Girls Don't Bleed

“Girls Don’t Bleed”

By

Matt Travis



Years ago when I was younger, my father always emphasized about my becoming a man.  He and his friends were always pushing me to toughen up, not to be such “a little girl” as they would say.  They had me involved in all types of things that most kid don’t do.  When I was about ten years old, I had two Honda three-wheelers, a Yamaha Banshee four-wheeler, and a Polaris snowmobile.  I was the coolest kid on the block.  While other kids where going to bed at nine o’clock I was waiting in my room for my mother to go to sleep so my dad could sneak me out of the house to go watch football and order pizza.  At my birthday parties my friends would go home with injuries because my dad laid a whooping on us and threw us all in a pile.  It was all in good fun.  My child hood memories of “turning into a man,” were very fond.

         In addition to all the fun toys that my dad and I had, one of the last phases that we both went through together before all hell broke loose was the mountain biking phase.  Now you may think to yourself that with a kid that has all these crazy four-wheelers and that kind of fun stuff, what fun would a mountain bike be?  Well the mountain bike phase was one of the roughest and most physically demanding things that we had ever done together.  We didn’t just strap on a helmet and ride on a nice little peaceful nature trail out in the woods like a responsible father with his son would do.  We rode down eighty-degree hills that had stumps, roots, jagged ass rocks, and fifteen foot drop offs on either side.  Our motto was: if you didn’t bleed while you where riding your bike, then you didn’t ride hard enough.  If our mountain bike friends didn’t come on a ride with us, after the ride we would go and wipe our blood on their front door with a note that said this is what a man does.  One time we were at a mountain bike trail, and we saw this guy go over an obstacle in his path, and when he came down for the landing he crashed and broke his neck right in front of us.  Another time, our good friend Johnny dislocated his arm on a hill we used to call the Widow Maker.  These were all obstacles that my father and I tackled every time we went out on a ride.  There was always an element of danger, and facing that danger on a daily basis, was an element of my becoming a man.

         “What’s going on back there?”  Shouted my dad. We were on our way to a mountain bike race at a place called Song Mountain.          

         “We’re crushed back here.” said Taylor sounding pretty mad.  “I can’t believe you’re making me sit in the back of this tiny pickup with Moses who weighs two hundred and forty five pounds.”  Taylor was one of my good friends when my buddies and I were fifteen or so.  He was another person going through my Dad’s punishment of being a man that lasted all of our young life. 

         “Hey Taylor maybe you should shut yer mouth.”  Moses replied.  Moses’ first name was David but nobody really called him that.  We already knew too many Davids and it just got confusing with all of them around.

         “Matt, how come you get the front?” Taylor asked.  We were in a two door Nissan pickup that could fit four people.  There were two fold out seats in the back and very little room for movement with four people crammed in there.  On top of the lack of space between us we also had inside the truck a large cooler, two duffle bags, and two bike rims that I was supposed to be changing the tubes in. Of course my dad had all the room he wanted, considering he was the driver and he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

         “Because I earned it.” I said, “I’m the fastest racer here, and I need my leg room so I don’t get any cramps during the race.  Besides, there’s not much more room up here from what you’ve got back there.”

         “Well lets make a deal.” My Dad said, “Whoever does the best in the race gets to have the front on the way home and if you both suck ass in the race then Moses gets to sit in front on the ride home.”

         “Well that does it. Matts goona get the front seat on the way home too” said Moses.

         “That’s right, I’d have it no other way.”

         “You should probably be more serious about this race Matt. You haven’t done shit to prepare for this because you’re lazy.” my dad said as he pulled into a cheap motel.

         “I’ll do fine.” I said.

         The race we were headed to was a place called Song Mountain.  The plan was to make a trip out of the whole adventure and get a good nights rest at a crappy motel, then the next morning we would head to the race.  It was like a road trip just for the boys.  We had been training for this race for weeks, but training for me was just riding like I normally did everyday.  Other people would meditate on races for days before the event, doing stretches and hydrating, and even eating a carb-filled meal like pasta the night before for extra energy.  I didn’t take things that seriously to the point of priming and fine tuning my body.  I should have.

