The Jolley Cut

As he crossed through the intersection Jake found himself suddenly thinking about a particular day nine years ago in 1976 when he was twelve. A hard-braking bike brought it to mind, and maybe thinking about Marcus just before the rider pulled up had called up the memory as well. As he strolled, occasionally glancing over his shoulder for the next bus to come along, he found himself grinning with the memory of that crazy moment from his past.

He had just got his first racing bike the week before with its ten gears and down-curved handlebars. Marcus had borrowed his dad’s ten-speed, though it was too big for him. On that shining Sunday they rode to parts of the city where they’d never before been. The variable gear ratios on the bicycles made it possible to ride up the escarpment which divided the city between upper and lower halves, so near the end of the day they made a last, grunting pilgrimage up the long stretch of eight-degree slope known as ‘The Jolley Cut’ after the man who had created the pass for his ailing wife. They huffed up hill on the narrow sidewalk overlooking the lower city; literally ‘downtown’, wobbling along with speeding traffic tearing up from behind on the roadway wasn’t an appealing option for the boys. At the top of the sidewalk parallel to where the road begins its up-angled 180 degree curve to continue through Jolley’s old limestone quarry, they had dismounted their bikes and carried them up the steps past beautiful manicured gardens of azaleas, tall tulips, anemones and columbine.

In the grassy park perched at the top of the escarpment they swallowed the sensation that; with these serious, adult bicycles, the world stretched beneath was theirs from the Dundurn Valley to the Beach Strip and Lake Ontario and right across the bay to Burlville. It was all at their beck. His father was frequently absent, so Marcus had already known some sense of two-wheeled freedom, but for Jake this open new world was a revelation. He felt wildly alive, separate from his parent’s identities for only the second time in his life. He wanted to shout out.

They rode to the corner of Concession Street where the Jolley Cut begins its descent eastward before the enormous curve of the cut curls around westward along the long stretch of Arkledun Road leading into the lower city. The plan was to wait beneath the down-direction stoplight until it turned red and then pedal hard to pick up enough speed so that they would hopefully remain well ahead of car traffic once the light changed to green again.

They got their chance sooner than they had expected. Jake remembered vividly the frightening new sense of almost uncontrolled acceleration as he pedaled hard into the steepening rock cut. Wind pulled his hair back and, as he rocketed out from the bottom of the curve, he found he had no time for the spectacular view to his right. He had never before on his own moved at the lunging speed he was now making so that he was wrung hard between exhilaration and terror. Marcus’ dad’s bike had a speedometer and he later told Jake they were hitting forty-five miles per hour when they started the two-mile-long steep grade to the bottom of the escarpment. The speed limit on the Jolley Cut was thirty, at twelve years old they could have been pulled over for speeding!

Glancing down at the asphalt blurring under his unprotected ass Jake finally lost all his nerve. In a moment of good sense, he began gently tugging at the handle for his rear brake. He gave it pumps and found he could arrest his descent to something more closely resembling the speed limit without risking hurling himself over his handlebars with the front brakes. That’s when things began to go haywire.

Marcus hurtled past Jake like a mad cheetah. His light jacket billowed behind him as the wind swept it back. As Jake gradually slowed himself he felt comfortable enough to watch Marcus careening down the long hill. He was already on the bridge which spans the Claremont Cut descending underneath in the opposite direction. Jake watched for Marcus to slow down. That was the moment when he remembered Marcus telling him that his dad’s front brake was worn to the nub and practically useless. That’s also the moment when Jake saw the cable for Marcus’ rear brake snap and whip over his shoulder to flap impotently in the hurricane force of his plunge.

Wide-eyed, Jake released his own rear brake in the hope of staying close to his friend. Marcus was now futilely trying to use his feet to slow down. Clearly, this was too dangerous and impractical as Marcus’ feet repeatedly snapped backward, almost launching him from the bicycle. Finally, on his fourth attempt, Marcus’ right shoe split at the sole and fired itself up and over the guardrail overlooking the lower city.

The last half mile or so of the Jolley Cut descends on Arkledun Road heading west between tall buildings before curving sharply ninety degrees to the right to descend even more precipitously onto John Street. A stoplight, obscured by the tall buildings on the right side of the roadway, controls traffic where Arkledun Road connects with John Street and intersects with St. Joseph’s Street. Since this stoplight at the bottom of such a drastic descent isn’t visible until literally the last moment, the city had placed a small sign which flashes the urgent notice ‘RED’ just a few yards along from where the bridge Marcus was presently careening down out of control joins with that last half mile of Arkledun and the intersection.

