Thomas Crone
Dude, where's my bike?
I knew my bicycle was stolen before I even saw it was missing. I’d left it on the metal rail that serves as our barebones bike rack outside work the night before, and I made the 7.5-block walk back to my job with an uneasy worry, a sort of premonition. I was right—someone had ridden off with my bright-orange Raleigh Roper overnight.
My immediate impulse wasn’t to try to get it back. Instead, of course, I shared the experience on Facebook, in very woeful terms. To the Tower Grove East neighborhood association page, I lamented: “Realize that there is zero chance I ever see the orange Raleigh Roper in the foreground again, but... if you see it, yada, yada. Stolen off the side of the Tick Tock last night/this morning. Critical error in not grabbing it late, but the Bike Gods smiled on me in the past when doing that. Not this time. Whoever has it, I hope you use it often as this bike is my daily transportation; or, has been for the last 14-months. Gah.” The drama!
via screengrab
The author's Facebook plea.
Boo-hoo, right? Well, posting on Facebook kinda worked. A neighbor from the TGE page alerted me in the late-afternoon that a kid, too small to fully sit in the saddle, was riding it nearby. I drove around those blocks, round and round without luck, despite her exact coordinates. As I searched, I wondered, what would I do if I found him? Chase him? Wrestle him down? What if onlookers saw that? Would they have reacted, especially if he was a tween? And what if he was just too quick to catch? No good outcomes seemed possible.
See also: Night Bike Riding in St. Louis Puts the Senses to Work, Even Close to Home
I delayed calling the police until after that goose chase. I only made the report as a civic formality, to be honest, with zero expectations attached. A few minutes after calling the non-emergency number around 5:30 p.m., a two-person St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department SUV came by my house, and Officer Smith took my statement. I thought that would be the end of it.
Officer Smith called within an hour, asking about another orange bike in the neighborhood that one was chained to a stop sign. It wasn’t mine. Funny enough, I’d already seen that bike, having been tipped to it by another Facebook message. That “other orange bike” false alarm pretty much sunk my hopes of recovery. I realized that a smart crook would’ve just covered the distinctive yellow-to-orange paint job with a $5 can of black spray paint. That’s all it would’ve taken to finish the job. I called A&M Bicycle about how to order the same ride.
Instead, the thief kept riding my bike, in all its obnoxious glory, around the neighborhood, and by 9 p.m. I took a call from the same Officer Smith. The rider, he said, had been spotted, and when the thief realized what was up, they dropped-and-dashed from the scene. They left the bike for the police to officially “scoop up.” Since I was in Collinsville on a story assignment when I got that call, I asked my new hero Officer Smith if the cycle could get dropped off at my business. Just as surreal as everything else that day, the answer was, “Yes.”
When I got back to work, I found my bike intact if dinged. The newly bought air pump was gone, but the cable and lock were still attached, curiously wrapped around the top tube. Was the lock picked? Who knows. I did know that the cycle was safe and back in my hands within four hours of the report, found by the same officer who took that report.
Anyone who’s had their bike stolen in St. Louis knows this isn’t usually how the story ends. This, folks, felt like a combination of sheer dumb luck coupled with at least one policeman’s diligence, spiked by a dash of bike thief stupidity. That combination worked for me as I rode it home, smiling, but mostly shaking my head. I’ll buy a better lock system and will double-triple check every lockup going forward; well, at least until I forget to.
But the theft left me with questions I can’t get out of me head. For one: can we synthesize events like this with Buddhist notions of impermanence? Maybe this situation was about testing my thoughts on what “belonged” to me, how I measured worth and the value of things. And if I’d found the bike myself, what would I have done? Would I get in a streetfight to get it back? What if I won? Would I lay off when the fight was over? What if I got clocked? Would they stop? I watch a lotta YouTube and today’s streetfights scare me. Honestly, I’d like to not be brawlin’ in middle age, even over pricey gear.
And the next time something bad happens to me, I’ll wonder if it’s possible to get Officer Smith on the case. I wish for an Officer Smith in all of our/your lives. Those are solid types to have around, to help out in a pinch. Yes, indeed, Officer Smiths rule.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the name of the policeman who helped the author. He is Officer Smith, not Sgt. Smith.
