EYEHEARTZOMBIES

Don’t you hate when you’re just racking your brain for something, anything to write about? And you can’t think of a damn thing ’cause you’re trying so hard to think of something? Yeah, guess what I’m doing. So I decided to tell you guys a story again (like my San Francisco post).

My parents have owned a couple of acres out in the country around my hometown of Ardmore, OK for several years (well before I was born) and they built a house there. Just happens to be two acres of the ten acres my uncle owns, so there are several family members living all around (mom, dad, aunt, uncle, a cousin and her husband, their two children…and that’s just on the 10 acres).

Since we have all that room, I didn’t need a bicycle when I was young (had one, but didn’t use it much). I needed a motorcycle. And I got one, too. My dad gave me my first one the Christmas I was eight. It was a 50cc Suzuki, bright yellow, and it took me just a few days to learn how to ride it pretty well. I zipped and sped around the property, dodging armadillo holes and occasionaly being flipped onto my back by mud puddles. My mom rode it to give our Labrador retriever a good bit of exercise.

My best friend all through childhood was Jacob. Even though I had had it for years, he had never riden my motorcycle. I think I was about 10 (him 9) when he finally rode it.

It was a slightly moist Sunday afternoon and he was over at my house (we lived some 15 - 20 miles apart, so visits weren’t an everyday thing) and we were outside doing something. I wanted to ride my motorcycle and he said he wanted to try it. So we got it out and I rode it around a bit to show him how.

Now, let me back up a bit and describe the back yard at my parent’s house. To the north is the house. It has a wooden deck on the back with a flowerbed by it. To the west is the gravel driveway for my uncle’s house. To the east is the downslope of a hill with trees and a creek at the bottom. At the extreme south end of their backyard was my Dad’s toolshed. On the west end of the toolshed was a pile of logs for the wood-burning stove for winter. To the east were a few peach trees and a dog pen. In the yard were a few trees (scattered out) and my childhood playhouse (a pyramid-shaped box on top of two 6×6 posts with a slide, a fireman’s pole, and a swingset; all hand-built by my father).

So Jacob and I are in the southern part of the backyard, looking at the bike. I’m trying to show him all the pieces of it and explain how it works.

“Here’s the gas. Pull this back and it goes faster.”

“This is the gear shifter. Stick your toe under it and pull up to change gears. Then kick it down two notches to switch to the next gear.”

“This is the engine. Watch your ankles, it gets really hot.”

“This is the kill switch. It turns the bike off.”

So he finally feels ready to go and we kick-start it and he takes off like a rocket. The backyard is kind of wide, so it took a bit before I realized what I hadn’t told him. Go back up there and read the instructions again and maybe you’ll see it.

He’s barrelling across the yard yelling “Help” (more like “HELP” but you get the idea) and my Dad and I are chasing after him, yelling for him to hit the kill button.

Remember that woodpile I mentioned? It stuck out a couple of feet past the north side of the toolshed and Jacob was headed right for it.

BOOM He smacks into it with the front tire of the motorcycle and leaves it behind. He flies through the air, arms out, screaming and lands, belly-down in the gravel road. The motorcycle quits running and my Dad and I catch up to Jacob where he’s lying on the ground, quite hurt.

I don’t remember if he cried or not, but I’m sure I would have. Needless to say he was angry and upset at me. He had a cut all the way down the top of his middle finger which wasn’t as bad as it looked. It stopped bleeding after a little bit and he got over being upset at me. We laughed about it and I used it to embarrass him a bit when we were teenagers. It left a slight scar that I assume he still has today.

I haven’t seen Jacob in over a year-and-a-half. Not since the wedding where he was my best man. He showed up five minutes late to that, like most things (15 mintues late to his own wedding) but I was glad to have him there.

Anyway, he got me back for it once, peeing in the pool as I swam past him (which he didn’t admit to until a few years later). But what are friends for if not torturing each other?