Rough Short Story 1: 9 years.

"Hey R.B what the heck are you doin' man!"

I turn around and the pimple face monkey that is my friend Josh Oliver, standing in an XMen tee that looked like it had once belonged to a sweaty mongolian kick boxer. He had the kind of face that my grandfather used to compare to a bulldog, so ugly that the bastard was kind of adorable...in a way. His question was pertaining to me look at the brick wall on the playground like it was my mortal enemy. Everything did seem more dramatic at 9...

"Jackie Chan can do a backflip off a wall, so can I." I said stomping my feet as if I were a cartoon or something and had to rev up before shooting off. I was Fred Flintstone. I ran up as fast as I could and only put on foot on the wall before stopping. The fat tub crossed his arms. The roar of the playground made it sound like we were having recess during Dresden. I decided that I might hate Josh.

"You're not going to be able to do it...you can't even climb the rope in P.E"

I ignored him as best as my weak self esteem could. I hate Josh Oliver, and I hate that goddamn rope in P.E. I allowed my knee to bend to see how much pressure I would need to put out to get up high enough to flip back. I was thinking physics. Should I put my arms back or not? Should I tuck in for speed? I was nine and Stephen Hawking had nothing on my intellect when it came to interpersonal aerodynamics.

Or so I thought.

I back up to the edge where the hill just began to drop, and took the deepest breath of my life. I think at the time subconsciously I thought that if I was breathing during the any aspect of this feat, I'd die. You know in the tense part of actions movies, when the hero is being pelted at by bullets but they're all missing and his over developed pectorals are convulsing as he runs to the bad guy with a practical joke sized knife?

Anyway, that also...is complete and utter bullshit. Allow me to thank hollywood for most of my bloody noses, and jammed and dislocated limbs. You're the sole harbinger of pain most of my adolescence .

So with the off key chamber choir of other screaming nine year olds, seemingly miles away sounding in the back ground like thunder...I shoot off towards glory or doom. Within moments I am at the wall, my foot is on it and I push off. I thought that if I screamed, it would mean failure...

So I as I silently careened backwards like super man upside down, the look on my face comparable to being electrically shocked; I see that mongrel bastard fat cupcake eating neanderthal Josh Oliver laughing at me as I hit the wet grass, and slide down the hill. Apparently as I was calculating my flight to glory I didn't notice that people had layered the lawn behind with rocks and broken glass, land mines, nails...and whatever else happened to be introducing itself to my back flesh.
I manage to flip over on my front, and continue sliding or what felt like a fricken kilometer. I finally stop, and I lay with my baby face buried in the grass. I was not thin back then...but I wasn't a lard sucking imbecile like Joshy-poo up there. I started breathing again...only...due to the pain it seemed like a bad idea. The wind was throughly knocked out of me, alongside my pride, dignity, and the ability to summon the less than vast amount of curse words I had gained during my nine years. I laid gasping and silent on the lawn, holding my prepubescent balls in my throat, listening to Josh's laughing and the Teacher's footsteps running towards me like the Rex in the movie Jurassic Park...gosh damn you Hollywood.

"Are you okay R.B?"

Allow me to say what my 9 year old self could not say...thanks to retrospect;

'Well no, I am not okay you silly Farah hair doting git, I have more rock in my back than a topless barehanded coal miner, and I am pretty sure my tonsil and genitals have traded homes for the season...am I fucking okay?'

Anyway, the nine year old me...promptly wheezed like an excited old jewish man. I thought and maybe attempted to roll over but nothing below my neck line was having that. I did manage to get up on my knees somehow. I looked at her as she looked at as if another arm had spouted from my chest. I cough grass, blood, and intestine fragments onto the rocky lawn and look at her smiling through the pain. I guess when I think about it I was a tough kid. Maybe I just didn't like showing too much pain.

"Let's get you to the nurse." Also, another strange thought I wished hollywood would have produced from reality...hot school nurses. Our nurse was the illegitimate daughter of Quasi-modo, and could snap a femur between his index and middle finger knuckles. Going to the nurse at my elementary school was like the spanish inquisition, either way you came out worse than you came in.

So there I was, a 9 year old nerd in the nurses office from hell, with enough wounds to compare nearly successfully to a Nam veteran. The nurse was out to lunch which now, again thank to retrospect I find hilarious because it's not like...kids would be more likely hurt during recess.

So the things that were going through my mind right then were over the top to say the least. I was a fifth grader, but I'd read 'A Separate Peace' and I was fairly certain that any moment a piece of rock or bone would hit my heart and I would just drop dead like a box of rocks. Hey! thanks Aunt Carolyn for giving a novel that had a kid die in it at the age of 9.

The nurse comes in, with all of her masculine glory intact. She looks at me as if I did something wrong by being there. I and holding my stomach, and I think that's a red flag for her because her words are very very angry.

"Come in and sit down Richard!"

My skin crawls. I go in and sit down. She starts looking at my back. I expect to feel a whip or magic or something.

She calls my parents. I get sent home. All of this happens within 3 minutes.

"I can't have you in school with a ripped up shirt."

Oh...and the road rash notwithstanding? What a bitch.