A bike ride in the city

September 12, 2008

Josh was on a little motorcycle. He was wearing a gray t-shirt and jeans, with a camera bag strapped to his hip. The choke was acting up and the motorbike was coughing and sneezing. Josh was fiddling with the choke arm. I had been talking about my landlord; that he grew raspberries and didn't eat them himself, that he encouraged me to, and how delicious they were. Strawberries too, although he ate some of those.

"I'm not exactly sure how that works," I said, pointing a plastic fork towards the choke arm, "it doesn't normally sputter like that though." I was eating Chinese food. Mongolian chicken; delicious.

Josh started to back the bike out of the little yard behind my apartment, bringing it around to face the fence. He aimed it at the open gate and twisted the gas. The bike jumped out the opening, turned sharp and bumbled down the alley. I stood in the yard, bare footed, with rolled up jeans and a tank top, Mongolian chicken and plastic fork in hand, chewing big and looking around.

A minute later, I heard the whining buzz of the bike, and Josh appeared in front of the gate. He turned into the yard, and pulling up in front of me, pressed down on the kill switch. The bike gasped and went quiet.

"It was the choke. It seems to be doing fine now." Josh said, getting of the bike and wheeling close to the garage.

"Yeah, I don't really know how that works, but it never gives me problems like that. I think it's just a combination of the choke and knowing the bike a bit. I don't know." My food was gone. I frowned at the empty styrofoam box.

After Josh had put the bike in place, I put a U-Lock around the fork, through the spokes of the front wheel. I collected most the trash from my food, pocketed a packet of soy sauce, and started to head for the back door of my little apartment building.

"Now *I'm* starving." Josh said.

"You can grab something downtown if you want to," I started opening the door to the building and walking in, "I've got some bananas, an apple and some peanuts if you want something in the meantime. I'm going to wash up real quick." I unlocked my flimsy door in the hall, and pushed it open.

A little bit of sunlight shone through my window. My apartment is one room, with a glossed and scratched wooden floor, plaster walls with chips of paint peeling off, and an old radiator swirled with subtle metallic floral patterns. The room elongates into a bathroom with a door in one direction, and a kitchen where I am trying to grow some plants in the other. There's a tiny table and two chairs, and a twin size bed with the headboard all stuffed with books. Josh took a banana from the kitchen, and I showed my plants off for a few moments. He picked up a laptop computer from the table, and sat on the bed.

"This thing is tiny! Is this one of the new ones?" He asked.

"It's at least six months old, I don't know if it's one of the new ones. It works though." I replied.

It was a tiny laptop with a five inch screen. The whole thing was maybe eight inches across and one high when closed. Josh turned it on as I washed up in the bathroom.

"Hey log in to this thing." Josh said, holding it outstretched. I was still washing my face.

"We aren't going anywhere nice are we? I mean I don't need to dress well or anything right?" I was talking over my shoulder.

"I don't know," Josh answered, "I mean I figure we'll just tool around on our bikes for awhile, but we might see somewhere we wanna go when we get down there."

"Like the Cowboy Lounge," I grinned through soap and water, "it's Thursday." I rinsed my face and let out a little laugh. "I'm not gonna put anything nice on, actually."

I dried my hands and changed shirts - a tie-dye a friend on the east coast had made for me - and slipped on some flip-flops. Josh handed me the laptop, and I logged into the little machine. Surprised I had a wi-fi signal, I played around with it for a moment, then handed it back to Josh.

"You want to go?" I said.

"Sure."

We filed out the door and I locked it behind us, turning out the lights.

"Where are those raspberries?" Josh asked grinning slyly.

"Around the corner," I was unlocking my bicycle that was chained next to my little motorcycle, I didn't have a motorcycle license yet, "you'll see 'em, their weighed down with delicious." My bicycle was unlocked and I was wheeling it around the corner to Josh and raspberries.

"Ah hah," he said, plucking a handful of berries from the plant. "Raspberries are my favorite fruit." He was eating a bunch of them, but there was plenty.

"Yeah I know," I started, picking some for myself, "Earlier today I was on the phone out here for like twenty minutes, just eating the hell out of 'em. God they're good."

