“It’s a little tight, but―that’ll do, pig, that’ll do.” 

Or I should say, that’ll do, bear, that’ll do.  I’m staring at myself in the mirror, and I realize that this Smokey the Bear cycling-leotard is just about the sexiest goddamn thing I own. The artwork is amazing and you can definitely see me easily. It’s no surprise Sunna found it for me.

I fix my cap in the mirror, velcro up my cycling shoes, and shrug on my cycling bag.

“A blank, white slate,” I say. “Where better to find one than Whiteface Mountain?” And it’s true. There has to be wisdom in solitude and climbing mountains. 

I mean even Hitler found solace with his isolation in jail―with Mein Kampf. Psychotic racist balloni-solace, but solace for him, nonetheless. If his pea-sized disturbed brain found purpose, even if false, maybe I can, too. Unless that’s the very definition of dead, lost cause.

I hate bringing up Hitler, but he proves again, just because you find purpose, doesn’t mean it’s validated or legitimate. It could just be a temporary vindication that starts rotting the second you concede and agree to it. I guess that’s why purpose confuses me. Who validates a purpose? Who vets it, corroborates, declares it worthwhile? What’s the difference and where’s the line between forward moving indifference and resolute purpose?

But hey, you have to start somewhere, right? There has to be something in isolation and climbing mountains, right? Every other New Yorker cartoon is an old wise man on top of a mountain. Maybe the thinner oxygen gives way to human enlightenment? Who the hell knows? There’s a reason people climb mountains for a new perspective. I guess both literally and figuratively. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Chase the sun as well as find myself? Not to mention an awesome bike ride. 

As I look for my old helmet out of my stinky, dusty closet, I brace myself: Is it possible I might have one, if not, multiple nervous breakdowns while riding one hundred and fifty miles on an old, rusty bucket named Helios? Absolutely. 

Am I going to prepare for them? The best damn way I can. Who the hell knows how it’ll work out? It makes me think of those lyrics from that Suicidal Tendencies song, “Institutionsalized.” I play it on my phone as I start packing for my journey.

As the riff blasts in my ear canals, I feel excited. I really do need time to figure things out. 

I need you to understand me―for you to figure me out. At this point you should actually have an opinion of me. I figure at this point you either hate me because I’m a loser, or you know exactly where I am coming from. I actually hope it’s about fifty-fifty. I want some of you to root against me, because that just proves me right: that no one cares about anybody, and that all things are useless, purposeless wastes of breath. 

For that other fifty percent, I love you, and love is only so meaningful because it ends. Thank you for knowing what I struggle with, or at least knowing that I am struggling. Thank you for understanding that even though I understand that I can find my own way out, it doesn’t mean that I’m not lost even inside my own room, or my own personal maze. 

Just because I have the key to free myself, doesn’t mean I can find the lock out of here. I’m here with you, but I have no idea what the hell to do with my time. I don’t think anyone does, but if you think you do, I think it’s just because you think you do, you feel?

***

The bell of Mo’s corner store chimes open, and I clink-clonk in with my cycling shoes on. I go to the small bike and car section of the shop and get three inner-tubes and a new tire lever. I grab a pack of matches. I already have some other bike tools and a small hand pump in my bag. 

I go over to the counter, where a large man in an oversized sweatshirt stands with a behemoth height over my favorite Yemenese store-manager.

“You’d never believe it, Mo,” Ivan, the regular at Mo’s corner store, starts talking. “Me and Molly, that’s what I call Aamaal―ye ‘memmer her? She’s dat woman with the Hijab― I finally learnt how to say that word, she taught me. She thinks my twang is all cute.” Ivan’s jolly, booming voice echoes in the small food-mart. Neither of them notice me. They might not recognize that it’s me with all this neon orange I’m wearing. 

“I’m very proud of you, Ivan. You and Aamaal are dating now?” Mo asks with a sly grin beneath his large nose. He fixes his glasses and puffs his red Hawaaiian shirt for some air.

“Datin’? Well, I tried. But we just walk with each other as of now. I think I’d need to lose a few in order to do that,” Ivan says, patting his tub of a beer belly. “Need to find an activity that keeps me moving.”

“You should join the Albany Knickerbocker Rugby Club,” I say, as I clomp forward and place my bike items on the table. “Or start cycling,” I add as I lean forward and flip my Smokey cap up with a smile. “Hey there, Mo. Hey there, Ivan.”

“Lewski! How the hell are ya?” Mo exclaims. His eyes widen as he opens his hands to me from across the counter. “How have you been, my friend? I got your texts saying you can’t work anymore. It’s a shame; we miss you around these parts.”

“I know, I am sorry. Had to. I think I had to, anyhow.”

“You are like the UN ignoring the nation of Yemen! No, but I understand. I won’t insult you by comparing you to the United Nations. Though, you have made my weekends suck a bit more lately. With you gone, I have to lift everything on my own! I am getting jacked though, you can probably tell.” Mo lifts his arms up and flexes his biceps.