         When we got settled into the motel we were all ready for bed.  Moses was on the toilet playing Gameboy Color games and I was busy bringing my bike inside.  I had to do this because my whole life my Dad beat it into my head about my bike getting stolen.  He had good reason too because my bike was special.  The previous Christmas          he had bought me a two thousand five hundred dollar Cannondale Raven fresh out of the shop.  It had an all weather hydraulic disk break system with a NASA designed carbon fiber Y frame.  The rear suspension was an adjustable air shock with a lock out.  It was made by a company called ‘Fox’ who makes suspension for freestyle motocross dirt bikes.  The front fork of this legend on wheels was made by a company called ‘Fatty’, and that bad boy had six inches of travel on it.  I could go over a 4 inch curb without even knowing I went over anything at all.  In all, the whole bike with all the components on it weighed about eighteen pounds, and was four to five times more expensive than my first vehicle I got when I was nineteen.  It was the sweetest ride a kid at fifteen could have. 

*          *          *

The next morning all of us woke up bright and early at around seven o’clock.  It was a very hot day already and the temperature was only getting hotter.  We loaded our bikes back into the truck and headed out.  On the way to the race we stopped at a gas station where we all picked something out for breakfast.  Taylor and Moses picked out Gatorade, some candy bars, and some pre-packaged sandwiches.  I couldn’t stand the dryness of those nasty things, so I walked over to the hotdog machine.  There was a hotdog inside that looked like it had been there for over a day.  It was brown, crispy, and shriveled up like a piece of breakfast sausage.  For some reason I still wanted it, so I bought that and a tall carton of vitamin D milk.

         As we got back into the truck we were all laughing and having a good time.  Moses was playing the Pokemon Trading Card game in my GameBoy Color.  For some reason we had both been playing it throughout the past week, and I hadn’t had a chance to play in a while. 

         “Let me try” I said reaching over to grab it. 

         “Hang on; I’m in the middle of a challenge.”  Moses was pulling away.

         “Hurry up we’re almost there!”

         “You still need to eat yer hotdog anyways so maybe you can just relax Matt.  How ‘bout that?”  Moses always had an attitude with you like you were attacking him at all times no matter what tone of voice you had.  Sometimes I would ask him a simple question and he would yell out his reply in aggravation, as if I had asked him five times and he already answered me ten.  So I took the whole shriveled up hotdog and shoved the whole thing into my mouth swallowing it in one gulp in spite of his attitude. 

         “Ok, hand it over.” I said as I opened my milk and then began to chug it.  Before Moses could reply my Dad chimed in.

         “Matt you’re going to have to change your bike tire.” 

         “Oh my God, I’m so sick of changing that stupid thing!”  Every time I road my bike I had to change the damn tube. It went flat on me every time I rode for one reason or another.  I was getting angry.  I hated it when I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, but nobody else was going to change my tire and I had to do it before we got to the race.

         By the time we got there, there was already hundreds of racers around and more to come.  We unpacked everything and began to get ready for the main event.  The heat was sweltering above ninety degrees and it had rained the day before. All the trails on the whole mountain were actually pits of caking mud that stunk like raw sewage and worms.  I could tell that this race was going to take everything I had. 

Shortly after that we heard over the megaphone that it was time for our class to begin.  Taylor and I set one foot onto our pedals, and pushed until we heard a click meaning that our biking shoe was then locked into the crank-set.  We were the first two at the starting line so that we would have the head start advantage.  The slow people that didn’t care about winning would lag behind at the back of the line losing time and they would have to stop for those that crashed in front of them, then they had to wait for the others to get out of their way.  If you start right on the finish line, then there’s nobody in front of you and you have a clear trail.

“Go!” shouted the guy that started the race.  I began to pedal by lifting my other leg to clip it in and I darted off.  The first part of the race was a steep incline that lasted about three hundred yards.  The only way to tackle this part of the course was to shift into a very low gear and creep up the hill.  After I got about a quarter of the way up this first incline my heart was already pounding and I was progressing very slowly.  People had jumped off their bikes and were running up the hill passing me.  So I did the same for the rest of the incline.  After that hill, we scaled the mountain horizontally so the trail was flat, and the incline was temporarily over.  I began to gain my lead back and Taylor was no place to be found any more.  He was most likely five minutes back by now because my endurance was much better than his.  The sweat was dripping off my face like a melting ice sculpture in ninety five degree heat, and every time I peddled down all my energy was soaked up into the mud. 

