I Love America Tour: Day Six It All Falls Apart

Part Two

I've had what I consider a magical morning. Perhaps some would consider that hyperbole, but I have a romantic vision in my head on what this group should entail. The beginning days have been anything but what I imagined. The morning's ride has brought my trip mojo back.

My plan for the rest of the day is to check out the hotel, get brunch, and bike with David on the trail opposite from the blockage. We head out and I drive back over to Loveland. We spend an hour walking around the town and window shopping before getting an early lunch.

I am wearing my America #1 biking shirt. I wrapped my dreads in a gator emblazoned with an American flag. I leave no mystery to anyone passing by me on my allegiances. Several people compliment me or honk their horns as they pass me on the street, giving me the thumbs up. It is nice to be among super patriotic folk, ANNNDD as soon as I think the thought, a young kid in a van passes by me and screams, "YOU SUCK!"

I can only shrug while the people around me shake their heads.

David enjoys the town. I can tell because he is taking pictures everywhere and directing me toward stores he wants to walk into. It is like fool's gold though. His demeanor turns quiet and sullen when we leave, and I drive down lonely roads looking for a trailhead.

When I find one and park, David remains in the car when I exit. I can tell he is going to give me attitude and become determined to ignore it. I told him from the beginning, if he wanted to come with me, he was going to have to bike. I've spent well over two thousand dollars on his bike and the gear he would need for the trip. It will be used.

I tell him to get out of the car as I take the bikes off the car rack. He complies, sort of. David exits the car and walks several feet away and sits on a bench, arms folded. I'm getting aggravated and I snap a little too harshly when I tell him to put on his helmet.

David grumbles under his breath that he does not want to ride no bike paths and does not know why I want to. I tell him to get on the bike. "You wanted to come with me. You said, you were not staying home, so you knew we were going to do this. Stop being bratty. Come on."

In retrospect, I was not handling this in the right manner. My agenda was overriding my knowledge of my brother's condition and what that means when he is taken out of his routine. Routine is everything for individuals with mental disabilities. And while it is important to expand on and enlarge the range of activates in those routines, this was something different.

David knows how to ride a bike, but his insistent refusal to do so impaired that skill. A mile into the ride, he fell off the bike, after I told him to stop walking it. To me it looked like he was caught between trying to throw the bike down and getting on it.

As far as I was concerned, he was making himself fall and so I just told him to stop riding slow and started biking again. David followed; faster than before, but still slower than me. And no, I was not going too fast.

I started grumbling under my breath as I rode, fussing, as my grandmother would call it, to myself. Every few feet, I looked behind, hoping to see David closer to me than he ever was. My thoughts were on my annoyance, on David and if he was okay, and nowhere in the realm of peace, joy, or excitement, like in the morning. The underlying sense of adventure that undergirded my spirit in the morning was absent.

It took five miles for me to recognize all of this. When I did, it became obvious I needed to stop. Not just the ride, but the entire thing. There was no way I could traverse the country with David. He was too unwilling, and it would only get worse. I stopped pedaling and as if to hammer the point home, David arrived next to me with his face scrunched into an angry grimace before falling off the bike as he attempted to stop it.

This fall was more serious than any of the others. He did not hit his head or anything, but there was serious road rash on his arms and legs. Luckily, I had the first aid kit with me. I cleansed the scraps, sprayed them to numb the pain, and put bandages on them. Then I told David we were going home.

I hit the highway soon after getting back to the car. Orlando is roughly fourteen hours from Milford. I drove ten hours that day and was back in our apartment by the middle of the following day.

Our roles were not reversed. David was—if not happy—content and calm. He was back in the bubble I had created for him over the last thirteen years. Wow, it really has been that long since our mother died and I took over David's care.

I was the one pouting now. Angry and aggravated at the time wasted, money spent, and a goal seemingly out of reach.