This story recently received a prize
in an Alaska Writer’s Guild contest.
Jake lives in Talkeetna.
When I was nine, I lost the use of my legs in a faultless automobile accident. Subsequent years found me over four wheels, two large and two small. I saw the change in my family’s eyes. Sympathetic. Overly-caring. Concerned. My friends acted differently as well. Some called less, some not at all. It wasn’t their fault. Naturally they shied away from things that were different, things that they didn’t understand. And I was that thing. Yes, this was my changing life, until I met John.
John was as normal as any twelve-year-old boy could be. He played Little League in the summers and went to school in the winters. He collected frogs by the lake and had thoughts about girls that he’d only share with his most trusted friends. The only remarkable quality that separated John from the mass of other adolescents around him was that he did these things with me. I was his best friend, and he was mine. I’d go to his ballgames and cheer him on and we’d catch frogs together, have sleepovers with scary movies and pizza. And it was with John that I experienced the most memorable day of my life, the day I left the wheels behind and went skimming Stones.
On that day, we were fourteen, and my wheelchair had left thin, railroad-like tracks in the dusty snow. We stopped at the crest of the hill behind John’s house, overlooking frozen Lake Beluga. Its ice was polished clean by the wind, leaving behind a glossy window over black depths.
I pressed my thumb and index finger to my lips and whistled loudly, the echo returning like a boomerang.
“Hill’s icy,” I said, looking down the slope.
John nodded with an appraising expression only a fourteen-year-old-expert-of-everything could muster. “I flooded it all night. Used the garden hose.” He turned and looked at me with a grin that could split the moon. “We’re gonna skim all the way across.”
I looked up and returned the smile; then made for the sled we’d positioned at the top of the hill earlier that day.
“Sled” is a term loosely used in this story. It was more like a half-toboggan, half-deathtrap. We’d built it ourselves out of anything and everything. Scrap wood, broom and mop handles, even blades from old hockey skates for the runners… nothing had been spared. We had built it together, and even though most people might not have seen me as much use, John and I worked equally together. When we had finished, even lovers of Picasso could have quite possibly been stumped at our abstract rendition of a “sled”. It was built for speed and claimed the architectural prowess of a Jenga tower.
John stepped toward the sled and produced a can of root beer from his jacket pocket, then raised the can high and proclaimed dramatically, “Let it be known that I hereby christen this craft, Stones!”
I arched an eyebrow and looked at him peculiarly. “Why Stones?”
“Because it takes stones to ride it.” He smiled roguishly, root beer still raised high. “You got stones enough?”
My smile returned. “Oh yeah!”
“Then Stones it shall be!” and he brought the can down hard on Stones’ side.
The can didn’t break, and John was temporarily flummoxed. Then, without missing a beat he popped the can open and dumped the foaming liquid over the front of Stones.
I locked the wheels of my chair. John helped me rise, carrying me to Stones. I sat down on the craft and John helped position my legs, securing them to the frame with Velcro straps. He sat behind me and wrapped his arms around my chest as I gripped the handholds. “Ready?” he yelled out.
“You know it!”
Vaporous clouds of my breath hung in front of me and my heart started to pound as John pushed us toward the precipice with one hand. Then all at once we were over the edge and plummeting toward the lake at a speed I thought was reserved for NASCAR drivers and fighter jets. The hockey-skate-runners shimmied beneath us and the frame creaked and cracked as every small bump and pore in the ice was amplified a hundred times over by our speed. My eyes watered and my cheeks burned at the cold wind and I held tight as the massive sheet of ice approached.
We hit the lake with a bone jarring thump and Stones nearly skidded out sideways. The skate blades held their course though and we shot out onto the lake like a bullet from a gun, skimming so fast across the ice that for one crazy second I thought we’d run out of room on the three-mile long lake. Adrenaline pumped through my veins and I released one of the handgrips and thrust a fist in the air, bellowing the most triumphant victory yell I’d ever released. John followed suit and together we yelled with fists in the air as Stones carved a memory in the ice that I knew would never leave me.
Throughout the following days we’d repeated the trip several times until John’s parents caught us in the act. They’d ordered us to dismantle Stones and made us promise to never do it again. We’d acquiesced, after begging that they take our picture in front of Stones before we did. They agreed, and snapped the photo at the top of the hill. We were all smiles.
As the years went on, life took the turns it inevitably did. We survived high school, remaining best friends, and went on to separate colleges that were a few hours apart. John played baseball at a small D2 college and I’d often road trip to his games, cheering him on and sharing beers with him when we had time. After school I got married and purchased a house. John traveled the world. He’d send me pictures of places he’d been and things he’d seen. We’d talk on the phone and meet up occasionally, though less than I would have liked. I promised him one day I’d take a trip with him, but life seemed to constantly get in the way.
The last picture of John I ever received came in my mid thirties. A drunk driver had run a red light and smashed into John’s car, killing him on impact. I attended his funeral in our hometown and paid my respects to his mother and father, who pressed an envelope into my hand and said, “He would have wanted you to have it.” I took it solemnly, slipping it into my coat pocket. It wasn’t until the flight home that I opened it, carefully tearing the dry paper. Inside was a single photograph. It was of John and me at the top of the hill, smiling with Stones beside us. On the back, in John’s fourteen-year-old handwriting was the caption: “Me and my best friend, out skimming Stones.”
I smiled, a tear sliding down my cheek.
I’ll miss him.
———————–
Skimming Stones, by Jake Graupmann
