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We’ve known each other long enough now that I can finally tell you the bike story.
Hearing this yarn is pretty much a rite of passage for anyone important in my life, and the fact that you keep coming back each week to read my column proves that you’re special.
This version will be different, though, because I’m going to include its infrequently shared prequel. It’s really too embarrassing, but we’ve bonded over our mutual love of whoopie pies, the Yankees, and my need to talk about every awkward thing that’s ever happened to me, so I’m going to spill.
In a previous post, I revealed that I am seeing a therapist. In a recent session, we discussed my compulsion to chase perfection, and she asked me if I had ever achieved it, but not been properly rewarded.
That led to my telling her the bike story.
I didn’t share the preamble, though, so I hope my therapist reads this so she can get up to speed.
When I was growing up in Brooklyn, my bedroom was on the top floor at the back of the house. It overlooked the backyard and garage, and I’d have trouble sleeping because the shadows of the trees would dance on my walls and make me think someone was watching me from the garage roof.
At the time, my overactive imagination led to insomnia and nightmares. Now, it allows me to entertain you with odd stories every Friday.
One morning, when I was about 10, I woke up from a nightmare to a sound in the backyard. Of course, I assumed this was just a continuation of my dream, so I didn’t give much thought to what I saw.
A stranger with a guitar was pedaling away from the garage on a ten-speed bike. It was boring compared to my usual weirdo nightmares, so I just rolled over and went back to sleep.
That morning at breakfast, I mentioned my dream about a member of the church folk group who must have taken a wrong turn and ridden his bike into our driveway before early mass.
Everyone looked at me like I was crazy, which wasn’t new, but my stepmother went to look out the kitchen window. A rusty green bike rested against the garage door. A quick inspection of the garage revealed that our ten-speed bike and an old acoustic guitar were missing.
I had not only witnessed the robbery, but I’d also created a cover story for the thief. Sure, it made no sense that a member of the church’s folk group had biked into our driveway shortly before sunrise, but I was just a kid who was half asleep and preferred the world of my imagination to reality.
◊♦◊
Needless to say, the crappy green bike the burglar left behind became my ride of shame. Every time I was on it, I was reminded of my stupidity and naivety. Plus, my siblings never let me forget how I’d allowed the heist of the century to go down without heroically running out to confront the criminal mastermind in my pajamas.
After that, I longed for a new bike so I could put that brain cramp behind me. I also secretly wished the garage would get robbed again by a thug who’d leave behind better wheels for me.
Alas, I had no such luck.
In a perfect world, I would’ve gotten my new bike, but as my stepmother was always quick to remind me, I was far from perfect.
When not failing in life as the worst member of my neighborhood watch, I was an excellent student. I always got straight A’s, I was at the top of my class, and as a result, I earned a full scholarship to a prestigious high school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Being a great student came pretty naturally, but I was also driven to succeed by a very powerful force: my stepmother and her unrelenting demand for perfection.
When I’d bring home a 99 on a test, she would ask why I didn’t get 100. When I earned an A, she wanted to know why it wasn’t an A+.
There was no satisfying her, but that didn’t keep me from trying. I never failed a test in my life, but I was still a failure in my stepmother’s eyes.
I didn’t want to go to the nice high school in Manhattan. My heart was set on attending the local one with my friends from grammar school. However, that was not an option offered to me.
My stepmother told me that either I got a full scholarship to any school in the city, or I would be sent to the local public school where a little nerd boy who rode a hand me down bike from a criminal would get beat up every day, relieved of his lunch money, and then stuffed into his locker for the afternoon.
That what not a future I wanted, so I desperately chased after perfection and earned that scholarship.
◊♦◊
At my grammar school graduation, I was awarded the Medal of General Excellence as my class’ top student. I had no idea such an award existed, and I’m sure my stepmother didn’t either because she would have demanded in advance that I win it.
This honor, which my stepmother took all the credit for from the teachers, priests, and other parents after the ceremony, clearly did something to temporarily short circuit her brain. I say this because she promised to buy me a brand new bike as a reward.
I couldn’t believe it. To say I was stunned would be a total understatement.
My stepmother never rewarded my hard work. She never accepted that I was performing to the best of my abilities. And she sure never spent large sums of money on me.
Finally, my pursuit of perfection was going to be rewarded.
A new bike.
No more burglary linked bike of shame for me.
I was going to be tooling around the mean streets of Brooklyn on an awesome new dirt bike.
I was so excited that I let my imagination get away from me, and daydreamed about riding my bike from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side every day for high school. You sure as hell don’t stuff a guy on an awesome bike into a locker.
While I resented my stepmother for always pushing me too hard, never showing me any affection, and forever reminding me how I would never live up to the reputations of my stepsiblings, I was willing to forgive and forget in return for my new bike.
It was the perfect fairy-tale ending to the bizarre afterschool special that my life had become. The moral of the story would be that hard work was always rewarded, stepchildren would eventually be loved and accepted, and perfection could be achieved.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get my happily ever after.
Apparently, the promise of a new bike came with a catch. It had to be the dorky ten-speed model my stepmother insisted upon, rather than the cool dirt bike I wanted.
So I never got the bike I was promised for graduating at the top of my class.
Lately, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to having kiddos of my own, and I can’t wait to be a Daddy. I already know that my children will be forever perfect in my eyes, they will never be forced to ride getaway vehicles abandoned by local toughs, and I will never break a promise to them.
Yes, I’ve been chasing perfection my whole life and I think I’ve finally found it. Only this time, instead of using threats and empty promises, someone has taken me by the hand and lovingly led me there.
This story has been republished to Medium.
Photo credit: iStock
Read Austin Hodgens‘ column every week here on The Good Men Project!
Thanks for baring your soul, Austin. I can relate in a different way. My stepfather did everything he could to keep me from realizing my dream of becoming a journalist, including punishing me by forcing me to burn all of my Writer’s Digest magazines. But he also promised, as a graduation gift, to finally adopt my brother and me. He didn’t keep that promise and now I’m glad he didn’t. I would hate to have my abuser’s last name as part of mine.
Thanks, Donna, for your continued support. I’m glad you enjoyed this week’s column1
Thanks for sharing what is clearly a painful memory. Not easy to open up to the free world with this stuff, so congrats on getting it out there-I hope it helped wash away the sting. I didn’t have an evil stepmother but I did have an evil grandmother. She promised to buy me suits and other career garb when I graduated from college but when the time came, I was a size 12 and she decided she wouldn’t buy me clothes until I was a size 8. I washed that down with a pint of Haagen Dazs (cause Ben &… Read more »
It’s nice to know others can relate, Jill. I’m definitely hanging in there. Life is good. Sometimes, writing about it is the best therapy of all. 🙂
Excellent, as always, Austin.