Bikes Stolen from Indifferent Public High School

Tom rode his bicycle two miles each way to high screwel, until he bought his first beat-up car in his senior year. Tom wanted other students to think he was oblivious to, or unaffected by, their opinions about his appearance. He carried his viola in a bucket attached to the seat of his bike, wore an ROTC uniform on certain days of the week, and carried a thirty-pound backpack full of books every screwel day.

He took elective classes and maintained perfect grades, which bespoke obedience to authority, yet inwardly he was a rebel against both the other students and the faculty as well. He hated the routine of screwel: the metal detectors, the obnoxious classmates who egged him from their cars, and the faculty that only seemed to know the names of the troubled kids but not the honor roll students. He put up with it, because it was only a four-year sentence. He knew that the harder he worked, the easier life would be later.

During his second year of high screwel, Tom’s bikes kept disappearing from the bike racks during school hours. The bike rack was a small yard enclosed by an eight-foot chain link fence with no roof. It was easy for thieves with bolt cutters to jump the fence, cut the lock, throw the bike over, and make off with it. Tom purchased fixer-upper replacement bikes so he would have transportation. Each time, he fastened buckets to the seats for his viola.

After his third bike disappeared, and the less than interested staff ignored his third complaint, Tom decided to make a point. He rode his latest clunker of a bike to screwel, walked it into the principal’s office, and set about chaining it to one of the desks. Immediately, a screwel bureaucrap told him to take the bike outside.

“But I have to get to class. I don’t have time to take it outside now.”

“You have to put it in the bike rack.”

“I cannot afford to have another bike stolen because you don’t care about security.”

“Look, you take that bike out of here right now or I’ll call campus police!”

“You mean the same police that are supposed to be guarding the bike rack? What do you expect they will do?”

“You’ll be expelled for insubordination. We’ll notify your ROTC Commander!”

“My ROTC Commander will laugh at you. He knows all about your failed security.”

“That’s it, what’s your name? We’re going to call your parents.”

“Great, they’ll laugh at you too. My father is tired of buying new bikes.”

Tom ignored the bureaucrap, finished locking his bike to the secretary’s desk, and headed, viola in hand, for his first class.

“What’s your name?”

“Check the honor roll, I’m near the top. Ask my ROTC Commander which of his cadets has complained about campus security. Heck, just look at the last three reports I filed.”

Campus security yanked Tom out of orchestra class and called his very busy, hardworking, tax paying parents.

“Your son was very rude today. He used curse words and refused to remove his bicycle from the office. I’m afraid we’re going to have to suspend him.”

Several teachers, the ROTC commander, a threat to go to the media, and a threat to contact an attorney finally convinced the screwel bureaucraps to acquiesce. Tom missed two classes that morning. The screwel would not spend two hundred dollars to secure the bike rack by roofing it with chain link, and yes, Tom’s fourth bike was stolen during screwel hours a couple of months later.

His were not the only bikes stolen, either. The thieves had stolen thousands of dollars’ worth of bikes, while the screwel bureaucraps sat on their hands. Maybe Tom should have called a lawyer, but his parents could not afford one.

Tom suggested to his ROTC commander that the cadets could look out for their own by patrolling the area during the day, perhaps while marching. Tom did not have to purchase a sixth bike.