I chewed raspberries and looked at the darkening sky thoughtfully, then at Josh.

"You want to go see the sheep?" I asked. Josh hadn't seen the sheep yet.

"Sure."

"Sweet. They're fun." I wheeled my bicycle towards the gate, and Josh, swallowing a few more berries and picking his bicycle up, did the same. In a minute we were flying down the underpass on Broadway, headed towards the Platte river path and the sheep. Josh hadn't been on the path before, it was going to be fun.

"What's the name of that forest Robin Hood's people lived in?" I called back to Josh through the rushing wind. "You know, the forest full of thieves?" Our bicycles were flying down the pass. The wind was still rushing and I waited a moment for a response before I remembered the name. "Sherwood Forest! That's where we're going! Except there's nothing good about these thieves! They'll kill you dead for a crack rock!" I laughed boisterously.

"Great!" Josh hollered back, "And me with six hundred dollars strapped to my back!" He was referring to his camera. He flew by me at a million miles an hour - leaning down and pedaling aggressively - wind still rushing and t-shirt flapping behind him in the wind wherever the camera strap wasn't buckling it down.

"Take a left!" I shouted. He careened into the road and cut left into a big open alley behind the Salvation Army's warehouse. I overtook him and led the way onto a dark path, paved with cement and about five or six feet wide. The path slid down a steep hill and fell in step with the river, flowing north away from town.

"Sherwood Forest!" I repeated in a mock spooky voice.

We veered around some Mexicans coming up from the river, looking bewildered in the dark, and rode around drifters on rickety bikes laden with old clothes and bags of cigarette butts. Dim light from various street lamps across the river flicked vibrantly behind the trees that sheathed the path, silhouetting the leaves as we sped along. I caught some movement and glanced right; there were four men seated on rocks in the dark smoking pot. They looked rough, greasy and stubbled, sitting quiet in their tattered clothing, glaring into the night with dense smoke hanging in the air above their heads. Their dark eyes tracked us coldly as we rode past them.

"I smell weed." Said Josh, loud and making me nervous. He hadn't seen the men, and I didn't answer him but kept quiet, smiling.

"Weed smoke!" He was half singing half talking, still loud. I couldn't see him behind me but imagined he was bike-dancing. I was smiling wide to myself, hoping those guys didn't speak much English. A few seconds later we seemed a safe enough distance away, and my smile broke.

"Ha!" I half spoke half laughed. "Didn't you see those guys!?"

"What? No." Josh answered. We were moving along at a comfortable clip, and could hear each other well.

"You smelled weed because there were four ruffians by the side of the road getting high, wishing they had a knife to stab us with!" I joked. I was laughing mildly,

"No!" Josh said, "Really?"

"Totally!" I laughed and stepped hard on the pedals of my bike. We were moving out of the most populated part of the path.

"What!?" Josh repeated sharply, obviously amused though. We both laughed.

We rode under the train tracks and crossed back and forth over the wide bubbling river a few times on wooden bridges. Eventually, there was no one on the path but the occasional cyclist, and we rode in silence for a few miles, enjoying the night.

"This is it," I said, slowing down and putting my feet down. There was a huge fenced in enclosure on our left. The fence was a solid corrugated metal, stained brown and rusted in spots. I set down my bike on the path, and moved cautiously towards the tall dry grass between the path and the fence.

"Sheep?" Asked Josh.

"Sheep."

We'd been riding for awhile, and the off and on light from street lamps had ended more than a mile back. Josh set his bike down. It was real dark, the black and white kind, and all you could hear was the bugs creaking and chirping. The change in scene was a bit unsettling. The bugs had fallen into a loud rhythmic hum, shrill than creaky like someone pulling a rusty chain steadily through a pulley. Josh stepped into the tall grass between the path and the fence. There was a sudden dry crackle and a shadowy suggestion of movement in the grass.

"Jesus!" Josh said, leaping back onto the cement path, "Danger!" It sounded like a lizard or a snake, rustling about.

