. It was the kind of feeling you’d expect from a near-collision with a multi-ton steel object. The truck itself hadn’t missed a beat. It drove along Greenwich Avenue for another block, until the light at West 10th brought it to a halt. A second wave of adrenaline washed over me. My hands retook the handlebars, my feet shoved off the curb, and suddenly I was pedaling at top speed to catch up.
I reached him on the other side of 10th Street, where my hand gave a loud—and not unpainful—smack against the rear cabin. The truck stopped cold. Out popped this burly fellow with a shaved head, shoulders like bedposts, and a Jesus tattoo covering his enormous right bicep.
“What the fuck’s your problem?”
I dismounted my bicycle and parked it on the sidewalk. “You almost ran me over,” I said. “I could’ve been killed.”
Even if my voice hadn’t cracked, why did I think such information would chasten the guy? No doubt he was already well acquainted with his own recklessness. He came a step closer, whereupon kill me.
