Ron waited for the first drops of rain, patiently sitting by the cracked back window. Larry ‘Snowman’ Oklahoma, the weatherman on the channel seven news, said there was a 99 percent chance of precipitation. Ron knew what that meant. He paid close attention in his 2nd grade science class last year, studied the barometer, found out about weather patterns. 99 percent precipitation meant it was going to rain.
During his waiting, Ron thumbed through his favorite comic book, “The Terrible”. The Terrible was probably a little too mature and edgy for Ron to be reading, but he didn’t care. He was the first kid he knew that got into more ‘adult’ graphic novels and not regular comics, which he deemed, “for little kids.” He took a lot of pride in his fine taste for their explicit violence and near pornographic sex scenes. He would trace the half naked ladies with a thin piece of notebook paper and a number two pencil, always a number two, and he would pass them off as his own creations to the few classmates he actually spoke to. They thought he was an artist. He felt like a fraud, but that didn’t stop him from presenting all the kids his new piece every Monday morning on the playground by the monkey bars.
The Terrible smashed open the skull of yet another street punk just as a burst of disconcerting thunder sounded from the sky, creating a strange cacophony that startled Ron. During his waiting, he got so caught up in the Terrible’s adventures that he forgot the reason he was by the window in the first place.
A single drop of rain hit the window. Then another. The two drops raced down the windowpane and ran into each other, forming a large globule that hung for a moment and then eventually fell to the window sill.
Ron jumped up of his favorite worn down chair and ran to the back door. He was ready for the rain, the plastic and rubber of his galoshes and raincoat rubbed together, creating an annoying squeaking sound. He pushed up the sliding glass door and peered outside; it was now sprinkling all over the small wood deck and garden that his step mom kept in order.
The smell of fresh water, earth and wood permeated Ron’s senses. It was time.
Next to the back gate stood a generic BMX bike. It wasn’t a name brand like all the other kids on the block who had Dynos, Haros and Mongooses. Ron always openly spoke hatred to his bike. He told it and anyone who would listen how ‘stupid and plain’ it was; like the bike was a conscience entity that needed to be reminded of its blandness and that this mockery might institute a change. But as much as he hated it, he loved it as well. He spent every free moment of the past year on the bike. Not out of pure necessity either, it was more than a mode of transportation; it was his release, his conduit for adventure, his best friend.
Ron hopped on his bike and didn’t bother to shut the back gate; he had more important things to do. As he peddled away from his house, another crack of thunder snapped through the air. The rain drops took cue from the clap and doubled in intensity, up from a drizzle to what Ron would tell his friends is, “the Seattle Standard”. Ron hadn’t been to Seattle but he heard that it rained everyday there from his much older step sister, who went to Seattle for college. Every time when she would visit, she remark on the “the Seattle Standard” and how the rain was different there, better. She held an elitist attitude about rain and the quality and quantity of it in her new hometown, but Ron never understand why she felt that way. But he adopted the phrase, “the Seattle Standard” because it made it sound like he was well traveled. He came up with a plan in his head that if in the event a kid was to ask if he had been to Seattle, he would lie and say he spent the weekend. However, no one asked him so he never had to lie.
Sploosh! Ron’s dull silver bike landed in a puddle at the base of the first jump on his run. Ron had spent the better part of the last summer building a few dirt ramps in the vacant dirt field next to his house. His multiple bike runs through this field during his short tenure in the neighborhood smothered the plant life, mostly weeds and tall wheat like grass, into a muddy faux bike track.
During the second month of summer break, the other kids noticed the track and started riding it themselves. Eventually, they took inspiration from Ron’s heavy shoveling and built upon the track, leading different paths to parts of the neighborhood; to other kids backyards, to the elementary school, to the Foodco. Shopping center.
The other kids also built their own ramps, but all of them paled in comparision to Ron’s ‘Evil Knievel’ ramps. Ron’s father showed him a video of Evil Knievel the year before, told him how exciting his jump over the Snake River was to him when he was a Ron’s age. Ron paid close attention to the set up and execution of his jumps; how his ramps arched and his landing area was clear and straight.