Jake checked over his left shoulder for approaching traffic. He was relieved to see that the cars were far behind, just emerging from the Jolley Cut at the top of the long stretch. He turned back just in time to see Marcus look in horror as the warning sign began flashing its dire news about the stoplight ahead. Panicking, Marcus tried one more time to slow himself with his one shoe and then his unshod sock. This effort having failed, he began pointlessly, frantically pedaling backward, his long blond hair and red and blue jacket streaming behind him. Incongruously, Jake thought of Guy Lafleur, the great Montreal Canadiens’ right-winger.

The malicious, terrifying “RED’ sign was still flashing its message as Jake blasted by it, his gut full of iron. He was too young to consider that he might be losing his mind, but he and Marcus would later share a belly-laugh from his admission that he spontaneously wondered about asking Guy Lafleur to attend Marcus’ mourning Kaddish.

In a split second it was too late for thought. Marcus hit the sharp right curve. Two blessings fell upon him that day. One was that only a single car was stopped at the red light above John Street, and it was in the far lane rather than the curbside lane. Marcus had just enough control over his dad’s bike to miss the stopped car. The second blessing was that, because the light was near the end of its cycle, only two cars were moving through the intersection with St. Joseph’s Street. Marcus shot through the crossroads moving so fast that he blasted between the two cars unscathed, terrifying their occupants into slamming on their own brakes mid-intersection.

They were still stopped in the intersection when the light changed to green just in time for Jake, who tore by them only barely in control himself and bravely trying for the sake of posterity to witness his friend’s last moments. He felt no confidence in the fact that the first building he passed on his left was St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital. John Street continued a gradual descent at a lesser grade, all four lanes heading north into the city centre and even heavier cross traffic. Jake chose to live and began squeezing his brakes once again before he looked up to see that Marcus had swung very, very wide and was describing a parabola the apex of which would almost touch the left-side curb of John Street. Jake read Marcus’ actions immediately. Marcus was aiming for Forrest Street, which ran perpendicular to John and began a slight but prayer-answering upward grade directly past its intersection with the main thoroughfare. He very nearly made it too.

Jake watched in dumbstruck fascination as Marcus finished his parabola, miraculously unhindered by motor traffic, and guided the crippled bicycle onto Forrest Street. He must have been only millimeters too far to the left in his judgement. Forrest just happened to be one of the last streets in Wentworth with the old four-inch high sidewalks, tall enough for the embedded steel rings which had once served as tie-up points for horse-carts like the milkman’s. The rings were long gone, of course, but the inordinately tall sidewalk still remained in 1976. The front tire of Marcus’ bike jammed up alongside the raised sidewalk edge with such conviction that it ceased revolving almost instantly. The rest of the bike, along with Marcus, tried to continue forward by pivoting vertically on the lever of the stopped front wheel. Marcus was catapulted over the handlebars, clearing them easily with his feet; one still shod and the other stockinged, and landed almost gymnastically upright. His momentum forced him to run forward four or five steps before stopping and instantly turning back around, panting frantically and paler than Jake had ever imagined even Marcus could be. The ten-speed had landed back on its rear wheel and was standing still, perfectly upright, jammed against the edge of the sidewalk; it’s only movement the waving, antenna-like snapped brake cable.

Jake skidded to his own screeching stop beside Marcus’ dad’s bike. His friend’s astonished, saucer-shaped eyes and frantic chest heaving, staring at the still-life tableau of bicycle and sidewalk, instantly erased any power of self-control left to Jake. He jumped off of his bike and lost himself to peels of bellowing, gut-busting, uninhibited laughter. Jake’s legs couldn’t support him and with his bike he fell to the sidewalk. He clutched his stomach and drew his knees in, roaring and roaring over the pure and sublime absurdity of the scene. Tears poured from his still wind-blasted eyes and his cheeks began to ache. Marcus, standing further along the concrete sidewalk, finally caught his breath.

As the picture of the bike, standing perfectly still and mute against the walkway with its one free and wiggling cable, finally registered on Marcus’ frazzled consciousness he too began to laugh. Relief or insanity may have played its part in Marcus’ reaction, but simple joy of living was the distinct emotion Marcus would later remember from that moment back in 1976.

Jake recalled this long-ago day in the space of perhaps a minute, walking along and grinning to himself like an insane Buddha. If he lived for a hundred years he doubted he would ever laugh anywhere near as long or as hard as he had on that Sunday afternoon nine years ago and he strongly doubted Marcus ever would either. He also suspected that they might never again feel as alive as they had at that moment. Neither of them were daredevils. He didn’t care, that one powerful quickening was more than enough to last him a lifetime.