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By Kevin T. McNulty, 8/00

Brian Fallon spent most days of the summer in his father’s garage. He lived the same kind of life that any other thirteen year old lived in the vast neighborhoods of New Jersey, closer to Philly than New York, exit 38 of the Atlantic City Expressway, a place without much history and very little lore. By the land that was not yet under foundation and structure, Brian ascertained that most of the area in which he lived would have been wooded a long time ago, and on his bike he explored what woods were still standing in between housing developments.

His house was situated in just such a housing development that was named for trees that once flourished there, the Arboritum was a neighborhood only a year or two younger than Brian, now in socio-economic “transition.” The house in which they lived was a medium-sized, mock cape cod, and its floorplan was used for every other six or seven houses in the neighborhood. At one end of the house occurred one of its more distinctive features; where there was once a one-car garage, a den now sat. The space had been converted into a tv room by the previous owners; however, they did not see the need to use the whole garage to accomplish the conversion. Instead, they left a space of about six feet of the old garage, just enough space for Brian’s dad to drag in an old set of drawers that acted as a tool chest and a miscellany of odd junk: a broken vacuum cleaner, a plumbing snake, a collection of half used paint cans—both quart and gallon sizes, and a couple of old power tools that had been purchased at a flea market. The snow shovels, the spade, the rakes, the lawnmower, and all of the kids bikes were stored in the shed outback. The shed was stylized in the shape of a miniature barn with red paint and reinforced doors with white trim and a padlock.

In violation of his father’s organization, Brian rarely returned his bike to that mini-barn, but kept his bike in the stunted garage instead. He didn’t mean to do it so much as he didn’t ever feel like walking it out back when his mom called him for dinner. All summer long he was in that garage around dinner time, and when he was called, he dropped to the floor whatever tools he was using, go in, wash his hands, and sit down to dinner with bluish grease still trapped under his fingernails.

Unconsciously, however, the garage that was more of a closet was Brian’s by squatter’s rights. It offered him a world of creative repair, and he went to work there every day. Most of the tools he needed to fix his bike and the bikes of friends could be found in the drawers by the door. And because of his tools and his early expertise, Brian became regarded as the kid to see if you needed a bicycle repair. Over time, his reputation as a bike mechanic traveled beyond his circle of friends, and then beyond his neighborhood. It was not uncommon for kids he didn’t know to seek him out in search of help. And Brian did not know how to say no. Though he wasn’t sure if he was especially fond of changing bottom brackets, popping chain links, or fixing flat tires, there was no one else as accomplished at completing such tasks.

When there was more than one kid who came for his help, he lent out his dad’s tools so they could fix their own bikes. There would be two or three kids with their bikes on sides or upside down, out on the lawn working on wheels, frames chains, deraileurs, or whatever. At times like this, Brian worried about his dad coming home to see all of this. And when he did come home early, he marched up the driveway with a stern look, and Brian understood that the expression was intended to convey his ire. Brian would then announce that he had to go in, and he would collect and put away the tools he lent, close the garage, and wheel his own bike to the shed.

Though Brian enjoyed the friendships his work helped him make in the neighborhood, it was little recompense for the trouble he got in after they all left. Mostly he got a short, yet painful, admonishing, and then a healthy dose of the silent treatment. “Brian, how many times have I told you, I do not want other kids using my tools. I don’t even want you in there using them. Now, knock it off.” He said all this in the part of the garage that was the den, after Brian had slunk in and sat as much on the periphery as possible. He only needed to make eye contact with Brian once, and then the rest of his anger was delivered in the direction of the tv. “I am missing a bunch of tools.” And when he finished, he continued forking his cucumber, onions, and vinegar into his mouth, not taking his eyes off the tv again.

Brian sat down in his father’s part of the garage and acted like he was watching the Merv Griffin show. But Brian’s head was slightly turned so that he could look at his father as well. He was trying to decide if he was in a good mood or not, the slumped salesman sitting on furniture that was too big for both him and the room. His father kept a good tan to cover the spots of the fungus he had gotten as a teenage lifeguard at Lake Worth. Though not stylishly dressed by thirteen-year-old standards, his dad was a good-looking man who was aging well. But he had an erratic disposition that could turn at the most unexpected time. And when one of his kids would turn to their mother, smarting, looking for an explanation, she always used the same defense, “He’s had a rough life.”

