“Just relax.”
“I don’t want to relax.”
“Injuries are worse if you’re tense.”
“What injuries?”
“Look, just try to relax and you’ll have a better time.”
Andrew was trying to get calm his brother Chad before his first downhill long board ride. It was dawn at the top of Bogus Basin Road and the other riders were getting antsy.
“Dude, don’t pressure him. If he’s not ready he can do it later,” Kent opined.
“He’ll be fine, he just has to start,” Andrew said, irritated by Kent’s interference. “Look, you’ll be fine. You just have jitters, which is normal. As soon as you feel the wind on your skin it’ll feel just like flying. You’ll love it.”
Chad was three years younger than Andrew, and not an athlete. If the term were still applicable, he would have been called a bookworm. But now online gaming, websites for weird hobbies, and podcasts consumed Chad’s waking hours. He was pasty, skinny, shy and as he father Doug put it, “lucky he passed the paternity test.” Doug ran a backhoe on a construction crew, but in college had played football on a scholarship. In his third season he injured his knee beyond repair during a locker room fight, was sidelined and eventually released from the team. He never finished school, which he only attended to increase his chances of getting drafted by the NFL. The only person who seriously considered this a possibility was Doug himself, but he enjoyed some fame within the subculture that made up the school’s fan base; mostly alumni, local sports fans, the cheerleaders, band and drill teams, and the local sportscasters desperate to fill airtime. During those three years Doug went to the best parties, took the best drugs, bedded the best women and had no responsibilities other than performing well on game day.
The boys’ mother, a sports groupie, became pregnant shortly after Doug’s injury. He still believed surgery could put him back into play, so he got married, inviting all his teammates to the wedding. The party was epic, held at the Botanical Gardens with an open bar paid for by the alumni association and food donated by local restaurants. There were several fights and many DUIs; three buildings and two gazebos at the Botanical Gardens were damaged or destroyed and it took thirty officers to finally restore order using up the Boise Police’s entire supply of Tasers.
The marriage lasted three years, as the public grew less and less interested in Doug. He started drinking, and grew fat and angry. He worked a series of jobs via contacts through the athletic association; delivering beer, selling cars, delivering appliances but lost them all due to drinking on the job or trying to bang various receptionists. His wife finally divorced him when he hit her after she made a crack about his weight and that he walked like a crippled penguin. Court-ordered child support forced him to find and keep a job or face jail time. He had the boys every weekend, always picking them up late.
Andrew, the oldest, was a natural athlete and didn’t have to work hard for his father’s approval. By fifth grade Andrew was the fastest kid in his school. Now a junior in high school he was a power hitter in baseball and a starter for the football team, playing quarterback and receiver equally well. Andrew worried about his kid brother Chad who had no athletic talents. Their father frequently called him “pussy” or “faggot.” Chad spent most of his time at his father’s house flinching or finding somewhere out of the way to escape into his laptop.
As the years went on, and their father’s dead dream became more and more distant, he became more belligerent toward his sons. He pushed Andrew to train harder, run faster and “knock the shit out of anyone who gets in your way.” He rarely spoke to Chad, except to share gems like, “You know, you’re just a little tic. Sucking the blood right out of me! Just like your bitch mother!” Andrew hoped that by excelling in sports, he would distract his father from Chad, giving him some protection, but finally realized this wasn’t working.
Among his other talents, Andrew was also gifted on a skateboard, and preferred the company of skaters to his other sport friends. The skaters weren’t like his dad, had good taste in music, and just wanted to skate. Andrew hoped that if Chad could learn to ride a skateboard, it might lessen the heat from their father. At the skateboard park, with Andrew’s help, Chad did well. He could jump and turn and was starting to get confident with some more advanced tricks. Andrew thought Chad was ready to try a long board coast. It was easy and thrilling, and he hoped it would further bolster Chad’s confidence so he wouldn’t feel so beaten down all the time.
After a long drive in the dark, half a dozen skaters were at the top of Bogus Basin Road sixteen miles above Boise, checking their boards and adjusting their gear.
“I’m scared, Andrew.” Chad said.
“It’s okay, I’m right here. You’ve done this plenty of times, just bend your knees and feel the ground moving under you, and only make little adjustments. No big moves. And I’ll be right next to you the whole time.” Andrew smiled, trying to put Chad at ease.
“Okay, go” someone announced and the group started slowly, impatient for their speed to pick up.
“Don’t kick, it will throw you off balance, just let the road come to you” Andrew said.
As they went faster the boards became easier to navigate. Very small adjustments kept them on the centerline. The speed seemed to smooth everything out, and Chad started to smile and relax his guarded posture.
“There you go! You look great!” Andrew encouraged him.
