Counseling Opportunity

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 6:33pm
I forgot to mention this.
The day before I popped the bike tire (fixed now) I was out on the trails as per usual.

I'd been going hard for about 2 hours. I'm living off of restaurant food up here, and not only am I determined to not put on any weight, I'm hoping to lean up a bit before I go home.

So I was pushing myself pretty hard, and I came up on a long and winding hill that sloped up through the trees for about 500 yards. I dropped gear after gear until there were no more to drop when the hill finally leveled off for a stretch at a small plateau in the forest.

There was a group of teenagers there, 5 of them, 3 guys and 2 girls all about the age of 16 or 17. I hate to pass judgment on the youth of today but these kids were obviously dope fiends. One of them was the poster boy for Emo; hair dyed blue black and more piercings than Marilyn Manson at an acupuncture session. The other 2 guys were a little more mainstream, a freckle-faced 'ginger' boy with a spiky head, and a droopy and skinny boy of what I assumed to be East Indian heritage.

On a side note I feel a little guilty describing the third boy with a geographical qualifier like that. Race of course has no bearing on the story, but I do need to describe him, and that's the fastest way to give you a visual. At the same time I feel no guilt having described the freckly ginger boy's coloring, so on that note I'm feeling it's acceptable to go with the descriptor as is.

The girls were of the hoody wearing hair covering the face variety, and their parents really should confront them about the company they're keeping.

Anyway, these little drug addled delinquents were sitting on this ledge in the forest, probably shooting or smoking or snorting uppers or downers or zoomers or loopers or E or H or some similar brain wasting substance, and being a friendly guy I gave a little smile as I reached the plateau. I was panting and puffing, and there was another hill only five or ten yards across this little plateau.

The mindless little zombies were too stunned to smile back or maybe they were just too cool and I went on by and up the next hill. About halfway up this second long stretch, I heard one of the guys call out "Old fart!", and being a peaceful and well balanced guy I ignored it. I guess he thought I didn't hear, because as I rounded the corner out of their sight I heard him yell it, the girls protesting and his friends chuckling.

Now as mentioned, I thought it best to ignore this comment at first. But as I reached the top of the hill I realized that this would essentially be abandoning these poor misguided youth. I saw that I had a real counseling opportunity and I made the decision to approach them and correct their behavior to the best of my ability.

I'm not stupid however. I spent a good portion of my youth hanging with my friends and yelling at adults passing in cars in an attempt to get a chase on. I knew that these kids would already have their tails in the air and were ready to sprint at the first indication of retaliation. That was the purpose of the game after all. Plus I was pooped. So I stopped at the top of the hill, at a viewpoint overlooking the river valley where I caught my breath and guzzled my water.

After what I considered to have been an appropriate amount of time for them to have forgotten all about me, about ten minutes or so, I pointed the Bush Pilot downhill and in the words of the immortal Woody Guthrie, I 'commenced coastin', pickin' up speed."

The tires gave out a rising hum as gravity pulled me faster and faster down the hill. The hum became a whine, not unlike the scream of a red-lining turbo, and then the whine disappeared to become something supersonic.

My plan was to swoop down upon their unsuspecting little world like a Wagnerian Valkrie (except a guy of course), full of war and rage and violence and terror. Shock and awe baby, shock and awe! I would squeal to a stop in front of the big one, and give him a little smack on the nose, and explain to him that this is how you deal with unruly puppies.

My heart was racing and I could barely control the bike at the speed I was going. You can imagine my surprise when I rounded a corner and saw the group of teens walking up the trail about 30 yards downhill from me. I rapidly changed plan and decided that I would stand up on the bike and beeline for them.

They recognized me and stepped aside in sheepish silence as I approached, leaves and branches and squirrels and small birds spinning and bouncing in my slipstream. As they corrected to avoid my path, I corrected to put them back in my path. Emo, Freckles and the girls figured out quickly that I had every intention of running them over and moved right into the trees where they would be safe, but the East Indian kid just froze in terror in the center of the trail, realizing that I was moving too fast to avoid him if he should move the wrong way. Somewhere in his substance abused little mind, the trust of a child still flickered, and he seemed to believe I wouldn't hit him.

To dispel this belief I grinned as maliciously as I could, and leaned forward over the handlebars with head down, clearly signaling my intent to counsel his ass.

At the very last moment he dove into the trees, pulling a little Macgyver shoulder roll and I chuckled as I blew past his still rolling body.

But I was going far too fast, and had been so intent on running over children at high speed that I'd failed to account for the sharp bend in the trail behind them. I hit it far too fast, and I hit both brakes, locking up the tires and going into a bit of a wild skid.

I had the handlebars wiggling back and forth chaotically and just barely managed to keep upright as I scraped into the turn, stopping just in front of a tree.

Freckles made some comment like "Don't fall!" and so I bunny-hopped the bike around to face him and said "What's that little puppy? You wanna f&**'n talk about something, then let's f*&^n' talk about it!" and I bolted for him again.

They all disappeared off the trail meercat quick, scrambling into the trees, running tumbling and cursing one another.

"That's what I thought!" I yelled after them. And this time there were no witty retorts.

Perhaps I should become a counselor