"if it's good news, it must be someone else's"

Friday, August 1, 2008

621. i'm sorry to say ...

as i was walking up the sidewalk to the house last night, i heard, then saw, a car come racing out our neighbor's long, winding driveway.
it was a red bmw whose straining engine was drowned out by the pounding urban music blasting from its cockpit.
at the helm, teenage boys.
friends, i suppose, of my neighbor's high school senior.

the narrow road we live on is two miles of twists, turns and rural shenanigans.
trees, shrubs and thick brush line each side, except where the scattered, private driveways interrupt.
it is also dense with deer.
to put it bluntly, if you go faster than 30 mph during the light of day, you are at risk.
going 60 at night, you are the chamber bullet in a game of road roulette.

as they roared by, normally i would have just shrugged my shoulders, but i had just sent my son off no more than ten seconds before.
so i was uneasy.
well. my son confirmed later that before he got a hundred yards, he was locked in tailgate hell with the red bmw—its high beams flashing, horn honking, chamber spun and trigger cocked.
fortunately, the first opportunity he had, he pulled over, thinking the only explanation to this madness had to be an emergency of some sort.

i took a breath.
then i assured him there wasn't—only the sad reality that teenage memories come in one of two flavors: short or none.
so every once in awhile a few need to wrap themselves around a tree so that others might remember that life can come and go quite frivolously when mistaken to be immortal.

come to think of it, it's been quiet around here for a bunch of years now.
i'm sorry to say, it appears we're due.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If I were granted one superpower, it would be the ability to flatten tires at a distance.

Robert Crane said...

david,

first, thanks for stopping by. you're kind of thought of as a blog celeb in these parts.

second, i have to laugh. that is exactly the superpower i often want to have. especially, "from a distance", since i'd worry about confrontation if discovered. i'm no batman!

good to hear from you!