He Is Probably Accustomed

My bike had a flat in the fall.  Maybe it was already winter.  There must have been a puncture on the inner tube as it was stone-flat.  And with that my cold early winter rides for five minutes over to the gym and the grocery store came to an end. I’d avoided the mile walk over and insisted on having a car to get myself over whenever I needed to.

Today was an undeniably rising spring day.  The magnolia tree out front was emerging with eighty-nine different flower buds blooming.  I had to drop my older one off at an appointment and it occurred to me to get the inner tube fixed on the quick dash back.  A bike shop would be a hassle, but who needs one when there’s a traditional Chinese cure.

There was a time, when every corner in China has a little enterprising old man, sitting with a pump, and tools and a water vessel ready to help with bike repair. In Shanghai in 1993, everyone biked everywhere.  These entrepreneurial ge ti hu were ubiquitous and thank goodness too.  If you had forty minutes to go before you got home and the tire on your “Flying Pigeon” gave way, you’d be walking and swearing.

Our neighborhood has a bike repair gent.  He sits by the flower sales people, beside the bridge between two compounds.  I folded up the bike, threw it in the car and headed over, to the dusty turnabout where I knew he’d be.  The flower lady greeted me expectedly as I parked my car.   I gestured to the man with the cluttered old san lun che smoking on a cigar.  I considered his tools as he considered my tire.  His perch here is near the villas so he is probably accustomed to aiming high.  He said something in a thick regional dialect.  I suggested half of what he’s said, and he accepted, quickly.  I do recall when these services were only a few kuai at the most, but I’m so glad he’s here and that I knew he would be, that I didn’t mind paying what was no doubt considerably more than whatever his bottom line might have been. 

I put the bike in the garage, but haven’t used it yet. The day slipped by with everyone just working away on their computers till I needed to get the dinner started.  The year's first bike ride for tomorrow then.