The Cog

            by Russell Hilken

 

            He heard the rattle of chain and his heart raced.  His step hurried to a run and he flew around the corner.  But he was too late.  The stripped carcass of his best friend lay on the ground in front of him.  No. 

 

            Jordi pushed open the door to his grubby west Berkeley house, escaping the dark outside.  The hardwood floor inside was worn from so many footsteps and it creaked when he came in.  Two men sat in the front room, their backs to Jordi.  At the sound of the squeak they looked.  “Sup Jord!  They say anything?”

            “Those cops don’t know shit,” Jordi spat.  His roommate, Mike, was holding some sort of tubing onto a pile of junk he liked to call art while fanning the glue with his hand.  Next to Mike was a tall blond man, busily avoiding eye contact with Jordi.

“Hey Ace,” Jordi hailed.  The blond man shifted and grunted.  He called himself Ace, but everyone else called him Ass.

Jordi shared the house with a three other people besides Mike, all of them artists.  Strange sculptures hung from the ceiling and walls and paintings were done directly on the walls, no one bothered with canvass.  The inhabitants were all young, and not exactly tidy.  Clothing covered the floors in the bedrooms, and bits of machinery and garbage lay everywhere else.  Two parakeets lived in the house, though they weren’t caged, and were free to go anytime.

            Mike stood, shaking his hands to rid them of the strands of glue hanging like spider webs.  He wore an ancient pair of jeans riddled with holes and grease stains.  His feet were bare and he had to pick carefully through the junk on his floor as he approached Jordi. 

            “I can’t figure it out.  Why didn’t they take the whole bike?  They got the lock off without breaking it, they could have made off with a cool two-thousand dollars of bike, but instead they trashed my frame and took the rear wheel.  What the hell?”

            “Maybe they didn’t realize how nice it was,” Mike said.

            Jordi shot him a look.  “Thing was fucking gleaming!”

            Mike just laughed his concession.  “True, true,”

            “The cops don’t give a damn about my wheel, it would almost have been better if my whole bike had been stolen,”

            “I hear you.  Same thing happened to me a couple years ago.  Back when we were living in Portland and I was still building frames.  You remember the shop, right?  You were in there all the time.  I must’ve had a dozen frames and bikes in there, not to mention a computer and stereo and tools.  Well, one night someone broke in there, no forced entry, looked like they walked right in.  When I showed up in the morning I found the door open, but nothing was gone.  Then I looked closer and realized they had taken The Cog.  You remember The Cog, right?”

            Jordi did remember.  Mike’s dad had died before Jordi ever had the chance to meet him, but he obviously meant a lot to Mike.  Apparently, the only two things Mike kept from his father was a bayonet from Vietnam and a gold medal his father had won running in the Olympics.  Mike melted them both down and remolded them to create a fixed gear for his bicycle.  The gear was very strong and had a golden shine to it.  Mike never put it on a bike, though he meant to, he kept it hidden in his shop.

            “I mean, someone got in my shop, went directly for the drawer where I kept it and walked out with the one thing that meant anything to me.”

            With a glance into the front room Jordi whispered, “Wasn’t Ace living with us back then?”

            Mike rolled his eyes; he had been friends with Ace since childhood.  “I know he can be a dick, but that doesn’t make him a thief.  I respected you guys’ wishes when I asked him not to live with us, but cut him a break, alright?”

            Jordi shrugged, not convinced.  He and Mike were like brothers, but sometimes Mike could be dense.  Mike returned to his art project and Jordi trudged up the stairs.  His feet hurt from so much walking and his one ratty pair of shoes was coming apart at the seams.  He missed the familiar feeling of the breeze on his arms, the grit on his face, the thrill of a perfectly timed light.  Jordi started riding a bike when he was six and he never used training wheels.  The feeling of the first glide down the hill in front of his house was something he could never lose.  His legs were scarred and greasy, his triceps were overdeveloped and now that he couldn’t ride, his eyes were baggy from lack of sleep. 

            In high school, Jordi really fell in love with riding.  He raced BMX and mountain bikes for years until he was exposed to track racing.  The first time he saw a track bike he was confused and aroused at the same time.  The simple clean lines looked so pure and the beautiful lack of gears or breaks created a stunning simplicity.  Jordi knew he had to have one.

