Primus Gradus

“Come on, I’ll race you to the stop sign!” An encouraging voice challenged through the breeze. A young man with sun kissed skin, Kade, forced his legs down a little harder, leaning forward to a dramatic degree. He adopted a look of intensity, eyes narrowing on the road ahead of him, jaw locking back. 

This prompted his opponent, Nathan, to radically increase the speed of his own pedaling. The young boy’s tiny legs circled the gearing of the bicycle with growing rapidity, smoothly pulling the small machine up to the speed of its much larger counterpart. 

Kade heard the quickened whirring of the little boy’s bike. The corner of his mouth couldn’t help but perk up as his eyes softened.

“Tee hehehehehehe,” the boy giggled as his bike tore past Kade. Nathan stared at the larger rider with a cocked head, giving a big, mischievous smile, as if the race had been won. Kade returned the stare, split his lips into a smile, and thus betrayed his false intensity. He leaned back on the bike and chuckled as the boy focused back on the road and kept spinning his little legs. They spun awkwardly now that he’d reached the maximum capacity of the gearing. 

“Hey, get back here, Nathan!” Kade called through a smile. Getting close to the finish line, he glanced at both sides of the perpendicular road. Usually, it’s a very calm street, and today was no exception. The stop sign gleamed in the sunlight. The young man, decided on adding some intrigue, picked up his pace. “I’m gonna getchya!”

He catches up to Nathan with ease, aligning his front tire with Nathan’s rear tire. The young man quickly glances down the road again, stops pedaling, and lets his bike cruise into the road as Nathan speeds past the sign. Then Kade makes a broad turn on the T-section. Meanwhile, Nathan, who has gone from full speed to a noisy halt, has a huge grin on his face. 

“I beat you, Skittle, I beat you,” he laughs, swelling with pride.

Kade makes a tch sound, rolling his eyes and head. Skittle, he thinks to himself. Why Skittle?

Nathan sets himself back up on the pedals, ready to take off again.

“Hey, wait!” Kade rolls up next to him. “Let’s see this tire. Aw, look at it! Here, roll forward a little bit. Do you see it now?”

Nathan twists his back to look at the rear tire. The rubber grooves have been shaved down slightly at the place where he’d skidded to a stop in the intersection. 

“You’re gonna ruin that thing if you keep stopping like that!”

“I know! It’s so much fun. Watch this!”

Nathan pushes hard off the concrete, spinning as fast as he can to pick up speed down the way he just came. He stops pedaling, jerking his legs in the opposite direction, throwing his lower body sideways. The bike grinds to a stop, spinning him about a hundred degrees. He turns to Kade. “See!” He calls with a youthful cheer.

“Yeah, I know, buddy, I’m the best at it.” He looks back at his bike tire, with the almost-perfect treads. This is the first bike he’s actually cared to…care for. He sighs. “Check this out!”

Kade thrusts the bike forward, standing with his rear barely off the seat, forcing his legs down on the pedals to accelerate as speedily as possible. He tears past Nathan. The wind fills his ears until he clutches the brake, setting himself back on the seat, and turning the handles and his body such that he’s able to complete slightly more than a full circle. The screeching of the rubber filled the street, leaving a wide black stain in the middle of the pale road.

“Oh ho ho ho!” Nathan cries out. He struggles to turn the bike so he can ride up to Kade. “That was awesome!” He screams. 

Rolling up to the rubber circle, Nathan hops off the bike while it’s still in motion, leaving it to direct itself into the curb and fall over. He kneels next to the circle. “Look at that!” He looks up to Kade with amazement, pointing at it, then feeling the rubber on the asphalt. “So cool!” 

Kade carefully steps off his bike, guiding it toward the edge of the road. “Yep, it’s cool alright.” He flicks the kickstand out with his ankle, setting the bike carefully to rest. “Here, get out of the road,” he orders as he makes his way toward a water bottle, taking a seat in freshly-cut grass. Nathan goes to pick up his bike, eager to park it beside the legendary grey-and-yellow-bike-which-belongs-to-Skittle. “It’s great and everything until you pop that sucker and end up tumbling down a big asphalt hill!”

Nathan looks over his shoulder at Kade, incredulous. “You can’t say that!”

“What, ‘sucker?’”

“No, the A-word!”

“Asphalt? Dude, that’s what the road is made of.”

“Oh, I thought you just said asph,” he mutters cheerfully as he returns his attention to the bike.

“No, that’s not…. Never mind,” Kade chuckles. He looks over at Nathan as he struggles to set the kickstand out, then struggles to balance it, then struggles to set the front tire at the same angle as Kade’s front tire. Kade notices the fresh bald spot on his tire, then seethes silently.

“I’m gonna do a full circle one day, too!” The boy chimes as he hurries to take a seat on the grass.

“Mmhm, I’m sure you will,” Kade says warmly.

A deep voice, muffled at first, comes from behind them. “Kade, Nate—”a door creaks open, the voice is clear now—“boys, dinner’s ready!”

Almost before Kade can react, Nathan is already charging toward the door. Kade groans a little as he stands up out of the grass. Getting old.

“Hey, son, let’s get you cleaned up!” The gruff voice at the door says. The man scoops Nathan up, preventing him from dragging his dirty shoes into the house. With a pensive smile, Kade watches the door close behind them.