Gloria ~ May 4

 

UNBREAKABLE PART 2

 

This happened many years ago,..and it’s really what New York City is all about. Tourists and outsiders think we’re a cold and uninviting and not very friendly city. 

 

Well yeah…that’s partly true. We don’t say hello to passersby on the sidewalk but come on…there’s so many of us it would take all day and we gotta go where we gotta go as fast as possible since most of us do not have cars. And that’s because parking the thing in a garage costs more than your tiny apt . And parking it on the street means moving it every other  day or alternate days or holiday days or snow days or garbage days or street cleaning days or too much damn rain days…well…it’s a daze of days.

 

The point is…we keep moving and pretty much keep to ourselves.

 

I did have one incident where I was racing along and a rather large fellow came out of an alley and startled me saying:

 

Don’t worry…I don’t bite.

 

To which I replied:

 

Oh… but I do!

 

And upon seeing a family with a child and a grandma asking for directions to the Intrepid Warship I advised them how to cross that last avenue without getting  killed.

 

We really need to keep our tourists alive and well. 

 

So one day I’m riding my bike straight up a hill on Tenth Avenue and the next thing I know I’m sitting on the sidewalk being held in the arms of very large Puerto Rican mama telling me in Spanish I’m going to be ok. Having no idea what’s going on and seeing stars out of one eye I notice there are a lot of people surrounding us and watching me and one telling me she put her name and address in my bag.

 

An ambulance was called and while on the stretcher I knew that all these people had been very kind so I waved good bye and they all waved back.

 

Later on I found the name in my bag with the word “witness” and I called and found out that a car had sped around a corner and smacked into the back of the bike and I flew over and hit and broke his windshield and then proceeded to gracefully (I hope) slide off the hood onto the ground. There was glass on the front seat and the guy came out and tried to pick me up and put me in his car but all those New Yorkers of every race size color ethnic whatever formed a protective circle around me and he took off. Of course by then they all had his license number.

 

In the end…nothing was broken. 

 

They took  X-rays of my head and did not see anything inside.

I always suspected as much 

 

Upon calling  the police to get my bike I was told it had been folded in half with a tag reading:

RIDER DECEASED.

 

But thanks to the kindness of those much maligned New Yorkers…

 

Rider still here.