THE CAPE COD BICYCLE WAR
from Ohio University Press
Laura T. Murphy and Ainehi Edoro, Series Editors
This series brings the best African writing to an international audience. These groundbreaking novels, memoirs, and other literary works showcase the most talented writers of the African continent. The series also features works of significant historical and literary value translated into English for the first time. Moderately priced, the books chosen for the series are well crafted, original, and ideally suited for African studies classes, world literature classes, or any reader looking for compelling voices of diverse African perspectives.
Welcome to Our Hillbrow
A Novel of Postapartheid South Africa
Phaswane Mpe
ISBN: 978-0-8214-1962-5
Dog Eat Dog
Niq Mhlongo
ISBN: 978-0-8214-1994-6
After Tears
Niq Mhlongo
ISBN: 978-0-8214-1984-7
From Sleep Unbound
Andrée Chedid
ISBN: 978-0-8040-0837-2
On Black Sisters Street
Chika Unigwe
ISBN: 978-0-8214-1992-2
Paper Sons and Daughters
Growing Up Chinese in South Africa
Ufrieda Ho
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2020-1
The Conscript
A Novel of Libya’s Anticolonial War
Gebreyesus Hailu
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2023-2
Thirteen Cents
K. Sello Duiker
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2036-2
Sacred River
Syl Cheney-Coker
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2056-0 (hardcover)
978-0-8214-2137-6 (paperback)
491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2102-4 (hardcover)
978-0-8214-2101-7 (paperback)
The Hairdresser of Harare
Tendai Huchu
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2162-8 (hardcover)
978-0-8214-2163-5 (paperback)
Mrs. Shaw
Mukoma Wa Ngugi
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2143-7
The Maestro, the Magistrate & the Mathematician
Tendai Huchu
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2205-2 (hardcover)
978-0-8214-2206-9 (paperback)
Tales of the Metric System
Imraan Coovadia
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2225-0 (hardcover)
978-0-8214-2226-7 (paperback)
The Extinction of Menai
Chuma Nwokolo
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2298-4
The Wolf at Number 4
Ayo Tamakloe-Garr
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2354-7 (hardcover)
978-0-8214-2355-4 (paperback)
Staging the Amistad
Matthew J. Christensen, ed.
ISBN 978-0-8214-2360-8 (hardcover)
978-0-8214-2361-5 (paperback)
The Cape Cod Bicycle Wars and Other Stories
Billy Kahora
ISBN 978-0-8214-2416-2 (paperback)
THE CAPE COD BICYCLE WAR
AND OTHER STORIES
BILLY KAHORA
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
Athens
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
Copyright © Billy Kahora 2019
All rights reserved
No part may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Outside Africa, to obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from this publication, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax).
Printed in the United States of America
Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper
ISBN (paperback) 978-0-8214-2416-2
ISBN (electronic) 978-0-8214-4096-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019954622
The Cape Cod Bicycle Wars and Other Stories was first published in 2019
by Huza Press, Kigali, Rwanda.
Within Africa, to obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from this publication, please contact Huza Press, PO Box 1610, Kigali, Rwanda
E-mail: [email protected] • www.huzapress.com
Cover design: Yves Honore Bisamage
To ‘K’ for being there.
Youth, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.
Youth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on earth again, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and cows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice never is heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and, howling, is cast into Baltimost! – Polydore Smith.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
Contents