Jocelyn Jane Cox: TO THE DRIVER OF THE GREY SEDAN

Flash Nonfiction by Jocelyn Jane Cox
TO THE DRIVER OF THE GREY SEDAN WHO HIT ME ON MY BIKE AT THE CORNER OF WALNUT AND 37TH

I’m writing to let you know that was me in the green helmet traveling east on Walnut at the corner of 37th Street around 1:30 pm on a Tuesday afternoon in the Spring of 1995. I was coasting slowly downhill on the sidewalk with my brakes on. I usually rode on the sidewalk because I was so nervous about getting hit by a car.

My bike was a Specialized brand “Hardrock.” Silver with bold green lettering. I’d saved up and was finally able to purchase it to shorten the commute to classes from the row house where I lived with a few fellow students, several blocks west of campus. It was a mountain bike. Not that I intended to ever go mountain biking, but, also, I wasn’t yet crossing it off the list of possibilities. Hey, it could have happened, if I’d become a completely different person. And also if you hadn’t rolled right through that stop sign. Mostly, I liked those plump tires and how they absorbed the bumps of city streets. Or: sidewalks.

I enjoyed saying the word hardrock in a deep voice with some bravado. As in: I’ll meet you there on my Hardrock. Or: Just let me lock up my Hardrock. This was the opposite of my persona. Aspirational.

At that moment, I was on my way to meet with one of my English professors to discuss the scope and content of my senior thesis. It was going to be a groundbreaking tome entitled, “Female Adornment in Twentieth Century Utopian and Dystopian Literature.” So it was about fashion. And no, no, no, not frivolous in the slightest. I was excited to talk about my findings in my primary texts, some of which—Herland, Woman on the Edge of Time, Handmaid’s Tale—were tucked into my backpack. I was a burgeoning feminist, a baby feminist, almost a feminist, maybe a feminist one day. I didn’t have a full grasp of feminism quite yet, but I wanted to.

I realize that a few years have passed, but I wanted to ask you a few questions. First: Did you hear the crunch of my bike frame or the crack of my knuckles against the passenger side of your car?

Did you have somewhere you really needed to be? Because I noticed that you kept going. Several onlookers took note of this as well, a few of whom started running after you, up Walnut, while others rushed to my side on the street. I was fine, for the most part, except for my hands, which would swell and bruise and ache for a while, but weren’t broken or sprained. Those big tires bounced off the metal pretty nicely and probably saved me from further injury. My sturdy Hardrock, unfortunately, wasn’t fine. The front tire frame was crumpled and folded to the left. After I collected myself and the crowd dispersed, I rolled it awkwardly beside me the two final blocks toward my professor’s office. I locked it to the rack and took some deep breaths as I entered the building. I was only a few minutes late and had a pretty good excuse. Of course, everybody had an excuse in college.

What I really want to know is the following: Did you hear what I said as you pressed on the gas and sped away? This was my immediate instinct and the first thing that came to mind.

“Sorry!” I called out.

“You’re sorry?” said a woman who was rushing to my side to help.

I was. My predominant feeling was that I needed to apologize to you. But now I’d like to amend that.

Jocelyn Jane Cox’s work has appeared in the Colorado Review, The Offing, HAD, Roi Faineant Literary Press, Penn Review, and Roanoke Review. She received her MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College and her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her memoir, MOTION DAZZLE, about losing her mother on her son’s first birthday, will be released by Vine Leaves Press in September, 2025. She lives in the Hudson Valley of NY and can be found on Instagram at @jocelynjanecoxwriter and at t @jocelynjanecox.bsky.social.