"It's fine, it's fine." I reassured, timid myself. I gazed hard at the grass but it was too dark and I couldn't make anything out. I jumped into it with both flip-flopped feet, landing awkward and heavy like a sumo wrestler. Nothing rustled this time. I took a deep breath and approached the fence, Josh behind me, eyes still shifty and unsure on account of the rustling. I took hold of the metal fence, and standing on my toes lifted my head above the top of it.

"Baa!" I mocked. A couple hundred sheep started away from the fence all at once, scared and defenseless, trotting on soft ground. It sounded like yawning thunder from miles off, the empty threat kind, not followed by a storm.

"Josh look!" I took his shirt sleeve and pulled him close to the fence. "Look!"

"Sheepy!" He said smiling big, looking over the fence at the hundreds of sheep. They were shifting around uneasily, keeping us in sight.

"Baa!" I mocked again. This time I got a response from one, old and stern looking, and I laughed.

"Sheepy!" Josh repeated. "There's so many of them!"

"Cool, huh?" I said. "Sheep are fun." I mocked a sheep noise over the fence again. And stared on for a minute or two. "Want to keep going? On the path I mean?"

"Sure."

We got back on our bikes, and kept heading north, still smiling over the sheep. They're all so simple, something is fun about that.

"Want to look at this bridge?" I asked, a few minutes later as a bridge loomed into sight. It was on our right, some hundred yards long and eight wide, clearly old and resting feebly above the water on rickety crumbling legs.

"Sure." Josh answered.

We turned our bikes onto the little gravel path loop that swung near the bridge. Every time we stopped it seemed the bugs got louder.

"It would be fun to come here in the daytime, maybe climb around on it." I said. "You think it's wood or metal?" It was real dark outside and hard to see. I was squinting.

"Metal. You remember that other bridge at uh - "

"Richmond! That was mad fun!" I interrupted. A few years back, me and Josh had swung around on a rope swing hanging from a hundred foot high bridge with a train track on it. It was really scary. You had to climb up these huge cement foundations that shot up out of the river, then some old steel I-beams, then a ladder - just to get to the platform where someone could throw you a rope. From there it was like a tarzan movie. Josh and I were both scared of heights and loved to climb on things. He was more brave than me and sometimes pushed me to do really fun things.

"Yeah, that was awesome." Josh finished.

We straddled our bikes in silence gazing out at the bridge, the rhythmic creaking of the bugs climbing and drooping in the cool air.

"Want to keep going?" I asked.

"Sure."

It wasn't really late yet, just rounding nine o'clock. We cycled farther down the path, riding in relative silence for a few minutes. An outhouse and a little park swam into view up and to the left. Josh was ahead of me, and he turned sharply into the park. I followed. He pulled up alongside an informational sign and propped his foot on it so he could stay balanced on his bike. I put my foot on the ground and looked on. There was a picture of huge cement blocks on the sign, with a woman running in front of them.

"Those are still here." Josh said, pointing at the picture of the big blocks.

"Yeah?" I agreed, unsure what he was talking about.

Josh pointed and I looked. Then I laughed. The picture was of cement blocks not twenty yards away - ten feet high and begging to be climbed on.

"They are still here!" I agreed. We rode over to the blocks and set the bikes down. In fifteen seconds we were both on top of our own block. Josh jumped from one to another. I stayed on mine and looked on jealously. Maybe if I wasn't wearing flip-flops. Josh jumped down and handed my bike up to me; it barely fit on the block. He took some pictures while I tried to make the bike balance like I was riding it, failing miserably.

"You try." I said, setting the bike down on the block and dropping myself to the ground.

"Ok." He handed me the camera and walked up to the block, then wrapped his fingers over the edge and pulled himself onto it fluidly. He made the bike balance on its front wheel a few times, and I looked on, pressing down the button on top of the camera. Finally he handed the bike down to me and leapt down, stooping low at the knees as his body caught up with his feet.

"Let's go towards the light." Josh said. He was looking a couple hundred yards away where there was a factory of some sort, all lit up at night.

"Okay." I said, getting back on my bike. "It's factory time! Let's go manufacture some stuff."

Josh laughed and lit a cigarette. "You want one?"

