A White Coat Is My Closet (18 page)

His smile radiated both amusement and confidence. “As usual, I’m way ahead of you. In more ways than one. Firstly, I threw four bottles of water into an ice chest that’s under the seat. Secondly, not only is it going to be warm today, but the ocean views should be beautiful. Sadly for you, however, most of that will be lost on you. You’re going to be seeing little more than my back wheel and the sight of my ass as you struggle to keep up with me.”

Rather than giving him the satisfaction of looking as if I intended to react to the unspoken challenge, I just smiled and said, “You’re right about one thing, then; if my only view is that of your ass, it will definitely be beautiful.”

I walked by him, avoided direct eye contact, and clenched my teeth to suppress a laugh. He stood there, unmoving, with his mouth slightly open. He was at least temporarily at a loss for a quick comeback.

I glanced over my shoulder. “You coming?”

He smiled as he too began to amble toward the door. “Guess I’d better. I have the car keys.”

Rather than parking in the beach lot, where we would have had to pay, we parked on the side of the road about a half mile up Temescal Canyon. Getting down to the beach would be a breeze as we would have to do little more than coast. Getting back up to the car after an entire day of riding, however, was probably going to be a different story. The street presented a pretty steep incline.
Oh well,
I thought.
It will be a great glute workout. Give them a good burn.

Once we made it down to the bike path, we were indeed welcomed by a gorgeous day. There were only a few fluffy white clouds floating through an otherwise beautiful blue sky. The waves crashed gently against the rocks at the edge of the beach, and the sun reflected off the white sand. There were a few other bikers, but the path was unusually uncrowded, and from Temescal almost down to the Santa Monica pier, we were mostly able to ride side by side.

We pedaled at a pretty good clip, but even with the exertion, we could still talk to one another. I learned more about his family and what his life had been like growing up in Rome.

“There are five of us. I have two older sisters, an older brother, and my younger sister Lala, the one who lives here. I was the troublemaker. I never really did anything bad; I was just always creating mischief. In Rome, there are a lot of street policeman, and the one who worked on our block knew me by name. Our home was near the Trevi Fountain, and even on hot days, it was forbidden for children to get into the water. Legend has it that if you throw a coin into the fountain, you will one day return to Rome. So, of course, during the day, tourists throw hundreds of coins into the fountain.” Sergio grinned. “Some must believe valuable coins result in a faster return, because by day’s end, there were always quite a few silver dollars collecting on the bottom of the fountain.” The more he talked about his childhood adventures, the more animated he became, and he begin to peddle faster as he spoke. “It seemed a waste for that money to be lost on the promise of some tourist trying to return to Rome when it could be better spent on the certainty of buying us ice cream, so my friends and I made it our mission to try to sneak around the guard and scoop out as many coins as possible. That poor guard must have worn out fifteen pairs of shoes chasing me down the street after some of my more successful diving missions. On the bright side, the owner of the gelato shop loved me. I was his best customer, and he always had plenty of change.”

I found myself laughing too. In addition to finding the story of his childhood antics entertaining, I was amused by the enthusiastic narration of his story. It was evident he had warm memories of his childhood and that his carefree, unencumbered, impetuous spirit had existed since the early days of his youth. I might have been a little envious. I had no delusions about having been a perfect child, but I would have been hard-pressed to knowingly defy authority. Even as a child it was important to me that I be perceived as being a people pleaser. I didn’t want to be thought of as a troublemaker. Even on a beautiful day, peddling aimlessly down an incredible bike path on a picture-perfect beach, I had to shake my head at the absurdity. It occurred to me that even as a child, I’d known something about me was different. Something about me that might one day be considered shameful. So even as a child, I overcompensated. I worked to be well behaved, to play by the rules. Carrying a shameful secret meant trying to put up a façade of perfection.

I thought about my realization for a minute but decided to put it behind me. The day was too perfect to get bogged down in introspection. Besides, despite my feelings of inadequacy, my childhood had been mostly consumed by life-affirming experiences. I’d been athletic, I’d been smart, and though not the class clown, many of my friends had sought my company when they wanted to laugh.

