Excerpt from a novel-in-progress by Jeff Luney
These chapters take place in the Echo Park and Venice neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and in Santa Monica

Part I
I saw the coyote out in the park, just a few blocks from my home. There was a high pressure front floating over Southern California and the air temperature was 83 degrees, though it was January. The light was full of glare because of the high clouds that the sunlight had to fight its way through.

I was out bicycling but hadn't yet gone very far into the park, just some thirty feet from the edge of the roadway of Park Drive. From where I was standing you could look down and see the dirt path that used to be the main road leading to the Atwater estate at the end of Park Drive. A woman walked down the path, holding the leash of one dog and pursued by yet another. After some minutes a man jogged by, going the opposite direction.

I heard the brush being disturbed to the north. At first you couldn't see anything, just hear the branches being moved and dried leaves being trampled. Then I saw a snout, followed by a pair of triangular ears sticking up above it. The snout and ears appeared dark, like charcoal streaked with the buff color of local sandstone. As the rest of the dog's head appeared, and then its neck, I really thought that maybe it was a German Shepherd. It had that kind of coloring, but more noticeably, had that erectness of carriage. The creature took one more step and then smelled me at the same time that he saw me.

It was most certainly a coyote. He was big, almost the size of a wolf, and obviously well fed. Sometimes when you see coyotes up here they are mangy looking, with thin flanks and ribs that protrude through their taut flesh. This guy was big, sturdy, and well developed, but when you saw him in entirety, there was no mistaking his wildness and the fact that he was a coyote.

He was very dark compared to most of the coyotes that inhabited the park. This time of year, in the midst of Southern California winter, all of the native grasses have died down and all that is left are the dried, light brown stalks of the wild oats and their kindred. Most of the local coyotes have pelts that are tan, buff and brown, with darker portions showing through the lighter upper fur. The coyote that faced me was the color of the topsoil, kind of a deep gray, and this was the predominant fur color on him. I remember seeing a squirrel several weeks ago that had similar darkness in its coloring, a charcoal gray that appeared nearly black in contrast to other squirrels. I had never seen a coyote this dark. Once, when I was ill in bed, I saw a coyote wandering past my bedroom windows, as unconcerned as one of the local dogs running into the back yard from out in the street. That coyotes hade tan brown fur with just the tip of its somewhat bushy tail having dark fur, as if it were an old quill pen dipped into an inkwell and left to dry. Today's coyote had particularly large and yellow, lupine eyes that contrasted dramatically with his dark fur.

He stepped out of the brush, and moved forward cautiously. I cried out to him, hissing "Coyote."

He heard me, stood still for just one moment. I could see his nose twitch as he caught my scent once again. He was not the least bit frightened or put off by my human presence, and seemed instead defiant, as if he knew that with a few of his mates he could take me on, particularly if I didn't have a longbow or firearm. He started on down the hill, sniffing his way down a trail that he didn't normally take, for now I was right in the middle of his normal pathway.

The woman came back down the path, trailing her dog on a leash. A dachshund trotted just behind her, his petite, brown sausage-shaped body bouncing on its rapidly trotting legs. I could see the coyote lurking down in some bushes, only thirty feet away and maybe ten feet above the level of the pathway. I was immediately worried that if the dachshund strayed too far from its mistress, the coyote would attack it and drag it into the woods. This coyote would be more than up to the task of abducting a small dog. One day not too long ago I remember driving down Park Drive in the middle of some morning. I saw what at first glance might be a golden retriever trotting down the street with something in its mouth. When I looked more closely I saw clearly that this was a coyote. The object in its mouth had the same fur texture and coloring as this big, fluffy cat I remember seeing down in that block of the street. My moment of recognition came with a jolt of horror, a feeling that traveled directly down my optic nerve and rested in the base of my neck. For a minute, I wanted to stop the car and try and wrestle the coyote's prey out of its jaws. It was a foolish and rapidly fleeting idea. That coyote stopped for just the shortest time and then continued on its way, oblivious to my being next to it in my car.

Today's coyote thought better of his meal of fresh dachshund, and kept moving parallel to the path, a shadow navigating through the bushes and amongst the tree stumps of felled eucalyptus. I kept hearing his footfalls on the dry, crunchy leaves and the thrashing sound of branches as he starting moving back up the slope. Soon he stopped about thirty five feet south of me, back up on his personal trail that parallels Park Drive. He stepped out from the bushes and stood with his body perpendicular to me, and then turned his head slightly.

