Stolen

There is no good way to begin this post. But I must write this.


Yesterday my bicycle was stolen.

I'd been curious, before sometimes when I'd lock up my bicycle and walk away from it (in a sort of dark wondering) what it would feel like to come back and find it gone. 

Well. It feels disbelieving, panicked, shocking, grief. I'd cable-locked it outside the Rochester Public Market for all of 30 minutes in the sunny morning, skipping inside to buy blackberries and a scone. And then upon return: that sinking sight of empty fence.

That bicycle was my greatest single source of happiness: my freedom, my frugality, my defiant expression, my grace. It was speed and endorphins and making friends on wheels and blowing off steam. It was manifestation of memories of ferries in Washington State, dirt roads in Cambodia, grocery-carrying in rural NY.  I'd laughed, cried, sung, and sweated on it.

This is a very fascinating study in Attachment. Who knew an object could represent so much?

I did the responsible, pointlessly hopeful, and only thing I could do of contacting the police and filing a report. I felt sickened, surreal. There is little hope in recovering stolen bicycles: they become entangled in pawnshops, drug deals, passed from person to person, broken up for parts. And the logistics of being bike-less were dawning on me: how would I get around now (I had bicycled to the city from Geneva--48 miles)? How would I do that Bicycle MS Ride I'd been fundraising for?

After the paperwork I asked for a cup of water, gathered all I had left in the city (my phone, wallet, and a scone--everything else was on the bike) into a plastic bag, and walked away from the market, feeling amputated and bereaved. I made it as far as the Memorial Art Gallery lawn, looking for a sanctuary. I sat under a tree there, set my cup of water down, and cried.

To maintain some structure to what once had been a joyfully beautiful day (full of hopes of coffeeing and letter writing, and later riding with a new bicycle boy) I decided to continue with my plan of going for a Very Wonderful Latte, at one of the few "best" coffee shops in Rochester. I walked and it took me some time and I grieved and pouted and wondered about stealing and attachment.

"Nice hair," said a police officer, having a smoke outside the coffee shop. I was passing him as he told a self-depricating story about his recent bicycle accident. He was neither old nor unattractive, and was quite engaging, and so I shared that I'd wished I'd had a bicycle accident but I just had mine stolen. He was working a 16 hour shift and needed a rest and I had no bicycle to ride now, so we sat and drank coffee and shared woes and listened. I learned about his beats, about the frustrations of the police hierarchy, about how the fruits of his labors are often unseen and thankless. I told him about how this bike had gone 14,000 miles, how it had been a graduation present from my grandparents; I showed him its picture--all neon green handlebars--in Cambodia, a crowd of dusty kids encircling it enquisitively.

And I don't know what possessed me to do it, maybe it was flipping through my things to get the bicycle photo--but I took from my notebook one of my four-leaf clovers and gave it to him. He seemed genuinely pleased; nobody had given him one before, and he tucked it away somewhere. "Really great to chat with you" he said as he drove off. I agreed, and added in silly hope added: "If you happen to see a bike with neon-green handlebars...."

Then Mr. New Bike Boy fetched me, all consolingly, from the coffee shop and listened to my grievances and we went thrifting and walking in the sun in Rochester. I still felt terrible, but no longer as shocked.

.................................
 
As the sun began to set my phone rang. Mr. New Bike and I were driving and I scrabbled to answer.

It was Officer Coffee. "Can you describe your bicycle to me again?" he asked. I went through the rack, the mirror, the 2 water bottle cages. He sounded unconvinced. Then I described the neon green handlebars and the green stripe in the seat. "I think I've found your bike" he said, and Mr. New Bike Boy told me later I kicked his dashboard in my excitement (I didn't even realize it at the time). It's that moment when Hope becomes a feeling, a fire pulsing through your blood, taking over your physical being.

We waited a 10-minute-long 5 hours--giddily hopeful but without full validity yet--for Officer Coffee to meet us and when that white police car rolled up and I saw those green handlebars gleeming from the trunk I bolted alongside the car hollering and Officer Coffee opened his door and--tazer, bullet-proof vest, handcuffs and all--I jumped directly into his arms.

This was one of the top three hugs of my life and I will relish it for some time. I was giddy and laughing and pounding him on the back and he nearly lifted my feet off the ground.

He told his story. "I left you after coffee and there wasn't much going on....and I realized from that photo with the Cambodian kids, this wasn't just a bike. This was someone's memories. So I drove in radiating circles beginning at the Public Market until I got to Route 104. Then I drove down Clinton Ave." And there, on one of the top heroine corners in Rochester, he saw a group of kids with bicycles. And one with green handlebars. He approached them, "nice bikes," he observed, " 'specially this one.  You could ride pretty fast on this one." Then when he asked whose it was, everyone started looking at their boots and shuffling away. He had it.

They'd stripped my handlebar bag, back-rack, and water bottle cage off it. And the computer recorded that the thief had been about 6 miles in distance and had hit 30 mph (?!). But it was my bike. Returned. Incredibly intact.

I was elated and grateful far beyond normalcy. "How can I EVER thank you?!?" I asked Officer Coffee. "Well. You gave me a hug," he said, obviously pleased. We were all grinning like our faces might split. And then he added that it was one of the best jobs he'd had in weeks: that he got to make some girl's day, that he saw the tangible fruits of his work.

And then he reached into his pocket and opened his RPD badge: right there besides his photograph was my four-leaf clover. "It might have been because of this," he said.

Wow.

Wow.

What if he hadn't commented on my hair? What he had been called to a more diverting homicide that afternoon? What if I'd given up on coffee and instead went home? What if neither of us had listened? What if I wasn't always finding 4-leaf clovers and carrying them around with me?


The magic of that four-leaf clover comes not from some Irish superstition, but from what it represents. A little gift, two people listening to each other, someone being particularly compassionate and generous with his time, human connection and beautiful coincidence.