Bruce Walker
Washington Post, November 5, 1995
My bike was stolen. The Republicans stole it.
Follow the sad syllogism: A year ago, the Republicans swept both housesof Congress. Democrat Tom Foley, the speaker of the house, lost his congressionalseat and became an ordinary Joe. The Capitol Police stopped patrollingthe alley behind his Capitol Hill house. The alley behind his house isalso the alley behind my house. I kept my bike in the back yard. My bikewas stolen.
The story of the theft, and of the events that followed, contain othervaluable civics lessons for the urban dweller.
I naively thought our six-foot fence provided all the security we needed.So my girlfriend and I put our two bicycles in the shed in our back yardand, for some reason, locked them together, even though the shed itselfhad no lock.
Lesson 1: Locking your bike to a movable object is like anchoring yourrowboat to a whale.
I did not call the police. When police came to investigate our lastburglary three years ago they spread fingerprint dust all over the place,then told us they would never catch the burglar and we would never getour stuff back. They were right. For weeks our house looked like the setfrom "The Munsters."
Also, bikes get stolen all the time and nobody ever gets them back,do they?
Lesson 2: Yes, they do.
Two months later I was on my lunch break. As I stood on the corner atVermont and K, a man riding a red bicycle passed no more than 15 feet infront of me. Not just any red bicycle but a red . . . Specialized . . .Sirrus . . . with the old-style decals.
My bike was my friend and partner for eight years. I knew its dingsand quirks. I knew it as a parent would know a child. I headed up VermontAvenue after it, walking quickly and hoping the thief was not going far.
He went one block, pulled onto the sidewalk, got off, locked the bikeand went into an office building.
I started to run.
A quick look was all it took: This was my bike! I couldn't believe it.
The joy of discovery was instantly overwhelmed by the fear of confrontation:How would I get it back? The bicycle thief had done something it hadn'toccurred to me to do: lock the bike to an immovable object, in this casea signpost. And since it was locked, I couldn't just ride it away. Andsince I'd never reported the theft, I not only couldn't prove it was mine,I couldn't even prove it was stolen.
Lesson 3: Always report thefts to the police.
Then I wondered if bicycle thieves carry weapons. Would I be stabbedor shot? Would there be a fight? Was it worth that much to me? But howcould I just leave it there?
Miraculously, there was a public telephone a half block away. Even moremiraculously, it worked. I dialed the only number I know for the police,911. In my head, I rehearsed my "I know this isn't an emergency butthis is the only number I know and here's what's going on and maybe youcan send a police car here, please" speech while the phone rang once.Twice. Three times. Four times.
"Due to an unusual number of emergency calls, all our operatorsare currently busy. If this is not an emergency, please hang up and call. . ."
Voice mail on 911? This wouldn't happen if I were calling, say, Time-LifeBooks.
Finally it hit me: It is my bike, so why don't I just remove the rearwheel? Let him come out; he won't be able to ride away.
Off with the wheel, back to the phone. This time I got through. I explainedthe situation as calmly as I could through my adrenaline mania. The 911operator said she would send someone there.
While she was getting the address from me, I saw him exit the building.He was a young man, of sturdy build and springy step. He looked at thebike, did a double take, and asked something of a passerby. Then he startedwalking toward me. It was a sad, sluggish, I've-been-robbed shuffle, likethe one I had done two months before.
Me, I was easy to spot: I was the guy standing at the pay phone, holdinga bicycle wheel.
But he walked right past me. I decided he saw me and knew I was callingthe police. The jig was up, and he was making his escape.
Wrong again. He simply had not noticed me.
I hung up and headed back to my bike. I looked behind me and was surprisedto see him following me.
The showdown I had feared was about to happen. The moment of truth.Justice on my side, I would now take back what was mine.
He was probably thinking something along the same lines: That guy justbrazenly stole my wheel, and I'm going to take it back from him.
I believe we are defined forever by what we do in moments like these.Grace under pressure and all that. I hope that is not the case, becausein that transcendent, defining moment, I became Daffy Duck. Sputteringand pointing and leaping about in a cartoonish fashion, I said somethingabout how he was "going to prison." It was not my finest moment.
He kept saying something in a maddeningly reasonable voice, and whenI calmed down, I finally heard him: How did I know this was my bike?
I explained, pointing out all its beauty marks and peccadilloes. I notedthat he must have replaced the bad tire and the worn-out wrapping on thehandlebars, and he nodded sadly.
"I didn't steal your bike," he said.
My bike?
Things were looking up.
His name was George. He was a bicycle courier. He said he had recentlybought my bike for $40 from a stranger. He said he didn't know anythingabout my girlfriend's silver Schwinn.
I believed him. George seemed like a nice guy. He was a victim, too.
Lesson 4: Don't blame the victim.
George was reluctant to give his bike to a total stranger simply onmy word. I could see his point. Further complicating our negotiations wasthe fact that George recently had been stopped by the police while ridingmy bike, apparently on a routine check. They compared the serial numberwith a list of stolen bikes and guess what? No match.
Lesson 5: See Lesson 3.
By now we had been trying to settle things for more than 10 minutes.The police had not yet come. George wanted to know if we could handle thiswithout involving the police. I understood that. I, on the other hand,had a shaky legal claim. He understood that. I suggested that I reimbursehim for the $40 he'd paid for my bike, plus $20 for the new tire. Moneychanged hands. A bike changed hands.
Lesson 6: Desperate situations can sometimes be resolved through mutualextortion.
As I rode home to put it safely inside my house, I thought about allthat had just happened, and what lessons I had learned. I thought abouthow George was probably feeling violated, much the way I felt two monthsearlier. I thought about how I'd finally found the closure I needed, andconsidered all the coincidences that had come into play to place both ofus at that corner at the exact same moment.
And I thought that if I was this lucky today, maybe if I just kept looking,one of these days I'd find my girlfriend's silver Schwinn.
Lesson 7: Sometimes it is time to just let it go.
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