His father was an early riser, so Brian had get up early on Sunday to go with him to the flea market where there was no shade, and all the colored folks came out in their church clothes. Parking was sporadic, bees swarmed at the van selling apple cider, clouds of dust wafted up with the smell of cotton candy and popcorn from where people paced rows of second-hand goods. Brian loved this place, and when his dad let him, he ran over to the bike dealer’s bay with the couple bucks he had in is pocket.

The bike dealer was an old black man whom Brian struggled to understand because he was missing so many teeth, and yet he understood him as much as anybody. Brian was his most regular customer. The man’s sale space was surrounded him with an immovable quantity of bikes and bike parts, arranged in heaps as tall as the walls of a castle. Walking into the bay through its only narrow walkway was like walking into a galvanized fortress; it was shady and cool because the thousands of steel scraps left no chinks in the wall they created. Brian used to go in to look for parts he needed, and one time he came upon a 55 gallon trash can that had a fire under it and steam coming up through the lid. He lifted the lid and was caught by the momentary stare of an eyeball as a fish-head rolled around in the tossing boil. As he held the lid gaping, more heads journeyed up to the surface to peer at him and then roll away back into the darkness of the drum. The smell of the fish dissolved Brian’s memory of apple cider and candied apples two rows over.

“I need a master link and a twenty inch tube today,” Brian said as he laid the lid back in place softly. He didn’t think the man minded him looking at his lunch.

“You wan’ a ..ink an’…oo,” the man asked in reply.

“Yeah, I can take a patched one, just so long as it’s a good patch and not on the stem or a seam. You got any?”

“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I go-em. C’mn.” After inspecting the tube and pulling at the link, Brian paid the man a dollar for the pair. They smiled at each other, and Brian said he’d see him next week. The man responded something to the effect of ‘take it easy,’ but Brian couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t ‘I’ll see ya.” He liked buying bicycle parts from the man, and when he didn’t buy, he just walked around and looked for ideas. The old black man’s place stimulated him, made him think about a bike’s whole by the parts that make it work, which is how he thought about it in his garage. Brian’s dad was be waiting impatiently for him outside the perimeter of the parts, and when the boy emerged, they tucked into the foot traffic and head toward the car.

When they got home, Brian went right to work on his bike out in the garage. He pulled his father’s second-hand tools out of the liver-colored chest of drawers and remake his bike. At an early age he had full command of his father’s tools, and he already had a favorite tool. Of all the tools he taught himself to use, he appreciated the rusty vice grips more than any other tool in the chest. His dad said that the shiny nuts with rounded corners were the proof of that. But to Brian, the vice grips were the perfect tool for most bicycle jobs. They performed as box wrenches, adjustable wrenches, sockets, pliers, pry-bars, line cutters, and in some cases, as screwdrivers. Brian even figured out how to use the handle to remove a tire from its rim without pinching the tube inside. There was no end to their utility as far Brian could see. When going anywhere, he clamped them down tightly on his seatpost, that way he would have them in the case of an emergency repair. If he left the vice grips home, he noticed that he felt a certain sense of insecurity, like going out on a cloudy day without an umbrella or going to school without his homework all done.

The best application he ever put the vice grips to was the time when he went on a ride with Marcel Kemp. Marcel was an athletic black kid who lived around the corner from Brian who used to play for a rival baseball team when they both played organized ball. He was almost a year older than Brian, five or six inches taller, and he had recently entered a stage of physical maturity that was still alien to Brian. He had also just gotten a Mongoose, the hottest bike available, and everyone admired its unpainted chromolly frame, reinforced rims, and a layback seatpost that contributed to its distinctive look. Marcel was not a bike mechanic, but he was so excellent at other things such as baseball, basketball, and fighting, that he was held in very high regard by all the kids in the neighborhood. He also inhabited middle space that was barely perceptible to Brian. He belonged to the community of black kids in the neighborhood, but because he lived near some white kids and had played little league baseball with them, he also had white friends. But because they were rivals in baseball, and Brian didn’t really hang with the black kids, when Marcel asked him if he wanted to go for a ride, Brian suspected a trap. He had been trapped before, by the Ledder brothers. They asked him to play football, and though reluctant, he joined in. After a few plays he recognized that he seemed to be in the center of most plays. He was constantly given the ball by the older quarterback when on offense, and as he tried to run with the ball, the line opened up and he got pummeled by the defense. When he played defense, the guy with the ball inevitably ran at him and over him. Brian got up one time, shaking off the pain and mumbled that he had to go, and none of them paid attention to him. Their snickering had ceased. He mounted his bike and looked back, and none of them had even paused to acknowledge that he had left. They merely resumed.