I lean on the table and force a smile. I have no idea why I worked here. I like Mo. I think he’s an excellent human being. But as I am in here now, I can smell dingy dampness, almost like mold, irritating my stomach. I don’t think it’s the store itself. I don’t remember this stench. I guess it could be Ivan, but I don’t think it is.

“Yeah, man,” Ivan says out of the corners of his mouth. “Where you been?”

“Lost.” I say truthfully. “Like a chicken without a head. I think I need something new. Too much weight on my brain. Does that make any sense?”

The two of them exhale together like a trumpet section emptying their spit valves.

“I couldn’t understand that more,” Mo says with a resolute smile and a nodding of his head. Ivan stands there with his hands on his hips. The buzz of the fluorescent bulbs join in the hymn of silence.

“Need some bike stuff? Long trip?” Mo asks.

“You can say that,” I reply.

“Where you off to?” Ivan asks.

“Uhh. Whiteface.”

“You driving there?” Mo asks, as he moves an arm to scratch his hairy chest peaking through his shirt.

“Nope. Taking my good old rust-bucket of a bike. Good old Helios, with her broken levers and her rusty chain.”

“What the hell?” Ivan says, his brow furrowing into a tornado of disbelief.

“‘What the hell?’ is right, Ralph. You’re gonna kill yourself,” Mo states as a matter of fact.

“Well, it’ll be a damned good story,” I say with a forced smile. “But Mo, I really need about, oh, let’s call it five eggwiches please. From your hand to my belly, if’n you don’t mind, me dear friend n’ partner.” I say this in a southern drawl and look at Ivan with a smile.

“Damn. Okay,” Mo shrugs, “Coming right up, Lewski.”

Ivan leaves shortly after this. There is a moment where both Mo and I are completely silent. We stare at each other, mesmerized by the unspoken knowledge that the end is near.

We talk while he makes the five sandwiches. I ask about his family, about his investments. A little about what the Buffalo Bills are going to look like this coming year. We analyze the crisis in Yemen together, though there always seems to be some sort of crisis over there, as he says. That’s the disgusting beauty about people–there’s new conflict but it’s always over the same thing.

I pay and put the eggwiches into my bag.

“There’s nothing more I can do for you?” Mo asks, and he fixes his glasses.

“I uh,” I look at him with his broad chest and his perfect black hair. He repositions his glasses and then cracks his knuckles. “I don’t know, Mo. Got any advice for a man that’s lost it all?” I say this with a smile, but Mo’s stern, surrene face does not budge.

“What have you lost, Ralphie?”

“I think I’ve lost what everyone worries about losing.”

He looks at me and fixes his glasses. “I’ll tell ya what my father tells me, maybe six times a week. Do what you can for your family. Family can be torture, but life is hell. Do what you can for those you love, even if you toil away the goodness in you. That goodness goes to others. A good life is sacrifice.”

The words hang there like an anvil. ‘A good life is sacrifice.’ I look at Mo. I think of the articles of the tortured people of Yemen. The forced famine. The half-bodied humans sucked of their vitality by hate. The only pillar to lean on the family you came from. Mo is a pillar. He supports his family with the shop. He’s paused his own life for the people that need him. That’s how he gets through it all. It’s how he rationalizes his reason here. His purpose has been placed upon his shoulders. The responsibility of the world all balanced on the tip of his nose. 

“Anything else, there, Raphael? Need me to shine your shoes? We are all out of more neon clothes for ya,” he says with a smile and a little giggle.

I grin. “That’s real good advice, Mo. Thanks. And uh, no, sir, nothing else. You’ve done enough for me.”

I point down to my cycling outfit with Smokey the bear patterns all over it, big and pronounced. “I’ve got all the neon I need.”

“I can see that,” he nods with a laugh. “Good luck, Lewski.” He puts out his hand and we shake again.

“Yessir. I’ll see you out there. I need to do something for myself, I guess. I’m going to find a blank white slate at Whiteface.”

“You’re a psycho, pal. An absolute psycho,” he says and I wave goodbye and I leave the store.

I double check my tire pressure, lube up the chain, and make sure my helmet is as tight as can be. I start cranking the yanks as a symphony of mourning doves exacerbate the sky with a soft warning song. The wind smells fresh off the Hudson and the sky is as blue as Helios’ chipping paint.

It’s seven in the morning as my muscles flex and yank on the cranks. I start a long rhythmic pattern northbound towards the Adirondacks. The sun seems to call down to me, daring me to seek the wisdom of its own summit, mocking me for my clear lack of knowledge.

A part of me knows I will find nothing at the top of Whiteface Mountain. The mountain itself is just a pile of dirt, rocks, and trees that has stood there since the bedrock of time. It is the stoic watcher of the world as the leaves fall, the ice comes, the streams leak, and the grass grows. It is endlessly immovable. I will find nothing on its summit but ghosts, and hopefully a sun too strong to see. I need to burn the forest fire, but maybe I need to be blind while I do it.