Tom, James, and Adam vs. the UPS truck Thursday, May 08 2008
I wrote this years ago when I had my weblog hosted through Blogger. Some recent conversations reminded me of it so I decided to bring it back. I call these stories "Tom Stories". Tom is that crazy-ass person you were friends with in high school that always seemed to prompt you into doing some incredibly stupid things. Following is the first ever Tom Story I wrote, unedited from my first posting of it.
We were in ninth grade (James was in tenth), it was an afternoon nearing summer, immediately after school was over. Tom, James and I always met outside a certain door and walked home. Typically we walked James home, then Tom and I went back to one of our houses and played video games until dinner time.
Well this was a day when it didn't happen exactly like that.
Tom, James and I met outside the high school just like usual. We always took a shortcut through someone's yard, which put us at the end of a dead-end street, at least 25 seconds ahead of all the kids who walked around the house and down another street. We were smarter than they were.
Anyway, while walking down the street, talking our kid talk, and me trying to sing a song and getting made fun of because I cannot change the inflection in my voice while singing, we spot a grand opportunity. About three houses down the street was a UPS truck parked on the side of the road. There was an incredibly short man delivering a package to the house the truck was parked in front of. I mean short. This guy was n't any bigger than five foot one, maybe not even that. Anyway, he had just started walking back to the truck when we started running for the truck. I don't know who said to do it, or even if any of us said anything, but we did it. If it were a movie, the scene would be: "the three boys all looked at each other, knowing the others thoughts, nodded, and started running."
By some uncanny timing we reached the truck just moments after he got in, so he hadn't been able to see us in his mirrors. We tried to figure out who would go where, so I just jumped on the right side of the truck. I grabbed my backpack, secured it, then grabbed the bar on the side of the truck. James got on the left side, and Tom got in the middle where the handle is to open the back door. Right after we all secured ourselves, we giggled, knowing how fun this was about to be.
Then the truck started moving.
We all were hanging on for dear life. Somebody said, "this is too fast!", or possibly it was a thought of mine I misinterpreted as someone else speaking, I'm not sure. Either way, it really was too fast. Only about ten seconds and fifteen miles per hour go by and that's when I notice James flying through the air. In retrospect, time had slowed down, I can see him slipping and slowly moving one leg off the truck and attempting to jump to control his fall. Well, he succeeded in one of his goals, but controlling the fall was completely impossible. Time speeds back up and James' feet land on the ground, then his chin is the next thing to hit. He fell over like a tree after it gets cut down. No bending, just rigid straightness, then a bounce or two.
I was completely stunned. I just saw my friend fall off of a moving vehicle, hit his head on the ground, and not move afterwards. I was a bit worried. I quit worrying about James and worked on tightening my grip. I had my arm worked through the bar, so I wasn't going anywhere.
Unfortunately all my grip-strengthening made me miss half of Tom's jump. Time slowed down again, and I looked back just as he was in mid-air, posing for his crowd. He had jumped off in real superman style, one arm up in the air, the other back, one leg bent and the knee up in the air, and the other leg bent backwards. Sort of like an exaggerated running position, but completely lacking of grace. I watched Tom sail in the air for what seemed like minutes. I watched him fly, and I saw the glint in his eye as he marvelled in his greatness.
Time sped back up, and Tom fell also. His feet hit first, and unlike James, Tom thought to put his arms out to catch himself. His arms out, he fell, then smacked his head after his arms buckled. Tom bounced slightly less than James, and I held on to the truck for dear life. I just watched two of my friends beaten by the UPS truck, and I was not about to let myself be beaten.
By now the truck had gone maybe two hundred feet, and apparently the driver saw two limp bodies in the road directly behind his truck, and he slowed very fast. He was almost to a stop when I jumped off and ran towards Tom and James. As I ran I saw the UPS truck driver speed off, probably not wanting to take credit for puting down two high school kids with his truck. As I got near my friends Tom was just starting to stir, and he was laughing a bit. Tom helped James get up and I saw James' face bleeding. Tom pointed it out and James wiped his face with his biker leather jacket.
Not knowing what to do, and not seeing anyone around who witnessed our UPS truck horror, we started to walk towards James' house. Needing an explanation, Tom and James came up with a great one: they were running around while walking home and ran into each other and fell down. It was so dumb it was almost believable. I wanted to protest, but it wasn't me who got hurt so I let them make up whatever story they wanted to. We were only a few minutes from James' house when Tom stopped his hysterical laughter. He hadn't stopped laughing the whole walk home, and finally he did and proclaimed "my arm hurts".
Tom was done laughing, we were a block from James' house, James had blood all over his jacket and his chin was bleeding profusely, then the middle school track team ran past us. They stared. Tom was clutching his arm, James' chin was bleeding, and I was just sort of tailing them both. "Yes I'm bleeding!" James proclaimed. The track team stared at us as they ran past, and I looked down hoping I didn't know anybody.
Tom and I dropped James off, then walked a while and parted ways as he went to his house and I went to mine. I got home, looked around. It was 4:10 and my mother wasn't home and I didn't have anything to do. I turned on my Super Nintendo, played Street Fighter, and wished I had someone to play it with. Damned UPS truck.
