Bryce Adventures Pt. 2: Injuries and Idiocy

Childhood doesn't normally leave one with a lot of choices. More often than not circumstance dictates your directions. Outcomes are determined by the path one has to take. I was fortunate in that both Bryce and I had the will to keep our friendship solid. We clicked and we were brothers. He moved over a half hour walk away. In younger years this would have been a fatal blow to our friendship. But we pushed our parents to drive us to each others house. Previously they were mostly passive in our companionship. Now they actively had to cater to our needs. And they did.

Bryce and I were riding our bikes once and he needed to air his tire up. We pulled behind the small Town and Country convenience store. It was located on prime real estate. It was on highway 78 just down the road from Bailey Inglish Elementary and right across the street from LH Rather Middle School as well as IW Evans Intermediate school. In the back of the store was an air compressor with a hose for tires. Something went wrong this time though. I don't know if Bryce was distracted or what, but it went BOOM! My ears were ringing. But Bryce, who was right there was in tears. He was crying. I asked if he was OK, Bryce said, “NO! I think I’m deaf.” Oh shit. But I doubted this could be happening. He was my best friend. No way something so bad could happen on my watch.

“Bryce!”

“What?!”

“Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Then you aren't deaf!”

He felt better and began to calm down. I reassured him, “Give it some time, your ears will feel better after a while.”

We walked our bikes home. He did not go deaf. The worst thing to come out of this ordeal was that he needed to replace a tire tube.

Our bikes were a central part of our lives. It's how we got around. It went four or five times faster than walking. And took little effort. Bryce had a large mountain bike with big tires. I had a more slender road bike. Our journeys often took us off road in this trail by the nursing home his mom worked at. He had an easier go here because of his mountain bike of course. I had to be more careful, measured. This trail was kind of hidden in town in a wooded area with a creek weaving its way around. One time we decided to go wading in the creek. As we were leaving we found out it wasn't a great idea. There were some leeches, but that wasn't so bad. What was so bad was the smell. We smelled like shit. We never noticed that smell before, but now it was unmistakable. I don't know if there was a sewage backup pouring into there, or if it was an outlet or what. It was disgusting. But we survived. That's just life for a couple young boys.

Heading south on center street near Billy's house on our bikes I had the lead. Then Bryce shot me. He had this high tension hunting sling shot he was trying out and that son of a bitch shot me. I stopped my bike and just about cried. I looked back and Bryce was shocked. He shot at me but didn't really think he'd actually hit me, let alone that it would fucking hurt. But he did. And I was bleeding. Congrats, you're a good shot and that hurts. He was genuinely sorry but definitely happy that he was a crack shot. He rode in the front when we left that's for damn sure.

I had left our over model cement, probably from my scale-sized black Porsche 911. We decided to check out this whole huffing thing. Did it work? Was it legit? I went first and gave a little smell. Bryce asked, “Well? Do you feel anything?”

“Nope.”

“Breathe deeper!”

I did. Holy shit. It felt like I got stabbed through my right eyeball clear through the back of my skull. It hurt so bad. I was crying. Bryce asked me what was up and I said that it hurt so bad. He gave it a shot. “It's not so bad.”

“No dude, really take it in.”

He did and he too was fucked up. When the pain subsided we were dizzy and felt like we were floating. We had gotten high for the first time in our lives. It was the last time I ever took a hit off that stuff. Whatever euphoria I may have felt following my inhalation of the liquid adhesive simply was not worth the pain I had to endure.

As much as Bryce and I influenced each other into bad behavior, we also turned my little three-year-old brother at least once. I had no idea why but the three of us were in my front yard once and we told my brother, “Don't throw an egg at a car that drives by.” Reverse psychology . Well, my brother ran into the house and came back. A sedan drove by and Johnathan threw a perfect screwball. He is left handed and the car drove from our left to our right. It looked like it would miss, at the last second it curved out and splat. Immediately the car slammed on his brakes and the driver got out. He surveyed the situation. An egg splattered on his paint job. The suspects: a couple 11-year-olds and a 3-year-old. I don't know how he was so calm but he demanded we clean his car right away or he would call the cops. We ran in and got a wet cloth and gave him a free car wash. At least in that small area.

We didn't just get high and negatively influence my little brother. We occasionally did things that would not be considered trouble making. Like go to the movies. Even with that simple act, we didn't always show great judgment though. His mom and her boyfriend took us to Sherman to watch a flick. Connie was watching this huge new film you may have heard of called Jurassic Park. We weren’t gonna see that though. No way. Dinosaurs? Who cares? Those are fake. We were gonna see a karate movie. Chuck Norris starred in a movie that had been out a few weeks and couldn't miss out. Instead of Jurassic Park, we saw Sidekicks.

To us the movie was damn good. It had a cute girl (Winnie from the Wonder Years), it had a positive message, it had kicks, jump kicks, and it had fucking Chuck Norris. This was the best movie since Best of the Best 2 (Eric Roberts for the win!). We loved those movies, especially if Jean Claud Van Damme was on the poster. Sidekicks ended and unfortunately when we spent all of our quarters on arcade games Jurassic Park still had like 45 minutes to go. We snuck into the movie and had to sit in the front row, it was so packed. Holy shit, there were dinosaurs! This was way cooler than what we expected. We thought there would be stuff like out of The Lost World.

We wouldn't admit it, but we wished we had watched the prehistoric lizards instead.

