Grand Theft Bicycle : On Female Friendship and the Things We Burn
"You know what we all need?" said Molly, violently swirling her newly poured glass of wine. She paused to take a huge, sloppy gulp of the dark red liquid, a droplet of it escaping her mouth and landing on my cream couch. 'That's never coming off,' I thought.
"What?" asked Kavita, her big, curious eyes struggling to focus on Molly in anticipation of an answer.
"One of those cleansing rituals where you burn your exes' belongings in a bucket." Molly’s crazy idea slid into my ears in a drunken haze.
My eyebrows furrowed with whatever sobriety that was left in me, but Kavita beat me with her unperturbedness as she squealed, "Brilliant!”
"I know, right?!" Molly leaned forward with a prideful expression as if re-energised upon the validation.
Then both of my drunk genius friends turned to me expectantly.
"NO – absolutely not."
***
“And that,” I say, staring at the smudge of ink on the interview room table, “is when I should have thrown them out of the apartment.”
The police officer across from me lets out a long, weary breath. He doesn't look up from his notepad as he nods his head in agreement. “Yeah,” he grunts, “That doesn’t sound like a plan that would lead to anything good.”
“You know how it ended,” I reply, my voice flat. The name tag on his uniform reads 'Sgt. Evans'. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here, would I, Sergeant?”
He finally looks at me, his eyes tired but sharp. “Just walk me through it. What happened after you said no?”
I take a shaky breath and close my eyes. The sterile smell of the station starts to fade, replaced by the memory of cheap wine and expensive perfume.
***
“C'mooon!” Molly yelled, throwing her hands up in dramatic protest. “Don't be a buzzkill, Claire! You can be a real lousy witness to our catharsis, or you can get up and do something about it.”
"How does this, in any way, count as 'doing something about it'?"
Before I could protest further, Kavita had already produced a large metal mixing bowl from my kitchen. “This shall be the vessel!” she declared in an old wizard-like prophecy-delivering voice.
And then the items started flying.
“Arvin's scarf!” — “Justin's trashy keychain!” — “Max's phone charger that he's never getting back now!” Molly tossed into the growing pile.
“Vidur's inhaler, Ashley's lip gloss, David's daughter's Barbie...” Kavita added. When we glanced at her, quizzically, she furthered, “What?... She had like ten of those!”
And then, as one, all eyes shifted to me. They were waiting, and I may be boring, but I am no solidarity-disrupter when it comes down to it.
"...Well, Caleb's sticky note..." I said weakly, fishing the small, yellow square from the back of a drawer. I chucked it into the bowl, thinking of when he had stuck it on my computer screen at work: '1975 P. E. Donovan records needed by 4 pm. Thanks in advance :)' I had made it a point to save it.
"Well, aren’t you a sport?" Molly gave me her signature, single raised eyebrow.
I looked at my friends' contributions and admittedly, even I felt quite pathetic about the meaningless post-it I had brought to the party-slash-ritual or whatever this was.
"What about Bicycle Barry?" asked Kavita somewhat optimistically.
Barry, aka Bicycle Barry, was an unfortunate legend among my friends with no proof of his existence except the burning sense of embarrassment he left in the pit of my stomach. It was at a mandatory work yoga workshop where I had met Barry, and we chatted at the water cooler for 15 minutes before the instructor annoyedly called on us to come back and meditate.
"Wanna go for a run this weekend? It's much more invigorating and much less annoying than yoga," Barry had asked. I thought my dating life was finally picking up pace until he brought a bicycle to what was supposed to be a running date. This led to me jogging on my own, completely out of breath, trying to catch up to his breezy cycling. We ended up biking — or in my case, running — back to his place, where he parked his bicycle, bid me goodbye on his front porch, and left me there to take the bus home, starving and aching. That was the last I saw of Barry.
“I didn’t date him!” I defended.
"Yeah, you only chased his bicycle for forty minutes," Molly said, not even looking up from the pile.
"I didn’t 'chase' him; we were exercising. It was a mutual... cardio experience."
"Just bring us something," she insisted. "We can’t do the ritual without Bicycle Barry. The cosmic balance is off."
"I don’t 'have' anything of his! I met him for one hour, the majority of which I spent trying not to pass out from the running."
My friends gave me a sympathetic look. I had dodged all their phone calls for two days before giving them a lame excuse that ‘we just didn’t vibe’ when they finally cornered me. It hadn’t taken long for them to show up at my door with snacks and a box of tissues to hear the real, pathetic version.
"We should burn that asshole’s bicycle," Kavita muttered, her wine glass having somehow been replaced by the glorious whole bottle in its entirety.
"True. But how will it fit into the bowl?" Molly contemplated in all seriousness.