"Nah, I can't really smoke unless I'm drinking. It's funny. If I'm not drinking, I think cigarettes are gross. Dry and gross." We were riding on the path again, toward the factory. "As soon as I get some booze in me though, I love 'em. Then cigarettes are delicious. I don't know. Without drinking they are just kinda gross."

We rode quietly for a moment, towards a factory with a brightly lit parking lot, the cars twinkling plastic blues and reds in the night. Josh blew out smoke once, then twice and dropped the cigarette.

"Cigarettes are gross." He said.

"Unless you're boozing." I added, now only a few yards from the factory parking lot. It looked pretty boring, all lit up and plain. "Let's keep going."

Josh heard me and veered away from the factory, staying on the path. We crossed a small wooden footbridge across the Platte again, with the river whispering quiet beneath us. After a few minutes of riding, a fence topped in barbed wire rose up on our right, surrounding a huge compound. There were impressive warehouses at least a hundred yards on a side each, without walls and supported on beams at the corners. They were all side to side and back to back as far as you could see, with little roads that ran between them. The roads and the warehouses were lit with bright yellow lamps, and the whole scene looked wildly industrious, but strangely quiet and serene at this time of night. Under each warehouse were big assorted piles of what looked like black grain, casting eery shadows in the yellow light. It seemed to go on forever. I stopped and stared.

"Coal." Josh said.

"Really? Crazy. I've never seen so much. Take a picture."

Josh pulled his camera out, it was going to be tough to get a picture through the fence.

"Danger, electric fence." Josh said, with his eyes and his smile in a way that made it hard to tell if he was serious.

"Really?" I asked. He laughed.

"No. It says Peligro. That's danger in Spanish. It also says no trespassing." He was nodding at a sign on the fence, fiddling with his camera distractedly. He stood tall and positioned his long arm to rest over the barb wired fence, but didn't bring it all the way down. "Here, touch it."

I touched the fence without understanding, and Josh made a "Bzzz!" noise. I laughed, and Josh took a few more pictures, his arm over the fence. The camera made bright vibrating flashes, and cast strange shadows for an instant at a time. The pictures didn't turn out too clear, and he kept trying, twisting knobs and pressing buttons on the camera between attempts. I saw a flashlight twinkle behind the fence somewhere. Josh took another picture. The flashlight twinkled again, and bounced what could only be closer to us. It was still a ways away.

"Peligro!" I shouted, joking and pointing. Both of us laughed before Josh took notice.

"What is that?" He looked out at the moving light, then me.

"Flashlight, security guard probably, it's fine, we're not doing anything." I said.

The light came closer and brighter, looking about jerkily like a robot eye. It was bigger than a flashlight. A cone of light swept past us, then overcorrected and swung back the other way. We could hear an engine now, there was a truck attached to that light. We stood in plain view and I shouted "Peligro!" again, laughing. Josh put his camera away, chuckling nervously. I wanted to stand beside the gate until the guard got there, and let him know we were just riding by and had taken some pictures. We stood there for a minute, me repeating the "Peligro!" joke, and it coming off less and less succseful. The truck was taking forever getting to us, and I got impatient.

"Let's go." I said.

We got back on our bikes and slowly began down the path again, still heading north. The truck and the noise got closer and closer to the fence, and the light twitched over us again and again. It was pretty clear that it was a spotlight. I got a little nervous, but excited too. It was like a weird game, like stirring up animals, like playing with sheep. The path was still running parallel to the fence, and the truck was awkwardly approaching us, the light now fixed on us more or less, and the engine bumbling. After a moment, the path turned left and so did we, leaving the industrial compound behind us. The spotlight kept on our backs, warm. It felt a little nerve wracking, for an instant I imagined being shot in the back. It didn't seem like such a stretch out there in the dark.

The path intersected with a highway after just thirty yards or so. Across the highway, behind another fence, huge smokestacks loomed, and big robotic conveyor belts clutched at coal from the ground, and dumped it in various piles and receptacles. Lights shone fiercely all around machinery, and slow smoke all bright with florescent white light lifted slow and detailed in huge columns. It was dazzling.

"Take a picture," I said to Josh. He pulled his camera out. I was straddling my bike on the path, flip-flops to the ground and hands on handle-bars. My hair was wild and unkempt from riding, and my shirt hung loose in the still, sulfur smelling air.

