“Look,” he said.
“I know this is an everyday thing for you.
I’ve got a couple of muscles here saying, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’”
Carr got off her bike, leaned it against a guard rail and then removed her helmet which she hung from the handlebar.
She walked over to Lee, the metal parts of her shoes tapping on the way, handed him her water bottle and put her arms around him.
That was better.
Lee hugged her back and put his face in her hair which he noticed was surprisingly free from sweat.
“It is a nice ride,” he said.
“Just so much uphill.”
Carr laughed.
“You’re doing great,” she said.
“I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t know you were in good shape.
It’s different muscles though.
When we go jogging, I’ll be dead after the first mile.”
They sat on the edge of the turnout, nibbled their energy bars and took some long swigs from their water bottles.
Lee enjoyed the sun, the crisp air, Lorraine’s hand on his thigh and the feeling of her using him as a backrest while he rested his hand on her stomach.
They stared off into the distance watching the cars inching along the highway far below.
“Do you think about her much?” asked Carr.
“Who?” said Lee.
“Sarah.
You know, I never met her.
I just talked to her on the phone a few times before all that happened,”
said Carr.
“Right.
I remember,” said Lee.
“You were so sad afterward,” said Carr.
“I was worried about you.”
“Yeah.
I was in pretty bad shape for a while there,”
he said.
“It helped that we never had a normal time together.
It was all so short and intense and crazy.
If we had lived together for a while…I don’t know.
It would have been harder.
A lot more reminders.”
Carr twisted and tilted her head to look back at Lee.
“I’m glad you’re okay then,” she said, squinting a bit.
“Better than okay,” he said, putting his hand behind her shoulders and leaning her back to
give her a long kiss.
His other hand ran up her thigh and over her stomach until he was feeling her breast through the bright yellow shirt.
After a few seconds, she gently grabbed his hand.
“Save it for the ride, mister,” said Carr.
“I was worried you were going to say that,” said Lee.
Carr got to her feet and offered her hand.
He took the assist, grunting as he stood up and got ready for the last stretch up to Grizzly Peak.
The rest made all the difference.
It was steep for another ten minutes and then flattened out the last mile or so before they reached Grizzly Peak Road.
Lee felt reasonably good when they got to the top, not that he was looking for another mountain to climb.
He was content to only spend a minute straddling their bikes and taking more water before they started again for the long dash down the mountain they had so painstakingly climbed the past hour.
Lee had seen more than a few friends with slings and broken collarbones from bike accidents.
So he was content to hit the brakes liberally and descend at a moderate pace.
The last thing he wanted to do was to lose the bike on a gravel patch making a turn too quickly or run off the mountain after failing to negotiate a turn. Carr was behind him, keeping back at a safe distance several lengths behind.
They were a third of the way down when Lee first noticed the green minivan behind them.
He caught a glimpse first when he checked back for traffic.
It was a couple of curves back.
Then, very quickly he became aware that it was right up on them, right on Carr’s tail.
He saw her waving her arm up and down, trying to signal the van to slow down.
Carr had sped up her descent and was close behind him now.
He could feel the van pushing closer and closer.
Lee sped up, too, to give Carr more room.
They were flying down now.
Lee was pedaling on the flat parts, trying not to brake on the tight curves.
He was barely hanging on to the turns.
He would have pulled off on the shoulder but the van had pushed them to such a high speed he didn’t think he could do that without tumbling into the ditch running along the side.
He heard Carr yell something.
He didn’t know what she was saying.
Then suddenly, she was gone.
He caught a glimpse of her shooting off to the side.
She must have known there was an escape, a gap where she could get off the main road.
But Lee had missed her attempt to alert him to it.
With Carr gone, the van sped up.
He could hear the engine revving up.
Then, the loud squeal of brakes as it followed him quickly around a corner.
He glanced back once coming off the turn and saw a pair of mirrored sunglasses underneath a blue Chicago Cubs cap.
The face was expressionless.
He couldn’t see his eyes but felt like they were staring right back at him.
“Back off you crazy son of a bitch!”
he yelled hoping the driver would be able to read his lips.