Brian lived around the corner from Marcel who lived around the corner from the Ledder brothers. Marcel hung out with the Ledders. Brian first met Marcel in a fourth of July parade marching with his baseball team. Brian was after a kid, and Marcel, being on that other kid’s team, decided to back the other kid. Brian in turn got his fierce pitcher to back him up, but the fight never materialized because neither Brian nor the other kid really wanted to fight. They met in the middle of the street and talked, and the next year Brian moved right down the street from the kid, and they became friends. Brian had seen Marcel fight, though, and he wondered how his pitcher would have fared against him. Marcel was quick. He was known in baseball for stealing bases, but he was known in the neighborhood for stealthy fighting. Brian remembered what his friend Vince Virtucci said about him after they had fought in school earlier that day, “the guy’s quicker ‘n shit.”

On this day though, Brian agreed to go with Marcel to “the bowl.” The bowl was a big dugout pit behind the Oak Barrel Saloon, which hosted the first and only Space Invaders video game in town. The bowl was deep, steep and round like a fifteen-foot deep swimming pool that was missing one side. It was like riding a roller coaster to soar down one side and up the other. Older, stronger kids could take their bikes and hop them up in the air when they reached the other side, and a couple of times Brian encountered blaring motorcycles ejecting from the mouth of the bowl five or seven feet into the air. But the thirteen-year-old Brian could only go down and up which was thrilling enough. And he had never seen Marcel in this place before, so he didn’t know what kind of a rider he was. Brian felt a near sense of privilege to escort Marcel through the trails that led to the bowl, and to introduce him to the land mass that was a legend in the minds of all the young riders in the surrounding housing developments. He suspected that Marcel was trying out his new bike in front of an audience that didn’t matter. But Brian took his role seriously, looking back to check on his guest, sharing with him various legends that he and his friends perpetuated about these parts of the trail, trying to find comfortability through conversation.

By the time they had reached the bowl, Marcel’s chain had popped three times, and he fixed it each time himself. When they got to the rim of the bowl and looked over the edge, Brian dived down the side at a familiar vector and shot up the other side. When he arrived at the top of the opposite wall, his speed had been so perfect that he just arrived, did not need to hit the brakes or anything—just arrived. He turned his bike around and looked to Marcel who was still studying the route choices. Thinking he might be intimidated, Brian encouraged him. He remembered his first time looking over that ledge and all the bigger kids that were coaxing him to do it, and Ricky Folger’s lone, quiet voice saying, “you don’t have to if you’re not ready.” Brian wanted to ease Marcel’s tension, so he didn’t try to push him into making the plunge. Brian and Marcel had a conversation over the gap of the place, and it became clear that the conversation was a procrastination. Brian had never seen Marcel do any of the tricks he and others in the neighborhood had been working to perfect: ramps, bunny hops, kick-outs, tip-the-hats, twist-ups, etc. Then he tried to remember the various contexts in which he had seen Marcel ride, and he recalled only seeing him with Seth Ledder.

As he waited for Marcel, Brian wondered if the Ledders had ever been to this place. He imagined Marcel bringing them here for the first time later that week, and he wasn’t sure that they just might ruin the whole thing. Brian was glad that it was just him and Marcel; he had no wish to play the host to the Ledders who would change the whole nature of the bowl. Brian knew that he was Marcel’s test run, that he had never been to the bowl before, and that he might be bringing the whole Ledder clan with him next time he came. Brian was glad that Marcel would not invite him along as he watched Marcel survey the slope before him. He wondered about being a friend of Marcel’s, and he thought that if they were friends, what kind of treatment would he get from the Ledder brothers.

