I wouldn’t say I saw my life flash before my eyes but I did see a broken leg or two, and an emergency room visit. Happy to say that things stopped just short of that, for me at least.

Just moments after sending up that very important photo of the Roosevelt Island Tram I came within about one foot of being plowed down by a particularly gnarly bike collision on the Queensboro Bridge. I am not certain what happened, or if either party is more culpable than the other. But it looked like someone was doing a Lance Armstrong maneuver while passing another bike. He was completely in the pedestrian lane when I think he saw me up ahead and realized he was running out of room. I don’t know if he accelerated or decelerated  but whatever he did he screwed up the move and his wheels got tangled up with those of the bike he was trying to pass. He completely lost control of the bike, which flipped over completely and bounced several times. The dude on that bike hit the ground hard, as did his cell phone and a bunch of other random bits and pieces from his fanny pack. He was hurt and loudly groaning in pain but he got back on his feet and seemed to be shaken up but not bad enough to warrant medical attention.

All I could think as the bikes came barreling toward me was that they were going to hit me and there was nothing I could do about it. It happened too fast for me to have done anything except take the hit. But as ravity kicked in and the bikes stopped their forward movement I was doing what amounted to mathematical calculations in my mind, thinking that it bounced half as far, then a quarter as far, and that the bounces were getting close enough together that they couldn’t get all the way to me. But they got damn close.

I’ve always regarded that bridge as dangerous. The invisible force field designed to separate pedestrians from bikes sinply does not work. Now that I’ve seen something like this close up I think it might be my cue to stay away from that span. On the other hand if that is the closest I’ve come to getting plowed by a bike (again, btw) then maybe I am dodging the statistical bullet and on my way to physical immortality.

I was plowed down by a pizza delivery bike back in 1991, soon after I moved here. Then I was on a sidewalk and (wouldn’t you know it) using a payphone. Today I was squarely in the pedestrian lane on the Queensboro. In both cases I was as much “where I was supposed to be” as I was supposed to be. That doesn’t matter because this is not a military compound. It is a city, filled with fallible creatures who do unpredictable things. We do not march like soldiers along assigned paths. That’s what I’ve never understood about the invisible force field intended to magically separate helmeted bicyclists moving at 40mph from unarmored individuals standing in place or walking forward unaware that a gnarly bike collision is tangling up and barreling toward them from behind.

Today’s spectacle was kind of gruesome in its slow-motion kind of way. I am glad no one seems to have been seriously hurt, but it’s enough to keep me from even considering getting on a bike in this town… not that I needed any convincing. It’s not good to worry about such things, I know. If peril is going to visit you then it is not necessarily going to play by the rules. But it is sobering to remind yourself that you can just be standing in the right place doing nothing wrong when a rain of shit comes pouring down on you.

…

I showed my annual checkup paperwork to my therapist today. She said “Wow, you are really healthy!” I responded that an ex once told me I was “good breeding stock”. She laughed. She noticed my LDLs are perfect, which is basically what the doctor said yesterday. I have a good heart. Hah. It may have been murdered and broken and trampled to pulp but at least it has no plaque. It’s like my brain, which was analyzed slice by slice on two occasions. You can account for every slice, every drop of liquid, every fatty cyst and harmless bit of cranial detritus. But you still cannot tell what is going on inside.

Therapist said she read my web sites. “You’re a good writer!” I shrugged as she strongly suggested I pursue that course for a livelihood. “Do you write short stories?” I said “Yeah.” She laughed at the nonchalance.

I spent much of the session reeling from the bike wreck on the Queensboro. I had a mild panic attack after I reached Manhattan, and anxiety stayed with me until I knew I was far enough from the bridge that those bikes were not going to reappear from behind me. But wouldn’t you know it, all of a sudden I was seeing asshole bicyclists everywhere. They made me twitchy.

We also got into the subject of racism, and what a fucking Hillbilly my dad was. He used the N word like the Brits use “cunt”. And yet when faced with an African-American he would treat them with perfect respect. That was the East Tennessee Hillbilly way.