When I was a small boy riding bikes with my friends was all about joy, about getting around on our own across town to new towns, to places that you couldn’t get to before. The bicycle was a means of freedom. It was a way to be in the world under your own steam, a way to cruise and race and coast down hills with no hands.

During hot hot summer nights when I couldn't sleep I used to sneak out late at night after my parents went to bed to ride around the dark streets of my town. With shorts, a cycling cap that my uncle gave me and some converse sneakers, just riding around creating my own breeze. I rolled past the empty stores and through empty intersections of my town. I rode up the hills to the fancy part of town with their big houses and big manicured lawns. I wound my way past my school, empty for summer, and shuddered slightly with the thought of starting again in the fall.

The moon was bright and full and huge in the night sky. It was like daytime with shadows cast across the streets in that dark blue light of nighttime in summer.

I went past a girls house I liked in the way a young boy likes girls, with all the mystery still of those sorts of things intact. I imagined throwing a pebble at her window and her climbing out to ride around with me on the handlebars with the night around us the way these things happen in movies. I of course never had the courage to do more than roll by her house though, as young boys don't have the courage of their convictions yet.

I rode by my friend's house and through the playground and basketball court where all of us spent most of our summer days playing ball and playing on the swings, daring each other to see who could jump off at the highest point. I went by the town pool and seriously thought about climbing the fence for a swim but thought better of it at the last minute. I rode through the giant empty parking lot that was across from my grandmother's house and found some firecrackers that were left on the ground that I would try to use later.

I rode through the back streets behind the stores and alleyways of my town and found a copy of Playboy magazine. I left it there and made a note to tell my friends all about it the next day at the playground where we go and look at it together. I went by the old deserted factory building at the edge of town that had been closed for years with its smashed windows and tall ominous front. It scared me, rising up like an imposing gothic figure, all black and abandoned in the night sky with the moonlight behind it showing brightly through the gaping holes where the windows were missing. My imagination was too active in those days and I pedaled a bit faster past it. I went by the library where I spent a lot of time drawing from Michelangelo books.

I rode under the moonlight in and out of patches of shadow finally rolling home and into the driveway. I leaned my bike against the garage under the grapevine that my grandfather would come and tend to and trim the next day. I made my way back into the house and tried as best I could to sleep, the moonlight pouring into my room like it was daytime.

Occasionally at night when my family is asleep I break out my single speed and roll around my town through the streets under that same moon and remember those days full of promise and wonder.

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