the ride home

everything falls away as i pedal up fulton to vanderbilt, then left on dean, swooping home through the dark on my heavy old bike. even tonight after over 12 hours at work, about 10 of those really working in earnest, my energy lifts as i climb on the seat, slide the clip-on light in its holster, kick the pedals, push across atlantic avenue's wide relentless lanes, rounding the corner by the glass-fronted hipster bar that's always bright and full of laughing kids, then past the round-domed church with its bright stained glass and scaffolding, into the dean street silence. my favorite part.

there's barely any traffic, so it's easy to roll past the natty garden shop with its rasta-painted fence, past the auto body shop with its vintage lettered sign, past unseen barking dogs, into the land of unknown buildings. ancient icehouse-looking structures, brick archways over wood-shuttered windows, iron stars marking the crumbling walls. junkyards with 12-foot-tall fences, edged with concertina wire. unfinished, industrial, un-yuppified lofts, artist spaces in where they aren't supposed to live but do anyhow, and across from those, another artist spot, the low little building set back from the street, mini-junkyard for a front yard and out front on the sidewalk, fat boulders that somebody has painted pink. a kitschy displaced neon sign that says "Gina's Boutique" hangs from the low roof of the shack-like building, sometimes on, sometimes off, sometimes flashing. i always wonder what the different settings mean.

one night when i was riding home there was a big slick unmarked tour bus parked out front and in the junkyard, hipster kids hanging around a campfire. bright industrial lights set up almost like it was a movie, but nobody was filming. they were just hanging out. one guy was wearing some kind of fake-fur tunic over his t-shirt. i flashed on owen wilson's character in zoolander, with his surfboard and crazy loft compound full of surfers, dwarves, and special tea. i approached the driver side of the bus. the tour bus driver, a weary bald guy in his 60s with an eastern european accent, slowly lowered his window. "Did you drive those people here?" I asked "Oh yes," he said wearily. "What are they doing?" "I don't know," he sighed, as if this illogical late-night ghetto adventure pretty much signaled the end of all reason. "I don't know." He paused. Then, "What are you doing?" "Just riding home. Have a good night!" He shook his head and almost smiled. I rode off.

Three doors down,  2 big black bouncer-looking guys hovered in front of another unmarked building, fronted with a wall of glass windows. music pulsed from inside. a black limo out front. balloons tied to the iron railings. two white girls and a boy spilled out of the building. the boy was wearing sunglasses and couldn't have been more than 14. "Who let these kids out? They should be home in bed!" I said to the bouncers as I rode by. They smiled.

Just another night on Dean Street.