The Ledder brothers lived only a block from Marcel on a street that Brian never rode on anymore. Their house was big and painted dark maroon with stark white shutters on some of the windows. The grass occurred in patches, between walkways of yellow dirt, and in one corner over by the driveway, the grass grew up through a bike that was lying on its side. The driveway was breaking apart where there were no borders to stop it from crumbling into the space where a lawn would be. There was a damaged screen door that hung off the main entranceway and never closed. When Brian was riding his bike up this road soon after he moved into the neighborhood, it was from out of this door that Jameel Ledder came running after him. Jameel, a boy who looked a couple of years younger than him, chased after Brian without saying a word to him. He simply busted out of the front door and ran at him. Brian could not tell if he was doing it out of sport or if he hoped to steal his bike, but as the boy persisted with a determined face, Brian pedaled faster and fled him. Spooked by the boy’s bizarre charge, Brian avoided that street even though he met a cute girl at the other end of it. As he became more and more acquainted with the Ledder Brothers’ reputation, he found no reasons to ride his bike up that street. It was easily circumvented on Arboritum Drive, the main thoroughfare of the neighborhood, and the road on which his friend Lou Wilkes lived.

Lou was skinny and tall, and he looked like Brian wished to look. His feathery hair parted down the middle and floated back like Brian had been trying three years to accomplish in his own tuft of straw. He and Lou played basketball in Arboritum Park behind their housing development, and though Lou was faster, taller, and more skilled, they often had intense competitions. Lou, like Marcel, was nearly a year older than Brian. Lou was well known in the neighborhood because he grew up there and had gone to public school since kindergarten. He was now attending classes at Endower High School like most other kids in the neighborhood. Whenever there was a large group of kids gathered, Lou was always in the middle, the kid who linked different groups. Brian always occupied a marginal space. Brian had seen him hanging out with Marcel often, and the two of them had as much respect as anybody in the neighborhood.

As Brian and Lou were shooting baskets in the park one time, two of the younger Ledders showed up on their bikes. They hopped off and asked to play. Two on two: Lou and Jamall vs. Brian and Newton. The defensive match-ups were brother to brother, Lou to Brian. It was a close game, and like all pick-up games, it was being taken seriously. At one point, Newton got a step on his brother and drove to the basket. Lou stepped away from Brian, and leaping into the air, snuffed Newton terribly with an open palm that spanked the basketball back into his face and down off his knee out of bounds. Jamall lit in immediately, “ooohh…” and even Brian laughed at the comedy of it. Newton called a foul, and Lou turned to him and replied, “Get the fuck outa here. It was clean. Our ball.” Newton wasn’t having it though, and got up in Lou’s face. Lou was looking down at him and laughing while the other was pushing into him and insulting him. Lou pushed Newton away from him and told him to play basketball. Newton, a foot smaller than Lou, four years younger or so, regained his feet from the push, stepped forward and threw a punch at Lou’s jaw. It landed on his neck, and Lou out of reflex and frustration landed an open-handed smack on the top of Newton’s head.

Brian and Jamall had been watching from the foul line, but when that smack connected, Jamall sprang at Lou before Brian even conceived of what was going on. Jamall went after Lou, but Lou put his fists up, and the smile was gone from his face. Jamall went after him, but he could not get close. Suddenly, both Jamall and Newton left the court and went to their bikes, and Brian thought that he heard one mention Seth.

After they left, Lou and Brian looked at each other with “what the fuck just happened” looks on their faces. Very little was said. Lou went to the foul line and started shooting freethrows. Brian stood under the basket and got rebounds. No conversation. No switching up. Lou threw the shots, Brian fetched them. Both knew what was coming and knew that it was inescapable. Every once in a while one of the two looked up to the curve in Simpler Ave. to see if anyone was coming. It was a quiet road that dead-ended at this park: two baseball fields, two tennis courts, a basketball court, and a series of dirt mounds that kids who rode their bikes on them called “whoop-di-doos.” Brian had played many baseball games on these fields, but because he lived in another neighborhood and he always rode in his dad’s car, he had not ridden his bike on the “whoop-di-doos.” Often, however, he looked over from first base and watched the kids who jumped them wildly on their bikes, circling around on the basketball court, shouting with excitement. Brian longed for the unorganized sport of it, particularly if he wasn’t playing good baseball.