Josh held the camera to his eye and snapped a picture. He angled the LCD at me so I could see the picture, which was surprisingly unimpressive.

"It looks bigger in real life. Zoom in." I said.

"That's as far as it goes." Josh replied.

An SUV drove by on the highway and made a U-Turn just beyond us, its headlights sweeping long and lazy across the asphalt. It came to a slow halt off our side of the road among some loose gravel, then flicked on a hot spotlight and trained it on us. After a moment, it crept up close within a few yards, keeping the light on us.

"Jesus." I shielded my face with my hand. Josh did the same, letting the camera hang about his neck.

We had just gotten traffic tickets downtown a few days before, for riding our bikes in a no-bike zone. Everyone else was riding bikes too, and the bus-lines in the area had been shut down. We didn't realize it was a problem, we weren't hurting anyone or even inconveniencing ayone. We had been surrounded by police, five of them I think. They had on helmets and breast plates and shin guards, and carried an assortment of guns and tazers and billy clubs; two of them were wielding assault rifles and tear gas cannons. They had been mean and demanding, treating us like thugs. It was a funny picture, the two of us, skinny and on sleek road bicycles, surrounded by firearms and plastic weapons. They had asked us if we thought we were cool, if we thought we were funny. They had asked us if getting a ticket was funny, if being cool was worth going to jail, if getting our bikes impounded would be funny. It seemed crazy and out of place, excessive. This was while the Democratic National Convention was going on though, and just a few blocks away. I guess I should have guessed. As my neighbor had put it later, there were hundreds of cops in town that were "all dressed up with nowhere to go." What else could I expect? But now, this time, we were miles from the DNC. I was surprised and a little nervous.

I thought that maybe this was the security guard from a few minutes ago. The light was white hot, and I stepped out of it, wheeling my bike with it. A silhouette of a tall, broad man stepped in front of the spotlight.

"You best move back into the light." It said, voice deep and grumbling.

"I didn't realize you were a cop." I assumed from the authority in his voice, still blind in the light. Then moving back into the light, "I thought maybe just a security guard or something."

The silhouette approached us and became a policeman. He had gray hair and gray eyes and a gray mustache. He stood a head taller than me, taller than Josh even, and had a bit of a back county sheriff look to him.

"What are you boys doing?" He asked gruffly, arms folded across his chest.

Last time Josh and I were approached by policemen, I had been quarrelsome and cocky. Josh thought if I had been submissive maybe we would not have gotten tickets, maybe they would have left us alone. That was not the point, not to me. We hadn't done anything wrong, and nobody had the right to make any trouble for us. We weren't doing anything wrong now. Josh and I saw these things differently, handled them differently. I told myself I would tone it down a bit this time around. Jesus, it seemed everywhere we went there were cops after us.

"We were riding our bikes on the path, and taking pictures," I said, "nothing crazy." My hands fished nervously in my pockets.

"Riding bikes and taking pictures, huh? Pictures of what?" The Captain, that's what he was, was looking down his nose at me, out from under wiry gray eyebrows. He had been doing this a long time, and you could tell.

"Things that were interesting. Some big 'ol cement blocks we were climbing on, part of an old water treatment plant or something, some mountains of coal back that way," I pointed, "and then these smokestacks. I don't understand. Have we done something wrong?"

"You have identification on you? Where are you from?" His eyes like a birds, piercing and clear.

I didn't want to hand him my ID, I didn't think he had the right. I wanted to say as much. I did anyway, though, on account of his gray eyes and his solid stare and his hand stretched out waiting impatiently.

"Virginia." Said Josh. "We're both from Virginia."

"We moved here awhile ago." I added, I was disappointed at myself for giving up so much so quickly. "What did we do? What's the problem here exactly?"

He was shuffling our ID cards, scrutinizing them. He looked up from the IDs, locked his eyes on mine. His lips moved intentionally and sharply when he spoke, his mustache jumping up and down seriously.

"It''s nine thirty at night. Here you are riding bikes around, and taking pictures." There was irritation in his eyes at these words failing to clear everything up for me. He paused, staring intently, expectantly at me with his grey birdlike eyes. "Don't you know we've had terrorist attacks in this country?"

