I call to Michael. I am above, on the smokers point below Georgetown. He is below, on the trail above the Potomac. It’s just before noon and the sky is muggy, beat down by the heat and still ashen from the Ontario fires. And then it is August, or perhaps May, and I’m with her and the sky is purple and the would-be Maoists have scrawled empty slogans and fuck your mother in handwriting that betrays Google translate and all the couples are smoking but we’re not, we have reservations, but that’s unlike us so I suppose we don’t, and then I’m back and I’m here and Michael is all grins and knees and we agree to rendezvous down the trail.
Daniel pulls off the towpath eight feet beyond our bench. He’s wearing a through-hikers pack. His helmet is fastened snugly to his seat post rear rack. He is wearing a yarmulke and a white v-neck t-shirt. His face is pockmarked with acne scars thinly covered in a bramble patch of a beard. A small wooden board has been affixed to his head tube. He asks where to find water. I say, “right here, brother,” and offer my bottle. He doesn’t catch the Hulk Hogan reference and declines. “I carry 2.5 liters.” He’s headed to Harper’s Ferry. “Halfway.” To where, I don’t ask. “I almost hiked the Appalachian Trail, made it halfway.” He gives us his mileage. We’re off to Great Falls. We’re seeing the sights. Daniel says it’ll be either college or HVAC for him. He’s 19. Said he decided to bike upon arriving home from halfway up the Appalachians, “just sitting watching TV. Uh-Uh, I had to get active.” He declares that bikepacking and backpacking are 80% similar. He obsesses over equipment. “I’m a gear head,” he declares after our weary acknowledgment of his passion. “In England that means you’re addicted to coke,” Michael says. We return from the overlook and Michael asks, “so what sort of Jew are you?” But in a more polite way. “Orthodox.” “I’m reformed, I guess.” “No judgement here.” “We were conservative, before leaving for England. My brother bar mitzvah-ed in a conservative synagogue in London. But we sort of fell in with the reformed.” We say our goodbyes. I tell Daniel to wear a helmet. “But it’s sweaty.” I badger on. He takes my advice.
Michael says I’m too nice. That he wouldn’t have brought Daniel. We discuss whether he was a tad slow. We land on socially awkward. I posit he’s like all boys leaving hyper-religious communities. Michael says that’s romantic. I don’t tell him I’m selfish. That I wanted Daniel for a story. That I got one. We bike on. A pit-stop at Angler’s Inn becomes a lunch. She’s been there too. But not with me. False memory. We peddle on. DEADLY UNDERTOW. HEAD FOR SHORE. The Potomac is treacherous. Michael’s nose is red now, the ginger tinge of his beard receding under the scarlet of his cheeks. We split ways under the bridge. I’m parked at GWU. 7-11 coffee. Walking the dog after tequila. Mesh walls and salmon cakes. I tighten Red Dust atop the Baja and head east along K. A cop heading south banks west and stops in traffic, “was it hard to get the bike up there?” “No, not at all,” I gesture through the moonroof, “just twist that red knob.” “I just got a nice bike and I’m choosing between that and the rack.” My light turns green so I give gas.
So I drive through this city of monuments. The demented dentist litters the operating room floor with the marble remains of memory. They crumble on a second pass.