It had been some time since the brothers had left when Brian caught Lou looking down at the bend of Simpler Ave. He followed his glance, and when he did, he noticed two kids on bike coming around the bend, still a ways off yet. Then another two, bigger, rounded the trees. Then three more came rolling down the blacktop, and Brian looked at Lou with an open mouth. Lou was now looking back at the rim, readying for his next shot. His cheeks were red. Brian looked back across the fields and now he saw seven brothers on bike and two more running. Brian got nervous. Lou kept shooting, getting his own rebounds.

By the time they got to the basketball court, the cyclists were all together, and the runners were a short ways off. Brian recognized only Jamall as one of those runners. Newton was riding a bike, and he rode it right up onto the basketball court where he started pointing at Lou. Next onto the court was Seth. Seth was about Lou’s age, and he was the one people feared. He wore nothing more than a tank top undershirt, some pants cut off below his knees, and a pair of Nikes. He had legendary status in the neighborhood and Endower Public High School. Brian attended a Catholic elementary school, and at this moment in time he hoped he’d be attending private high school as well. He had heard some scary things about Endower, and now his parents planning out his life didn’t seem like such a bad idea. He often wondered about Lou and how he did in Endower, who he hung out with, if he got good grades, if he had to prove himself often.

Seth’s older brothers, and a couple of younger ones, circled around the court on their bikes sizing Brian up and then ignoring him. Brian had never seen any of them before, and though he knew the family was big, he had no idea they were so numerous. Seth jumped off of his bike, and without a word led with a right that found Lou’s cheek. Lou seemed to let that one happen, and then he tried to tie him up, but Seth had such force of will that he shrugged him off like a house robe. Lou put up his hands to cover, but he was unable to stop the left hook that met him at his temple. He staggered but then threw a surprise right that connected with Seth’s nose. Brian observed this as a turning point in the fight. Up to that point, Seth was calm, and after two solid connections to Lou’s head, it seemed like he was going to let up on him, as if he knew that Newton was bullshittin’, but that he had to come down to the park for his family’s honor. So after a couple of solid punches to Lou’s face, it looked like he was going to start talking shit about how he shouldn’t mess with his younger brothers, and then let him off easy. But when Lou jacked him in the nose, he incited Seth’s full fury. And that is when he lit into him with everything he had.

Seth took a stance that seemed to come out of some formal training, and now his hands were up too. With his left foot sliding forward, he jabbed twice, and then came around with a big right landing it on the top of Lou’s head. And as he connected with this shot, he let out a loud grunt. Lou staggered, and as he did, another grunt and a straight shot directly into his face found its landing. The movement had been so fluid and fast that Brian wasn’t even sure that he saw it happen. Lou, completely obliterated, fell back onto the pavement of the basketball court and didn’t get up.

Seth walked over to him, and pointed a finger down at him, “Don’t fuck with my brother again.” Brian, from back under the basketball hoop, noticed that Seth’s triceps twisted as he issued the warning. Lou moved his head, but didn’t get up, and his knees shifted back and forth a bit. There was no response, and so Seth turned to go back to his bike. His older brothers, who had stopped their bikes to watch the brief fight, were still sitting with their feet resting on the ground. As Seth made toward his bike, his brothers started riding around, circling, and getting ready to go back. Newton looked over at Brian as he walked toward his bike, and they met eyes. Brian had been feeling relief that there was nobody who had decided to dismount and kick his ass too, and now that they were all back on bikes he felt like he was in the clear. But that changed when Newton gave Brian a stare with insidious hints. Brian looked away. The Ledders slowly rolled away from the basketball court, and the two runners who had only just arrived, started trailing the riders in the same way in the opposite direction. Lou was sitting up, and Brian went over to help out. Speaking through blood, Lou said, “I guess I shouldn’t have shot so many foul shots.”

