The Stairway Rider

28 February 2011

I must write this story swiftly as every breath converts its hilarity into grave horror at how dangerous the encounter actually was. It all begins when we are halfway through watching the Oscars in my friend’s living room. My micro-group is situated in the nosebleeds as we arrived late, blocking the entryway with fold-out chairs. A latecomer arrives after a long day at work with Bulleit Bourbon in tow, beckoning half the party to the balcony for cigarettes and god knows what else.

The rambunctious whiskey drinkers return to heckle all Oscar winners and performers, beginning with witty and well-timed insults but quickly slipping into booming and incoherent tangents. Irritated, I watch The King’s Speech take the crown while observing whiskey man, who has just plopped down next to me. Every minute or so he grunts and laughs: words are just too difficult to escape his drunk face. I can’t help but outright crack up at his newly adopted Down syndrome look, at which he realizes he is way too drunk to hang and gruffly announces his departure.

I offer to walk him home, and after saying my goodbyes, begin down the stairs toward the front door. Whiskey man follows behind, pushing his bike in front of him. I am about to reach the bottom of the stairs when I hear a rumble mixed with alarmed grunts quickly approaching the back of my head. I turn in horror to encounter a bewildered and panicked face emerge from the dark stairs, lost in a whirl of bumping bike tires that plummet straight at me. In a split second, I realize what is happening here: he had attempted carry the bike upright with the back wheel rolling down the stairs while holding the handle bars up high; but it has gone terribly wrong. After losing complete control of his bike and confusedly trying to wrangle it back, he has actually somehow mounted the death vehicle and is now riding at 60mph to both our deaths by bike-meets-door sandwiching.

My first instinct is, how can I help. But the velocity and weight of one 180lb man plus one steel framed bike immediately puts that option out of my head. I paste myself to the opposite stairway wall, sucking in to allow the fiery duo to fly past me into the door. After a whoosh and giant crash, the bike bounces off the front door and somehow into my arms. Laying on the ground at my feet is a sprawling body, head against door, torso in the entryway and legs mangled up the stairs. It doesn’t move.

I scream for help thinking that the poor Stairway Rider might be limp and lifeless to my touch. I’m envisioning ambulances and casts and surgeries when he stumbles to his feet, grumbles something illegible, and searches for his glasses a few feet away. Frozen in fear, anger and uncontrollable laughter, I let other party-goers chase him down the street to inspect a bleeding eyebrow and thoroughly scoffed glasses while The Stairway Rider promises in slurred speech that he is okay.

After a worrisome night over possible concussions or stitches, it turns out our own Evil Kenevil survived the stunt with little more than a nasty cut. His Ray Bans are totaled, but the bike, door, and girl have magically survived unscathed. And so the legend of The Stairway Rider will live on forever in my memory, a flash of bourbon-soaked fury and befuddlement topped with a little bike grease. To you, Stairway Rider.