Timmy’s Epic Ride

In “Anecdotal Tales”, stories will be told. Some will be fun, some will not. Some will be great, some will be less so. Some stories are true, some are merely possible. This is one of them.

Timmy’s Epic Ride

Timmy woke up to find his leg hanging from a series of wires and pulleys, his once familiar leg now wrapped in a cast.  There was a feeling of grogginess about him when he had first opened his eyes.  Now, as he looked around the unfamiliar room, that fog starting to clear away.  The surroundings were quickly identifiable as a hospital room.  There was a bed next to him that was identical to his own, except it was flat and well made with nary an occupant.  With no one else to share the space with save the bland white walls, a silent television, and a machine that beeped numbers and displayed waves that he couldn’t understand, Timmy was alone to figure things out.  He sat in the hospital bed, looked out the window to the concrete-surrounded parking lot below, and asked himself, “Why am I here, what happened?”

As Timmy became fully alert with a sense of panic, he looked to his other leg and saw that it was scratched and swollen to.  The damage was obviously not as extensive as his left leg, but his right certainly had take part in the adventure.  When he tried to sit up, Timmy found that his ribs were sore as well.  Nothing felt broken in his torso, just sore.  He lifted his hospital gown to find a series of palm-sized bruises, brownish-blue lumps with shades of yellow and green thrown in for variety sake.  Clearly Timmy had undergone quite the accident…

Just like that, it hit him.  Timmy was an avid skateboarder.  He was not the greatest of his friends, but for a twelve year-old he thought he was doing pretty well.  He kept his board in one piece, though the underside’s scars and rubs showed he was no stranger to trying out extensive tricks.  More than once his mother had caught him on handrails outside the supermarket where she had been shopping and screamed for him to be more safety-conscious.  She was terrified at the jumps he made off of rocks and statues, the concern for her son only slightly outweighing the worry that he might somehow damage public property with his antics.  His father was different, having been very much like Timmy in his younger years.  Timmy’s mother would come home and look for her husband to lecture Timmy on safety, hoping that the two-pronged lecture from both of them would settle her nerves and their child.  Timmy’s father would look up over his paper, glance down at Timmy, and sternly comment, “Make sure you wear a helmet, son.”  Timmy’s mother, disappointed at the lack of severity of his father’s disciplining, would always turn back to Timmy too soon to see a knowing wink and a smile pass between father and son.

Timmy started to calm down in his hospital bed, readjusting himself to make his suspended limb more comfortable.  Once he remembered what had happened, he began to return to his usual self.  Hospital visits were nothing new to him.  He had had his share of sprained ankles.  Scars from where he had been stitched up were visible under his chin, on one of his arms, and on both his calves.  Skateboarding was no sport of wussies, Timmy told himself.  At least, that’s what his skate buddies continued to cheer as he was pushed into crazier stunts and higher jumps.  The five of them would often congregate around the skate park right after school.  The elementary kids always rushed to get there first, hoping to get their fun in before the older kids came and pushed them out.  They knew they weren’t supposed to be using the 10 foot high ramp (every adult teacher, parent, and passerby told them this on every possible occasion).  Perhaps in rebellion to the thoughts of responsibility and safety, the band of kids tried their best to master whatever tricks they thought up.  Across the U-shaped ramp they would exchange high-fives, skate up to the other end and rotate 180 degrees, and zoom back up to the other side.  The daredevils like Timmy would try some wild stunt like skating up one side of the ramp, doing a handstand, then hopefully skating back to the first side.  Every time, without fail, those manic feats ended in a wipe out; the board and rider often colliding and they slammed onto the ramp and half slid, half fell to the flattest part near the ground.  The middle of the ramp was where losers and their failures were on display for all to see.  Still, as long as it was just the five of them to see and not the older kids, they could hopefully laugh it off and limp away with their bruised body parts and egos.

Timmy searched for the remote control to amuse himself with the room’s television, but could find none.  He assumed that his mother had removed it since she had often threatened taking away his viewing privileges as punishment if he wasn’t more careful.  He contemplated trying the controller with a big “push for help” label on it, but he realized that would probably not give him any cartoons to watch.  Instead he closed his eyes and went back to the events of yesterday.  The day of the accident was now a crystal-clear picture in his brain.