After a lull in the conversation, Brian observed Marcel gearing up for the trip down the face of the bowl. He gave words of encouragement and advice, and then Marcel shakily edged out over the precipice and dropped into the void. He hesitated as he sped up. When Marcel got to the bottom of the bowl, he remembered that he had to pedal to make it up the other side, and so he started pedaling furiously. When he did, his chain popped off. He had just enough speed to get about two thirds of the way up the other side of the bowl, and when he made it to that extent, he looked at Brian who was still sitting on his bike. Marcel took his eyes off of Brian as he started to roll backwards. He landed terribly awkward, and he, like his bike, flipped over and slid to the bottom of the chasm producing a clatter and and a cloud of dust.

Because the wall of the bowl was so steep, Brian did not even try to negotiate it on foot. Instead, he descended on his bike, squeezing his brakes the whole way. When he got to the bottom, he went over to Marcel who was underneath his bike. Marcel had cuts on the side of his left knee, both elbows and hands. Brian marveled at the pink and red that emerged in place of the missing brown flesh. “Are you okay, Marcel,” he asked in a high and desperate voice. Marcel only groaned and rolled over as Brian helped extract him from his bike. “Man, that was a terrible fall. I saw your chain pop at the bottom of the hill.” Brian was trying to talk through the his anxiousness. Marcel groaned and coughed trying to catch his wind, and got to his feet. “Shit,” he managed to whisper, and he tried to walk it off slowly. He was shook up, and Brian stood there not knowing what to do. He held Marcel’s bike and began to assess the damage. The handlebars were skewed, and the chain was still off, but there seemed to be no other problems. As Marcel continued to walk around, Brian put the front wheel between his legs and righted it. He then lifted the bike upside down, and began to assess the chain problem. He found that the chain was jammed between the rear wheel sprocket and the part of the frame that holds the wheel. He pulled at it for several minutes, but he could not free it, so he went to his own bike, and unlatched the vice grips.

When he turned around to face Marcel’s bike, he was facing Marcel as well. “You okay,” Brian asked, and Marcel nodded without looking up from his bike. Brian, in trying to assuage Marcel’s embarrassment, said, “Your chain is what messed you up; it’s stuck between your wheel and your frame.” He looked at Marcel’s knuckles and saw white scrapes and blood. The blood on his knee was now running to his sock. Brian kneeled at the back wheel of the bike and clamped the vice grips to one of the nuts on the axle. With a little pressure he was able to loosen it. He loosened the other one as well, and that allowed the chain to free itself. Brian grabbed it and laid it on the wheel sprocket and then went looking for a stick. Marcel watched him at work.

“Whatcha doin’,” Marcel asked, rubbing his hand.

“I’m tryin’ to find a stick or a board to push your wheel back.”

“Push my wheel back?”

As Brian returned with a section of rusty angle iron, he replied, “Yeah, I’m gonna wedge it between your frame and wheel to push it back. It’ll tighten it up that way.” Brian did exactly what he said he’d do, and when he pushed on the top, the chain went taut. Marcel took over the pushing, and Brian focused on tightening the nuts with the vice grips. In minutes they flipped the bike back over, and Marcel remounted it. Brian took him up a trail that wound up through the woods back to the lip of the bowl and the trail that led home. As they rode, Brian asked Marcel if he was okay. “Yeah, I’m fine,” Marcel replied with a hint of returned pride in his voice. When they came to the trail intersection, Brian asked if he wanted to go home or give the bowl another try.

“Is my chain gonna pop again,” Marcel asked. Brian looked at it and replied, “No, it’ll be fine.” Marcel put both his feet down on the trail and looked around. Brian blurted out, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Marcel looked down the trail home, and then he looked Brian in the eyes and asked, “Can you show me how to do it?”

