The Barford Files Chapters VII and VIII
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Patchwork People VII: A Bicycle Built For Two. free porn video
VII. A bicycle built for two.
Everyman's Cycles looked like a bicycle field hospital. Wherever you
looked bicycles, or parts of bicycles, stood, leaned, or lay in various
states of distress, awaiting Walt's attention. He'd get to each of them,
eventually, in his methodical, patient way. Walt took in stray bicycles
the way crazy old ladies collected cats. Most of them were rescues.
Bicycles he found abandoned in fields, weeds growing through their
spokes. Or locked for months to streets signs during which vandals had
stripped them to their forks. He found perfectly good bicycles moldering
away at the bottom of creeks, left at the curb on garbage day, or sold
for a few bucks at garage sales.
Walt seldom came upon one of these orphaned cycles that he could resist
giving a second chance, even if it were only a matter of re-purposing a
part or two, allowing the transplanted piece to live on in a new
incarnation. Bicycle repair was, in that sense, more than a hobby; it was
a workingman's metaphor for survival.
Walt had asked Marcia to stop by the shop after work; he wanted to show
her something special.
"It's kind of a surprise," he said, when she arrived. "It's in the back
workroom. Come on, I'll show you."
"A surprise, huh?" Marcia smiled. His excitement, even in her unsettled
frame of mind, was contagious.
"Cover your eyes," Walt instructed her, when she reached the doorway. He
took her by the elbow and led her into his inner sanctum. She shuffled
forward carefully a few steps before Walt gave her the okay to take her
hands away.
Marcia had no idea where she was supposed to rest her eyes. The workroom
was the usual chaos of parts and tools. Slowly it dawned on Marcia what
Walt had brought her to see, and only because he'd led her to stand right
in front of it. Even then, it took a moment or two for her to identify
the object on the workstation stand.
Walt was clearly overjoyed with the work-in-progress.
"Hey, a bicycle built for two. How cool."
"I bought it second-hand," Walt said, glowing with satisfaction. "It's an
Enrico Borsellano."
"I take it that's a good thing?"
"Only one of the best custom tandem's ever made. Certainly one of the
rarest. Maybe ten were ever completed. All hand-made."
Walt ran his own hand over what Marcia recognized now as the bicycle's
gracefully-wrought frame. It looked like a greyhound in motion.
"It was made by an Italian bicycle racer who hid Jews escaping through
the Alps from Germany during the Holocaust. Borsellano fell in love with
one of the escapees. A woman named Sofia. Someone tipped off the local
authorities who arrested him and Sofia. They turned them both over to the
Gestapo. As an Italian citizen, he was eventually released but Sofia was
marched back to Germany and interred in a camp. Heartbroken, he started
building the tandems shortly after that, as if they were talismans,
hoping she'd come back someday to ride it with him."
"Did she?"
"She was never officially counted among the dead. But, neither was she
ever accounted for. "
"That's such a sad story."
"You can tell how much he loved her just looking at the craftsmanship
that went into this bicycle. The care that went into each weld. It's as
if the frame itself were caressed into shape. His passion honed as hot
and intense as the flame of an acetylene torch. You can't buy quality
like this anymore. Not for any price."
"Where did you find it?"
"Craigslist. A widower in Dover Valley put it up. He and his late wife
had used it for decades. Over the years, they'd actually taken it to all
the way across country and back. They did it in stages. It was a lifelong
ambition. They managed to finish the last leg shortly before his wife got
too ill to ride anymore. Took the bike through Death Valley, believe it
to not."
Marcia stepped forward and ran her fingers over the stripped down tandem.
A heartbreak of a bicycle, she was thinking.
"It must have been hard for him to part with it."
"Yes and no. He was happy it would be going to someone who'd appreciate
it. Another couple, who would take it on their own adventure. That's how
he put it. He insisted on selling it to me for the price he listed, even
after I told him it was worth about three times what he was asking."
"Another couple on an adventure, huh?"
"Of course. What would you call us?"
Marcia looked up and saw Walt, well, not exactly frowning. Inquiring,
maybe was the word for it.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean whatever you thought I meant."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know. I wish I hadn't even opened my mouth because clearly there
wasn't a fully formed thought behind whatever it was I was saying."
It was one of those rare moments when she and Walt weren't in perfect
accord, practically able to finish each other's sentences. Marcia could
have kicked herself for ruining the moment and didn't want to have the
conversation that was going to ultimately follow. Why did this have to
happen now, of all times? She fixed her eyes on the bicycle, touched it,
tentatively. "I've never ridden a tandem before."
