Hurry While Supplies Last!!

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Introducing....the Liquidator-96! 

Why am I sitting here on a Sunday afternoon, Mother's Day, doing this blog when I should be hopping on my bike, riding 4 miles to Wal-Mart to buy a bike tube and back, then bringing the tube and a wrench over to Lilly's, fixing a tire, then wheeling the bike to the Hotel Monteleone garage to inflate the tire, then riding it 3 blocks to where the Chris Owens club is to sell it to Candy for 40 dollars?
Because I'm lazy, and would rather sit and do this right now.

I got a call from "Candy," about the bike that I had listed on Craigslist for $35.
"If you wait, someone will call and offer you the full price," Tim my caseworker had told me after I had told him that someone called almost immediately after I had posted the bike for sale, offering me only 20 dollars.
I had asked Tim about this because Tim is a frequent user of Craigslist and will check the listings for "free stuff" as he drives around the city, just in case there is something for free right around the corner from him that he can grab.
"Is it common for someone to call right away with a low-ball offer, hoping that the seller is a drug addict who needs money -just enough to quell the shakes would be fine- and will jump at the offer?," I asked Tim.

It dawned upon me that this would be another good business to get into, with a little bit of capital to make it work -monitor the Craigslist postings and call each and every one of them offering about half of what they are asking, then, using the same ad and picture, but with the seller changed to yourself, list it back on there at the original price. (Then reject the initial offers of about half that price that you might get from people intending to do just as you are).

I'm sure that it has been thought of, within a half hour of Craigslist having gone online whenever they did. And I would bet that Alex in California would tell me that the legwork involved in running around picking up things up and then storing them, plus the cost of shipping etc. would be prohibitive.

Although Tim did say that he had grabbed a free bookcase once that wound up not matching the rest of his furniture or something, that he wound up selling for $90 to someone. On Craigslist...

I told Candy that I would be able to ride the bike into the Quarter -"That's good, because I'm on the bus," to show it to her.
"At least that way, if I don't take it, you'll be able to ride it home," she added.

What could go wrong? I thought, but then remembered the karma surrounding the bike -how I had taken it from Howard and thanked him profusely, telling him the white lie of: "A bike will start saving me $2.50 a day on street car fares," without mentioning that I was already saving that amount by riding the Specialized bike that I had bought while he and Berta were still in the process of searching for one to give me for Christmas.

I had sold the bike once already, to Rose and Ed, who were subsequently evicted from Sacred Heart Apartments, and who returned it to the spot where it was in my way when I wanted to water my plants or vacuum the rug.

By the time I got to Clairborne Street, about three quarters of the way to the Chris Owens club where Candy told me she "was," the back tire on the bike had deflated to the point where I got off it and started to push it the rest of the way. I had texted "15 min e.t.a." to Candy right before the tire started going flat.
Had Rose ridden the thing and gotten a flat but never told me about it? No, I don't think so.

I got to the corner of Bourbon and St. Louis streets after having pushed the bike past Tanya Huang, feeling her: "You got a flat tire on your bike and you don't have a patch kit and an air pump; not the kind of guy I would want to partner with" gaze fall upon me.
At the corner stood an androgynous blond haired person, whose face went from lit up "Hi, I'm Candy!" to crestfallen "Oh, so there's no way I can check the brakes and the gears to see that they all work..." after I told her/him about the tire having gone flat on my way to sell it to him/her.
I can understand that someone in the Quarter might be leery and see a (conveniently) flat tire as a way one might conceal the fact that the gears and brakes don't work. Like trying to sell a car to someone that you forgot to bring the key for (d'oh!) otherwise, you could start the thing right up and rev the motor to show that it was in tip-top shape...

This is where the karma intensified surrounding the bike, as if we are in a Harry Potter type of story and the bike has a charm upon it.

I pushed the bike on its flat tire down Royal Street. When I got the the corner of Dumaine Street, I realized that I was right around the corner from the coffee shop where my friend Ester worked.
She is the one who sold me the Specialized bike that I had neglected to notify Howard and Berta about my acquisition of, so they would call off their search.
Ester had permitted me to stash the bike behind the coffee shop in a storage type area that already had about a half dozen bikes, some rolled up carpets and furniture in it.
As I was putting it back there, I heard the voice of a man yelling: "I don't give a fuck about him and his bike, get the damned thing out of my storage room!" at Ester and the other employee who said they would allow me to come back and get it any time either of them were working.
"Don't tell anyone else about this," Ester had cautioned.
A husky, bald headed man wearing a "Born Again" shirt was standing just around the corner of the place and as I pushed the bike past him, thinking of Lilly as plan B, he said words to the effect of: It's nothing personal, it's just that the people who live in the building use that room for extra storage, and if anything came up missing, some guy who was allowed to stash his bike in there would become suspect.

This made sense, and I sensed that it had been nothing personal. He just wasn't ready to trust Ester's judgment of me as someone who could be trusted with people's extra rugs and framed artwork that their walls have no room for, etc.

