untitled.

bike racers. bike messengers. lawyers, doctors, human civilization in general - we all tend to think we are pretty fucking important, don't we?

it's pretty easy to get mad when your toes get stepped on, or when you perceive someone has done some evil to you.

grudges.
spats.
enemies.

whatever.

"that dude can hold his line, i hate him".
"that dude almost crashed me, i hate him".
"i was in a disagreement on an online messageboard with him, i hate him".

it's all about making ourselves feel ok about feeling superior to some one.
making yourself feel ok about not needing to work through differences, or admit that it's ok for people to be different than you - or, god forbid, make a mistake.

guess what? it turns out that mistakes are forgivable.
whats more, is that being petty and holding bullshit grudges with people against these "terrible wrongs" that have been committed against you is actually a pretty weak personality trait.

you are not the tough guy-badass that you think you are by not talking to someone.

you end up just looking kind of sad, and laughably pathetic.

i try my best to not let petty day-to-day b.s. get to me. most of the time it works pretty well.
i'm no saint, and i do think that there are issues worth fighting about;
things worth ending friendships over, ending partnerships over, relationships over...
but, trust me, bike racing is not one of them. no hobby is.

do you think you are going to hurt my feeling by ignoring me at a bike race?
or anyone else's?

ha.

that's mighty bold. bold to think that this very important drama is going to really affect me deeply, and cause me great pain. how much do you think it will hurt me?

what's the worst you have ever hurt some one?

do you even know?

i do.

...

i wrote this up a few months ago, it was a winter piece, when i had nothing about bikes to write about, but i couldn't bring myself to post it.

the topic comes up again every once in awhile and i get to relive the whole incident all over again. it tore me to shreds at the time.
it tears me up now.

so, let's talk about hurt feelings, tough guy-

...

i was stunned.

he'd been my closest friend for years.
we had been though an awful lot of shit together. one of those friendships that is definitely going to last forever.
we'd lived together. traveled together. been to jail together. worked together. we had tattoos claiming our dedication to each other.

i had had his back. 100%.

110%.

until (seemingly) out of nowhere he raped another close friend.

he fucking raped her.

i believed her.
we all did.
you have to.
and when we sat down with him, it became crystal clear it was true.

looking back, you can see the signs.
bright as fucking day.

that's the worst part.

the friendships ended right there. all of us.
every single one of his closest friends in the world.

we confronted him on the rape.
we tried to have some dialogue. it didn't work.

it was deny, deny, deny.

things didn't go anywhere. talks broke down.
we gave an ultimatum. basically, a criteria for not being a huge piece of shit.
the friendships we're already broken. he'd lost them already.
but maybe, if he could meet the criteria, just maybe he could salvage some of respect he once had from the community at large.

he didn't even try.

what else can you do? what can you do to someone to make it clear to them that they had really, really, fucked up?

we told him flat out what we expected of him. demands.
we did not demand that he fess up, but we did demand he go to meetings.
we demanded he deal with his shit. get help.

he could keep claiming innocence, fine.
we knew he was lying.
but if he gave a shit about us and our long past friendship, or her and the damage he had done to her life, he should meet these demands.
they weren't really too hard, considering.

he didn't do anything.

he's lucky, if you asked me, that no one broke out the windows of his cafe, or slapped him around.
the word spread quick, and many stopped patronizing the cafe.
none-the-less, it remains a busy place. and a place that feels very woman friendly, even seems woman-owned.

it's quite the opposite.

those that still see him, and knew him "before", say he looks broken.
that he seems hollow and strange. empty.

how else would you look if you destroyed every friendship you had?

i hear it through the grapevine, friends of friends, or his co-workers... sometimes they don't know that i played a role in it... "he's such a nice guy, but it's like he has no friends. i don't understand", they say.

or, "he just seems sad".

i think we gutted him. we hollowed him out, broke him in to tiny pieces, and left the trashed remains to lurch around in the semblance of a regular person.

that's the worst i've ever hurt someone.
ever.

but, it doesn't come close to how badly he has hurt someone else.

i don't feel bad for him.

...

somethings are worth it, even if it kills you to destroy something important to you.
something that is close to your heart.

somethings are not.

don't forget that.

bike race drama will not hurt me. never.
there is no possible way.
you are not half as important as you think you are.

...

p.s. one of my formerly closest friends in the world, andy lunning, owns the mayday cafe at 35th and bloomington ave.

he raped a friend of mine in 2003.

please keep this in mind when choosing which business' you choose to patronize.