Big T and His Giant Tricycle

“Look out the window! What is that?” I asked my neighbor at the bar of one of the handful of nice restaurants in downtown Cottonwood.

“Oh that’s Big T,” He said, as though people drive strange contraptions through town here every day. For all I know maybe they do. I looked to my friend Aaron for conformation and found him looking over my head at our bar mate with a distinct conspiratorial smile as though to say, “She’s from California. She’ll never understand.”

Maybe I won’t understand, but I would have loved to get a closer look at Big T’s vehicle. From a distance it looked like a giant tricycle with a motor and two raised seats in the back. It was sort of like a car with three wheels and no top. It was rigged with lights, and it sparkled in the eerie darkness of the monsoon clouds backlit by a full moon. He drove in a couple of lazy doughnut circles before pealing down the deserted street.

The conversation turned to rock crawling vehicles, and I tuned it out thinking about Big T’s American flag bandana, and wondering why anyone would possibly get on a giant motorized tricycle without a helmet. This is again a sign that I am far from home, since aside from Aaron who works with people who’ve had traumatic brain injuries, I seem to be the only person who is at all concerned about Arizona’s lack of helmet law. The prevailing wisdom is, “If you’re stupid enough to get on a motorcycle with no helmet than you deserve to die.”

Statements like these leave me very confused about Arizona. People here, especially in the rural northern section, say please and thank you, they go to church, and they spend time with their families. I think most would say family and community are important to them. It seems odd to me that people, who are kind and considerate, would be so inconsiderate about other people’s deaths. Furthermore I think it’s pretty inconsiderate of helmetless motorcycle riders to crash and die. Not only does this leave a hole in their heads, but a hole in their families as well. And once we’ve paid to air life the crash victim to the nearest hospital, and in the event that he has no health insurance paid for all of his care, and if he survives, all of his rehabilitation, and if he is paralyzed or brain damaged, services for the rest of his life, there will be quite a hole in the tax payers wallets as well. All this might be prevented by asking Big T to wear a helmet over his American flag bandana, when he rides his giant tricycle.