Plausible deniability is a phrase every adult has probably heard of. Everybody knows what it is. And even before you know what it's called, as soon as you learn how to lie you are completely aware of its usefulness as an excuse for bad behavior. Brookshire's is a regional grocery chain based primarily in East Texas. Growing up in Bonham, before we got a Walmart Supercenter, we shopped for groceries at either Brookshire's, Sikes affiliated grocers or Lehdee's Market. Today only Brookshire's remains following the huge Walmart invasion.

Connie had taken us grocery shopping and we slipped to the small toy aisle. When she was finished, Connie tracked us down and said “Let's go!” She saw us playing with a bouncy ball. We knew she wouldn’t let us get the ball, but we wanted it. Bryce pocketed the ball and we went home. Not too long later Connie found us playing with the ball and drug us to the store. She told some clerk what happened and he called the “head of security” to talk to us. We explained to him that we thought somebody left it behind. There was no bar code on the ball. If there's no bar code, it's not stealing because...they can't sell it. Our deniability was our ignorance. As another friend Nick would tell me a few years later Ignorantia juris non excusat: ignorance of the law excuses not. The guy said he'd let us go as long as we checked in with him every time we returned.

We were on probation. With the grocery police. The next time I went to Brookshire's I was going to check in with the guy until I saw his picture on the wall. Dude was the manger of the butcher department. What the hell? I waswilling to be punished for my transgression, but I was not going to be deceived. Screw that.

Bryce's house in east Bonham brought us to an unfamiliar neighborhood. Certainly more houses over in that neck of the woods. Just riding around one day brought us past a couple kids playing basketball. We stopped to take a look and it was none other than a kid in our grade named Michael and Jason, a kid like two years older than us. He happened to be my high school band director's son. Michael, and I don't normally call people names, was probably our class turd. He was a hot head with a temper and a huge ego. It's true that he was one of the top two or three ballers in our grade, but he sincerely thought he was Michael Jordan. And he'd tell you. He also prayed on the weak. Whether it was Lee, or AJ, or whoever was the unfortunate soul who was picked on by bullies, Michael was sure to be one of those joining in. The only time I ever tried to be a bully backfired on me terribly. More on that in a future post.

Jason, I didn't know that well. From what I can gather, he was a turd too. In high school he'd end up giving his dad a black eye, or at least that was the rumor. He also gave JC a black eye on the bus after a football game.

Anyway, the two challenged us to a game of basketball. Two on two. First to ten by ones would win. There was no way we'd win and we declined. Then they said they'd spot us 8 points if we'd bet $20. We knew we were good enough to score two points before they got ten. Game on.

They were clearly better than us. By the time we scored our two points, they already had like eight. When we got to ten before them, they said they only spotted us six points. Well, we scored again. 8 to 9, Then they rattled off two more buckets and “beat” us 10 to 9. Whatever, we weren't gonna pay them the money, they cheated us. We got on our bikes and quickly got to Bryce's house. We played with Legos on his front porch when Michael and Jason found us. They started yelling and talking trash. They wanted their money. Screw that. They changed the deal, we weren't giving in. We weren't going to be able to enforce the deal and get the money they OWED us, but we damn sure weren't gonna give in. That's a net $20 loss! We were gonna get our asses kicked if it weren't for Connie's boyfriend stepping in and telling them to take a hike. Michael never mentioned it to us as school, so I guess he knew he was in the wrong.

Bryce had some annoying neighbors. There were two or three girls a few years younger than us and they were boy crazy. They had crushes on us and yeah, that's obnoxious. Out of boredom though, we'd play with them sometimes. They did have a classic Nintendo, something neither Bryce nor I had anymore. And a game genie. A game genie was this cartridge you attached to a game to help you cheat. Enter a code and you have infinite lives, or could super jump. Things like that. We went over and played Galaga or some other space shooter game with a game genie. We had infinite lives. We were gonna cheat our way to victory. Maybe twenty minutes into our quest, we were summoned to go outside to jump on their trampoline. We kept the game running and fulfilled our duty. This trampoline didn't have the rubber padding around the edges to cover the springs. This meant that getting off the jumper toy sucked so bad. You couldn't avoid getting shocked the hell out of yourself. I think we jumped for at least 30 minutes. Try that as an adult in your 30s and you may suffer cardiac arrest. It's so damn exhausting. Deceptively exhausting.

Well, I ended up avoiding getting shocked. Somehow I got bounced off of the trampoline and landed straight on my ass on the ground. Surprised I didn't break my tailbone. I turned over on my stomach for a minute so nobody would see me cry. My ass hurt. My lower back was in pain. When I managed to get on my feet, Bryce and I went back into the house to see if we beat the game. It was still going! Were there infinite levels, I don't know. At least Donkey Kong as the widely known “Kill Screen”.

We didn't stick around to see if the game ended. We may not have had better stuff to do, but we weren't gonna waste our time on this game anymore.

Bryce only lived at that house for about year. He'd move to a house by the lake. Shit. I'd never ride my bike there. It would have been a two hour walk, who knows how long a bike ride? Fortunately our parents continued their commitment of letting us have fun together. Or maybe they simply took turns getting a couple of annoying kids off their backs for the weekend. Whatever the reason, we were blessed to not be bored in our childhoods. He may have moved yet even further away, but nothing would interfere with our fidelity to bedlam.

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If I were to pick a single song to be the soundtrack to this post it would be...