The other week I biked/MARTA'd to a hardcore show down at Wonderroot, near Inman Park-Reynoldstown Station. I've noticed shows go on here fairly late and the last MARTA train was at 00:40 so around 00:20 I say my goodbyes and bike down to the station.
As I walk down to the platform I see that it's deserted.
"This doesn't look good!" I think to myself.
I look at my watch. It's 00:39. The last train going the other way comes and goes. 00:45. Fuck. I text my friend Stewart, a fellow biker about the best way to get back to Buckhead from Inman. He texts me back promptly: "Do you have lights? Take Edgewood to Peachtree."
I get out my flashing back light, attach it to the back of my backpack, put on my helmet and picking up my bike, begin to walk back up to the platform, cursing to myself at having missed the last train. Looking at the map I have luckily packed with me, it's about a 10/15 mile ride back to my house.
As I start to exit the MARTA station I stop an elderly man for directions to Edgewood. He points me in the right direction and two minutes later out on my bike cycling towards Edgewood Avenue. After a couple miles or so I come to Edgewood-Candler Park MARTA station. I take out my map and look at it. Just as I though, I've gone the wrong way. The old man must've thought I meant Edgewood station, not Edgewood Avenue. "Cock, balls!" I say to myself, as I cycle back the other way. I've figured out that if I keep going along the road I'm on I'll get to Peachtree and then it's a straight shot (or thereabouts) back to my condo.
After about 40 minutes, I get to Peachtree. As I make the long (in hindsight) ride from Peachtree to my condo I see the same thing with each passing minute. Lone, homeless men, usually of African-American decent. One guy almost steps into me as he goes to cross the road. "Hey, watch out!" I yell at him. He seems oblivious. Poor guy. And right in the heart of the business disctrict too.
This reminds me of something I heard recently: "Homeless people, the sign of a healthy capitalist society." or something to that effect.
As I to the last couple miles of the journey, I stop into a gas station to get a drink. My legs are screaming with pain, almost tensed up. I'd attended a cycling safety class a few weeks before and remember a conversation the instructor had with one of the other attendees about how it was impossible to injur yourself riding a bike due to it being a no impact activity. "What a crock of shit." I think to myself as I half limp out of the gas station and take the brake off my bike for the last leg of the journey.
I finally get to my turn off. I look at my watch. 02:55. "Wow, it's so late." A white car pulls up beside me at the stop light. A man who looks to be in his late 20s/early 30s winds his window down to talk to me:
"You're out cycling at 2am?" he says incredulously, as if I'd just decided to take a leisurely bike ride at this time of night.
"You've got to be really careful, okay?"
Now, I'm not the best with confrontation. But this really gets my goat. I explode:
"Look, I appreciate the sentiment, but I've just biked 15 miles fron Inman to get here, because I missed the last train and I'm just about to turn onto the road that takes me to my condo so, thanks, but no thanks."
The traffic light goes green and I turn onto my road. Home.
So, the moral of the story?
I NEED A CAR!
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