I started for a brief moment, and then realized he was referring to the attacks several years ago. "Terrorist don't wear flip-flops." I said, looking shyly down at my feet, and stretching them out so he could see. He didn't smile.

At the sound of tires on gravel, the Captain folded our IDs in his big hand, turned, and strode towards his vehicle. A black Crown Victoria had pulled off the highway behind the first SUV, then another SUV. A square man got out of each and walked toward us in long strides, nodding terse communications with the Captain, all the while keeping an eye trained on us. They were directly in front of us in a moment, squiggly pigtail wires running from their ears, and each with one hand on a pistol, still buckled in snug on their belts. A length of blue material read "SWAT" in white above their breast pockets.

"Do you have any weapons on you?" The one standing in front of me asked.

"No. What's going on? What did we do? I'm confused." I said.

"Do you have any weapons?" The man repeated, "Can I search you?" He had dark short hair, and crisp blue eyes. His face was a solid one, tall and square like his body, like the other officers.

"I'd rather you not. What have we done?" I said, screwing up my face in confusion. The other one was talking to Josh in a similar manner, we had set down our bikes and were standing clear of them. He reached out and took my wrist, guided my hands above my head. I had my wallet in one hand, from taking out my ID, and a packet of soy sauce in the other, from the Chinese food earlier.

"You're not under arrest or anything," the cop said, "we just want to make sure you don't have anything on you. What's in your pockets? Anything you shouldn't have?"

"No. Nothing dangerous. Gum, some keys, a wallet - well I guess the wallets in my hand." He was going through my pockets methodically.

"What's with the soy sauce?" He asked.

"I don't know." I looked over at the columns of brilliantly white smoke crowning the smokestacks.

The other officer had finished searching Josh, and was asking him about his camera, about what kind of pictures he had taken. I couldn't hear them too clearly.

The cop that had just finished searching me took out a notebook.

"What's your first name?" He looked at me sternly. I looked over his shoulder at the Captain back by his SUV, then I looked back and told him "Eric."

"What' your last name?"

"Toupin."

"Address?"

I told him and he stopped short.

"You ride your bike out here all the way from Denver?" He asked incredulously.

"Yeah."

"What for?" He was staring cooly at me.

"Just to ride. We went to see the sheep. There are some sheep a couple miles back, I know it sounds ridiculous. We decided to keep on going and just kept riding." I paused. "We've only been out an hour or so."

He looked on for a moment tapping his foot, then nodded his head and looked back at his little notebook, scratching notes with a huge hand and a tiny pencil.

"Eye color? Hair color? Height? Weight?"

I told him.

"Scars? Tattoos? Birth marks?"

"I have freckles all over." I looked down at my arms, and held them out scanning them. I wasn't lying.

"Date of birth? Social security?"

I told him.

"What were you doing out here? Why did you come out here?" He asked, folding his little notebook closed and tucking it into his belt. He crossed his arms and looked down at me from his square face and blue eyes, furrowing his brow.

"I told you, just riding. Just riding bikes. Totally innocent - just riding bikes and taking pictures. I don't understand why this is such a big deal." I was smiling meekly, feeling pretty unnerved and hoping that's not how I sounded. Two more cars pulled up. Another SWAT member, and two men in green uniforms got out and approached us. Another SUV appeared, and a young round man with a flushed face and a european demeanor got out of it. He was in a blue and gold uniform, and had a beret tucked under his arm, folded in the military style with the insignia medallion attached to it. All of them strode our direction, trading information as they did.

"You don't understand why this is a big deal?" The SWAT officer seemed perturbed, and looked at me expecting an answer. Suddenly it seemed to make some sense. The Democratic National Convention, of course things were going to be up tight.

"Oh! Right, the DNC! I forgot! I mean I guess with the DNC going on, you guys are a bit high strung for awhile." I had figured it out, and felt more relaxed. I glanced at Josh, now talking to one of the men in green, and fiddling with his camera. I wanted to say "The DNC!" to him, in case he hadn't figured it out, but I didn't.

