by Steve Bernstein, 2003

Me and John. Summer of 1971. Just rode our bikes over 500 miles. He just turned 17 that week. We were in the street, a suburban anywhere kind of street in a suburb of Montreal, straddling our bikes in front of my aunt’s house. She took the picture. The two of us- tough guys from the Bronx. We were getting ready to hit the road again. This was our half way point. I was so young and so old at the same time. 16 years old, graduated high school, on a bike trip with my buddy. What John didn’t know was I wasn’t planning on going home. I was going to tell him when we were heading south to the Bronx again.

I was dying. And then on this trip, I was alive, living, joyful. Met my first real girlfriend, Louise. The kids we met on the road looked up to me. No longer riding against the wind. I was the wind. We had our whole lives in front of us. John so goofy, corny most often obnoxious. I grew to love him nonetheless. He came from such a different place than me. They had fun in their house. There was laughter. I told him he can do this trip; he eventually believed me and we talked his parents into letting him go. Funny how it didn’t take any talking to anybody on my part for me to go. I decided to go and I went. My bike, my money. The only thing holding me back was that I had to work, or else my father’s business, our family wouldn’t make it. At least that was the myth. I should never have called my mom that day. That day this picture was taken. She was crying. My father was drunk again and she needed me at home, she was scared, wanted me back home. I really was planning on staying on the road. Maybe next time I lied to myself. The street was like any other street. We were on our Schwinn Continentals. Mine had the chrome fork, it was an original. It was my third bike the other two were stolen. John’s was newer, no frills. Funny, before that spring when we started training for the trip John knew nothing about bikes. I taught him everything. He got a flat 5 minutes out of the Bronx in New Rochelle. I fixed it for him. I fixed everything for him. I fixed everything for everybody. I’m so happy I hooked up with Louise. We made love in an alfalfa field in Vermont. I wish I could hook up with her again. I wish John and I followed through with that 30^th anniversary bike ride we were going to do. We talked about Canada again. 30 years later. The summer of 2001 came and went. So did John. I wished he hadn’t become a cop. I wished he wasn’t so g-d d-mn heroic. I wished those f-ing planes never hit that building he was in, saving people that September. I wish we were able to be closer over the years. I wish I can stop crying.