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Jenn AshworthNO-ONE AS DOPE AS METhis thing that Oscar does, riding a little bike up and down bumps in the road: at first I found it attractive. The idea of it, him out in the darkening night, wheelies and what-ever-they’re called up and down near the docks, the multi-storey car park, special parks with concrete ramps where kids loiter to watch him and sometimes chat. There’s a girl he sees there a lot, Shannon, who is eleven and fat and leans over railings eating crisps and lollies made of gelatine and E-numbers. He comes back with stories about her, like the time she asked him if he had a girlfriend, and he said it depended on what mood I was in. These jaunts out to the park on the little bike are “soulful” and “cathartic”. They are his time for thinking and solitude, and during them he cannot answer his telephone because he is busy listening to The Planets or Cat Power or John Taverner.  His friends do it too and he works making bikes for people who do it. They all go out with the bikes on the back of the car, but he likes taking days out to Burnley on the train and doing it on his own. That’s what I liked, last winter, him coming in when it was dark, touching his cold cheek against my head. Out of breath, the rain caught in his hat. His bike parked in my hallway the next day while he was working, which made it difficult to get the pram out but was nice too, because I knew he’d be back for it.I know nothing about it but from my side of things there’s a curiosity of its own. There are interesting side effects; the mistakes he makes leave marks on his body. A bruise like the Mona Lisa on the back of his calf. Grazes that weep red and yellow on his forearm sometimes. And when it goes right his skin still keeps a record. The constant rubbing of denim against flesh has left parts of his thighs hairless. White mounded calluses on his palms need constant maintenance; gnawing off the dead skin is important, so the whole thing doesn’t fall out in a chunk, leaving the palms tender and exposed. And fingers so rough from gripping handlebars I’d rather touch my own cunt. So I know nothing except for what I see and I know it was just the idea of it that I liked. Him on his own, not going anywhere, using “urban architecture” for what it’s not for. The way he talked about it made it seem thoughtful and creative. There’s a language for this thing he does, it has its own set of words. He has expanded my vocabulary. Now, as well as unreliable, fickle, moody, erratic, neurotic, I also have “fresh”, “dope”, “daps”. He sings I am so fresh and clean, ain’t no-body as dope as me. Daps are trainers. That is the way they speak in these magazines and videos. ...And him getting huffy because he never said it, I'm remembering it all wrong... I remember snatches of conversation, him telling me about it when we first met, and me saying something like isn’t it boring and him saying, that’s not what I’m all about you know, and me, months later and in a sarcastic mood, reminding him, saying, that’s not what you’re all about you know. And him getting huffy because he never said it, I’m remembering it all wrong, and because I’ve told him about this thing that I do, him saying, you’re unreliably narrating, Jenn, it’s all in your mind, and me giving up on it to keep the peace.And giving up on it tonight, to keep the peace. Waiting at the train station for him after a failed driving test, feeling sad and wanting some comforting. Being manhandled onto my new bike, following him out along the side of the marina, looking at his back-side falling out of his trousers. The sky was nice, and I was looking at that, feeling glum and liking the quiet and the fresh air, him saying, you want to see some street action, don’t you? You do, don’t you, want to see some street action? I nod and he scrapes the side of his bike along the kerb, rides up a slope and pouts over his shoulder as he does a wheelie. He prefers going out on his own because he isn’t a show-off. I would clap, honest I would, but I can’t balance without any hands. The water in the docks is green, studded with plastic bottles and lost footballs, and the scum on it stinks so much I have to hold my breath and pedal fast to get past it or I know I will gag. They call the girls who watch the boys “ramp-slags” or “pro-hos”. The girls who beg to be allowed to watch their boys doing dope street action. He told me that, scornfully talking about some other girls last winter, back when I was busy rebounding off my own kerb. I’m not sure if Shannon counts as a ramp-slag, seeing as sometimes she isn’t there, and when she is she makes fun of him, ignores him, or tells her friends not to steal his bike (depending on what mood she is in). I expect most people would like someone leaning over the railings and watching, even if it is only fat Shannon, licking yellow from a bag of Wotsits off her fingers. If I show him this, and I probably wont, he will raise his eyebrows so he can look blank and expressionless, and tell me that I don’t understand irony, don’t understand he was playing a part, practicing his sarcasm. He’ll say that, and I’ll remember him riding ahead of me and turning his head over his shoulder to say, I could see you were going to have a good mope about whether we were in the house or not, so we might as well go out. I’m not going to let it spoil my night. And eventually I will leave it where it is and let him be right because it has become very important all of a sudden to keep this fragile peace of ours. And I am hungry, rattling on the new bike, so we stop for chips but he doesn’t want chips, so we go home and he says he thinks I need to be in on my own that evening. That’s what I need. That’s what he thinks I need. To be in on my own. He is going back out on his bike because that is not what he is all about, because I need to be in on my own and because there isn’t anyone as fresh and clean as him and he has told me so. Jenn Ashworth wrote her first piece for Un-Made-Up in June; back then she told me she writes "autobiographically, unreliably and daily." This is the fourth in her series of unreliable memoirs. The photo is by BMX rider Terry Geldard.
9:49 PM - 20/9/2006 - post comment
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