Sarah: Hello.

Wing Chun: Oh, hello.

Sarah: So. What’s up?

Wing Chun: Oh, you know. You?

Sarah: Nothing. Not a thing.

Wing Chun: Meeeee neither.

Sarah: …

Wing Chun: …

Sarah: [cough]

Wing Chun: Anyway.

Sarah: Okay, so, the thing is, and I hesitate to bring this all up again, but it’s a fairly major oversight which I just want to correct and then we can both get on with our li–

Wing Chun: Busey. I know.

Sarah: God. Yes.

Wing Chun: I hear you. I can’t believe we forgot that guy.

Sarah: You know what the sick thing is, though? The sick thing is that Busey is just the tip of an entire iceberg of guys we forgot.

Wing Chun: No, the really sick thing is that — okay, I’m at the grocery store and the, whatever, Hot Grocery Hits FM is playing a Marvin Gaye song, and my first thought is of Marvin Gaye and his manslaughtering dad on a tandem bike.

Sarah: Oh, man. That’s a great one.

Wing Chun: Well, thanks, but that’s not the point. The point is that I can’t stop Girls’ Bike Clubbing people. It’s like an addiction. It is an addiction. My name is Wing, and I am a Girls’ Bike Cluboholic.

Sarah: “Hiiii, Wiiiing.”

Wing Chun: I’m not joking.

Sarah: Oh, I’m not either. I’d offer to sponsor you, but I’m too far gone myself.

Wing Chun: You’re too far gone? I put the man who sang “Sexual Healing” on a girls’ bicycle. Built for two. With his killer.

Sarah: And now you can’t stop singing the song.

Wing Chun: No, as a matter of fact, I can’t. Furthermore, I have changed the lyrics.

Sarah: “Marvin, Marvin, give me your answer do”?

Wing Chun: I’m afraid so, yes.

Sarah: I can top that.

Wing Chun: No, you can’t.

Sarah: Ohhhh, but I can.

Wing Chun: Hit me.

Sarah: Chang and Eng Bunker.

Wing Chun: I…wow. Wow.

Sarah: Told you.

Wing Chun: How does that even work?

Sarah: I’m not exactly sure, but I can tell you that, in the fevered junkie Girls’ Bike Club world of my mind, they win every single bike chicken fight, because while Chang is pedaling, Eng is twirling a Shao Lin fighting staff like a propeller.

Wing Chun: GBC-fu. Excellent.

Sarah: Yeah, but that’s the problem.

Wing Chun: They have the power of ten, for their bike is pure. I don’t see a problem there.

Sarah: Chang and Eng themselves are not the problem. It’s when you start thinking of opponents that you run into trouble.

Wing Chun: But you just said they win every fight.

Sarah: Against regular GBCers, sure. You throw Brian Wilson up against that shit, he’s dead.

Wing Chun: But if you put Sonny Chiba on a Huffy…

Sarah: That’s what I’m talking about.

Wing Chun: Who wins that?

Sarah: The Bunkers.

Wing Chun: But Chiba’s the Street Fighter.

Sarah: Yeah, but I’ve got to tell you, I think Chiba’s overrated. Now, you get the guy with the glasses from Drunken Master in there, that’s a different story.

Wing Chun: The standing split guy? Oh, no question. Or Bruce Lee.

Sarah: Right.

Wing Chun: But the real question is, what happens when Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan…oh, man, I see what you mean.

Sarah: I told you.

Wing Chun: You could go on all day with these.

Sarah: Could…and will. And…have.

Wing Chun: I’m taking Chan.

Sarah: No way.

Wing Chun: Chan brings props, yo.

Sarah: No balsa ladder can withstand the Girls’ Bike of Fury.

Wing Chun: And? Very nimble. He could jump off the bike, push it around Lee’s other side, and land on the bike going past Lee while stepping on Lee’s face to do it.

Sarah: At which time Lee would reach up and punch Chan in the goolies.

Wing Chun: With a foot on his face?

Sarah: It’s Bruce Lee. He’s an angry guy.

Wing Chun: I still think it’s Chan.

Sarah: Fair enough. Next GBC chicken fight face-off: Seagal versus Norris.

Wing Chun: Norris.

Sarah: Agreed.

Wing Chun: You can’t have a yankable ponytail in a chicken fight.

Sarah: Not against Walker, Texas Ranger, you can’t.

Wing Chun: Or anyone else. The Karate Kid could take Seagal, even.

Sarah: I don’t know.

Wing Chun: Seagal? Girl, please. He sucks.

Sarah: Yeah, but he’s big, and Macchio is kind of a scrawn, plus I bet Seagal fights dirty. And what if his leg is hurt, like in the movie?

Wing Chun: But he still won in the movie.

Sarah: But you can’t really do the crane thing on a bike, can you?

Wing Chun: He’s the hero. He has to win. I can’t live in a world where the Kid couldn’t beat Seagal.