He turned back to the road and heard the van revving again.
It was inches away from him now.
When it hit him as he squeezed his brakes for the next turn, all Lee saw in front of him was a line of tree trunks.
Any thought he had about steering the bike disappeared as the van pushed him forward and spun the back of the bike so he was flying toward the trees sideways.
The road dropped away as he went over the edge.
He was airborne now.
He let go of the bike, put his forearms up around his head and tried to tuck his body into a curl.
Then he was headed down the hill on the gravel and rocks.
He did a somersault, rolled over sideways a few times and slid some more before he stopped.
He was dazed and in pain.
His arms and one leg in particular hurt a lot.
His head was on the upslope.
He was staring at rocks.
But then the thought occurred to him that he was alive.
At least he was alive.
He turned onto his back so he could see the sky and exhaled slowly in relief.
A minute later, he heard Carr above him.
He recognized the sound of a bike hitting the ground and then footsteps with loose gravel sliding underneath her.
Then, he heard her.
“No. No. No. No.”
She was saying it softly, plaintively under her breath as she hurried down the slope.
Finally, she dropped to the ground next to him, put one hand on his chest and looked at his face.
Tears streamed down hers.
He put his hand on her shoulder, pulled her close and didn’t let go for a long time.
Chapter 42
GIVEN THE CONDITION of his bike, it was a minor miracle that Lee could walk away from the crash.
Carr called the News editor who lived in nearby Rockridge and she commandeered a neighbor’s pickup truck to retrieve them, bringing extra bottled water, towels and a box of gauze pads.
The rear wheel looked as if a giant had stepped on it.
The bike frame itself was bent beyond repair where it had flown into the trunk of a redwood.
Somehow, Lee had managed to pass through the only gap in the line of trees.
His arms were badly scraped where he’d skidded along rocks and gravel.
He had a nasty cut on his chin and his left shoulder was killing him.
Lee knew his assorted other body parts would be complaining to him for at least a couple of weeks.
They cleaned up the worst of the blood, dirt and gravel from Lee’s wounds and took him to the emergency room at the Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley.
There, they finished the clean up, checked for broken bones and filled his pockets with prescriptions for painkillers and antibiotics.
It was evening by the time they got back to his flat.
Carr helped Lee up the stairs.
She helped him with a sponge bath to avoid disturbing the dressings.
“I can’t believe we didn’t get the license number,” said Lee through gritting teeth.
“I’d love to see him again, in or out of a courtroom.”
“You may remember that we were a little busy at the time,” said Carr patiently.
They had plates of ravioli that Carr picked up from a deli two blocks away.
Lee let Carr put him to bed with a big glass of water and a vial of painkillers on the nightstand.
At last, nothing hurt while he lay immobile and let the drugs have their effect.
His limbs felt like chunks of lead as he sank into a deep, sound sleep.
While he slept, Carr showered. Then she pulled out her laptop and began working on story assignments for the next week.
* * *
“You’re wrong,” said Andrew Harper.
“We’re all Harvey Milk.
Particularly, the three of
us
.”
He was sitting in an armchair in the living room of the home in the Berkeley Hills he shared with Harry Blount.
It held a blue and red Turkish carpet on teak flooring, a corner sofa and two chairs that had trim lines and rusty earth tones.
Blount and Bobbie Connors shared the sofa.
“All I’m saying, Drew, is that maybe you need to take some
reasonable
precautions in case that lunatic
is
still out there planning to take you down,” said Connors.
“Why not play it safe, just in case?”
“To steal one of Harvey’s lines, it’s because
I’m
Andrew Harper and
I’m
running for governor,” said Harper.
“I’m not going to run scared.
I’m not going to be intimidated by bigots and gay bashers whether they’re certifiable or just your everyday nut cases.
I consider my esteemed opponent in the latter category, by the way.
“All three of us have chosen to be targets,” he continued.
“Bobbie, you did it when you walked in the parade 20 years ago.
You showed your colors and I’m sure you took abuse from…well, everyone, right?
Your superiors.
Other officers.
I’m sure they tried to stuff you back in the closet.”