We Ride Bikes Together

by Jim Fisher

Published March 16, 2009 @ 12:02AM PT

Me being in Greece, I thought I'd turn over my blogging space for a bit to Jim Fisher aka "Charlie's dad," and my bestest pal/soulmate/constant support.

How is Charlie? we are often asked by friends and colleagues who genuinely mean it. In the face of this bald query I tend to cite the travail of Charlie’s latest challenge since these fully consume our energies. Yet whenever asked that question I also visualize my son in his most Charlie moment as he truly is; projecting peaceful easy feelings his blessed way.

Much less often folks ask what does Charlie do? He rides bikes, I reply; or more precisely, we ride bikes together. Friends with some experience of Charlie’s unique manner generally inquire: "you mean a bike for two?" No, he rides his own bike, I explain. "In parks or playgrounds?" Nah, mostly in the street and from there we’re off to the races: sampling the soundtracks ("people let me tell ya ‘bout my best friend") from our 16 mile day-trippers to and fro No. Jersey’s Queen City and other historic venues. If you witnessed Charlie atop the bike in those graced moments the last thing you’d do is identify him primarily by “deficit.” Lest I forget…I believe…Help thou my unbelief.

Our friends share the will to believe, even those who for good reasons of their own prefer to be spared the pain of regular witness. We all struggle to resist the deficit-mode angle of vision, but how can a kid like Charlie do as we report? This was no linear ascent to glory believe me!

In summer 2001 we dropped everything and returned from the Mississippi Valley to our native New Jersey in pursuit of an appropriate school placement. Charlie steered his first two-wheeler with training wheels that summer at age four; loving every breeze and squeal. Yet he was soon tipping over aplenty training wheels and all (I’d hear the nightmarish voice of Howard Cosell in my head: Down goes Charlie! Down goes Charlie!).

Then late August of that summer 2001 found us speaking with a New York City firefighter at surf’s edge on the Jersey Shore while his six year old son rolled with the waves. It all starts at age five, he assured us. The firefighter was the kind of wonderful person you just knew saw only Charlie not the condition: he inspired great hope; he was much on our mind throughout that terrible tragic autumn.

Slowly we found ourselves wading doggedly across the sites of our fears: in late spring 2003, with Charlie struggling gamely in a new classroom and we three adjusting to a new town we decided to ride circles around his school building sans training wheels. It took quite a bit of hand-over-Charlie sneakers to position his feet o’er the pedals: the footwork seemed as awkward and unnatural to him as the teaching did to me despite hundreds of hours spent gratefully over the years in the presence of his devoted behavior therapists.

Through arduous hours I brooded and moped while intermittently lauding Charlie’s spirit and determination. This was one occasion when dad’s ADHD brain made good use of itself. In Traveling Mercies the wonderful spiritual writer and memoirist Anne Lamott recalled speaking with a former associate of the Dalai Lama, who informed her that some good old human distraction is a blessing when something really precious needs its sweet time to be born. At one point that afternoon I remember looking up and saying "hey Charlie’s going wrong way down one-way" before it hit me, the kid was off and running on his bike under his own steam.

Dad’s done! My inner slacker exults. Not so fast bucco: while Charlie boasted an exquisite sense of his distance from inanimate objects (like the car mirrors he smoothly glided past with millimeters to spare) his depth perception afforded little or no instinct for gauging the space between himself and objects hurtling his way, like say fully-loaded SUVs. The practical solution was to keep him to our Mr. Inside, the curbside (the mirror side) at all times.

Charlie succeeded in mastering the forward pedaling motion at the expense of backward brake-pedaling; a small price to pay but a challenge that prompted our adoption of the "bicycle rodeo technique" as our best shot at slowing/stopping his two-wheeler. For well over a year when it was time for Charlie’s bike to stop his left shoulder was clasped firmly by dad’s right hand. The rodeo lent a little extra frisson to our regular outings: we grew balanced; in sync; a team. We went on road, off road; he even went off-levee once and found himself hip-deep in the Rahway River covered by bicycle and calling for me in voice of profound conviction.

By age eight Charlie was able to squeeze his newly installed handbrakes: more patient discrete trials ("squeeze brakes") in the selfsame school parking lot. Soon he was calling out "red stop sign" (and better yet stopping at the sight) and acquiring the grace and poise of a touring master. But then autismland weighed in with a less than gentle series of reminders that saw Charlie—among other antics—shuck his moving bike for a maraud in an unfamiliar yard in an unfamiliar town. On many occasions during that stretch he returned home so visibly distraught, as if to feel cheated by the fleeting joy of freedom in motion. Sometimes he showed no interest at all in his bike or the increasingly spontaneous-improvised rides we shared. I lived for them and was far from ready to willingly relinquish his spirited company.

But like the true New Jerseyan he’d become Charlie always came back. Ahead of us were mishaps resulting from clipped tires and a clipped mirror; a ride in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park that had us both in tears on reaching the Pacific (I won’t speak for the nature of his); his growing to outpace me on the windward stretches of rides down the Jersey Shore. Last summer with Kristina away overnight we boldly resolved to share a ride to Charlie’s favorite stand-alone hamburger joint via some of the least bike-friendly roadways the Garden State has to offer. On our rocky arrival he glowered at me as if to say: you put us through this now expect me to play the little gentleman? We rode slowly back home only to return later under motor; burgers and fries awaiting us as befitting a couple of sports.

Look for another bike-riding-as-advocacy post by Jim in days to come.