            In his room, Jordi dumped his bag on the floor and kicked through the junk on his floor to clear a path to his bed.  He sat down heavily on the cot, head in hands.  Despite its chaotic appearance, his room was vaguely organized.  Dirty clothes in one pile, books and magazines piled in the corner, garbage strewn in the general vicinity of the wastebasket.  Looking around, Jordi sensed something wrong.  His piles were moved.  His lamp and clock had shifted.  What the hell? 

            His heart pounded at the thought.  He lunged for his bedside table, reaching around the back where he kept his spare bike key.  But there was only a piece of tape where the key had once been.  Why didn’t I check that sooner?

            The stagnant air in his room crammed his nostrils and the colorful walls seemed dark as they closed in around him.  Jordi grabbed a jacket and fled.  He thundered down the stairs, nearly falling twice.  In the front room Ace painted the ceiling while Mike nursed a beer.

            “You guys haven’t seen my bike key have you?” Jordi said, his voice flat and accusing.  Ace slowly lowered his brush and descended the ladder, meeting Jordi’s glare.  The house was still.  Tension hummed between the men, nicely accented with a touch of anger and fear. 

            “Mike, you gonna te-” Ace started.

            “Shut up.  Jordi, I thought we went over this.  What the fuck are you doing?”

            But he was talking to dead air; Jordi hurried outside into the cool night air.  He took a few deep breaths to collect himself.  As he walked away from his house, his skin tingled.  The night seemed electrically charged as if a storm waited just over the horizon, ready to unleash its fury.  A plastic bag rustled, trapped in the clutches of a leafless tree.  The same breeze stirring the bag kicked leaves and wrappers along the ground like rats running from some terrible force. 

            Jordi walked quickly, not thinking where he was going, just moving along.  Large chunks of the street lay in darkness, the street lights burnt out or nonexistent.  Before he knew what he was doing, Jordi turned down Second Street and crept among the shadows on the unpaved street.  At the pole, he stopped.  He could still make out the tire tracks in the dust, the last place he had seen his bicycle.

            She had been beautiful.  The frame was hand built large for Jordi’s long legs and painted a smooth black.  The bull-horn handlebars were wrapped in red bar tape, untainted by brakes or cables.  The rims were bright, shiny red, laced to black high-flange hubs.  But his favorite part was the cog.  It was a glossy, blood-red, sixteen tooth beauty.  He had special-ordered it to be completely unique.

            But now all he had was a dented frame and broken fork dead in his basement.

            A slight motion on the other side of the street caught Jordi’s eye.  Something moved low in the shadows, stopping and slinking secretly.  Jordi crouched and peered into the dark.  A large dog trotted out from behind a car, laying his territory.  It had muscular shoulders and an angry face that looked at least part pit-bull.  One ear was tattered and a scar on its side was visible from where Jordi stood, motionless.  He had been bit by dogs before and this one looked like it would do more than just bite.  Suddenly the night felt dangerous and a cold gust bit through Jordi’s thin jacket.  He turned towards home, walking hurriedly, looking over his shoulder often. 

On his own block, he glanced up at his window, visible from the street.  The light was on.  I know I left the light off.  A shadow moved across the ceiling and the light went dark.  Jordi broke into a run, not sure what he would find.  As he ran up the porch he heard shouts from within the house and he paused. 

“God dammit Ace.  What the hell were you thinking?  I’ve been defending you for years!”

“He’d find out eventually, you’d have to tell…”

“Get the hell out of my house!  And I’d better not be missing anything after you leave!”

The front door burst open and Ace stormed out.  He locked eyes with Jordi nervously and shoved a bit of canvas into Jordi’s hand.  The cloth was tattered and looked as if it had been tacked to a wall but violently ripped off.  Jordi entered the house slowly, avoiding the creaky spot on the floor.  He slowly opened the canvas, trying not to smudge the still-wet ink. 

He knows who took The Cog, so do you.    –A

Adrenaline flooded his veins and Jordi sprinted up the stairs towards Mike’s room.  “Mike!  That was years ago!  I didn’t know how much it meant to you, I’m sorry!” Jordi hollered.  He flung open the door to Mike’s room and froze.  Mike was putting the finishing touches on a huge sculpture made entirely out of old bike parts.  In the center he glued the last piece.  A blood-red cog.