The Rough Parts of Town
“Good morning. There’s coffee, but I have to take Stephen to work,” Mrs. McKay said nodding towards her oldest son, “I’ll make you some breakfast when I get back.” They both squeezed by and rushed to the car without giving me any kind of time estimate.
I really just wanted to hit the road, but felt it would be rude to leave, even though I felt it was equally rude to hold me hostage to serve me breakfast that I didn’t ask for or want. I was finding that the mornings at the host families were turning out a bit tricky. I wanted to make sure that they felt how much I appreciated their hospitality so I didn’t want to treat them like a hotel where you silently leave once you’re packed up. The other side of that equation, and I knew it came from the best possible place, was that my host families were equally interested in ensuring that I didn’t leave wanting for anything. The ideal scenario would have been a cup or two of coffee before a swift departure. It would serve both of us well. As I sat there waiting for Mrs. McKay to return, not knowing when that would be, I thought about ways to try and streamline this process at future host housing.
About an hour later Mrs. McKay reappeared apologizing immediately for the delay. I reassured her it was fine, but as I looked at the clock, I did realize I didn’t actually have time for breakfast. As part of the Michigan Meals on Wheels contingent, a gentleman, Nathan Puryear, had offered to escort me through Saginaw, MI and I was supposed to meet him a bit up the road at 9am. I needed to get moving as I didn’t want to keep him waiting on me.
Up until mapping myself across Michigan trying to get to Ludington, the only other time I’d heard of Saginaw, MI was in that old country song by some guy I didn’t remember. In the song the guy sings about his dad being a Fisherman in Saginaw Bay so I assumed it was a town close to the water. When I was told that Mr. Puryear was going to escort me through to ensure I wouldn’t get lost in a bad part of town, I was fairly sure this wouldn’t be necessary but I’d been lost enough times on this trip that I figured that if it kept me on schedule, what could it hurt?
I arrived at our agreed upon meet up spot and didn’t see anybody waiting on me which was a relief. I hated being late and never wanted anybody to have to sit around waiting on me. I didn’t particularly like waiting on anybody else either, but the frustration I might feel waiting on someone else was much better than the stress and anxiety I’d feel knowing they were waiting on me. I wasn’t there very long before I saw a larger man riding his bike and I wondered if this was him. I hadn’t seen a lot of other cyclists through this part of Michigan so I decided the odds were pretty good. Sure enough, he pulled into the parking lot where I was and we exchanged handshakes and greetings. Mr. Puryear was a jolly man with a smile that wrapped around his face. He didn’t physically strike me as a cyclist, but that made me like him even more. I’d meet countless other skinny dudes on bikes in my life and it was nice to meet someone who didn’t fit that mold but enjoyed riding a bike just as much, if not more, than any of those guys. He immediately started in with a justification of his escort services, telling me that he was a retired high school teacher and some of the neighborhoods we’d be riding through were pretty rough, but since he’d taught most of the kids, nobody would mess with him. Maybe I was being a bit naive about how rough the neighborhoods of a town I’d basically never heard of could be, but I just didn’t see that part of this whole interaction as necessary. I knew that rough part of town was polite white person speak for where poor black people live and it was even more on the nose that a series of white people were concerned about my safe passage through rough parts of town. I wasn’t sure how to object to this whole thing without offending everyone involved who despite the veiled racism were really trying to protect me. I decided to just try and change the subject as we got started on our ride through Saginaw.
The last people I’d ridden with were the Mitchell’s in Maine so having a person to draft off of, even though we were going pretty slow and it wasn’t windy, was a nice treat. Mr. Puryear thought it was great as he felt like it made his job even more important. I made the mistake of assuming he’d done this before and would point out road hazards, as was normal behavior when someone is following closely on your wheel and they can’t see what you might be approaching. As we were cruising along on the shoulder of the highway we crossed an overpass. About this time Mr. Puryear shifted slightly left on his line, but not enough for me to think anything of it or follow. Almost immediately I saw the 2x4 that he had moved to avoid but didn’t have enough time to go around it. I tried to bunny hop it, as that was my next natural decision process and without the Bob, I’m confident I would have cleared it and we’d have kept riding and Mr. Puryear wouldn’t have even realized anything had happened, but with the trailer attached, the rear wheel didn’t really get off the ground and I found myself being forced to the right, directly toward the guard rail meant to keep cars on the overpass. With a brief moment of terror that I might flip over that thing and end up on the road, 15 or 20 feet below, I bailed hard to the right, deciding that some road rash up here, was a better alternative than whatever would happen down there. My right knee hit the ground and slid, but before it could go very far, the front wheel hit the guard rail and all forward motion stopped. Just like in every other bike crash I’d had over the years, my first thought was never about my own injuries, it was immediate concern that I’d broken the front wheel and how much that would cost to replace.