Feeling exhilarated by the ride, by the warm breeze rushing past my face, and by the excitement of being in Sergio’s company, I felt inspired to share recollections of some of my own adrenaline-drenched moments of childhood.

“Well, I never had to run from the police, but I did have to outrun an avalanche once.” I looked at him to be sure he looked appropriately impressed, then continued.

I had told my larger than life story so many times I could have recited it backward, and every time I told it I embellished it a little more. The truth? Though it was a real avalanche and it could have knocked me down, when it happened, I was skiing far enough beneath it that even if it had reached me, I probably wouldn’t have been buried beneath more than about eight inches of snow. Excluding that information, however, made for a better story.

“Yeah, my dad started me on skis when I was about three, and this must have happened when I was about thirteen or so. Having grown up on skis, even as a young kid I was a pretty good skier. It was late in the afternoon, and though it had snowed the entire night before, it had been relatively warm that day, so the snow was getting soft. I was determined to get one more run in before the lift closed, so as my other friends headed toward the lodge, my friend Torin and I raced down the hill to get into the lift line one last time before they roped its entrance off.”

Sergio peddled more slowly and steered his bike closer to mine so he could hear me over the wind. He nodded to indicate he’d understood the progression of the story, so I continued.

“Anyway, when we got off the lift at the top of the slope, I needed to adjust my boot buckle, so I stopped on the top edge, took my gloves off, and reached down to tighten the one that had become unfastened. Torin was impatient, so he signaled to me that he was headed down and dropped over the lip. When my ankle felt appropriately secure in my boot, I too skied over to the edge of the lip and looked down the mountain. We had been the last ones allowed onto the lift, so except for a few slower skiers, who were still creeping their way down close to the bottom, Torin was the only other skier on the hill, and in the time it had taken me to fix my buckle, he was already a couple hundred feet below. I took a deep breath and for a couple minutes relished the idea that when I pushed off the top, I would literally have the whole mountain to myself. The feeling was intoxicating. It wasn’t just that the steep slope represented a challenging descent, it was knowing the contest would be just between me and Mother Nature. Like I was pitting my ability against the elements and there were no other contenders.”

I smiled over at Sergio, hoping my rendition of the experience was building suspense. “When I pushed over the edge, I was aware that a jet was flying overhead but paid it little attention. I wanted to make a good impression. I knew people who were down on the lodge deck were aware the hill was closing and would be looking up to watch the last skiers make their way down. I was essentially going to get to be a one-man show and wanted it to be spectacular. I pushed off and tried to ski vertically down the fall line. My legs worked like pistons, checking into the slope to control my speed, and I silently complimented myself for what I was sure was flawless technique. When I was about a couple hundred feet down the hill, I was shaken by a sonic boom. In itself, the sound wasn’t too alarming and was something almost anticipated when a jet crossed an empty horizon. What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was the loud cracking sound that followed in sequence. The vibrations from the sonic boom had broken a shelf of softening snow off the cornice above me, and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw it cascading down the hill at what appeared to be at the speed of sound. In that instant, my only thought was, ‘To hell with the one-man show, now I’m fucked!’”

Sergio glided over to the side of the bike path and came to a stop. He stood and straddled the cross bar of his bicycle, then took his water bottle out of his waist pack. He signaled me with a nod of his chin to stop next to him, put the spout of the water bottle to his lips, and tilted his head back to take a long satisfying gulp. After he swallowed he looked at me expectantly. “So, given that you obviously lived to be able to take this bike ride with me, what happened?” He smiled, and for a brief second I completely forgot what I was even talking about.

“Well, I really had no choice but to bend over and grab my ankles.”

He almost choked on the water he had just squeezed into his mouth and began to laugh as he sputtered, “You did what?”

