TWO
Last night at the All Souls Chapel I told my mom’s Jesus friends I had a knockout summer.
“Knock. Out,” I said all slow. “Know what I mean?”
Mom knew what I meant and gave me a thumbs-up.
Her pals, they just nodded and smiled.
In their eyes, I’m such a freaking good kid.
When summer break started I actually did keep things simple. For a while, anyway. Nothing too bold, nothing exceptionally daring. Not like what I’d done over winter break. There were the usual fights; mostly it was East football players and a couple run-ins with the bikers you always find outside the Piper Inn. And, yeah, I was black and bruised, bloodied even, but that’s par for the course. Wasn’t until mid-month that I decided to kick things up a notch. You know, experiment a bit.
Do stuff the All Souls Chapel ladies would find, well,
There’s this half-pipe at the Denver Skate Park that I’d had my eye on for like months. It’s typical, concrete and tagged all over, maybe six feet at the top. I’d skated off it before and liked the way it bottomed out. Smooth. It was afternoon, hot day, and the sky was bright and blue and cloudless. They won’t let you in without a deck or a helmet, so I brought both just for the show of it. Once I was at the top of the half-pipe I tossed my deck, let my helmet roll down to the bottom, and then I took a deep breath and dove.
Yeah, dove.
I didn’t jump. I pulled a move like I was diving into a swim pool with my arms at my sides. Looked pretty impressive too. Up, arc, and then down. Took a lot of training, and I’m talking a lot, to get to the point that I can dive like that and not put my hands out in front of me to break the fall at the last second. My wrists, I’ve broken them maybe five times. But that day everything went perfect.
The sound my head made when it hit that concrete, it was priceless.
The concussion felt almost as good as being in love.
The skate park, it joins a long list of places I’m not allowed back at.
Ever.
Rest of May I wasn’t quite as clever. A few car accidents, several bike crashes, and a fairly decent brawl in the Cherry Creek Mall.
Those concussions were good but not great.
In June I decided to push things even further.
I paid a guy five bucks to hit me in the back of the head with a two-by-four in the vacant lot behind the train station. I was hit by a car and went flying thirty-two feet on Hampden in front of the Whole Foods. Threw myself down one of those long staircases at the Performing Arts Complex. Even took a bike off the side of the Millennium Bridge.
After that it was hard going back to the usual.
The “accidents” just weren’t delivering.
My best friend, Paige, she was not at all happy. I can’t even count how many times she threatened to ditch me. How many times she called me the most selfish person she’d ever met after seeing me at the hospital. How many times she suggested I just go ahead and schedule the lobotomy the usual way. How many times she cried and hit me.
The All Souls Chapel ladies, they’d never understand this. My mom, she gets it because I’m her only kid and I’m giving her what she wants. My coma dad, if he was awake I’m sure he might have had a problem with it all. Guess we’ll never know.
Anyway, early July is when I sort of reached a peak.
It had been a slow day, I’d made the rounds downtown, trying to jump in front of the mall buses, but they were all going too slow to do anything but knock me down. I entertained the thought of getting hit by a light-rail train but didn’t want to get mangled. So I wound up at Monaco Lanes Bowling.
Good thing the Skins were there.
I’d seen these particular skinheads at the bowling alley before. There was the one with the Mohawk and the combat boots and the older, pudgy one with the really lame mustache. All told there were five including a girl and she was wearing tons of mascara and had a swastika tattoo on her neck.
The day had been such a bust I figured this would be fairly easy.
I walked in and got some shoes and a ball and then took a lane a few over from the skinhead gang. This was maybe at two in the afternoon and besides me and the punks the place was pretty much empty. A lone bowler at the end in a bowling jersey like he really took the sport seriously and the guy working the counter.
I threw a few gutter balls and got antsy.
I was thinking of what to yell over to these Skins, eager to get the show going, when one of them, the pudgster with the caterpillar on his lip, shouted over, “Why are you even trying? You suck.”
This was my opening and I walked over to them, them all standing up, eyes narrowed, putting on their violent faces, and poked the pudgy dude in the chest. I said, “I might suck, but not as much as your mom does when I’m visiting her in the nursing home.”
And voila! The magic happened. The girl hit me with her bowling ball in the lower back. That kicked my breath out, and knocked me to the floor, and then the Mohawk dude just started stomping. Actually, all of them just started stomping. So predictable. I was out fast.
Unconscious for nearly two days.
Saw footage of the beat down on the news the evening I woke up in the hospital. Those skinheads sure were inventive after I was unconscious. One of them slid me hard down the lane and I hit the bowling pins something terrible. Got a strike for sure. This video, last time I checked it, had a million plus views online. Good to know I can provide some entertainment.