I met his piercing, flat yellow eyes once again. There was something about his gaze that was both dignified and mysterious, and I knew that my position in his woods was a direct intrusion on his trail and his normal pattern of behavior. He turned away again and continued on his way. I rolled my bicycle back to the opening in the bushes that lead to the road until I could set the front wheel down on the pavement again.

Part II
I had left the dark gray coyote behind in the woods of Elysian Park. I was riding west in the unseasonable hot weather of early January, headed towards the Pacific Ocean and the miles of concrete bike paths that parallel its shoreline.

There were plenty of people out for a Sunday lark. Everyone was playing volleyball or riding mountain bikes or strapping on inline skates to take advantage of the sunshine and summerlike temperatures. Down at Will Rogers State Beach there was a block of volleyball nets set up. Each court had a group of enthusiastic combatants poised on either side of the net, serving with a booming thud or returning a shot with an emphatic thump. Some young women, likely from UCLA or other local colleges, were lightly suntanned and wearing only their bikinis, and they were in terrific physical condition, with lovely, long thigh muscles, toned up arms and various combinations of pony tails, visors and modern looking sunglasses.

I passed the usual clumps of inline skaters, distinguished from one another by the degree and grace with which they pumped their legs and swayed their arms. The truly experienced skaters push with long sweeping strides, their arms moving in smoothly synchronized countermotion. The novice inline skaters tend to be standing nearly upright, knees locked and arms moving with clumsy, almost jerking motions. And in the winter months there are always tourists, walking along the side of the bike path, oblivious to their obstruction of wheeled traffic.

When I got down to Ocean Park, across from the "Shutters on the Beach" hotel, there were three pale yellow LA County Lifeguard trucks parked haphazardly, blocking the narrow strip of concrete that constitutes the bike path in that area. The trucks looked like they had arrived in a hurry, because they were all at random angles, with one no doubt deliberately blocking the traffic on the path coming from the southbound direction. Each truck had its roof mounted amber Mars lights on and blinking, and even without a siren for acoustical punctuation, they clearly signified that something was very wrong.

A scruffy looking little man was off of his beach cruiser bike and complaining. He was shirtless and wearing a baseball cap that held some of his curly graying hair at bay beneath it, but allowed the rest to burst out from the sides of his head in a way that made me think of the classic Bozo the Clown hairdo. His gray moustache moved as he spoke. "Hey, that's kind of short notice to be blocking off the bikepath!" he blurted out to anyone within earshot.

After I dismounted, I put the cleat covers over my bike cleats. I peered around the closest lifeguard truck and made sure that I could walk past whatever was on the other side.

A woman was lying down, strapped to a back board, with additional restraints to hold her neck and upper spinal column secure. The lifeguards had placed a respirator over her mouth, and you could see the breathing bag sitting on her upper chest beneath her chin. I couldn't tell if she was conscious. There were two pairs of inline skates next to her feet, along with a slight, pale looking man clad in red nylon trunks, which had a resemblance to those worn by LA County Lifeguards. He had dark beard hair on his chin and looked from his pallor and normalcy like a tourist. He was in a mild state of shock, like someone that had just suffered a loss or a momentous disruption of their vacation bliss. One of the lifeguards was speaking to him.

"Give us a call while you are in the area" the lifeguard said to the man. "We will try to help you any way we can during this difficult time."

I tried not to look very long, or to look at the other people which might have been involved in the collision. I was all too familiar with these sort of collisions on the bike path, where the skill levels of some conflicts with the utter lack of skill of others. I wear a helmet any time that I get on my bike. A lot of inline skaters really should wear a helmet, because until they take a spill, they don't truly appreciate the long distance from where their head is while skating to where it might land when it plummets into the concrete.

Once past the last of the three yellow trucks, I pulled off my cleat covers and put them back into the pockets located on the back of my cycling jersey. I heard the little scruffy guy speaking again, although he had throttled back considerably on his sarcasm once he saw the injured woman lying on the bikepath.

"A biker collided with the lady on Rollerblades," he observed to one of his riding companions. "An ambulance is on its way," he continued. "People have got to be careful out here."