Sarah: Maybe if he puts Pat Morita in the basket, for moral support.

Wing Chun: Or Jet Li, for beating the crap out of Steven Seagal support.

Sarah: Dude. Jet Li could take the Bunkers, I think.

Wing Chun: I think so. He’d do some move where he rides past a mailbox, grabs it, picks the whole bike up with his legs, and beheads them both.

Sarah: Awesome.

Wing Chun: Do we…can we do…oh, forget it.

Sarah: What?

Wing Chun: No, this is beyond, even for us.

Sarah: Serial killers?

Wing Chun: No.

Sarah: Oh.

Wing Chun: Why, did you —

Sarah: Not really. I mean, I sort of thought of a few, but then it wasn’t that funny in the end.

Wing Chun: Yeah, I guess not. John Wayne Gacy in the clown outfit —

Sarah: It’s too obvious, right?

Wing Chun: It kind of is.

Sarah: Unless they let Jack the Ripper join, and then instead of putting baseball cards in the spokes, he puts ears.

Wing Chun: And it’s kind of funny if other members of the GBC are just randomly disappearing at regular intervals, and Jeffrey Dahmer is like, “Yeah, that’s a shame about Collins. [Burp.] So anyway, who wants to set some pets on fire?”

Sarah: Hee. Or they let Hannibal Lecter be in the GBC just to deal with the annoying members.

Wing Chun: Totally. “Feldman goes in a casserole or you’re out.” And actually, this answers my question, because I was wondering if fictional characters could join.

Sarah: Yeah, I actually had a chicken-fight one with fictional characters.

Wing Chun: Is this going to be like the conversation in Stand By Me where they debate whether Superman —

Sarah: No no no. Trust me, it’s good.

Wing Chun: Go.

Sarah: Ricky Linderman versus Buddy Revell.

Wing Chun: Who the — who?

Sarah: Adam Baldwin’s character in My Bodyguard versus the scary Jim-Morrison-looking dude from Three O’Clock High.

Wing Chun: …oh. Right.

Sarah: I think it’s Revell.

Wing Chun: Okay.

Sarah: You don’t know who I’m talking about, do you.

Wing Chun: No.

Sarah: Man, that’s too bad, because —

Wing Chun: Wait, but you would put Adam Baldwin in the Girls’ Bike Club?

Sarah: Not Adam Baldwin, Adam Baldwin’s character, and only in a chicken fight.

Wing Chun: Because if you’re going to put a Baldwin in the GBC, I think it has to be Billy.

Sarah: I think you have to put all the Baldwins in the GBC in order to make Billy tolerable.

Wing Chun: I hope Alec and Daniel pick on him for being such a prat in Backdraft.

Sarah: Me too. I hope Daniel eats Billy’s bike, and then Billy’s like, Stephen, give me your bike, man.

Wing Chun: Stephen’s like, fuck off, I didn’t eat your bike.

Sarah: “I’m older!”

Wing Chun: “You were in Sliver!”

Sarah: “You were in Bio-Dome!”

Wing Chun: And then Billy punches him in the head and they just start rolling around in the street brawling.

Sarah: And Alec is standing on the sidewalk all, “Heh.”

Wing Chun: And smoking a menthol.

Sarah: Stephen totally wins that, too.

Wing Chun: Yep. And even Billy wins the fight itself, he loses, because he’s so pouty about everything.

Sarah: Christian Slater tries to talk to him, but of course he’s having none of it.

Wing Chun: So he goes to the hideout and sulks.

Sarah: The hideout?

Wing Chun: Well, I just assumed they’d have a hideout. A fort made out of old siding or something where they go to hang out, and they keep a bunch of firecrackers in an old cigar box buried in one corner…they don’t have a fort?

Sarah: I hadn’t thought of that.

Wing Chun: Eh, forget it.

Sarah: No, they have a fort, and Billy Baldwin sulks off to the fort, like you said, and he’s sitting there stabbing the dirt with a stick when he hears an ominous rustle outside.

Wing Chun: Oh, God — who?

Sarah: So he puts his ear to a crack in the siding but he can’t see anything, so he’s like, “…Jan Michael Vincent? Dude, is that you? Quit fucking around, man.”

Wing Chun: It’s Jan Michael Vincent?

Sarah: But there’s no answer! And the rustling…it continues!

Wing Chun: And it’s the Unabomber!

Sarah: No. So then Billy Baldwin tries to see out the crack, but it’s getting kind of dark out, and the rustling is getting louder and louder —

Wing Chun: And it’s Jack Osbourne!

Sarah: No. And Billy Baldwin is starting to freak out, he doesn’t know whether to keep hiding in the fort or go outside, what if it’s a bear, or that dude from Blind Melon —

Wing Chun: But it’s Jerry Garcia!

