probably thinks of me as that crying girl who’s always in trouble.
I nod, embarrassed.
“Yeah, everything’s cool. I’ll just grab my bike and get out of here.”
Skunk presses his lips together.
“Actually—”
“Let me guess. Pawn shop. I should have called you a week ago, I know. How much did you get for it?”
I can’t help it—I can’t stop jabbering. When someone else is being serious, I start telling jokes. It’s like only one person is allowed to be serious at a time, and that person is never, ever me.
Skunk kicks at a pile of cigarette butts on the patio. “You might be mad.”
I stare at him. “Wait, you really did sell it?”
“No. I started doing some work on it.”
“Oh. But there was nothing wrong with it.”
A guilty look ripples across Skunk’s face. “I knew you’d be mad.”
He walks over to the shed, undoes the combination lock, and pulls open the metal doors.
There’s my bike. Well, sort of. It’s upside down and resting on a wooden workbench with its wheels in the air. The seat is off, the back tire is completely flat again, and the frame is held in place by two metal clamps. I hurry to its side like I’m a panicked relative who has just arrived at its hospital room.
“What did you do to it? Why’s the tire flat again?”
Skunk steps into the shed and pulls a dirty string to turn the light on.
“The wheels were so far out of true the spokes were about to snap. Your brakes are pretty shot too.”
He squeezes the brake lever to demonstrate. The brake pads kiss the tires feebly.
I cross my arms.
“It rides okay.”
I don’t know why I’m being so defensive about the state of my obviously defective bicycle, but it irks me when people fix things that don’t need fixing. Skunk gives the brakes another squeeze.
“If you think this thing rides okay, it’s been a while since you rode a decent bike.”
“My bike is decent.”
“But it doesn’t ride straight anymore, does it? Watch this.” He gives the back wheel a spin. I watch with my arms still folded. Skunk points. “See that?”
I glance at the wheel to be polite. As it spins, the wheel veers out to the right, then back in again. Skunk spins it a little harder. It wobbles in and out, in and out, in and out. “If you keep riding on this, those spokes are going to snap,” he says.
He looks at me sheepishly. “You are mad.”
I shake my head and try to suppress my irritation. Stop being such a bitch-nacho. I paste on a smile. “I’m not mad. I appreciate your help.”
Skunk snorts. “Translation: Hands off my bike, asshole.”
“Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting Project Extreme Bike Makeover.”
For the first time since he opened the shed, Skunk looks apologetic. He leans against the workbench. “If you want, I can just reinflate the tire and you can take it how it is. Or if you’ve got a minute, I can finish truing the spokes right now.”
I pause. When I look at my bike again, my self-righteousness ebbs a little. Fine. It’s maybe a little bit wonky. And I’m being extremely rude. After all, he’s already helped me out twice. The least I can do is let him true my stupid spokes. I put my hands on my hips.
“All right, Bicycle Boy. Extreme Bike Makeover. You’re on.”
Skunk reaches for a curved plastic tool that’s lying on the dusty workbench. He gives the wheel a spin and watches as it wobbles through the brake pads. After it’s gone around a couple times, he stops it, gives the little metal nub at the bottom of one of the spokes a quarter turn, and spins it again.
He sticks his finger in the wheel to stop its spinning and adjusts another nub. When he spins the wheel again, that part doesn’t rub against the brake pads anymore. There’s not really room for both of us to stand inside the shed, but I clear a space on the workbench and sit next to my bike with my legs dangling down while Skunk works. Now that I’ve decided to stay, I’m getting excited about the tune-up. It’s been a long time since I did anything vaguely maintenance-y on my bike. I lean forward and rest my chin on my knuckles.
“So were the wheels totally messed up?”
“Pretty much.”
“What happens if the spokes snap?”
Skunk shrugs. “You’d probably go over your handlebars.”
“Awesome.”
“Or a spoke could shoot through the rim and burst the tube.”
“That’s so metal.”
“Here. Listen to this.”
Skunk strums