I got back on my bike and started riding south. Traffic subsided after that bottleneck, so that I made good speed as I continued down the bike path. After a thirty second stop at a drinking fountain to refill my water bottle, I rode up to the border with Venice. I exited the bike path and headed down Marine to Main Street.

When I got to Abbott Kinney, I turned inland off of Main. My focus shifted to looking at the parked cars at the side of the road, looking for signs of doors opening up or cars moving out into traffic, usually without looking or signaling. Opening car doors is a special category of urban cycling challenge, since drivers rarely think to look for bicyclists, and when they do, generally don't think that bicyclists are moving at a speed sufficient enough for them to be concerned.

I was clipping along, paying attention to my surroundings, when I noticed an LA Police car parked across from Abbott's Habit, a local Venice coffee shop. At the next moment, the traffic light that governed the cross street turned yellow. I could have stopped, but there was no traffic coming from the side and the police officer was undoubtedly comfortably ensconced in the confines of the coffee shop. So I went on blasting along, still clearing the intersection as the light turned red.

I was only two blocks from Venice Boulevard at this point, which was my next scheduled turn to head inland. I passed a few slower cyclists on heavy beach cruiser bikes and started into the intersection, which is Rialto, named for the famous bridge and canal in Venice, Italy.

At that moment, a car came rolling up to Abbott Kinney from Rialto. The driver did not so much as look at me, and I was still pedaling at a brisk clip. In the nanosecond that transpired next, I shouted out in alarm and genuine concern. "No!" I heard my voice, and I am quite sure that in my haste and because of my speed I also threw my voice so that it burst loudly in the open window of the car's driver.

Time was already slowing down, just like it mercifully does in all of my collisions or near misses. For another nanosecond, I sincerely hoped that the driver would continue out onto Abbott Kinney. My speed was simply not diminishing and the driver was not moving his car forward. By this time he now saw me approaching, but his gaze meeting mine did nothing to help my situation or remove his car from my path.

I grabbed my brakes. The distance between me and the car, me and the driver of the car, was narrowing very rapidly. The car was big, even though it was a conventional car and close to the ground, its roof was pretty high off of the ground. For a split second my brain weighed whether I could go airborne and try to clear the roof of his car with one superhuman burst of adrenaline fueled vertical thrust but just as quickly dismissed this option as infeasible. I pretty much maintained eye contact with the car's driver at this point. He had slightly tinted glasses and the dark stubble of a weekend growth of beard, and his mouth was wide open and thoroughly agape.

I cut the handlebars sharply to the right. As I made the turn, my front wheels brushed the raised trim on the flanks of his gigantic motorcar. I started to fall forwards, but by now, my body was hovering over the side of the car. Without thinking much about it, my left hand pushed off of the roof of the car, then the back window, and finally the little tail fin that projected just past the lid of the curved trunk, just like a gymnast working out on the pummel horse. I had visions of my left hand leaving some superhuman imprint on the tail fin sheet metal, crumpling it the same way that you might crumple the paper thin aluminum of a beer can.

I continued to fall, and felt my left hand release its death grip on the tail fin. I remember holding my right hand out, bent at the wrist, while my body twisted around and I continued my ongoing eye contact with the errant driver. I felt my right hand make contact with the pavement of Rialto, the leather and padding protecting the palm of my hand. Just as quickly I felt my hand moving off of the pavement as I continued spinning, until my right shoulder and then both shoulder blades landed squarely on the asphalt.

My bicycle made an awful clatter as it crashed to join me on the ground. I pushed together the tabs that held my bicycle helmet onto my chin and felt them click as the straps came free. The driver stared, transfixed, and then in utter amazement, blurted out "Are you O.K?"

I rose to my feet and did a lightning survey of my physical self. I was most worried about my right wrist, since I used it to break part of my fall. It was not in pain. I had no scrapes, no cuts, no other signs of damage to my body. I took a quick look at my bicycle and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Still, I wanted to collect my wits and move out of the intersection.

"I think so," I said calmly, as I raised my arms over my head and then clasped my hands together like someone signaling that they were O.K. when they fell down water skiing. I had adopted this strange gesture ever since my earliest bike crashes and I performed it almost reflexively. I kept my visual contact with the driver, and then shifted my attention to picking up my bicycle by grasping both hand rests of the handlebars. "Let's move out of the way of other traffic."