Sarah: No. So Billy Baldwin grabs a brick and creeps to the edge of the door, and he takes a deeeeeep breath and steels himself and charges out of the fort, but he trips! Over an exposed root! And lands on his face, and he’s eye to eye with…a wingtip loafer!

Wing Chun: It’s — who is it?

Sarah: Slowly, feeeeearfully, Billy Baldwin looks up, and gazing down at him is a man thought to live only in legend, a member of the pantheon both mythic and mysterious, like Bigfoot, or Rob Morrow’s career.

Wing Chun: Who is it?

Sarah: Vast in bulk, he casts a wide shadow over Billy Baldwin, who begins to babble about wives’ tales and patron saints as the great man leans down and booms in a voice accustomed to a Senate chamber, “Son, it’s called ‘waxing.’ Look into it.”

Wing Chun: Oh, of course.

Sarah: Ladies and gentlemen, the Babe Ruth of the Girls’ Bike Club…

Wing Chun: Its Shakespeare and its Michael Jordan…

Sarah: Its Olivier and its Lance Armstrong…

Wing Chun: Its alpha and omega.

Sarah: The man.

Wing Chun: The myth.

Sarah: The suspiciously strong swimmer.

Wing Chun and Sarah: Ted Kennedy.

Wing Chun: Aw. Good old Ted.

Sarah: I love the idea of him lurking around in the forest on his vintage Raleigh Ladies’ 300 like the world’s fattest sprite.

Wing Chun: It’s like his penance. Instead of turning him into a tree, the gods put him in charge of wayward GBC-ites.

Sarah: Totally. But — okay, never mind.

Wing Chun: What?

Sarah: Well…is Ted Kennedy old enough to be the patron saint? Or does it have to be someone like…I don’t know. Falstaff?

Wing Chun: Not Falstaff. Falstaff is annoying, and I don’t think bikes had been invented yet anyway.

Sarah: But you see my point.

Wing Chun: Yeah…I don’t know. Louis the Fourteenth?

Sarah: Circling the gardens of Versailles on his girls’…pennyfarthing.

Wing Chun: Heh. Okay, maybe not so much with the royalty.

Sarah: Elvis?

Wing Chun: Elllllvis. You know, I don’t know quite what to do with the King, GBC-wise. I mean, aside from the fact that the cape is a safety issue.

Sarah: And that he’d be nodding out on downers every few minutes and careening into traffic, so they’d have to assign him a buddy to hold onto his collar and nobody would want to do it.

Wing Chun: Oh, I don’t know. He’d probably be giving everyone bikes all the time, right? The newest models? And renting out whole neighborhoods for everyone to ride in as much as they wanted. So they’d like him for that.

Sarah: But then he’d be all insecure, because he’s buying their friendship…and he never actually drove himself anywhere…

Wing Chun: Okay…hell, I don’t know. Dracula?

Sarah: What?

Wing Chun: We’re brainstorming!

Sarah: Did they have bikes in Transylvania? I think that’s probably more like “Girls’ Horse Club.”

Wing Chun: That’s probably where the changing-into-a-bat thing came from. He’s trotting around on a Shetland pony all, “Damn, there’s got to be a faster way.”

Sarah: Probably. Okay, seriously now.

Wing Chun: Hemingway.

Sarah: Ooh, good one. He’s got a rhino head affixed to the basket and everything.

Wing Chun: Or Fitzgerald.

Sarah: I don’t know about Scotty. He’d be passed out facedown in the gutter, all tangled up in his bike, reeking of absinthe — not really the leadership qualities we’re looking for.

Wing Chun: True.

Sarah: Genghis Khan?

Wing Chun: Another pony guy, I’m thinking.

Sarah: Hmm. Okay, it’s just an idea, so hear me out, but if you look at his message of tolerance, I think —

Wing Chun: Jesus is not in the Girls’ Bike Club.

Sarah: But what about the —

Wing Chun: No.

Sarah: But wouldn’t —

Wing Chun: No.

Sarah: Okay, okay. How about…Rasputin?

Wing Chun: Hee. No matter how many times and ways he falls off the bike, he can always get back on.

Sarah: Tangled up in rhododendrons…

Wing Chun: Hit by cars…

Sarah: Chased around the kitchen by Lecter…

Wing Chun: Shot and mounted by Hemingway…

Sarah: Drugged by Elvis…

Wing Chun: Punched in the head by Billy Baldwin…

Sarah: He just. Keeps. Riding.

Wing Chun: But he’s not the patron saint.

Sarah: No, I don’t think he is.

Wing Chun: I give up, man. Unless we want to go with Don Quixote.

Sarah: We don’t.

Wing Chun: No, I guess we don’t. Okay, I’ll mull it over.

Sarah: I’ll do the same. Oh, and while you’re mulling, figure out what we do with Darth Vader.

Wing Chun: “The Girls’ Bike Club. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

Sarah: Amen, sister.

June 30, 2004

Tags:   GBC