Exasperation washed over me. They were serious.
"Hello? Are we forgetting the part where I don't have his bike? Or possess the ability to commit Grand Theft Bicycle? Plus, we are not burning a vehicle! The building management would send us a strongly worded email about the fire code!"
"Hold on a minute," Molly said, completely ignoring my very valid points. She had that dangerous glimmer in her eye that immediately made me nervous. This was the same glimmer she’d had when she “stole” her landlord’s cat – a man she’d declared a misogynistic pig who, I quote, ‘didn’t deserve the selfless love of an animal.' (The abduction consisted of keeping the cat in her room instead of the shared living room. She’d returned it, sober and apologetic the next morning.) However, the drunkenness was now at that same critical mass, which did not help my case.
"We could steal his bike! And then burn it!"
Before I could say no, Kavita stood up in a drunken stupor and said, "Where are my shoes?" which basically meant 'Let’s go.'
I wish I could tell you I didn’t remember his address, but since I’d taken the bus home from his place, humiliated and starving, the stop was burned into my memory. What my friends didn’t know was that I had avoided that entire bus route for a week afterwards, taking expensive cabs just to spare myself the reminder of how I had confused a bizarre fitness test for a date.
I also wish I could say I didn't tell them his address. But I, too, was drunk and furious about his act of misleading me. So the next thing I knew, I was holding my lunch down in a wobbling bus with my two friends, and yet another wine bottle stashed away in our handbags –a necessary precaution in case one of us sobered up and tried to talk us out of felonious thievery.
The bus door buzzed at University station and a guy stepped inside with his bike. My pulse quickened as I struggled to look up, praying it wasn't Barry. When I finally managed a proper stare, the guy caught my eye and gave me a slow, flirty smile. A cold wave of nausea – half bus-wobble, half Barry-related PTSD – washed over me. I glared at him with the intensity of a thousand suns until he looked away, confused. ‘No. More. Bicycles.’ I chanted under my breath.
To distract myself, I focused on the criminal genius that was Molly.
"So, what exactly is the plan here?" I asked my two friends, who were contentedly scrolling through reels together on Kavita's phone. I was almost sure they had completely forgotten why we had gotten on this bus, judging by the utterly blank, contented expressions they looked up with. I probably should have just let them forget.
Molly cleared her throat, looked around the bus with exaggerated suspicion, and then, with the gravity of a spy handing over nuclear codes, slowly drew a shiny object from her bag. She held it up. It caught the flickering bus light.
"A butter knife?" I deadpanned. "Really? That's your master plan?"
****
30th Avenue was orchestrated by the sound of crickets. As we walked under the yellow street lamps, I pretended to struggle to locate the house, hoping to look slightly less pathetic.
"Perhaps jogging will refresh your memory," said Kavita, already picking up her pace.
My furious look remained undeciphered by my very drunk friend, who had taken her own suggestion and resorted to jogging on the spot, as if the motion would open a magical portal to Barry's humble abode.
Molly stumbled behind me, clumsily rummaging through her bag. The jangling of keys and the stumble of her heels were the only other sounds besides Kavita's rhythmic huffing.
"How do you even steal a bike with a butter knife, anyway?" I asked as we finally stood outside the dreaded house of Barry-whatever-his-last-name-was.
"If you heat it with a lighter, you can melt through the cable lock," Kavita explained, still jogging in place for no discernible reason.
Molly and I looked at her with raised eyebrows, utterly impressed. "How did you-"
"But what do I know?" she interrupted, finally stopping. "I am only an innocent bystander."
"More like a by-jogger," Molly snorted.
A wave of nauseating frustration hit me as the three of us stood in front of the dreaded house that belonged to Barry, and so I reached into Molly’s bag for more alcohol.
"This feels more like a vodka activity," I complained, gulping the Sauvignon Blanc that suddenly tasted far too weak for the occasion.
"Maybe Barry has some," Molly said sarcastically, peering down the street to see if the coast was clear.
"Ha. Ha."
"I'll go and ask!" Before I could direct an even stronger eye-roll towards Kavita, I realized the crazy, drunk chick was serious. She had already started walking — or, more accurately, jogging — toward the front door.
"Kavita!" we whisper-screamed in unison.
In the next few minutes, we managed to talk Kavita out of ringing the doorbell to ask for vodka and cut her off from the wine. Now, Molly was kneeling before the bicycle lock, attempting to heat the butter knife with a trembling lighter, while I kept watch — less for passersby and more for Kavita, our vodka-seeking trick-or-treater, who was the biggest liability on the entire block.
The smell of burning plastic wafted through the air as the red-hot knife dug into the lock.