Twenty minutes into the race my right calf began to cramp, so I grabbed my water-bottle and started to chug water.  I was always told that water and stretching is what would prevent cramps but I didn’t drink any water before the race and I never stretched at all.  As I was sipping my water, I saw another incline ahead of me.  This would be the second and final incline; I had hoped it would end soon and flatten back out.  It didn’t.  I rode that incline for another twenty five minutes in the mud that smelled like a porte-Jon when suddenly I didn’t feel so good.  I felt like that milk I drank two hours before was weighing real heavy on my stomach, and that single cramp in my calf had grown into my upper thigh and eventually the rest of my leg.  It was beginning to be very painful.  The heat was beating down on my head and back and I was literally being baked in the sun.  Sweat was all over me and I felt like I was going to black out.  I couldn’t take in enough oxygen fast enough to continue climbing.  I was getting fatigued but I was doing really well.  I could tell because nobody had passed me after I regained my position following that first incline, yet there were a few racers right on my tail about thirty feet back.  I had to maintain.

About an hour and ten minutes into the race I was still climbing in a low gear, my whole lower body was cramped and it was beginning to become unbearable.  I felt like I was going to be sick and the sun was relentless.  I couldn’t take it anymore.  I began to slow down, and pulled off to the side.  As I came to a stop I tried to twist my shoe to unclip the mechanical pedal so that I could put my leg down and breathe.  As I twisted my ankle a sharp pain shot through my leg preventing me from unclipping in time.  I tipped over sideways and landed face first in the mud still completely attached to my bike.  The mud still reeked like shit, it was stuck to my face and it was in my mouth a little bit.  I began to gag.  As I was gagging, for some reason I though about the hot baking sun, the thick vitamin D milk weighing on my stomach, and that three inch, day old, brown shriveled up hotdog.  Just then I began throwing up what seemed like milk at first, a whole lot of milk.  Then came a large chunk of something, and it was awful.  I looked down at it, and there lay that damn hotdog still perfectly intact, whole, without any bite marks or anything, almost like nobody had ever eaten it at all.  The sight and thought of this just made me sicker, but I had to continue.  I wasn’t going to let this minor setback ruin my race.  I got back on my bike and began to climb again.  I felt much better after I threw up, but the sun and the cramps were simply agonizing.  It was like a God awful torture.  There was stinky mud stuck in my hair, vomit residue on my shirt and shoes, and worst of all the mental image of a fully regurgitated hotdog scarred into my brain. 

After about twenty more minutes of climbing up hill I thought I was going to cramp up into a ball and die when I noticed something wasn’t right.  I thought it was my rear suspension at first but when I got off my bike to look at it I saw my tire was flat.  Of all things in the world, I don’t know why that had to happen at that moment.

“Fuck!” I never swore, not even when I was fifteen.  My dad and all my friends swore but I didn’t even say the word fart until I was twelve.  But today I said the word, “Fuck… Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck... Fuck!”  The rage I felt at that moment was unlike anything I had felt up until that point over something so insignificant, though at the time there was a great significance.  This was no time for me to sulk in self pity.  I  had to endure.

I always carried a spare tube with me.  I snapped the quick release open, ripped the rim off the frame, and started changing the tube. A rider passed me, then another, then another, and after my whole class passed me my worst fears came to sight.  Taylor was chugging along headed my way with a beat red face covered in mud. I could see now, that any chance that may have existed of me placing high in this race was destroyed.  He was right next to me on the trail before he looked over and noticed me. 

“What happened to you?”  He said as he continued riding.

“Don’t ask!” I was pissed now. “Just keep on riding, and leave me alone.”

“Umm, ok…”

He saw that I had a flat tire, and he knew I was going to lose badly, so he stood up on his pedals and tried to race away hoping that maybe he would place higher than me.  He was definitely going to because I had just started to change my tire and it always took me five or ten minutes to do this daunting chore.  I hated changing tires, and the more I though about the whole thing the more I hated everything.  I wanted to quit.  I wanted to take my two thousand five hundred dollar Cannondale Raven with disk breaks and NASA developed carbon fiber and kick it down the fucking mountain.  After a few seconds Taylor was out of site.  After a few minutes, he was long gone.  “Fuck…”

I sat there for a second and tried to recollect myself.  That one cramp in my leg had started to spread through my whole body.  I was beginning to get cramps in my arms and in my back now.  The water wasn’t helping the pain; you need to begin hydrating a day or two before a race to prevent cramps, so I took a few seconds to stretch.  The pain in my muscles had aggravated me to the point of rage and the sun was still beating down on my whole body.  If there was a hell for a somebody my age, this would be it.  It was an absolute nightmare on all counts.  Still, I had to finish.  I could never quit.  I pulled out my CO2 cartridge to inflate my tire.  I popped the cartridge into the device that would break the seal.  I hooked the nozzle up to the stem of the tube and with a quick push of the button and a loud burst of air my tire was fully pumped in about a half a second.  As I ejected the empty CO2 cartridge, it was ice cold and covered in frost.  I saddled back up on my bike, clipped my shoes into the mechanical peddles, and began the incline once again. 