“Well, I didn’t actually grab my ankles, but I did drop into a tuck, press my body as closely into my legs as I could, and point my skis straight down the hill. If the avalanche was approaching at the speed of sound, I had to haul ass at the speed of sound squared.” His confused expression registered that he didn’t get the analogy, so I clarified. “I had to ski faster than the friggin’ wall of snow cascading down the mountain, threatening to bury my ass.

“The main face of the mountain I was skiing down converged into a valley framed on each side by mountains with gentler slopes. As the bulk of the accumulating snow from the avalanche began to funnel into the valley, I used my momentum to turn up one of the side slopes. I was going fast enough that I was able to ascend about fifty feet, then hid behind a tree. Most of the avalanche went tumbling by me then came to a stop some two hundred yards beyond. The people on the deck had heard the avalanche come crashing down and so were looking up the slope. They had seen my terrifying race and broke out in applause when they saw me successfully evade being swept into the icy jaws of death. It’s a rare individual who dares to challenge Mother Nature and wins.” I pumped my fist and grinned. Of course, though the intention of the story was to try to impress Sergio, I didn’t want to be taken too seriously. My encore was giving what I hoped appeared to be a humble shrug. “I should be on a Wheaties box.”

I laughed, grabbed the water bottle out of his hand, and squeezed some water into my mouth. “Hey,” he good-naturedly complained, “I brought you your own water.”

I winked. “Don’t know why, but I’m sure your water tastes better.” I tossed the bottle in the air so he could easily catch it. “Besides, narrowly escaping death works up a big thirst. I’m saving mine for later.” Before he could either answer or squirt water in my face, I pushed off the path and began peddling.

Within seconds, he passed me, gave me little more than a sideway glance, and said, as if he was talking to himself, “That story explains a lot.”

I peddled a little faster to catch up. “What does it explain?”

He looked at me, pushed his sunglasses down his nose so I could see the humor in his eyes, then, as I watched a smile spread across his face, he answered, “Explains why you have an icicle stuck up your ass.” He accelerated and swerved in front of me so I was forced to follow him.

“It’s essential,” I yelled into the wind. “When you have an ass as hot as mine, the icicle serves as an equalizer.” He flashed a crooked grin over his shoulder, then stood up on the pedals to exaggerate the undulation of his own butt muscles.

“This is what a real hot ass looks like. I suggest you study it carefully, because it will be a cold day in hell before you ever catch it.” With that, he sat back down, tucked his head closer to his handlebars, and for the next hundred yards maintained an Olympic-record-setting pace. I only caught up to him when he stuck his legs out spread-eagled over the crossbar of his bike and began to coast.

I was winded when I caught up to him but was more flushed from laughing than I was from exertion. “You didn’t have to slow down. I was getting ready to pass you.”

“Dream on.” He waited a beat, then offered a grin that was the slightest bit seductive. “Besides, maybe I wanted you to catch me.”

I smiled too. “Careful. If I catch you, I might not let you go.”

We rode side by side for the next few minutes, neither of us breaking the silence, just offering the other bashful, contented smiles, enjoying the warmth of the day and the enjoyment of one another’s company. Then he offered a confident nod and said, “Let’s try to at least make it to the other side of the marina before we turn around.”

“Cool. I won’t leave your side.” I tried to maintain a neutral expression, as if my comment related only to our bike ride and could have no other interpretation.

He looked at me intently. “Good. Should be a perfect day, then.” His gaze held mine for a few seconds, then he offered an innocent shrug. “I mean, there’s not a cloud in the sky.”

Easy conversation continued between us as we made our way down the beach. “Okay, so you’re aware that my parents produced an army of kids. How about you? Do you have brothers and sisters?” He grinned. “Or were your parents so traumatized by having you that they were afraid to have any more?”

“No,” I said, laughing, “I’m one of four boys. I’m number two. My parents had their first child, achieved perfection on their second, and then continued to try to replicate their success. They gave up after two more attempts. Though they’re all right guys, my three brothers have never measured up to my greatness.” I tried to maintain a serious expression but ended up breaking into hoots of laughter as the last comment fell out of my mouth.