Topic: An Accident

Author: Chris Dunn

Do you remember sleeping over at a friend’s house? Apart from vacations and camping with the scouts, it was one of the biggest thrills in my young life. It was freedom on an unprecedented scale. There were strange foods and late nights, unusual bedding – more often than not in a sleeping bag on the floor. Hours after the parents went to sleep, you’d pass out, still buzzed on caffeine and the novel environs, sometimes midsentence as you and your friend talked for hours about everything and nothing.

It was in this spirit of expectant joy, that we set out from Mark’s house on Meis Avenue. We had asked and the parent’s had consented. Everything was set except for one minor hurdle, my flute… You see, I was in the school band. We both were, Mark and I. He played our band’s one and only baritone horn, and I was a flautist - though calling my shrill piping actual flute playing was the type of kindness often afforded to children. A’s for effort and applauses for showing up, kind of stuff. Still, we were in the band, and the band had a concert the next day. If I was going to stay over, I could get a ride with Mark’s family, but I would need my instrument. The answer was clear, we would just ride over to my house, pick up the flute and ride our bikes on back. Transporting my instrument via bicycle was far more feasible than moving Mark’s giant horn.

For those of you not familiar with the topography of my childhood hometown, North College Hill, Meis Ave descends rather sharply down to Hamilton Avenue – one of the town’s two major thoroughfares. Looking at it today, it seems rather tame. Nothing you would GoPro. Hardly an extreme sport venue, but to my ten year old eyes, it was the biggest, baddest, longest, fastest hill I knew outside of an amusement park. The first few times down it, were actually intimidating, but that was nine year old Chris, not the savvy veteran of the slope I’d become. These days I’d let loose the break and ride the coast all the way to the Northside Bank if I caught the light at Galbraith. That was the plan, of course, but this time there was a new wrinkle.

The road had recently been patched with stripes of tar over the winter cracks, turning the simple downhill into an entertaining slalom – a cycling variation on “step on a crack”. Steering my bike in an irregular sin wave, I wended my way through the impromptu labyrinth provided by the city workers. Unaware of the amusing game I had created for myself, Mark had stuck to the original plan and was disappearing down the hill. I needed to catch up! As the realization dawned and my feet engaged the pedals, my eyes beheld an anomaly. Two tar lines in close proximity. The gap in the second line was a mere foot or two to the right of the first. My eyes took in the challenge, my mind did the math and my hands turned the handlebars ninety degrees to my path.

I woke up  on the floor of Mark’s family truck. “Are you going to stick around this time?” asked Mark’s mom. Apparently, I had been in and out since my head hit the pavement. By report I had gone head first over the bars, landed hard in the road and skidded a good ten feet before coming to rest with my skull inches from a fire hydrant. I had then risen, my head bleeding, and conversed with several neighborhood do-gooders who had arrived to help. They had called Mark back, and with their help we’d carried my bike back up the hill. The machine was not severely damaged, but it was clear to all that I wouldn’t be riding anymore that day. I had talked, they told me, though the person they had conversed with was not me. To this day, I have only vague flashes of the trip back up the hill. My conscious memory skips from moment of the steering error to the floor of the truck. I did indeed “stick around” from that point as I listen to Mark’s mother explaining to him why this had to mean an end to our plans. Mark fought the good fight, arguing that since I was not dead there was no reason our plans could not go forward, but it was not to be. Adults have this thing about head injuries.

I raised my fingers to touch the bandage near my left temple, as I was haunted by a brief image of sitting in a chair while the compress was applied. There’s a sharp sting of pain as my fingers probe the wound, but honestly the disappointment hurts worse.