American Flyers

You ever have one of those friends you just love messing with? Someone you just have to play a trick on or mess up their stuff? I do. I've known him for 32 years (since first grade) and by now we sort of have a shorthand for communicating with each other. He's a great guy and because we're so close I have no problem saying or doing anything to him.

There was also sort of an unwritten rule – I had nothing but good luck, him not so much. I was an only child ("The Prince") He was the oldest of a large brood. I got everything I ever asked for. He got a rock. He's always taken this very good naturedly but if I had to make a comparison watch Everybody Loves Raymond and pay close attention to the relationship between Ray and his older brother Robert. That's us. However despite this he's been the best friend I could ever ask for, for any number of reasons.

When we were about 15 he and another friend dropped by my house and invited me to go to the town pool. I fired up the classy Ross 10-speed and off we went. He had a 1950s garage sale bike with the banana seat and my other friend had a bike similar to mine.

Like idiots we rode across the road instead of single file (I guess so we could talk at the same time). We weren't going particularly fast but it was a decent clip. All of a sudden we hear a car behind us. Now I was on the right side and my crappy bike friend was in the middle and my nice bike friend on the left. Nice bike got out of the way on the other side of the street. Crappy bike yells out, "Look out, American Flyers!" (It was 1985 and it was a bicycle race movie with Kevin Costner, still haven't seen it.)

Crappy bike crashes into me at full speed. (Now I have to go on the description the other friend gave me because the rest is a little hazy.) Our front wheels locked on impact and sent both of us flying. The friend who witnessed it describes it this way. "You tumbled and rolled into someone's driveway and then the bike fell on top of you. He glided downward on to someone's lawn and bounced ever so gently like a feather." (Now you're thinking who has the bad luck here? Be patient.)

So crappy bike gets up and dusts himself off while I'm lying there under my bike bleeding from any number of wounds, in my stomach, my elbows, my right hand and my leg. When I fell I braced myself with my arms so I wouldn't hit my head. I had gravel imbedded in my skin wherever I was bleeding……..and the cool 10-speed was on top of me.

We weren't that far from the house so we walked the bikes back while I cursed crappy bike up and down. Then the fools busted out my Dad's first aid kit and tried to wrap me up like a mummy. They did a bang up job – the gauze stuck to the wounds but hung off like toilet paper everywhere else. My Mom came home from work and immediately freaked, brought me to the doctor, got me cleaned up, etc.

Now here's where the good luck starts. I had no broken bones. Cool. That summer my parents had been bugging me to get a job which I did not want to do. I had also been angling for them to buy a VCR for my bedroom. They were giving me static trying to convince me if I got a job I could buy it myself. F**k that.

That day my Mom set me up in my room with pillows for my head and leg, a nice lunch and anything else I asked for. The guys came over to see how I was and saw me in the lap of luxury, sitting there like the sultan. Within 48 hours I had my VCR and that summer was the last summer I didn't have to work. I rule. My friend commented that his parents would've told him to stop bleeding on the carpet. That one episode kind of typified how things went for us. Even when I lost I won. Every once in a while I look down at my right hand to see the permanent scar I have from the accident and I can't help but smile.