February 27, 2017:

She bought me a Schwinn, a Stingray, exactly the cool-ass ride I'd lobbied for. It had a banana seat and high butterfly handlebars, and I put a tall wheelie bar on it and clipped some playing cards to the spokes and was badass.

It came with training wheels which took a couple of practice runs on the sidewalk to outgrow.

Almost immediately my friend and I rode across town, a long way, on crowded main streets, an all-day journey, to visit my old apartment, the one we'd left, where I hoped to catch glimpses of my old neighborhood friends. Instead we found my sitters out for a walk, an elderly couple from the country; and they gasped when they saw me. I chose not to acknowledge them and we rode home.

Always looking backward.