“Sure,” Brian replied, turning to the bowl, and they rode the short distance to the lip. “The trick is to remember to keep pedaling. If you pedal the whole way you’ll make it no problem.” When they got to the edge, Brian pointed out a line to follow that was flat, that lacked rocks, and that wasn’t so steep when you got to the other side. “Just watch me,” Brian said, and he rolled down the hill pedaling the whole way. He climbed the other side easily and turned around. At the top, he dismounted his bike and leaned it up against a tree out of the way. He then took a stance on the distant rim of the bowl ready to catch Marcel if it looked like he might not make it again. He reminded Marcel of what to keep in mind and then waited quietly while he summoned up his will. Brian recognized the determination in Marcel’s eyes as he plunged down for the second time. This time he pedaled steadily, and the chain remained on its rings, and Marcel found himself shooting up the other side and up onto the ledge Brian occupied.

“Alright!” Brian exclaimed. “You did it! That was awesome!” Brian noted the joy on Marcel’s eyes, and then how he tamed it right away. Brian got back on his own bike, showed Marcel two other side trails and a jump. They rolled around the bowl and its surrounding trails for a little while longer before they mounted the trail for home. As they rode home slowly, Brian started conversation.

“You know, I got a master link at home. All you need to do is pop a couple links off that chain, and it’ll fit your bike better.”

“Oh yeah,” Marcel replied, watching the trail as he slowly rolled over it with his hand on his knee. Soon the trail turned into a two-lane dirt road, a utility road for the high-tension lines buzzing above them. Neither of them hurried. Both the summer and the day were only half over. They rolled slowly past the tennis courts, the basketball court, in front of the two baseball diamonds, around the curve of Simpler Ave. and into the fecund aroma of Jon Ganzano’s lush scallion field, a smell Brian loved. It made him think of the times when he enjoyed playing baseball games, how the smell rushed into the car as his dad drove by and it mixed with the smell of menthol cigarettes and his own sense of anticipation. Since baseball was something they shared, he wondered, as he took the smell of the scallions full into his chest, if Marcel did not have the same reaction to the fertile emanation. He glanced over but couldn’t tell. The sky nudged the clouds to the east as the pair came to the back entrance of the neighborhood. Brian turned into the road, but Marcel did not. “I’m going this way. It’s faster to my house,” Marcel said as he pedaled away not waiting for a reply. Brian made his way through the neighborhood at the same leisurely pace.

When he got home, he made himself lunch which he ate in the den where his father ate his dinners. He watched McHale’s Navy and Hogan’s Heroes, and had a thick slice of cake when the doorbell rang. He opened the front door, and Marcel was standing there with his bike.

“What’s up,” Brian said.

“What’s up,” Marcel replied. “Hey, if you got nuttin’ better to do, maybe you could pop dat link you was talkin’ ‘bout.”

“Did your chain pop again?”

“Naw, naw, it’s still on there, but if it’s too long, maybe we better take out dat link before it starts poppin’ again.”

“Alright, meet me in the garage.” Marcel turned and rolled his bike in that direction. Brian closed the door, and went back to the den, turned off the tv, and walked through the door to the dark garage. His own bike was in the back yard, and he had put his father’s tools away last time he was there, so there was room for Marcel to pull his bike into the gray space.

He started to turn it upside down, but Brian instructed him to lay it on its side. The link splitting required some pounding on the ground. With a five-eighths box wrench, Brian loosened the nuts on the axle, and the chain went slack again. He removed it from the wheel, removed the wheel from the frame, and then laid the chain out on the pewter-colored surface of the garage floor. They needed to open two links to remove a section of chain and then insert a masterlink. A master link was easier to install and open if future repairs to the chain were necessary. He took a regular screwdriver and a hammer and went right to work on a random link. He had performed this repair before and had had mixed results. Some links would bend and bend, never wanting to pop. Others popped right away, and the repair was easy. This time it took some working, but he had destroyed the link in fifteen minutes of work. He then began trying to open the other link. After working it for five minutes or so, he had Marcel try to pop it, but it wasn’t until Brian broke out a really fat screwdriver that they were able to pry it apart. They removed the pair of links, and then thought of the master link. It would be at the bottom of one of the wood crates out in the shed.