As the speed kept increasing the boards almost responded to their thoughts; they barely moved their bodies as they followed the curves down the mountain, the asphalt and pine trees becoming a blur.
As the speed increased, Chad’s board started to wobble.
“Just relax, let your ankles go to jelly!” Andrew yelled over the noise of the boards whizzing down the road. But Chad panicked, overcorrected, and his board caught the edge of the road flipping him into the air.
Andrew saw Chad in the air, flying in slow motion. Even though the moment felt like it lasted forever there wasn’t time for Andrew to help, or even move as he watched Chad crash into the chip-sealed blacktop. Andrew steered his board into the road’s sandy shoulder, abruptly stopping and crashing through the weeds to break his fall. He sprinted back to his brother, a broken pile of skinny arms and legs at the end of a bloody skid mark. His now broken helmet had protected his head, but his entire left side had been peeled down to the bone. Chad was crying softly, not moving.
Andrew ran up to him, afraid he was dead.
“Are you okay?” he asked, not know what else to say. “Stay still, don’t move, and keep breathing. I’m calling for help.” Andrew had seen enough injuries in football to know not to move Chad. The other skaters were about a mile below them before they realized something was wrong. They were running back up the hill to see what happened. Andrew was on his phone calling 911.
“Oh shit, little dude. You’re fucked up,” Kent said.
“Shut up man. He knows he’s fucked up. Say something to make him feel better,” Ronny advised.
“Sweet ride man, you were really going for awhile there. We’ve all had our share of road rash. No worries,” Kent tried to sound casual, but Chads’ sobbing and groaning made it feel useless.
Chad was eventually flown to Salt Lake City for treatment at a burn center since nearly forty percent of his skin had been sheared away. He was put under sedation in order to scrub all the grit out of his wounds.
“How could you let this happen!?”Andrew’s mother yelled at him. “He’s just a little boy! Were you trying to kill him? Was this your father’s idea?” Andrew remained silent, because he didn’t have any good answers. When Andrew called his father to tell him about the accident, he said, “Good thing he’s insured, he’ll need it. I can’t leave work. Call your mother. This is her sort of thing.”
Chad was in the burn unit for months, underwent several grafts, rehab, had a couple of terrible infections and equally terrible antibiotics to treat them. He became even skinnier and paler, except for his left side, which was now a misshapen patchwork of grafts, ropey burns and newly healed, bright pink skin. He broke his left arm and collarbone, and their healing complicated the skin grafts, which stiffened causing his arm to move like it was carved from wood.
Andrew visited often, bringing Chad anything he could think of to take his mind off the hospital. Amazingly, Chad’s mood was good and he seemed to be more relaxed since the accident.
Andrew handed Chad a swag bag from a Comic-Con that was being held in Salt Lake.
“Sorry you couldn’t make it. It looked like your kind of crowd,” Andrew said.
“A bunch of weirdos; my people! Imagine the impression I’ll make next year when I go as Two-Face or Freddy Krueger. I’ll bet I get some cosplay tail with that!” Chad laughed. “Thanks for going.”
“Anytime,” Andrew said. As Chad dug through his swag, Andrew worked up his courage. When he visited, he tried to keep the conversation light, but a question was burning in his mind.
“So, anyway, sorry about the wreck. I mean, I’m really sorry. I wanted to ask, to really ask, how are you doing?”
Chad kept pulling items from the bag as he talked, “When my board started to wobble I was scared because I could tell what was going to happen. I couldn’t stop it. Then I was in the air and I saw everything: you, the other guys pulling ahead, my board shattering – all of it. I knew I was going to hit the road, and I didn’t even try to do anything about it. I mean, what can you do at that point, right? I just sort of relaxed into it, and weirdly it wasn’t that bad. I mean, it totally sucked, but being afraid of it at the top of the hill was worse than the crash. Being afraid was even worse than all these surgeries and rehab.”
“Morphine does take the edge off,” Andrew said, as they both laughed.
“Yeah, I’ll get some for the road. But really, I feel weirdly good. Way happier than I used to. I don’t feel afraid anymore. I’m not even sure what I was afraid of. And I thought I wanted Dad to like me, but really I just don’t care. He’s just some asshole we’ll probably never see again once we graduate, which is a relief.”
“Prick,” Andrew said, “He’s never even come to visit.”
“I don’t want to see him. Do you?”
“No. No, I don’t.”
“So we’re good. Now let’s take a look as this Sharknado 3 disc. I can’t believe they just gave it to you.”
Andrew quit baseball and football, and focused on skating but promised his mom he wouldn’t do any more long board cruises. Chad also hung out at the skate park, and took on the nickname Skid. He met his first girlfriend at Comic-Con in Salt Lake the next year. He went as Deadpool, using his scarring to full advantage.