"This has absolutely nothing to do with the DNC. Nothing." Said the SWAT officer I was talking to. My heart sank a little.

"God, I don't know. I just don't understand then." I looked down, trying to call attention to myself; to my flip-flops, my tie-dye, my rolled up jeans.

"You are out at night. Riding bikes. Taking pictures of critical government infrastructure. Fuel facilities, security depots, power plants. My job is to recognize suspicious behavior. To prevent catastrophe. We detain people for things like this. Under the current anti-terrorism laws, we can detain you for three days before you are permitted to see a lawyer. Did you know that? Put yourself in my shoes, do these behaviors strike you as peculiar?" He was speaking somewhat kindly but still stern, still big, and still armed.

I thought about it for a second. "I mean I guess I understand. We weren't taking pictures like that though. I mean we used the flash. And we were just riding bikes. People cycle on this path, you know, all the time."

He looked over at his partner, back at his captain who was approaching with our IDs in hand.

"Cyclists cycle on this path. You don't look like a cyclist do you. Understand?"

"I'm not trying to be difficult," I began, "but if someone is just riding around, enjoying the evening, can you just stop them and search them and detain them? Without telling them what laws they broke, or without them even breaking any laws?" I was hoping that I was smiling mildly, with a hint of defiance.

He looked surprised. "Absolutely. If I deem someone suspicious, it's my duty." A car went by on the highway. It was pretty quiet out there except for right here, right now. There were several vehicles with their lights trained on us, and men in uniform in a loose circle all around us.

The Captain moved into the circle and handed Josh and I's IDs to me.

"They're clean." He said to the general gathering. A few of the officers sighed an air of relief or closure or frustration - it was a little obscure which.

I handed Josh's ID back to him, bridging the gap between us cautiously with two steps, then returning to my spot. A lot of heads shook from side to side. Some of the officers spat on the ground or ran their hands through their hair, then began to move back towards their SUVs and Crown Victorias. The SWAT officer that had been talking to me shook his head slightly.

"You guys ought to be more careful. If you end up detained or questioned for stuff like this, those wouldn't be the most pleasant couple of days in your life. Understand?"

"Wow." I nodded.

He told me to have a good night, and thanked me for my cooperation. "Don't take that bike path home now, we've contacted the Security forces at the coal plant and reassured them you won't be back that way. Got it?." He said.

"I don't even know how to get home though!" I was frustrated.

"Just take the highway," he nodded and pointed a long broad arm down the dark road, "it heads south into downtown." He strode back to his Crown Victoria.

I turned to Josh, one of the men in a green uniform was still talking to him. The skin on the man's face was taught and aged, especially around his ears. Josh was nodding as the man talked about staying away from the area, about staying away from the bike path, and from Adams county. I stepped closer, reminding the man subtly that we were done here.

"We didn't mean any trouble at all, we were just out for a bike ride, this is real crazy - it caught us by surprise that anyone thought anything of it. We definitely didn't think we were doing anything wrong, or anything suspicious. We were just riding around, looking at sheep and whatnot." This was the dead horse defense I had been kicking all night. He turned on me with his sharp lizard eyes and his aged tan yellow skin, taught around the ears, and his ideas all police and military. He had a bit of a Colorado drawl, one you don't run into in the city as much.

"Not suspicious? Most them cyclist out here, they ride around in their spandex, and their helmets, and their shaved legs," he dragged the ends of his words in the dirt, "thats the kinda cyclist you see 'round here. And here you come," he spat on the ground, "with your mutton chops, and your flip-flops. Your shitty ten-speed an 'a bike that looks like you got it from your grandma. That thing must weight more than I do!" The other cops had cleared out and the cars were leaving one by one. The chubby boyish one with the beret hung around, glancing furtively at all the authority figures. The man in the green uniform kept on.

"Not suspicious!?" He looked around rolling his head instead of his eyes, exasperated. "Now look. Don't come back to Adams county. Now that we seen ya, now that we know you're up to no good, you come back here, taking pictures at night, we'll put you in jail. We will." He spat on the ground again.

Josh was on his bike and so was I.

"Can we take the trail home?" Josh asked.

Before the man could answer I did for him.