This has a profound affect on Ron and his plans for the summer. Ron had always rode his bike through town and around the field, but now he was motivated to build ramps inspired by the design of Mr. Knievel. Ron made sure to analyze the angle of the jump and the drop off to the landing area. Additionally, he made sure that he had enough peddling space before the jump to get to full speed to take the jump, maximizing the vault.
While many kids made their jumps capable of being rode from either side of the path, back or forth, with a little jump occurring in middle of the run, Ron’s jumps were one way roads with a large drop. Other kids would complain that it limited the track to a certain direction that it had to be rode, but Ron didn’t care. He would tell them, “I want big jumps, not some kindergarten crap.”
One day in August; three kids tried to adjust Ron’s fifth ramp, his favorite one and the largest on the track. The ramp rested in between an outcropping of oak trees and dying bushes, making it the most scenic part of the almost completely barren lot. He scrutinized the details of this particular ramp. He wanted the incline to match the precise grade, curvature and take off point of the ramp at Snake River; only in a smaller scale. After spending 10 hours every day shoveling dirt for three straight weeks, it was complete. He stepped back from it and beheld his triumph of his work. It was his masterpiece. But like every masterpiece, it came at a price. The cost of his work was his hand’s health, which still bare the calusses of the shovel handle rubbing splinters into his fingers to this day.
He wasn’t about to let his hard work go to waste. Luckily Ron saw what the kids were fixing to do from the second floor his step mom’s townhouse. He grabbed his bike, came at them with a full head of steam and jumped the ramp higher than he ever had before, just barely clearing the back of Paulie Winston as he kneeled down to dig. Ron came to a stop and the kids exchanged a look. No words needed to be said, the other kids knew exactly how Ron felt. They knew that they were wronging him. The embarrassed kids picked up their shovels and moved 20 yards away to build a tiny hill to expand their growing ‘kindergarten crap’ track.
The rain took a turn for the worse, or for the better, depending on your opinion of rain. Either way, a deluge of water pounded Ron and his trusty best friend/worst enemy as he rounded a corner and accelerated into his fifth jump. He was determined to jump higher and longer than that fateful day in August, if the weather would allow it. He jammed on the pedals and rocked the bike back and forth, his body weight shifting with each push down of his legs. The rain pelted his eyes as the wind blew the drops ‘slightly side like’, just like William Wallace described in Ron’s favorite movie, ‘Braveheart’.
As Ron peddled, he wondered if this was going to be the last time he would have the chance to enjoy this ramp. He was almost sure that it would be. Tomorrow he would be boarding a plane to move Georgia to live with his mom, his real mom. His family knew that it was best for him to have a more settled down living arrangement, whatever that meant. Ron was sick of everyone making decisions for him, he just wanted to stay right where he was and do whatever he wanted to do.
With these thoughts ever salient, he came to the muddy foundation of his master work- the fifth jump. His legs shook, partly from the cold, partly from his intense movement, part from something else that he wasn’t quite sure of. His back tire tore a hole in the mud, shooting a blast of sludge onto the leg of his best pair of jeans as well as the base of the gears. As he reached the precipice of the jump, the rusty chain on Ron’s worst enemy popped off the gear, as if some sort of payback for the years of being told it wasn’t good enough. Ron gave one last thrust down on his pedal… and immediately panicked.
Ron’s momentum propelled him off the ramp as he tried to gain a solid footing on the bike, to no avail. His right foot slipped off the pedal. The bike lifted up into his crotch and solar plexus as he flew off course, to the right of the path, into the largest oak tree in the bunch where Ron had once built a tree fort.
Boom! Ron and his bicycle slammed hard against the base of the tree. The impact knocked all the rain off of the tree branches above him, sending an avalanche of water down upon his body.
As the water hit him, it became apparent that something hurt; a lot. Ron took stock of himself, examining his body. There was no blood but something was different than his normal falls from his bike.
He touched his right leg and immediately pulled his hand back. “It has to be broken,” he thought. “If not broken, at least really badly screwed up.”
Ron laid on ground, staring at his masterpiece and then back his worst enemy, which was now bent out of shape; the handle bars were turned the wrong way and his left peddle was broken clean off.
Ron looked into the sky. The rain fell directly down onto his face; until you couldn’t decipher where the rain ended and the tears began.