"Kavita, you genius airhead, it's working!" Molly whispered excitedly. As crazy as it was, the burning smell of success was undeniably satis-
"Here, somebody take over. I gotta pee." Molly handed me the lighter and started walking away.
"Now?!"
"Yes, now! I don't have a magic bladder, Claire. The alcohol doesn't just vanish!"
"But where are you going to pee?!"
"Behind the bushes. Where else?"
“Maybe we can ask Barry to use the bathroo-”
"Shut up, Kavita!"
And that was that.
So there I was, trying to melt through a bike lock, while Molly audibly relieved herself in the bushes and Kavita resumed her enthusiastic, pointless jogging.
I approached the lock from the opposite side Molly had started on, using the untouched part of the knife. I sighed as the plastic started melting until I hit a wire, "Shit!" I muttered, "Guys, there's a metal wire under the plastic–" before I could finish my concern, Kavita yelled.
"Cramp! Oh my god, craaamp! Sweet motherfuc-"
I began running toward her, but Molly was faster, one hand holding her pants up and the other clamped over Kavita's screaming mouth.
I quickly left our poor attempt at the melted lock. I poured a generous glug of wine on the butter knife to cool it down (crinkling my nose at the pungent, mixed smell of burning plastic and cheap Sauvignon), and shoved the evidence into Molly’s bag, silently praying nothing inside would melt or ignite.
"Ow! She bit my hand!" Molly yelped, pulling away from Kavita.
"You didn't wash them!" Kavita accused, wiping her mouth.
"They were clean!"
"Were not! I will not accept your pee hands on my pretty face."
***
"And while these two were arguing, the porch light turned on and Barry stepped out. He took one look at the three of us — a woman with her pants half-up, another hopping on one leg, and me holding a wine bottle — and we all basically screamed, not expecting one another."
Sergeant Evans gives me a stern look, which leads me to clarify, "I mean, for him, understandably, he wasn't expecting us even more. But I promise things ended up looking way more twisted than they already were from his point of view."
"Oh, they were twisted all right," he replies, his voice monotone.
I scratch my head. "And that's when you showed up. End of story." I don’t know what else to say, so I just give an uneasy, awkward smile. Glad about having fought the urge to accompany it with an even cringier thumbs-up, I look down and decide to stare at the little black smudge on the floor, wondering who eats gum in an interrogation room.
What I intentionally leave out is the thirty seconds of pure, frantic chaos that happened after Barry slammed the door and before the police arrived. As I was begging through the mail slot and Molly was yelling through a window, trying to convince Barry to hear us out and not call the cops, Kavita had dropped to her knees beside the bike. With a few deft flicks of a hairpin, she picked the lock. By the time I looked back, she was straightening up, the open lock in her hand. She shoved it into my bag just as flickering police lights rounded the corner.
Later, in the holding room, I’d hissed at her, "If you knew how to pick a lock, why were we trying to melt through it?"
She just shrugged, though a flicker of her lawyerly self was back in her glazed eyes. "I like melting stuff. Plus," she said, leaning in close, "that's the story we're sticking to. We tried and failed. We never actually stole anything. Got it?"
I looked at my seriously intelligent, now not-so-drunk, yet still a dumbass friend. I wasn't sure if I was impressed or utterly, completely annoyed, but I knew enough to shut up.
The scraping of a chair shakes me out of my stupor as Sergeant Evans slowly gets up and ushers me out of the room to where my friends are seated, both now fully sober. Kavita is, ironically, now all lawyered up after her delinquency and looks so professional that I can’t even picture how she seemed a few hours back, and Molly is trying to reason with Barry about how it was their idea and that I don't owe him an apology. So well, Molly is just being Molly, I guess.
"In your dreams, Bicycle Barry." She snorts.
"Bicycle what?" Barry looks at me questioningly. Is he that clueless?
Molly’s face flushes a deep red. She takes a sharp breath, visibly biting back a torrent of much more colourful language. When she speaks, her voice was low and razor-sharp. "Usually, a running date means running together, dumbass. If you want someone to chase your bicycle, get a dog on a leash."
He looks at me again as if somehow I would beg to differ, but I just shrug since I don't have anything better to say.
He scoffs in denial. "Whatever. I don't need this crazy shit."
Molly crosses her arms. "Go home to Daddy and learn some chivalry. Or just Google 'basic respect' and you might get a hint if you spell it right."
His jaw tightens. “Expect a restraining order,” he snaps and storms off.
The girls and I look at each other. "That was fair, I guess," mumbles Kavita, which earns her a glare from Molly.
Then Sergeant Evans clears his throat to grab our attention
“Right,” he says, his voice a dry rasp. He levels his gaze at us. “So, the issue here is that you allegedly breached the private property of one Mr. Bland.”
