The things that pass through your head on a spirited ride home on Mr. B:

1. Internal hub and external cogs. One requires no pedaling when shifting. I can’t remember which one. Does it matter? 
2. Gabriel Byrne’s character shows John Turturro’s character mercy and charity in Miller’s Crossing. Then later executes him in the woods. Years later John Turturro will show up at Stephanie’s stoop sale and does not buy anything. 
3. No matter what I do, there is no overcoming the struggle of pushing 16-inch wheels up the Slope of Park Slope. The hill that runs through Brooklyn. You provided cover for the British in their sneak attack of the Continental army. Now years later you still haven’t gone anywhere. 
4. I think this is the house where I went to a wedding and they played bagpipes. Or a cello. I left a hat at the bride and groom’s apartment. I liked that hat. Does the hat occupy some dusty corner of a closet or have they thrown that hat into landfill with obliviousness or worse, malice?
5. The Brompton Rocket Red M6L Black Edition bicycle sounds so extravagant, but it has more in common with my Columbia 3 speed that I cycled around on throughout my childhood. I don’t feel competitive. I don’t feel urgency in getting to my destination. I am unburdened. Well, I am still in New York City traffic. I feel less burdened, I guess. I will make it back home. I will do it in Brompton time. I will fold you up again and keep you in that little place in my heart where I store all things perfect and red. You remain my invocation of the great perennial joy of moving through space, unencumbered, powered by your legs, heart, lungs and memory of hills of my past, hills with no British army, hills that were never too long or too steep. And there were always snacks at your destination.