I picked up my bicycle and moved it behind the car. As I headed for the grassy patch just past the curb, I noticed for the first time how old this car really was. It was a genuine 50's vintage car, a Plymouth, and had the black background of an old California license plate. Which suggested to me that this car had been owned by the same person for a considerable period of time. Even in passing the car gleamed. Its chrome bumpers were the kind made of heavy gauge steel, and the chrome was flawless and looked recently polished. The entire car looked that way, and it was then that I noticed that the predominant paint color was pink. Like a lot of mid-50's American cars, this one had a two tone paint job, with a white roof and vast surfaces of bent sheet steel painted that classic car lacquer pink--not neon or Mary Kay pink, but more dusty and nearly mauve in base hue. The letters which spelled out "Plymouth" were chrome and in seemingly immaculate condition.

As I set my bicycle up against a small tree just past the stop sign planted in the parkway, the driver moved his big Plymouth by backing up and then turning the wheel closer to the curb. As he parked, I examined my bike in greater detail, sizing up each component with critical scrutiny. The handlebars had been knocked off center from the front fork as part of the impact with the pavement, and there were a few new scratches and scrapes on the pedal that touched down when the bike went over next to the car. My chain had somehow gotten hung up on the chainring side of my crank, and the crank end was holding the chain frozen so that it wouldn't move. I knew that I could loosen the quick release on the rear wheel and reset the chain right there on the street corner. That was the entire extent of the damage.

The driver walked over, still astonished and perhaps worried about my apparent lack of anger. "Are you O.K.?" he repeated.

I moved my hand up and then down to test my right wrist. There was no sharp pain, no hint of any discomfort, no bruising or swelling. My bicycle gloves were brand new, and I had just worn them for the first time the day before, and there weren't even any significant abrasions on the new leather palms.

"I don't feel any pain." I responded. "I was really worried about my wrist after coming down on it." I continued, while flexing my wrist as if to prove to him that it was in fact undamaged. "I really had to stop in a hurry!" I exclaimed. "That deceleration was pretty heavy, I must have been pulling something like 3 G's!

I showed the driver my handlebars and their lack of proper alignment with the front fork. "I can fix that with a wrench I carry" I explained. I then bent down and pointed out where the chain was caught up against the pedal end of the crank.

"Did your chain break?" the driver asked with genuine concern.

"No, it's fine, it just fell off." I further explained. "I'll have to take off the wheel to put it back--no big deal."

There was still no tension, just relief in the air. "What's your name?" I asked the driver.

"Richard."

"Peter." I stuck out my hand and Richard shook it.

"Did you redline?" I asked, clutching the portion of my chest above my heart.

"What?"

"Redline!" came my reply. "Did your heart max out in heartbeats?"

Richard looked at me. "Do you know how close I came to death there?" I had mirror shades, so my eyes didn't give away how fanatical I felt. "Did you see that angel Gabriel take me up and out of harm's way, man?"

I told Richard that when my paintings sell, he had better go out and buy one and drive up the market value for my works.

"What year is your Plymouth?" I asked.

"1957" Richard replied.

"That's only two years before I was born."

Richard looked at me and said simply "Wow."

He got in his big pink 57 and was pulling away from the curb. I had gotten out my tool and loosened the handlebar stem nut in order to realign it. An LA cop in a black and white Chevy Blazer came up to the intersection and looked at me, long and hard and flinty eyed, the way all cops people look at the public. I was lining up the bike with the front wheel and got it in just the position that I wanted. The LAPD guy turned right and kept on going towards Venice Boulevard.

I put the chain back on, spun the wheel, and then all was back to 100% mechanical correctness.

I continued on to Venice and then back to downtown. I had lost that edge, and my cadence and general level of effort were even more lackluster on the last twenty-odd miles than usual. I worried about the woman that fell in her collision and I worried about my own near misses and wondered where on earth all of the energy of my imminent collision might have gone to for me to have made such a soft landing out of what could have been a life terminating tragedy. I worried that I was simply living out the end of some dreamland fantasy born out of morphine at the emergency room, like the raw edge of some film when the projector lamp overheats and melts the last few frames before halting at the presence of some great white diffusing light….

Jeff Luney