Shortly after that, I came to the highest point that we would be riding.  It was all downhill from here.  There was a guy on a four-wheeler at the spot where the trail headed back down.

“Almost there.” he said encouragingly.

“How much further?”

“About ten more minutes of riding and it’s all downhill from here bub.”

“Thank God!”

         Song Mountain was actually a ski resort in the winter. I was at a point on the mountain where it was cleared out completely and it was very steep.  These sections were for skiers that like to risk their lives at very high speeds, but if you stood at the top where I was you could see for what seemed like miles.  I could see so far that I could make out different patches of land and the different colors that they showed.  It was an amazing sight and the air was fresh and the birds were chirping.  This had a very calming effect on me, and for a second I didn’t mind being in last place, covered in mud that smelled like something died.  The point was that I didn’t quit. I didn’t get a ride back down the mountain on a golf cart or a four-wheeler with my bike strapped to the side.  I was glad I stuck with it.  I told myself ‘I can’t win ‘em all,’ and I began to start the one and only decline of the whole race.

         The trip up the mountain took almost two hours of grueling shit flavored mud, hot sun, and undigested sickness at around two miles an hour.  The trip down, took about five minutes at around what seemed to be ninety miles an hour.  The trees passed like a blur and the closer you got to the finish line, the more spectators rooted you on telling you how courageous you are and what a good job you’ve done.  Before I really started enjoying the downhill part it was all over.  I crossed the finish line and hopped off my bike immediately rolling onto the ground writhing in pain because of the cramps from hell that had raped all the muscles in my body. I even think there may have been a cramp in my brain if that could have been possible because it hurt so badly.  It was all over and I lost miserably, but I still finished.

         Just then my dad came over followed by Moses, and Taylor who also looked like hell.  When he spoke to me he wasn’t yelling, but his voice was definitely raised to the very fine line between yelling and raising your voice.  He spoke slowly, like I was hard of hearing, or like I may not have understood what he was trying to say if he didn’t speak that slow and loud.

         “What the fuck happened?”

“Umm,” I was going to speak but I didn’t know what specifically to respond to yet.  “What do you mean?”

         “What the fuck happened to you up there?” I could see in his face he was disappointed and pissed. “You should’ve crossed the finish line thirty minutes ago.”  His eyes were wide now and he had something to say.

         “I had a flat tire and I barfed while I was on the incline”

         “Sick?  That’s because you haven’t done shit to prepare for this.  It’s all a big joke to you!”  He looked away and scoffed in disgust.  Taylor and Moses just stood there trying not to be noticed.  “Matt, seriously, I thought you broke your leg up there or something excusable.  I would have rather heard that your whole bike broke right in half than be this disappointed,” which was the case sometimes.  “At least that would be a better excuse than you not being prepared!  I thought something real went wrong and I would’ve rather had that happen.  I’m disgusted!”

         I didn’t know what to say yet so I squeaked the first thing that came to mind.

         “At least I finished.”

         “Yea you finished alright, you finished second to last and I’ll be damned if that ever happens again.”  I could feel that he was just getting started on a lecture. “From now on I guess I just have to push you harder and hold on to your hand like a little baby girl to make sure you’re taking things seriously.”

         He was going to keep on ranting at me but I had heard enough already.  I rode off into the sun while he was still venting.  I was just as mad at him for flipping out on me as he was at me for taking a serious event and making it into a joke.  I couldn’t believe his lack of concern.  I was in so much pain physically because of the cramps that constrained my entire body like a vice.  I threw up all over the place, and I was so dehydrated that I was dizzy with a headache coming on. 

         “God I hate this.” I mumbled under my breath.  “This whole damn sport, I fucking hate it.”

         Taylor got to sit in the front seat of the truck on the way home that day.  I was in back with Moses, crushed beyond belief with aching cramps and a throbbing head.  I wasn’t mad about that. I wasn’t mad about being in pain or changing a million bike tubes everyday.  I wasn’t even mad about my dad basically screaming at me telling me he’d wish I broke a leg or my whole bike.  I was mad because I let him down, and I was humiliated.  That’s the only reason I lost that race, not because I came in second to last, but because I lost with my dad by showing him my ass instead of my truest potential.  I was a little girl now, and I’d have to live with it the rest of my life.