Alicia Frantz

I drive by this memorial installation on Division St. under the Kennedy Expressway viaduct all the time. There are a number of these bikes-as-memorials of bikers killed in traffic on the city streets in Chicago. This one was recently refreshed with a clean coat of white paint and new fabric flowers. The bike, chained to the railing of the walkway under the north side of the viaduct, commemorates the death of Alicia Frantz on June 3, 2005, her 32nd birthday. I presume it was the bike she was riding when she was killed, but I'm not sure. Under her name and dates of birth and death is the epitaph "She heard everyday sounds as music." As I recently strained to catch a picture of the memorial with my cell phone as traffic moved forward into a green light, I flashed on a driver, a once-careless driver, someone like I was in that moment... A driver who has been driving for a long time, and sometimes takes for granted a certain amount of space around his/car that serves as the only buffer for swerves or strays, slow-stops or quick-starts... A driver who neglects to check a blind spot, a driver who sneezes, or a driver with the sun in his/her eyes... Maybe a driver using a cell phone... A driver who somehow, for some reason, for any reason, doesn't see the diminutive bicyclist in the road until she is already fallen. But the driver does hear a sound. Not an everyday sound, not music, but a sound too quickly muffled to be fully comprehended at first. A sound with a startling, pulse-quickening attack, and a silent sustain that never ends. I keep imagining the sound of metal and flesh, bone and asphalt, and the vocal chords of Alicia Frantz vibrating for the last time. The thought of that sound keeps me more alert when driving now, not on the cell phone, glasses always on, blind spots double-checked, blinkers utilized correctly, and buffer space respected. I don't want to be that driver. I don't want to hear that sound.