Persistence Over Pain

This is my weekly offering in the Indie Ink Writing Challenge.  I was given a prompt, which will appear at the end of the story, by Amanda Lynn.

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Parents often describe a feeling of terrible dread the first time they lose their young child in a public place.  Reach for something on a grocery store shelf, turn your head for a moment and off a toddler will go, scurrying around the corner back to where she saw a shelf filled with Oreos.  Get distracted by a buzzing phone for mere seconds and a game of hide and seek in the mall is afoot. 

It’s a feeling with which I can certainly empathize, as I’ve been the victim of my own wandering son enough times that I’ve started to think that parents who keep their kids on leashes might be onto something.

What I’ve come to find, however, is that as scary as Brandon being out of sight and earshot for a short while may be, it doesn’t compare with watching him, from behind and too far away to help, ride his bike off the edge of a rooftop and into oblivion.

Ok, let me explain, it wasn’t really quite that dramatic.  It was just a trip to the skate park on an unseasonably cool early summer morning.  For a physically precocious little boy who began walking at 7 ½ months of age and who abandoned training wheels not long after giving up diapers, riding up and down ramps for an hour or two would be more fun than a visit to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory followed by a trip to Jurassic Park. When we pulled up to the fence on our bikes and he got his first  look at the older kids skating, scooting, and riding all manner of vehicles up and down the sides of the bowls and over and around all manner of impediments, he giggled with delight. 

“Brandon, this side is for big kids.  ONLY for the older kids, ok?”

I explained to him that the huge bowls, resembling empty swimming pools, were not for the Kindergarten set, no matter how much fun they appeared to be.  He could have a blast with his peers in the smaller section, where nobody was trying to escape gravity by more than an inch or two. 

He nodded his head in agreement.  There exists, evidently, a difference between fearlessness and foolhardiness, even in the mind of a sometimes borderline-feral 4 year old.    

We rode carefully around the deepest section, heading towards the section set aside for novices and the squeamish when it happened; an abrupt right turn and some ferocious pedaling, and he was heading directly for certain doom.  I screamed his name and tried to will my arms to stretch the dozen or so feet to reach him, but he was undeterred.

Over the edge he went, vaulting over the handlebars, face first into the abyss. 

I heard him before I got close enough to see him.  For a child who routinely shows up with bruises, cuts and scrapes that would make a military medic weep, with no recollection as to how they happened; screaming was totally out of character.  But scream he did, a howl that got the attention of everyone within earshot. 

A scrawny skateboarder reached him first, and despite all efforts to maintain his tough veneer, I could see panic on his face.  He handed Brandon up to me the way he’d found him, backside first, so it wasn’t until I turned him around in my arms that I got a look at his mangled face. 

His forehead and nose may as well have been rubbed raw with steel wool, his top lip looked more like a duck’s bill, and inside his shrieking mouth were teeth pointing in directions that would make an orthodontist cringe. 

His bike came up next, undamaged, and a t-shirt pulled from the body of a teenager on a scooter was offered to help wipe the blood from my son’s chin. 

Between spitting out blood and shards of a broken tooth, he seemed more angry than hurt.  “Why? What happened? Arrrrrggghhhhhh! Why it did that?” he pleaded with me.

Despite what could have potentially been a horrific injury, he was less concerned with whatever damage he may have suffered and more with the audacity of his bike for having thrown him and the concrete floor of the bowl for having smacked him so hard in the face.

A full battery of scans and x-rays at the emergency room revealed how lucky he’d truly been.  His two top front teeth were lost, and two bottom teeth were damaged, but they were all baby teeth anyway.  No facial or skull fractures were found and as gruesome as the scrapes and bruises were, they’d all heal eventually.  A vigilant guardian angel was deserving of gratitude, in my opinion.

We had an uncommonly low-key night, pudding for him, pizza for me, movies for all, and sleep came easily, to the soundtrack of rumbling, distant thunder.

Our usual morning routine was canceled by Brandon.  “I don’t think I want to ride bikes for a long time, Daddy.”

“OK, buddy, we don’t have to ride again until you’re ready.  We can chill and do some coloring books or build Lego’s or whatever you want to do,” I replied.

“Daddy, I want to go back to that park and see those cool guys doing skateboard tricks.  But no bikes, just to watch.  We’ll sit on the side”

I was surprised that he’d want to return so soon to the scene of his accident, but I figured in the end it was healthier than being terrified of bikes and parks altogether.  We drove to the park, this time sans bicycles, and settled in on a bench. Before long, several regulars approached to offer my son encouragement.  Normally shy, he was all too proud to show off his battle scars and cracked teeth to the small gathering. 

“Do you want to go down where you fell, little man?” asked the boy who, it turns out, had offered his shirt the day before to sop up the blood gushing from Brandon’s nose and mouth. 

Initially hesitant, my son agreed, and clutching my hand in a death-grip, we approached the edge and he was helped down into the bowl.  Fortunately, the rain of the previous night had washed away the blood spatter left by his crash, and he was more curious than freaked out by having his accident explained to him.

We spent an hour or so at the park before he demanded a Slurpee, so bidding his fan club adieu, we set out for the nearest 7-11.

From the backseat of my car came a voice that could belong only to my son.  “Daddy, tomorrow we should come back with our bikes.”

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The prompt I was given was "fortunately the rain washed it away."  My prompt, "write from the perspective of a high school student of the opposite gender" was answered brilliantly by Sunshine here.