"No way!" A choked snort escapes from Molly’s side of the bench. It’s half-laughter, half-hangover. Sergeant Evans’s eyes, quick and sharp, snap to her.
“Miss Smith,” he says, each word a block of ice. “Are you suggesting you three did not allegedly breach the private property of Mr. Barry Bland?”
“No! I mean, yes,” Molly stammers, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and uncontrollable mirth. “I just meant… his last name can’t actually be Bland. Is it really Bland? Bland?”
A snicker, quickly disguised as a cough, comes from the young officer standing by the water cooler. Sergeant Evans’s lips press together into a thin line of pure unadulterated disapproval, yet I can see a suppressed smile threaten its way across his face. He takes a slow, deliberate breath, as if praying for patience.
“As I was saying,” he continues, “Mr. Barry…” He emphasizes the first name, a masterful tactical retreat to avoid the same response. We exchange a look, a silent pact of amusement that threatens to undo us completely. “…will probably be pursuing a restraining order. He will contend trespassing and attempted mischief. The whole works.”
He lets that sink in. The words ‘restraining order’ land like a lead weight in my gut. This was supposed to be a stupid prank, not a court date.
“But,” Evans continues, and that single word feels like a lifeline, “since you were all standing on the public sidewalk, arguing with the complainant when my officers arrived, we have no direct evidence of you being on his property. It’s your word against his, and we found no physical evidence of any stolen items to support his claim.”
Kavita tilts her head at this, and I can almost see the legal precedents scrolling behind her eyes. She seems to calculate the angles and the gaps in the story with a tiny, triumphant smirk playing on her lips.
“Therefore,” Evans says, sliding our confiscated purses across the cold metal counter with a final, dismissive push, “we are not pressing charges. Consider this a formal warning. Don’t let me see you in here again. Is that understood?”
The relief is so potent I feel dizzy with it. We scramble for our bags, thanking the intimidating Sergeant with desperate relief, but he just gives a gruff nod and shoos us off with a flick of his fingers, a hint of a smile threatening to soften the hard set of his jaw. As the junior officer gestures us toward the heavy door leading to freedom, a glint of something metallic winks from inside Molly’s half-zipped tote.
My heart stutters. Without thinking, I snatch the bag from her hands.
“Hey!” she whisper-yelps.
I ignore her, my fingers digging past her wallet and a tube of lipstick. And there it is. Nestled neatly at the bottom, wrapped in a clean, clear evidence bag as if it were a museum piece, are the melted, grotesque remains of the brass padlock. The metal is a twisted, bubbled mess, still faintly smelling of butane and poor decisions.
I tilt the bag toward the others.
Molly peers at it and gasps. “No way. He gave it back?”
“He didn’t give it back,” Kavita corrects, her lawyer-mode kicking in even as a surprised grin spreads across her face. “He returned our confiscated property. There’s a difference.”
“Does that mean…” Molly says, her voice a mixture of disbelief and awe. "He let us get away with it?”
A cold shiver runs down my spine despite the warmth of the morning. We are standing on the police station steps, holding the literal evidence of our crime. “It feels like a trap…” I mumble, half-expecting sirens to blare any second.
From just inside the now-closed door, a voice, muffled but unmistakably belonging to Sergeant Evans, drifts out to us.
“Better hurry then…” We all jump at the echo of Evans’ voice behind us. He was listening. He knew exactly what was in the bag.
“Just keep walking!” Kavita urges, but she’s laughing now, the sound bright and clear in the quiet street. She turns back toward the station door and throws a quick, two-fingered salute to the elderly sergeant.
We hit the sidewalk and stop for a second, the absurdity of it all washing over us. Molly looks at the evidence bag in my hand, then up at the sky, a slow smile spreading across her face. “You know… I feel it. The cosmic vibes are finally aligning.”
"You can't be serious!" Despite my protest, I can't help the contagious smile that makes its way onto my face.
Kavita slings an arm around our shoulders, her eyes gleaming. “In my professional opinion, we need to destroy evidence."
"Still got your lighter?" I don't miss the proud look my friends give me for finally agreeing to something.
And we head off, the three of us, into the new day, our mission finally back on track.
Written by
Ravgun
I am a writer who views the world through the lens of storytelling, a practice I explore formally as an English Literature student. I have an insatiable curiosity for new genres, artworks, and ideas. As a writer of poetry and short stories, I gravitate toward poetic lyricism, though I’ll happily indulge in a catchy beat with gloriously brainrot lyrics when the mood strikes. My creative and academic passions are deeply intertwined, revolving around queer theory, gender studies, existentialism, and gothic horror, romanticism, and tragedy (basically anything that echoes Edgar Allan Poe or Shakespeare).