This was the French Quarter, after all.

This made me cherish my relationship with Lilly even more, to be reminded of how much of a dog-eat-dog place the Quarter is, in that way.

I got to the Lilly Pad, realizing that I hadn't brought my lock with me (why would I have, when I was just going to hand the bike off to someone and put 35 bucks in my pocket.

I should have brought the lock, though, in case he/she didn't buy the bike for any reason, like it having a flat tire.

It was the karma coming back to me over the duplicity that marked my taking the bike from Howard and Berta, leaving them with a sense that they had truly helped me out, when I technically didn't need it.

I was actually considering borrowing the bike from Rose, to ride to Howard's whenever I visited, so that he and Berta might think that I was enjoying their gift to me.

Something happened to underscore this.

First, Lilly arrived with her daughters at about 10:30 PM.

The bike, I had inverted and stood upon its seat about 15 feet from where I had begun playing. This is done often by bike owners who don't have locks. The theory is that, if someone wants to steal it, they would have to flip it upright before hopping on it and trying to make their get-away. This would alert the owner and give him a crucial few seconds to close the gap from wherever he was keeping an eye on it, throw the thief off of it, beat the shit out of him, etc..

I would have a few extra seconds available to me, due the the fact that the flat tire would delay a skeezer's departure.

I called for Lilly before she had gotten too far down her walkway, leaving my milk crate, backpack and tip basket with 4 dollars in it, along with my guitar case sitting under my spotlight 40 feet away, my guitar in hand.

"Oh, sure, go get it, hurry," said Lilly.

I whisked the bike over to her waiting hands.

"I'll take it back there. Get back there before they steal any of your stuff!," she said, and the Dynasty 930se became secured behind her gates.

Bike Karma
Chain of events continues...

Then a guy came along near the end of what was probably a 15 dollar Saturday night, and gave me a cup of coffee that he had poured out of a Thermos that he was carrying along with some other stuff.

He didn't have any cash, he said.

He was a simple sort of guy, in the Gomer Pyle vein, and after telling me that he had made the coffee himself "at home" and had used Community Blend or whatever the name of that coffee is that comes in red packaging and is a little more expensive than most, and that he had carefully added cream and just enough sugar, with an air of pride about him, and had stood there expectantly; I humored him by taking a sip off of the warm to the touch plastic cup that he had given it to me in.

It was warm, relatively weak, not quite sweet but not bitter, and just OK.

"Mmm, it's good, thanks," I said, wondering if he had pulled the plastic cup out of the trash by Lafitt's or if he carried his own cups.

I was transported in my mind back to when I had accepted the Dynasty bike from Howard and Berta, and the way I had said "Mmm, it's nice" feeling like a phony in the same way, knowing I had a Specialized Rock Hopper at home, just as I knew I had a better cup of coffee waiting for me at the Quartermaster.

As I walked off, I noticed the guy a short distance away, watching me. He wants to see if I chuck the coffee, which I had only sipped off of a couple times, into the same trash can where I thought he might have gotten the cup, after having lied to him about its being "good," I thought.

So, after I threw my dead batteries and the rest of my trash away, I headed towards the Quartermaster, under the gaze of Gomer Pyle, making a phony show of drinking the coffee as I went. Oh, what tangled webs we weave when we practice to deceive. This is just how I would feel showing up at Howard and Berta's on the candy red Dynasty...

Chucking the coffee in the trash would have hurt his feelings in the same way I was afraid that Howard's would be if he knew I was selling his Christmas gift. I saw the parallel between the two things, and could see how the flat tire and being chewed out by Mr. Born Again fit into the puzzle -which happened right at the spot where I had bought the Specialized bike that I never told Howard about.

Candy called me this morning and said that she had been thinking about me all morning, having determined that I am a really nice guy and perhaps feeling a bit guilty about having been so suspicious about the flat tire.

He/She had walked past me at the Lilly Pad at around midnight, as if wanting to verify as much of my "story" (about being a busker who played there, who wasn't trying to rip someone off on a bike that doesn't work) as possible. I had played "Help From My Friends," by the Beatles upon seeing him/her approaching, even though I had packed up everything but the guitar at that point.

He/She said in this morning's phone call that, if I fix the tire and still want to sell it, he/she would give me 40 dollars.

This call came after the phone rang with "Lilly" displayed on the screen, and I was unable to unlock the phone and tap the right buttons to answer it before she hung up. When I went to call her back, as soon as the phone came on, I hit a button that wound up answering a call that was from Candy. She had just happened to call me 30 seconds after Lilly had, and I had answered before her call even rang.

Mere coincidence, or is the bike charmed?

So, now I guess I fold up this laptop and get over to Wal-Mart (after grabbing my crescent wrench from the apartment) to buy a tube so I can hopefully fix it up in Lilly's back yard, pump up the tire and sell it, before the charm wears off of it.

I suppose Candy can't resist a candy red bike for 40 dollars.

And, people will be able to guess her sex by it, because it is a womans bike, so this might be a win-win situation!