it ain't gonna be nothin' nice

The next time I went in was the following Thursday. I drove there and found the shop was busy. All the bike stands were taken. I went over to the wall of parts and looked at the pedals. I asked one of the volunteers what to look for in a pedal and he said they're all basically the same. Some you add a strap to, some are wider, making it easier to keep your feet on.

There was a guy on the floor sorting through the cranks. I overheard him tell Marcos he couldn't find a 175 length to match one he found. I kept looking through the pedals, thinking that I was lucky to have found the pieces when I did. And feeling a little guilty. For no good reason, of course. First come, first serve. But I got that dang feeling inside that said, "Share your things, like a good boy."

He saw me holding a set of metal pedals and said they looked pretty good. And then he made me feel even more guilty by saying they were the ones he was going to be looking for when he got to it. I didn't know what to say.

"I was looking for 175s the other day and the only two I could find were mismatched," I said, though I'm not sure why. He had cranks all around him on the ground.

All the stands were still full so I took the pedals to the storage room in the back and screwed in the pedals into the hanging bike's cranks. They fit nicely.

Back in the shop I found an empty rack. I took down my bike and set it up. I spun the cranks and they whizzed in circles. I admired what I'd done so far.

The guy from the floor looked at it, too.

"You've got your cranks on the wrong sides," he said.

I found that hard to believe since I put them on with the help of four volunteers last Saturday. But he was right. I had put the gears on the left side, and even I could see that that was wrong.

I asked Marcos how to fix it. He said just switch the cranks, the bottom bracket was fine. He grabbed the tools and asked me if I knew how to use them. I assured him I did.

The switch was easy enough and it felt good to be able to fix something by myself. I ask Marcos what I should do next. He said I should find some wheels and pointed up where wheels of different sizes hung above our heads.

I wasn't sure what to look for in a good wheel. I looked for Marcos to ask him. I could hear him arguing with someone outside. It sounded like someone was trying to take something from the shop. This went on for a while and I wanted to get home soon so Bek and I could watch the finale of America's Next Top Model before went to a friend's for dinner and to watch the Hornet's game.

I put up my bike and went out to the car, parked near the door. There was Marcos working on a kid's bike. I recognized the kids from last Saturday, the kids who were spray painting their bikes. Marcos was on the ground and working furiously on something while arguing with the kid about something I couldn't quite understand.

I waited hoping to get Marcos' attention for a second to tell him thanks and that I'd see him next time, but he never saw me. There was a guy leaning on the door watching it all and a tiny black dog at his feet. The dog crept near me and I squatted. When it got close enough I scratched it's head and back. The guy at the door said something to Marcos and headed down the street. He called the dog and it followed him.

As I was leaving I heard the kid say something about his mother coming down here.

"It ain't gonna be nothin' nice," he said.

I drove away thinking about that and I felt sick. I hate confrontations. Witnessing them is probably worse than being part of them. When I'm in it I at least have some control. But I didn't know what was going to happen here. I feared something would actually happen, that this kids friends or family would come down and bully tiny Marcos over some misunderstanding.

This was the first time I'd left Plan B with a bad feeling, I realized.