He emerged from his squat and invited Marcel to come around back with him. They walked back to the shed and moved his sisters’ bikes so that he could get to his parts. They removed the two crates from the shade of the shed, and then they began looking for the master link. They each dug for about five minutes before Marcel found it in his crate. They replaced the parts, put the crates back in the shed, and started for the garage. As they walked down the slight slope to the house, Brian thought that he saw the kitchen curtains move. Marcel was talking about a fish his brother had caught in Stewart lake, and it seemed as though he was about to invite Brian to go next time, but Brian wasn’t paying attention. As they rounded the corner, Brian noticed his dad’s car in the driveway and suddenly his skin felt cooler and moist. His next sight was Marcel’s bike and a few tools sprawled out on the garage floor.

They retook their positions on the cement floor of the garage, and as Brian began fitting the link to the chain, he started to wonder if he should go inside to check in with his father. He was nagged by the feeling that he should go make sure that his dad approved of what he was doing, even though he never said if he did or not. The feeling nagged at him as he tried to put it out of his mind. He could do it after the repair he thought. He told Marcel, “the only thing about a master link is that sometimes it can’t hold up under the pressure of pedaling. But this is a good one. I got it a few weeks ago from a guy who sells only good parts.” It wouldn’t take but a couple of minutes to slide the enjoining shafts of the new link into place and snap the coupling plate on with pliers so that the chain was whole again. Then all he needed to do is slip the chain onto the sprockets, pull back the wheel, and tighten the axle bolts. He heard the tv through the thin wall that divided the garage. He pictured his dad sitting there smoking a cigarette, and again he felt the need to go check in with him. He asked Marcel if he wanted to make the repair himself, and when Marcel said sure, he explained each step to him. He then told him he was going to check with his dad, that he’d be right back.

Brian nervously opened the door to the den, stepped in, and closed the door behind him. When he was younger, his dad would come home from work early to run baseball practice; he had been Brian’s coach since his first year of organized ball. But Brian stopped playing last year, and his father had stopped coaching the year before. And his dad didn’t usually come home this early anymore, and when he did, baseball was no longer there for them. When Brian stepped in the door, he looked at his dad, who did not take his eyes from the tv.

“Hi dad,” he started, but his father didn’t return the greeting because he was inhaling his cigarette.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m fixing Marcel’s bike. His chain bro…”

“Why are you doing it? Can’t he fix his own bike?

“ I dunno, I guess…” and Brian felt the inevitable loss in this conversation like a chess player realizes that it is only a matter of moves before his king will be mated.

“You know, I am tired of telling you not to lend my tools out to just any kid in the neighborhood.” His voice was raising above the noise of the tv. Rook takes bishop. Check.

“I am using the tools, he’s not. I am the one fixing his bike.” King dodges rook.

“I don’t care. I don’t want you using my tools, and I don’t want you bringing kids like that around here.” Queen sweeps across board taking rook and pinning king in. Check mate. End of conversation.

Brian didn’t even need to think about the phrase kids like that. He knew what he meant. Brian thought about the other boys who played on his baseball team, and he tried to repicture his dad as their coach. What had changed since those years? What did his friends ever do to him? He thought about Marcel on the other side of the wall, and he just wanted to end the discussion before it got any worse.

“Okay, Dad.” He turned toward the door and paused briefly to make sure of his father’s silence, and then opened the door. When he did, he saw the top of Marcel’s head and looked over him and the bike. Marcel did not look up at the younger Brian standing before him, but kept trying to pound the link together with the hammer and the screwdriver. Brian immediately saw the need for a squeezing tool. Vice grips popped into mind first, but then he remembered that the coupling plate can be made of fragile metal and vice grips are often to forceful. Pliers would be better. They were more easily tempered by the hand because they lacked a locking mechanism.

“It can be tough to get. Try squeezing it with pliers, and if you can’t get it with them, then hit the pliers lightly with the hammer and that will put it into place.” Marcel did what Brian said in his characteristic silence, and it worked. As Marcel draped the chain over the spikes of the two sprockets, Brian took an old broom handle and used it as a wedged as he had earlier that day on the trail. Marcel, now well acquainted with the process, took the wrench and tightened nuts on the axle as Brian maintained a necessary pressure. As they made the bike whole again, Brian looked at the new arrangement and wondered if the link would hold.