I hopped up, grabbing the bike so that I could spin the front wheel to assess for damage. It spun true which was a relief. I did a quick assessment of the rest of the bike, since I’d gone down on the drive side to ensure that the derailleurs and gears would all shift. When they did, I let out another sigh of relief. The only damage to the bike I could see was a bit of a tear to the bar tape on the right side of the handlebars. But that wasn’t a big deal. Bar tape was cheap and this tear wasn’t going to necessitate a replacement. Satisfied that the bike was fine, I took stock of myself, because my priorities were clearly in the right place.
My right knee, which had hit the ground, hurt like shit. There was a decent abrasion on the fleshy part just below my knee cap and a small trail of blood formed down my leg. I bent my leg back trying to touch my heel to my butt. Not that I could have actually made contact anyway, but was satisfied that the range of motion wasn’t limited any more than normal due to my extreme inflexibility. I wiggled my knee cap and determined that while it hurt, it wasn’t broken. I figured it was going to tighten up the longer I stood around so I should start pedaling as soon as possible. I quickly checked in Bob bag to try and find a rag to do a rough cleaning of the wound. The only thing I could find was a rag I’d previously used to wipe the excess lube off the chain. I didn’t think chain lube would kill me so I went ahead and used it. After a quick blast of water, I scrubbed at it with the lube rag, immediately second guessing this decision wondering if the lube would cause some sort of infection. I decided a second shot of water would clean out any lube leftovers and I’d just let it air dry as I started pedaling again. I’d been so concerned with the bike and myself that I hadn’t even noticed that Mr. Puryear wasn’t there. I looked up the road and saw him pedaling away, blissfully unaware that anything had happened. I hoped back on the bike and set off, riding fast, to catch him.
I caught him before we got into Saginaw and before the highway turned into a city street. We made our way through the city, but it wasn’t ever clear to me when we were and weren’t in the rough parts of town. I’m fairly certain we didn’t see a sole or get passed by a car the entire time. Learning my lesson about following Mr. Puryear too closely I gave him a little extra space, which was a good thing, because without warning, he turned right into a parking lot.
“This is the other end of town,” he said cheerfully. “Want a donut?”
“Absolutely.”
As he went inside to get the donuts, I did a second inspection of my knee. It was pretty tender and was definitely going to swell up a bit, but my assessment stood, that it wasn’t anything to be bothered by and shouldn’t require any recovery days to let it heal up. Mr. Puryear came back out, saw me futzing with my knee which had bleed a little bit more on the ride and asked, “What happened there?” I laughed and recapped the story, editing for the part where he might feel responsible for leading me right over a 2x4.
“Really? I didn’t hear anything. I’m sorry!”
“I’ll be fine. Not the first time I’ve crashed a bike.”
We bumped our donuts together to cheers our successful passage through a war zone. I thanked Mr. Puryear for showing me through town and for the delicious donut. As I pulled back onto the highway which I would stay on for the rest of the day, I guessed that Mr. Puryear knew that I wasn’t actually going to be in any danger riding through Saginaw on my own at 10am. He probably just thought it’d be fun to ride a few miles with me on my trip and instead of just saying so, created a reason to make it happen. I would have been up for the company no matter what. Or, maybe Saginaw was some rough place that I was unaware of and he and the others were genuinely concerned for my safety. Who knows what the genuine motivation was. I liked the idea that it was based out of pure interest in sharing some miles with me on a bike. I was less comfortable with the veiled racism of the escorting through danger and didn’t like the position it put me in to either accept this help, which felt like I was an accomplice in this way of thinking, or to call our their racism, reject the help, and potentially offend someone who was going out of their way to help a stranger. I didn’t know what the right response was. This would chew at me for the rest of the day.