To her relief, Walt let her change the subject. He was not the sort to
press, not when the time wasn't right.
"It takes some getting used to, but it's not hard once you get the hang
of it."
"How long before it's ready?"
"Well, I have a lot of work I'd like to do on her. The gear levers need
to be changed, the brakes are a little soft...and the seats are pretty
worn. I might change the tires, too. I can do some things to lighten the
overall weight and make it handle a little better. Also the pedals aren't
in sync..."
"Sounds complicated."
Walt considered the machine. "Actually, it's not as complicated as it
sounds. I'll have to salvage some parts from here and there; special
order some others. But it'll be worth it when it's done. You'll see."
Walt gave the seat, what would be Marcia's seat, a loving pat. "For all
the trouble, it'll be a sweet ride."
"I can't wait. It's going to be a lot of fun."
"It's going to be great, you wait and see," he assured her. "This bicycle
has magic in it. I can feel it. It'll take us places you can't even
imagine."
"Walt..."
"What is it baby? What's the matter?"
She'd wanted to keep this light, as light as possible, anyway. But the
look of concern on Walt's face had brought to the surface the emotions
that Marcia was struggling to keep submerged. Before she knew it, she was
crying and Walt was holding her in his arms. "Walt I have something to
tell you..."
"Tell me," he said.
* * *
They were sitting in a little park dedicated to the memory of a long dead
Hope Crossing resident. Edgar Terwilliger Birdwell wasn't remembered
nowadays as a poet, not even by Hope Crossing residents, but as the
occupant of a half-acre plot of landscaped greenery that formed an island
where Front Street branched off into two streets leading out of the
center of town.
There Marcia told Walt the same abbreviated version of the story that
she'd told Grace.
Walt listened patiently, without interrupting. When she finished Walt
remained quiet for a long time. The only sound was the burbling the water
of the modest fountain behind them. In the center of the fountain stood
the statue of a stern-looking man in a bronze suit and cravat. In his
left arm he clutched a tarnished bronze book. In his right, he brandished
a feathered quill pen.
Edgar Terwillinger Birdwell.
"This doesn't change anything," Walt said, at last. "If that is what you
were concerned about. It is, isn't it?"
Marcia nodded her head, staring into her lap.
Walt lifted her chin with a finger, forced her to look into his eyes. He
repeated the words slowly. "This doesn't change anything. Do you hear
me?"
Marcia nodded.
"Say it."
"I hear you."
"Good. We'll deal with this. It'll be okay."
"I don't know about that Walt. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be
to her at this point. How am I going to relate her? As a father? I'm not
a father. I never was a father, never meant to be a father. I was hardly
even a parent to her for the last ten years."
"No, you're not a father. But maybe there's something other role you can
play. Why don't we just wait and see what it is that Phoebe needs?"
"I've made such a hash of this whole thing Walt."
"It's going to be okay baby. You'll see. Believe me, I know. I've been
there."
Walt had three children of his own. Now grown, they were scattered around
the country. Walt seldom saw them and when he did he was required to fly
out to meet them. They never came to Hope Crossing. His relationship with
each of them was on the mend and in each case it was mending slowly. Walt
never specified the reasons for the rift and Marcia figured he had
reasons for not doing so. Marcia had never met any of them and didn't
expect she ever would. If it came to that, she couldn't imagine her
existence being anything but another cause for contention.
"Remember, you're not in this by yourself. I'm here, in whatever way you
need."
"Thanks. I appreciate that," Marcia said. "I really do. I'm just not sure
I can handle this, even with help. I feel awful. I can't help wishing
she'd never called. I just don't know if I can survive it."
"Her coming back into your life?"
"Yes, I feel guilty but it's the truth. But what I don't think I can
survive is her inevitable going away again. It was hard enough the first
time. It nearly destroyed me."
"What makes you think her leaving is inevitable? You don't know things
will end the same way."
"I'm wondering if I can even take the risk that it does. I came so close
to the edge last time. I'm repaired now, but I'm still broken, the fault
lines are all still there."
"People are stronger than they think, Marcia. When they have to, they can
bear up under a lot more than you would think. "
"I sure hope you're right," Marcia said.
Because right now, she was thinking, I don't think I can bear up against
much.
* * *
Author note: I plan to publish "Patchwork People" in its entirety in
weekly installments here on Fictionmania. In the meantime, the complete
novel is currently available as an Amazon Kindle ebook for $2.99.
For more of my writings, drawings, erotica, and photos please visit my
blog Sissypop!
sissyforlife(dot)blogspot(dot)com.
Blaze
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