It had all started just fine.  Stew had been forced to stay home because his grandparents were visiting, but the other four boys happily walked to the park.  Mark and Vince were talking about their newest video game battles while Timmy and Jon punched each other in the arm.  Timmy, always eager to go first, ran to the ramp, climbed up the stairs to the top, and prepared his run.  He didn’t notice until he got up there, his arm resting on the small handrail, that the older boys were already there.

High school had apparently let out early that day.  These tall statues of cool confidence shouted and jeered each other on.  Music blared loudly from a stereo on the other side of the ramp and a dozen or so teenagers skated boldly back and forth.  None of them wore the full knee and shoulder pads that Timmy and his friends were embarrassed to wear and only a few of them wore helmets.  The slackers were out on the peripherals of the ramps, nonchalantly drinking their sodas while they skillfully skated back and forth.  The real skaters were pulling out all the stops.  They would jump into the air after a fast arc and put their hand on the ramp, rotate 720 degrees, then softly let the board glide onto the ramp.  Intricate claps were exchanged as they skated to and fro, none of them noticing Timmy looking on in awe.

Then, before he had time to prepare, the biggest of all teenagers stopped skating and approached Timmy.  This big skater was Tyson, and he was the coolest of them all.  He always wore a bandana to pull back his shoulder-length hair, and half the time he even managed to bring a girl with him.  Sure, the girls always ended up getting bored and going to talk on their phones in Tyson’s car, but they still were with him.  Tyson walked up to Timmy, looking down on the child barely half his size, and sneered.  “You got something to show, or what?”

Timmy gulped.  Timmy said nothing.  Timmy could only nod, pull the chin strap on his helmet so tight to it started to dig into his neck, and stare at the ramp.  The other skaters cleared the ramp as Tyson bellowed that “little skater pro” was going to show off his moves.  They shouted back jeers but moved aside, eager to see what calamity would ensue.  Timmy moved to the very edge of the ramp, balanced himself on the board, stepped out into the air, and for some reason, closed his eyes.

At first he didn’t take anything in.  The jeers and noises were gone, his eyes remained slammed shut; all his energy was spent on just staying on the board.  The ramp rose to meet him, his wheels rumbled reassuringly to him.  “It’s all good”, the echoing, rolling skateboard seemed to say.  He felt the incline grow, his speed was just starting to decrease, and he put his hand out.  Timmy opened his eyes as he crested the ramp.  His body followed his board as they both lifted into thin air.  For that brief moment of weightlessness, Timmy was in control.  By some miracle, his foot touched the edge of the ramp just right, he felt his body twist around in a flawless 360 arc, and his skateboard cruised back down to earth narrowly missing running over the hand that had supported him.  A grin spread incurable across his mouth, overtaking his entire face.  The teenagers cheered and clapped, recognizing a feat well-done.  With his friends looking on in awe, Timmy came to rest at the top of the ramp.  Tyson walked up to him, putted him on the back.  With his knuckle grinding at Timmy’s scalp and hair, Tyson said, “Good job, lil’ dude.  Good job.”

Timmy was on top of the world.  He looked down at his friends and pumped his fists over his head for his victory gesture.  They cheered and hooted in response.  Not so far off, Timmy could hear the ice cream truck.  He deserved a treat after what he’d just done.  He couldn’t wait to tell his parents how cool he’d been today.  Timmy stopped and reconsidered.  He couldn’t’ wait to get tell his dad what he’d done today.

Little did he know, his shoes were not going along with his plan.  Somewhere in the walk to the park, his shoelace had become untied.  When Timmy ran to the edge of the ramp, he had managed to step on one shoelace, which caused him to stumble and fall.  His belly hit the railing and he was tossed, head over heels, over the side.  Tyson had tried to run and grab him, but it was not to be.  Timmy fell, his body twisting, and his entire body pushing awkwardly onto the ground with only his left leg between them.  He remembered the sharp pain in that leg and the hard thudding sound that had accompanied it.  There were some images of his friends running to him.  And now here he was, in the hospital.

There were worse things than a broken leg to Timmy.  He had gotten Tyson’s respect, and maybe that long fall would even up his cool status.  It wasn’t just everyone that got a broken leg; certainly not after falling from that height.  He could just try to play it off, make some sort of shoelace joke.  Timmy smiled and wiggled anxiously.  He still wanted ice cream.  But even more, he wanted to get out there and try again.

Advertisement