Wild Awake

“If you keep riding on this, those spokes are going to snap,” he says.
    He looks at me sheepishly. “You are mad.”
    I shake my head and try to suppress my irritation. Stop being such a bitch-nacho . I paste on a smile. “I’m not mad. I appreciate your help.”
    Skunk snorts. “Translation: Hands off my bike, asshole.”
    “Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting Project Extreme Bike Makeover.”
    For the first time since he opened the shed, Skunk looks apologetic. He leans against the workbench. “If you want, I can just reinflate the tire and you can take it how it is. Or if you’ve got a minute, I can finish truing the spokes right now.”
    I pause. When I look at my bike again, my self-righteousness ebbs a little. Fine. It’s maybe a little bit wonky. And I’m being extremely rude. After all, he’s already helped me out twice. The least I can do is let him true my stupid spokes. I put my hands on my hips.
    “All right, Bicycle Boy. Extreme Bike Makeover. You’re on.”
    Skunk reaches for a curved plastic tool that’s lying on the dusty workbench. He gives the wheel a spin and watches as it wobbles through the brake pads. After it’s gone around a couple times, he stops it, gives the little metal nub at the bottom of one of the spokes a quarter turn, and spins it again.
    He sticks his finger in the wheel to stop its spinning and adjusts another nub. When he spins the wheel again, that part doesn’t rub against the brake pads anymore. There’s not really room for both of us to stand inside the shed, but I clear a space on the workbench and sit next to my bike with my legs dangling down while Skunk works. Now that I’ve decided to stay, I’m getting excited about the tune-up. It’s been a long time since I did anything vaguely maintenance-y on my bike. I lean forward and rest my chin on my knuckles.
    “So were the wheels totally messed up?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “What happens if the spokes snap?”
    Skunk shrugs. “You’d probably go over your handlebars.”
    “Awesome.”
    “Or a spoke could shoot through the rim and burst the tube.”
    “That’s so metal.”
    “Here. Listen to this.”
    Skunk strums one of the spokes so it resonates like a guitar string. Then he does it to another one. I sit up straight. “Hey! They sound the same.”
    “You want to check the other ones?”
    “Sure.” I hop off the bench and squeeze in beside him. When I get close to him, this scent, this whiff of cigarettes and bicycle grease and orange rinds, catches me by surprise. It’s fleeting and intense and almost too personal, like walking past someone’s window and catching them changing. I wonder if that’s why he keeps his door closed: Otherwise the whole world would smell him and come sniffing around for more.
    I strum the spokes one by one.
    “That one’s a little off.”
    “Do it again?”
    I strum the spoke again, then try the spoke above it. They sound slightly different.
    “Good ear,” says Skunk. He hands me the tool. “Go for it.”
    We slowly work our way around the wheel, spinning and adjusting and spinning again. It’s oddly addictive once you get started, like working the knots out of your hair when it’s really tangly. Every time we push the wheel it spins straighter, until eventually it passes through the brake pads without scraping them at any point during its revolution. When we’re finished with the back wheel, we flip the bike around and do the front. Every time Skunk moves, I catch that scent again, peeling paint and citrus. He smells like an old ladder left out in the sun.
    When both wheels are done, Skunk lifts the bike down from the workbench and checks it over. He reaches out a tattooed arm and squeezes the brake levers one more time. I feel a surge of my initial defensiveness rising up just in case, but Skunk doesn’t say anything. As he runs his fingers along the titanium posts, I suddenly feel acutely conscious of the coolness of the air against my skin. For some reason, I think about Lukas, who never wrote back to the texts I sent him trying to make light of the sex-dome incident last night. I gaze around the little shed, searching for something to distract myself. I straighten up with a jolt when I notice the shiny green electric bass that’s leaning in the corner with a greasy rag hanging off its neck.
    “What’s that doing in the shed?”
    Skunk’s face is tipped down and I can’t see his eyes, just his hands moving carefully around my bicycle. “I think