"Nah, the SWAT guy said we had to take the highway. Sucks." I was a bit mopey by now.

"Take the highway." The man in the green said, striding back to his car.

Josh and I crossed the highway, deserted except for a now dwindling oasis of law enforcement, and began riding south. The round guy in the blue and gold had not left yet, and was not even making for his car. He hadn't given his two cents.

"You two come over here a minute." He said loud, gesturing to us across the street. His face was white with flushed red splotches around his cheeks. I couldn't place his hint of an accent. We veered his direction without saying much, crossed back over the highway and rode up two him, stopping without dismounting.

"My boss wants me to take your pictures." He said with hollow and echoey authority. He had a red cellphone in his hand.

"Why?" I said. All the other cops and officers had left.

"He wants me to take your pictures and put them in our office, so we can recognize you if you come back." His nerve was wavering, but the waver hadn't reached his voice yet. This was the kind of authority I was used to dealing with.

"What happens if I protest?" I asked bluntly, not smiling anymore. Josh wasn't saying anything, just watching.

"Then you protest." He said, holding that waver just a hairs breadth from his voice still.

"And you can't take the pictures." I said, or asked. His eyes flicked, and he looked at the phone in his hand. The waver muddled his voice.

"No, I can't make you. But - "

"Well then we'd rather not. Have a good night." I looked at him and he looked back at me, then at Josh. We backed our bikes out a little, turned them around, and crossed the highway for the last time, headed home.

The ride home was long and on bad terrain - broken up sidewalks lining the highway pocked with gravel pits, sand, and scrubby grass. Our road bikes were not suited well for the ride; we walked them across a few intersections, and some other particularly difficult spots. Somewhere around forty-eighth street, we stopped at a little gas station and bought something to drink. It still seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere. There were a group of kids in the store, boisterously teenaged. A man stood behind me in line, fat and with a stained white t-shirt covered plainly with some greasy overalls. His face was covered in spatters of beard, wiry and looking like the wispy hair around the lips and chin of a wolf. After a minute we were back on our way, mostly covering ground and not talking much.

"Wow." Josh said. We were right around thirtieth and Larimer, and there was political graffiti and other art plastered all over the mostly unused buildings - posters and spray paint, all new and in vivid colors.

"Yeah," I said, "I saw this stuff awhile ago when I was walking around looking for something to re-pot my plant in. It's really cool." We were riding slow to the side of the road. There was a larger than life profile of a girls face, in blues and violets, with full pouting lips and a nest of vines, birds and power lines for hair. It was fantastically well done, covering an entire corrugated garage door.

"That's awesome." Josh was setting his bike down and pulling his camera out. I set mine down as well, and after a few cars passed, we crossed the street to get closer. There were big posters that depicted Barack Obama as Abraham Lincoln bordering the painting of the girl, and helter skelter across the face of the building. I squatted in front of the blue and violet painting as Josh took some pictures.

"Look." I said, standing up. A little further down, there was a building with a glass front, lit up brilliantly from the inside, with huge murals of Barrack on the walls. The murals were done in simple colors, with hard angular outlines. They were impressive. Josh was already walking that way.

"You can probably get a good shot through the window. I can't tell if this is a house or a business." I was pacing back and forth in front of the glass front while Josh was taking pictures. A van pulled up, and a couple of people got out. There was an older man, two women, and a guy that looked to be around thirty. The younger guy was walking our direction, with some sort of identification hanging around his neck. I felt embarrassed all of the sudden, and began running over some lines in my head, explaining myself. I started to approach the man, a bit nervous. He was only a few yards away and coming closer. Josh let go of the camera, and it went slack around his neck. He took a few steps away from the glass and the murals inside.

"Hi," I said, meeting the guy halfway to the door of the building, "Sorry we're all taking pictures through your windows man, is this your house?" What a night. He had a cracker between his lips, and when he talked he didn't take it out or swallow it down or anything. He had a beard, and now, a quizzical look on his face. He spoke around the cracker, muffled. "Dude. Take pictures, I don't care. How's it going?" He was walking past me towards his door. Josh smiled, and then I did.

Tags for this piece: story nonfiction denver city police swat obama

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