At the bottom of the hill, off to the left and basking innocently in the sun, was the gravel parking lot -- a surface that does not provide much traction. With the rubber hum of my tires following after me in the warm, still air, I entered the lot. I turned my handlebars to the right in preparation for a U-turn. My bike had other ideas: the tires lost their grip on the gravel and slid out from under me. Body and bike kicked up pale dust as pedal, handlebars and knees dug furrows in the ground.

My friends -- the two Steves, I think -- caught up with me at that point, and with the innocent cruelty of youth, started laughing uncontrollably. I laughed a bit, too. After all, it was pretty funny. My knee felt like it had been scraped, so I lifted my pant leg to check. It had been more than scraped: gouged is the word that most readily springs to mind. A large chunk of my knee was hanging off, with blood welling up around it. Thinking quickly, I pulled off shoe and sock and used the sock to wrap the wound. It seemed to work pretty well, and I wasn't about to turn around and go home. It usually took the better part of an hour to make it up into the hills: I wasn't going to admit defeat now.

We continued into the hills, roaring down dirt tracks with sage in our nostrils and the chirping of cicadas in our ears, terrorizing joggers and equestrians. After an hour or two, we found a rattlesnake crawling slowly through the brush that climbed uphill from the wide trail circling the reservoir. We found a bag or a bucket -- I forget which -- and I put the snake inside using the end of a screwdriver that was only about a third of its length.

With the snake inexpertly ensconced in its temporary home, we decided to call it a day. Sometime over the last couple of hours I had lost my sock. It didn't really matter at that point: the blood had probably ruined it and, anyway, my knee had stopped bleeding. Once home, I snuck around the side of the house with my captive and piled three car tires on top of each other, creating a makeshift container. After putting the rattlesnake inside, I placed a board on top, weighting it down with a brick or some other heavy object. Yet another secret pet, like the scorpion in a coffee can in my closet.

This taken care of, I went inside. My mom looked at my knee and told me I needed stitches. I protested that I most certainly did not need stitches: my knee felt fine. At that point, the whole concept of stitches sounded like torture to me.

Despite my objections, I ended up on a table at the local clinic, for local people, with a local anesthetic turning my knee into someone else's knee. I felt a vague tugging sensation as the doctor worked, and nothing more. Thirteen stitches later and he was done.

The stitches didn't last as long as they were supposed to. Most of them were torn out prematurely -- in part due to my forgetting which day the trash was picked up. Empty trash cans are very easy to kick over: all it takes is a swerve of the bike and a casually extended foot. Full trash cans are another matter entirely. This particular trash can felt like it was full of cement. When my foot connected with it, my velocity combined with the unexpected lack of yield from my target sent me spinning off my bike. The stitches popped out.

As instant karmic retribution goes, this one stands out for me. I'd like to say that I learned a lesson that day about how petty vandalism doesn't pay... but I didn't. That lesson would come later on, and involved a crying man and his savaged sunflowers.

But that's another story. This one has no real lesson.
J2(7)