When I ride my
bicycle to work in the morning, it’s dark. The last leg of the journey is along
Wildcat Creek, on a path that has intermittent overhead lighting. I depend on
the fact that I know where I’m going and even enjoy passing underneath branches
that occasionally blot out the light and leave things in mystery. It may be a
paved public trail just a few yards away from the road, but it makes me feel as
if it may lead to Magonia.
I had an extra-long lunch break and thought I'd use it to take a
bike ride around the neighborhood where I work in North Richmond. There's creeks and trails and
stuff like that. I like creeks and trails. The air was thick with smoke from
the wildfires. The roadsides were lined with scattered garbage. Every so often
there was a mound of garbage 10 or 15 feet high. Most of the trails turned out
to exist only on Google Maps: they were County-owned land, but fenced off - at
least to people who pay attention to fences.
Where a trail did run along a creek, it was obvious the creek
beds were routinely used to dispose of more garbage. Wildcat Creek near Verde
Elementary School is apparently the go-to place for illegally dumping tires (outside
of West Oakland, that is). Three or four massive piles of tires stood along the
public creekside trail, in plain sight of the school playground.
I suddenly realized I had grown up in paradise. I had a creek
and an elementary school, but those were different.
Still in explorer mode, I looked for a way to get down to Wildcat Creek itself. Then I noticed a guy walking along the trees lining the creek. He
was definitely not a birder. He wasn’t obviously homeless, but what the hell
was he doing? Another guy emerged from the trees and started following him at a
distance. I rode by on the path above the floodplain, clearly visible. They
both disappeared back into the trees. I thought, "This is a dangerous
place. I need to start thinking about bike safety in a whole new way" and
didn't try to find the creek bed.
Thinking back on it, could it have been a couple of gay guys
hooking up? Both of them definitely looked much better than your average guy
who suddenly appears out of nowhere in North Richmond. I want to think they
were gay and enjoyed a steamy, satisfying sexual encounter along the barely
flowing creek as flycatchers flitted overhead snatching bugs out of the air.
I want to think that, because I’ve never NOT enjoyed riding my
bike in my life until I spent half an hour riding around North Richmond. All I could
see there was garbage, environmental degradation and suffering. I should never have started to read
“To Place Our Deeds,” about the history of the African American community in
Richmond, and then gone for a ride around North Richmond. I should never have
started to learn about North Richmond and its history at all. I should never had cared. It’s tears all
around.
Riding home, I passed the park along San Pablo Creek where
people who use drugs like to hang out and socialize. They were whooping it up,
and then I realized I couldn't actually tell if they were having a good time, were
fighting with each other, or just didn’t know the difference.
