The Bike Man

The 'bike man' of downtown Walnut Creek is my cousin. I re-met him about ten years ago in the city where he's been living most of his life. He had a ten-speed bicycle and was decked out in bike shorts and a tank top. His water bottle was filled with booze. He told us that he was 'nickin' like a chicken' and needed a cigarette. Almost fifty years of age, he spoke the slang-laden language of a punky teenager. We offered him clothes and food, but he didn't want them. He told us that he'd been living in an encampment (I am told that it was recently destroyed by arson) in town for some years up to that point, and receiving help both from friends in the area and a local shelter. 

At the 'shelter' where I volunteered in SE London in 2011-2012, I saw and met a lot of people from Eastern Europe, and, of course, from all over the UK. Clients from Western Europe were usually pretty scarce. There was a pensioner originally from Greece, an old punk rocker from Germany, and a young man of African origin who used to live in France who I saw on a somewhat regular basis. The Greek man was lonely and on a fixed income, so our 1.50 hot lunches in a room full of people, telly blaring in the background, really hit the spot for him. The punk rock chick was 50 going on 20 with a safety pin through her ear, shit tats, patchy hair, and a 'fuck it' attitude, so I don't think that she gave a toss she was living somewhat hand-to-mouth. And the young man from France struggled with mental illness, unfortunately. Someone from the centre once found him wandering around the nearby high street without any shoes. Whatever he had been wearing had 'hurt his feet', so he ditched them and went sans footwear.  

I remember speaking with a man in his late 20s from Spain. His story seemed to be like a sort of the 'canary in the coal mine' moment. He was able-bodied, but had been without work for some time. He hailed from Mallorca, a major tourist area. The fact that he couldn't find work back home sort of startled me. The severe downturns in the economy haven't seemed to put a dent in the waves of tourists that visit London, so it's hard to believe that there was NO work in Mallorca especially for a guy who grew up there. As far as I know, Mallorca is still one of most booming tourist meccas in the world. I didn't really want to pry and his English wasn't all that good, so I didn't ask him why he left his island for a new one. Sometimes I wonder how they are all faring. I certainly wonder if my cousin is still alive and biking around his hometown.