August 12, 2004

And now that I’m back, here’s what happened on August 1, the 18th day of my bike tour:

Once everyone ate and the dishes were done, I took off my soiled pants and dumped them in the sink. I wanted to smell clean for Martha. Her dad poured on the dish detergent.

“It’s good for getting out the motor oil,” he said. “Just let them stay in the hot water for a while.” As a young man he too washed his clothes in the sink. Inspired, I took off my shirt and dropped it in as well; three pairs of eyes watched me with apprehension.

“I know your underwear need washing too,” he said, “but there’s no need to show your dimpled ass to your disciples in the morning.”

He lent me a pair of his pants, and as soon as I put them on Simon, Trevor, Zorianna and I rushed out the door and back towards the top of the mountain. In the fresh, blue morning we ascended breathlessly like a new breed of mechanical monsters, and soon we stood on top of mountains in all of our glory and looked down on Collingwood and the deep blue of the Georgian Bay.

To celebrate the moment, I pulled down my pants and pissed in Collingwood’s general direction.

In the mountains, there you feel free

And because we felt free and wild, we roamed through forests and fields until we were quite lost and had to leap down unmarked trails towards the bottom. We felt our velocity, and got back home with wonder in our eyes.

And after the morning rush everyone fell asleep once more so I took naked plunges in the pond outside waiting for Martha. She finally arrived late in the evening with bright eyes and changed hair. Warm embraces melted all of my words into tenderness, so we sat in the kitchen with everyone around us choked by silence.

That evening, reality shattered into fragments. I remember Martha’s mom giving me a pair of new socks I desperately needed; holding Martha’s hand in the car on our way to a Disneyland filled with floating bicycles; whispering incantations in the night, our hands trembling and gentle; blood shaking our hearts, and me crazily pouring out my darkness and longing; and she, tenderly changing me, changing me utterly.