A man, a rusty red '48 bike, a cruel thief in the night
Walking home late one night last year, Michael McCaw noticed a rusty red bike in the trash along a Cambridge side street and lugged it home.
He thought it would make interesting "found art," like a snow shovel he'd hung on his wall. But after he put together the 1948 Columbia and added a new set of tires, he took a liking to the vintage bike.
He rode it everywhere he went -- to work at a restaurant in Central Square, to writing and philosophy classes in Harvard Square, and to visit a friend in Jamaica Plain. At nearly 6 feet tall, he felt a bit like Pee-Wee Herman perched atop the little bike, so he named it Francis after the goofy rich kid who stole Herman's bike.
McCaw, 27, liked the way people associated him with the old red bike, and the bike with him. And he liked that this funky bike enabled him to make connections with people he wouldn't normally meet.
"The most random people -- people I would usually never talk to -- would go out of their way to say, 'Wow, that's a great bike, that's a real classic,' " he said.
Older folks often admired the bike and suggested how great it would look with a fresh coat of paint. One time, a frat boy yelled "nice bike" from his SUV. McCaw even bonded with his boss at the restaurant, who also pedals to work on an antique bike.
When kids yelled, "Look, it's Pee-Wee," McCaw would humor them by doing Pee-Wee's ridiculous little laugh.
It made him happy. Then, one night, it was gone.
Though he knew bicycle theft is common in Cambridge, he never really worried that Francis, with its rusting paint, was vulnerable. But one night last month, when he chained the bike to a post with a $40 lock while he went to a show at the Middle East, it was snatched, and he was devastated.
"Whoever took it had been eyeing it," McCaw said.
He reported the theft to Cambridge police , who listened to the story without laughing. Then he put up posters announcing Francis had been taken. One he hung on Mass. Avenue asked the thief to return the bike to avoid "lifelong guilt." He hung signs elsewhere in the city suggesting he would pay $1,000 for Francis' safe return, which he admits he had no intention of doing.
His friends phoned, offering their condolences. A call from an unidentified number had him frantically asking, "Do you have my bike?" (It was just a telemarketer, who kindly suggested he report the loss to police.)
He began checking
"You gotta let it go," he said recently, sounding like he was trying to convince himself. He said he had pulled a junk bike -- nothing like Francis -- out of the trash recently, just so he'd have a way to get around.
He's also learned a valuable, but painful, lesson about why the farmer tells his kids not to name the chickens.
"I'm never going to name a bike again," he said, "That's for sure." 