CWSS #5

One instant I was pushing a car. The next I felt whole body pain spearing up my legs. Shock went up my spine into the skull.

Jimmy could have been considered my best friend. I had three best friends at the time. Two Jims and a Danny. How can one have three bestest friends? Which one was first? They all were.

Ten in the morning late August, and the skies were bright in the looming advent of a new school year. Wearing my new pants, I tallyhooed mom out the door. She yelled not to visit Jimmy as the door slammed. The question was whether or not I was far enough out the door to actually hear the last order. Guess I was too far out the door, because I was heading for Jimmy's place.

More about Jimmy. This Jimmy lived about a couple of doors down the street. His dad had built a humongous partially submerged garage. Jimmy managed to get a car despite the fact that no driver's license would hang in the wallet for another three years at least.

Jimmy was on the shorter side but not that short. He was brickhouse walking. Strong like bull. Jimmy didn't do all that well with school but this was not due to a lack of brains. His intelligence was grounded not distracted by academic abstractions.

He could not cite Shakespeare poetry but damn he owned a beater auto. The plentiful poets like me couldn't really fathom how that trick could be done.

Jimmy managed to make things happen. My mother told me Jimmy was bad. Jimmy's parents told him that I was bad. They suspected me for being an instigator of some sort.

Jimmy wasn't bad. There wasn't a bad bone in his body. He never deliberately hurt anyone or anything. He was a kind guy. We just did things which adults considered morally challenging if not legally challenging.

When we were three, I accidently poked Jimmy in the eye with a pointy wooden stick. We were playing sword fighting with sharp pointy sticks. Hey I felt really bad. But we both got past it very quickly. It was a even up play fight. The parents didn't get over it. They'd remind me and Jimmy all the time. To them a weapon of mind control, to us an exercise in stupidity because we both knew the truth, it was a frigging accident.

Jimmy was never boring. I got bored really easy. Good coffee is always stirred well. Life is supposed to be like a good coffee. All the young kids that the parents wanted me to play with were nice people but exceedingly boring.

Why me? I never considered me exciting. Then again if Jimmy wanted to do something like light off a tub of gasoline on an asphalt driveway I never got in the way of the idea. Others would lecture or something. My job was to assist. I just went to the edge of the driveway to give the all clear. I guess my job was look out.

And now the same was today. Like I said I was bored. When I got to Jimmy's place and entered this fully equipped home garage housing this old Envoy. The Envoy was a boxy old car English in style and even had the steering wheel on the wrong side which was the right side.

Jimmy said he just finished fixing the muffler system. He needed some help pushing the car outside. He was planning on road testing it. This we had done before. He was decidedly underage to drive, which was at the end of the day, gigantically part of the thrill.
No ride for me. My job in this enterprise was to stand at the curve in front of the house, watching for police. During this time, Jimmy would drive up to the far corner, pull a U-turn (known as a Uuey), and come roaring back yanking a turn into the garage.

In most enterprises, I did the watching. I was the tallest of the bunch and in my youth I had very good eyes. The red hair made my location obvious. Best of this, was that the police considered me a goody two shoes because both parents were professionals.

Thieving wasn't part of my repertoire since I personally found it discomforting. Participating in stupid stunts however, challenged all the limits. So this little enterprise this day became a must do.

Jimmy pointed me to get on the trunk and start pushing. We gived her a mighty heave. The car didn't move. Jimmy laughed pulling the parking brake to off. He said gleefully, “Whoops!!”

Jimmy yelled push! With a mighty heave ho on the car's ass, the Envoy started rolling out of the garage to the street. Two paces the car began to roll. I took the third pace.

In the world of life experiences, this sort of hit a high point. Suddenly the car was getting taller. Taller than me. Hands now above my head slid off the car. Darkness... Impact speared on both legs when the feet made hard contact with ground. The right shoulder slammed into a wall. I slid onto a greasy pool.

“Keep pushing!” yelled out Jimmy.

Surprised I found myself lying beneath the car, in a garage pit. My legs hurt and back hurt. Crawling up the side beginning to stand up, I realized I had torn my new pants and they were soaked shiny wet black in waste motor oil.

Jimmy started laughing. He asked if I was okay. I nodded as I went through the check list of appendages, limbs, feet, hands and digits. Everything seemed sore and hurting. I began thinking of my pants. They were done.

I began thinking of a rational explanation permeated with the tones of honesty. This couldn't be a complex explanation.

Simple was believable. Mother would see through it and she had incredibly good radar.

“It was an accident. I was walking down the ditch behind the garages and fell on that pile of greasy stuff behind the garages (which were lined up on the other side of the street).” ...”No, I was alone.”

AFTERMATH

Mom gave me hell over the pants. She then went behind the garage and saw the pile of crap that was there all right. I think she knew Jimmy was somewhere around this story but my alibi about me, the lone fool, stuck.

About a week after that, I saw a very angry neighbor cleaning up behind the garage after a visit by the town's bylaw officer.

The township works came with a backhoe and made the ditch deeper and wider. The next year that same angry neighbor moved that garage closer to his home.

Jimmy made it a point of putting the boards over the pit when done. I got my pants. It took several weeks to get over the aches and pains caused by the drop.