Madness of Rage

"How's your beer?" "I'm good." It had become the phrase that we spoke to each other, mostly manners but really just a habit. Mike and I were playing cribbage and drinking beer in my kitchen. When lockdown came it would break up the monotony of him sitting at home. We would play a couple of games and talk about different things. I would tell him stories from my past. He mostly talked about his kids or his family. He had been a bit distracted the last couple of times he had been over. His Mom had recently lost a foot to diabetes. She was slowly getting back to normal after getting out of the hospital. She was going to get a prosthesis fitted and Mike and his step-dad had made some modifications to the apartment to ease her day.

I guess the thought of of his mother's leg made me think of this story. I had honestly forgotten the incident, but I guess that's how memory works, you need a trigger to pull it to the surface.

This took place in the early eighties. My wife and I lived in Vancouver and we were on our way to Surrey for the obligatory Sunday dinner visit with my parents. It was a hot summer day in Vancouver.

We were heading east along 1st avenue slowing down for the light at Boundary Road. M was a cautious driver but even so I like to stay observant. I looked to our left and I saw a motorcycle turning right onto Boundary Road heading west. What caught my eye was a dog with goggles sitting in the sidecar! You don't see that every day. It seemed that the rider was going a bit fast for the corner and sure enough he skidded the bike and knocked into the curb.

I told M to pull over. I did a quick check for traffic and hopped out to take a look. The rider was sprawled on the grass of the island but he was moving at least. I looked him over. His foot was at an odd angle. I told him I would be right back. I turned and walked back to my wife. I squatted down next to the driver side window. I looked at M. "I think there is something wrong with his leg. Can you find a payphone and call an ambulance?" She nodded and took off to get some help.

I looked around to see if anybody else was a witness or could help. No traffic, no pedestrians, nobody. The rider was laying there, and he seemed pretty calm. I asked if he was ok. He says, "I think I hurt my leg." I kneeled down to take a look and he was definitely hurt. I suppose he had put his foot down to steady himself when he came around the corner. As the bike slid, his foot had jammed between the curb and the cylinder of the bike. The foot was barely attached to his leg, basically just an inch of skin holding it on.

He didn't seem too upset by his injury. I looked him in the eye and I think he may have been on something or it may have been shock. I told him that my wife went to get help. "OK", he said.

There was very little traffic and a few people slowed down to look at the show but there wasn't much to see. I just stood there watching the dog in the sidecar who seemed very content and the biker who was laying on the grass.

He looked over at me. "Hey buddy, can you move the bike?", he asked. I told him that everything was fine, there wasn't any traffic and it was a double lane anyway. He sat up. "I don't care, I want you to move the bike" I looked at him and said, "I don't know anything about motorcycles, and I am not touching it." "What's to know? Just push the effing thing", he said. "Where?", I asked. "Push it onto the grass", he said. That's a fairly high curb," I started to say.

Then I had a flash of recognition. Now, I had grown up in an angry household. My mother had a pattern of irrational anger over things that made no sense at the time. My instincts were telling me that this was a similar situation. As with her, I realized that logic doesn't help, be calm and just go with your gut. I told him no again.

He was getting angrier. "Move the effing bike, a-hole!" I looked at him and said, "nope!" I looked him square in the eye and said, "You should be worried about your leg."

He glared at me and said, "my leg is fine, but you should move the bike!" Again, I refused. He gets up from the grass. He hops up on his good foot. He starts walking towards me with a very uneven gait, planting the stub of his leg into the grass and dragging the other foot behind it.

Now, I have always been pretty fit guy and it really was pretty easy to avoid this lurching fool but my incredulousness gave way to a bit of cruelty on my part. I would let him get just close enough for him to lunge and then I would jump away. All the time he is yelling, "I am gonna kick your ass." In response I asked him "with what?" That just made him madder.

We did this silly dance for awhile and then finally I could hear a siren. A fire truck pulled around the corner and stopped next to the bike. The biker decides he has had enough, stops his peg leg advance and eases himself to the ground. One of the firemen jumps off the truck and bends down to talk to the biker. An ambulance and two police cars pull up.

M arrives after a few minutes as well. I walked over and told her I would just be a couple of more minutes.

It looks like the biker is calming down and finally understanding the seriousness of his injury. A paramedic is picking dead grass and gravel out of his stump. I am standing a few yards away from all the action. A police officer walks up to me and asks me if I could answer a few questions. I shrugged, "sure."

"Me and the other officers wanted your take on what happened here." he said. "What the hell did you say to this guy that made him so mad?" He turns to the side and points at the grass. We are looking at maybe fifty bright crimson spots marking the grass, all in a very random pattern. I looked at him and said, "he wanted me to move the motorcycle, and I said no." I will never forget the look on his face. He shook his head and said, " we see this kind of stuff all the time but this one is madness."