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wider bike lanes. He drives home his point by telling a story about the time he broke his collarbone in a bike collision. He is not a good speaker, but at least his story is interesting.
    The local politicians queuing up to go after him are what I’m really dreading—and what a couple of cocktails would considerably improve. None of them knows much about bicycling. They are here for political reasons and will hit all the predictable talking points. I can see it all happening in my mind before it actually does. Blah blah blah public transportation. Blah blah blah reducing carbon emissions. Blah blah blah the i mportance of promoting active lifestyles. Blah blah blah in conclusion, Chicago is a green city.
    God. I. Need. A. Drink.
    But no. The stars have not aligned.yet.(The liquor store in my neighborhood is called Vas Foremost. It has a high, pleasing smell when you walk inside, like Pine Sol and fruit juice. The kids in the neighborhood call the place “Vas Deferens,” which I secretly think is clever. As the 23rd Ward Alderman takes the podium and begins to drone on about working with the police to reduce bike thefts in her ward, I begin to picture the cooler at the back of Vas Deferens—the one where they stock the giant Belgian beers. I mentally look them over and consider which one I might select for tonight. Hello ladies. How do you do?)
    Maybe, if I write really fast, I can turn something in and leave before this shit has concluded. If I’m lucky, I can probably beat the worst of the snow. (My colleagues will likely be none the wiser, and it’s a risk I’m willing to take tonight.) Then home. And pizza. And beer.
    I look outside. The white stuff is still coming down, harder than before, which means crowded, snowy, wet trains that take longer to get you anywhere. Blech.
    I wonder . . .
    Is this the same laptop where I saved the story I wrote about the Green City Initiative fundraiser? Scroll.scroll.scroll. Yes.
    Okay, okay. Focus, Ben. Focus. We can do this . . .
    Find: “Green City Initiative.” Replace with: “Bicycle Transportation Alliance.”
    Find: “Recycling programs” Replace with: “Bike lanes”
    Find: “Renewable energy.” Replace with: “Commuting to work on a fucking bike.”
    Find and remove: “fucking.”
    Aaaaaaaaand . . .
    Not bad, not bad at all. Just a few more fixes. Switch out this alderman’s name for that one’s. Change the location from the Chicago Cultural Center to the Trump Tower. Plug in that last bullshit quote the CTA president just read from the speech his PR hack wrote for him . . .
    Type type type.
    Oh yeah. We’ll be sneaking out the back before this is half an hour in. The article practically writes itself.
    (Please understand that my alacrity to leave is not a slight on bicycles themselves. I like bikes. In the summer, I bike to work at Brain’s. I like the bracing rush of negotiating city traffic. I like the other bicyclists too—the skinny kids on fixed gears, the hardcores in full regalia that think it’s the Tour de France, the Mexican busboys on their fat-tire Huffys. I even like the aggressive African cabbies who like to roll down their windows and curse at bicyclists in Xhosa or Wolof. It’s its own little ecosystem, with aspects that are way, way more interesting than city ordinances and helmet laws make it sound.)
    Now . . .
    If I file too early, it will look suspicious to my editor. I should probably pack up and hit send when I get home. The snow on the windows . . . gee. It’s really coming down. But . . . oh Christ, is that Alderman Dunney waiting to speak? Fuck me, it is.
    Alderman Dunney is supposed to be thinking of running for mayor. What if he announces tonight? He almost certainly won’t—why would he here, at a stupid bicyclist’s event?—but if he does and I miss it, I’m almost definitely sacked.
    Okay, we wait until Dunney