By Jonathan Weiss I
As you ignore the scabs of snow on your ankles and stuff your sweaty snow pants back into your boots, you recall your past experiences at your neighborhood park. Baseball practice reminds you of the hot stench of sunscreen and the itch of brown grass as you stood in right field. You were always assigned right field. As for your park’s soccer clinic, which Dad goofily assured you would “build character,” you can only remember the hot tears draining from you out of shame at your klutziness. Sledding, fortunately, requires much less athleticism than soccer or baseball, which is why you’re okay with revisiting the park for your tenth birthday celebration.
Droplets of muddy water ooze from your laces as you tighten them. Standing, you grab your gloves from the bench, which soak your already pruney fingers. You cannot feel your cheeks, your nose might as well be an icicle, and you dream of licking undissolved hot cocoa mix from a steamy mug, but it doesn’t matter. You could keep sledding forever.
You wave your orange saucer sled at Dad. He gives a thumbs-up: one more time. It’s your tenth birthday, and he will indulge you.
Making sure that your boots sink into the snow with a heavy crunch, you approach your friends. Stephen blows into his gloves. Michael shakes the snow off his coat. Theo’s wet hair is plastered to his forehead as if he started moussing it and gave up.
Bright blurs of jackets and sleds whiz down the slope like jelly beans rolling down the roof of a gingerbread house. The meandering, endless, icy descent fills your bones, for just a moment, with dread.
It’s the same dread you felt when your neighbor Harold, who seems really old because he’s thirteen, tried to teach you how to skateboard. He twirled around on that thing like a dancer. You, however, gave up after your fifth round of bloody knees.
The difference here, you tell yourself, is that sledding is easy peasy. Gripping your orange saucer sled, you leave your friends and plod to the edge of the hill. Particles of snow buzz in your vision like static on a TV screen. Dropping the sled on the ground and plopping down on your bum just a bit too hard, you push off. The sled veers off to a much steeper part of the hill. You fly toward a mound of carefully packed snow that looks like a skateboard ramp. The sunscreen stench, the grassy itch, and the hot tears of yesteryear come flooding back.
When you hurtle into the air, you can hear yourself swallow your spit. You do not think about your tenth birthday, or how you will drink hot cocoa when you get home, or anything like that. You hear yourself swallow your spit, and then you are flailing on the ground, your tailbone exploding with pain. Dad shouts and runs down the hill, but it is too late. Thin blond reeds, vestiges of dazed summers at the neighborhood park, hover over your body like a farewell.