Learning to Fly
still remember the day when I originally got the idea. We were playing football in the afternoon. I held
my hand out, palm up, and whispered: �Go out straight, then cut across to the left, then close up again,�
drawing the play on my palm.
�Okay,� Tommy said, �I�ll go back and forth a bit too.�
�Ok,� I said. �Set, down, hut hut�hike!�
Just as I said �hike� I grabbed the ball and ran back a few steps, watching Tommy all the way.
Tommy ran like a mad man. Sprinting across to the right side of the field, he looked around him quickly and then stopped in his tracks for a second. It was just enough time.
The three defenders who had �double-teamed� Tommy literally tripped over their own shoes and bounded to the ground in a small heap. Tommy smiled and jogged slowly to his left, waiting for the throw.
I threw the pigskin. It was almost a perfect spiral, but it was way off.
But Tommy was still on top of things. He took off like a rocket and met the ball just as it was about to hit the ground, almost twenty feet from where he�d started.
�Woo-hoo!� I yelled, and jumped in the air once.
�All right,� Tommy yelled, and jogged towards me with the ball under his arm. When we met, we high-fived and chatted a bit about how the play could have gone better; mainly, through a better throw on my part!
�Victory party,� I said, �You made the play�where do you want to go?�
�Hum, I was thinking of In �N� Out. I�m in the mood for a burger!�
�You know what, I think I might have an even better idea!�
�Better than In �N� Out? Where?�
�Come on, I�ll tell you on the way.�
So we walked. We walked out of the park and onto the main street. At the corner we picked up our bikes rode on. We rode past all the burger joints in town, past the fast food restaurants. The next thing we saw was the beginnings of Little Mexico. It was the bad part of town, and everyone knew it. Where all the dirty immigrants lived. All the houses were the decrepit old types that were inhabited by better people forty years ago. Now there were heavy bars on the doors and windows, and ugly graffiti on the walls. All the major gangs had had their pick of wall space; the colorful collage only hiding the ugliness of its creators.
Tommy began to grow uneasy. �Where is this place?�
�Don�t worry,� I said, �We�re almost there, just a few more blocks.�
�A few more blocks in this? Little Mexico doesn�t end for another ten blocks��
�Don�t worry,� I repeated, �We won�t be in the company of the dumb Hispanics for long.�
�Man, you shouldn�t talk like that, they might hear.�
�Talk like what,� I asked, �And who gives a damn about us?�
�All I mean,� Tommy started, �is that it�s not nice to speak about other people that way.�
�Forget that�we�re here,� I announced.
Tommy looked around questionably. We were by an old abandoned school. The red brick had long since been covered over with graffiti and grime. But the building still resembled its former self�at least from the inside. The doors had been barred over and the windows covered by thick plywood. There was an apparently useless chimney rising from the middle of the school. It now spewed strange light gray smoke.
�I�m not so sure about this,� Tommy said, �Who�s in there anyway?�
�Just some friends. Come on�they don�t bite.�
As we walked in we noticed just how old the school was: the dedication plaque read 1894.
�Are you sure you know your way around in here?� Tommy asked. �Sure, I�ve been here a few times before�� I lied, trying to shake off the shivers in my back.
�Ok, if you say so��
When we rounded the first corner in the hallway, we heard a resounding voice squawk: �Enter, and identify yourselves.�
I said my name then Tommy�s, then laughed a nervous laugh, and whispered: �What�s with the flashy antics?�
Tommy shrugged, my joke lost on him.
There were three men in the room, the room with the furnace, all sitting around the glowing embers of the open stovepipe. The only picture that I can remember in my mind that related to this particular furnace is a gaping maw�like a jack-o-lantern�laughing at me in its infinity. A deep rumbling issued forth from the furnace, and sent a chill down my spine.
�You got the money?� The tallest of the three men asked�the man with the funny dreadlocks and the drooping moustache.
�Yeah, of course, I wouldn�t�ve come here without the money.�
�What are you talking about?� Tommy frantically whispered to me. �What money? What is this, drugs?�
�Not drugs�that�s too harsh a word. Weed, dope, now that�s better.�
�You do drugs?� he asked incredulously.
�Listen, what they say isn�t true, it�s not addictive or anything,� I said, for some strange reason believing my own words. �Come on�you don�t want to look bad in front of these guys no do you?�
He ran his hand over his face, then consented, �Yeah, sure��
I pulled out five hundred dollars, and handed it to the tall man. We took the dope and headed out of the abandoned school, in silence.
�Where�s you get that money?�
�It�s my parents�they won�t miss it, they have so much.�
We rode our bikes in silence to the edge of Little Mexico, then I stopped. �Let�s do it.� I said firmly.
Tommy didn�t answer, so I pulled out the dope and started shooting up. God, what a feeling! The trees, they were laughing at me, and there were funny floating people too, they were smiling and having fun, while there was this dog, chasing a worm around a tree. Just as soon as it started the high ended. �Come on, Tommy, it�s your turn�this is expensive stuff.�
�All right��
The second he used the dope, he fell on the concrete and started going into seizures. His body was trembling and there was blood coming out of his ears.
My eyes went wide and felt like they were going to fall out of their sockets! There he was, my best friend, going into a seizure and I was just standing there like an idiot. I grabbed all the dope and ran as fast as I could�forgetting, for the moment, about my bike�to the nearest phone booth. I dropped the dope in a trash can near the phone booth and dialled 911 as fast as I could. I looked out at Tommy�he was still on the sidewalk, now vomiting on the concrete.
I made up a story about assault to the police and to my parents and Tommy�s as well. Tommy was still convulsing when the paramedics arrived and I sat in the ambulance with him, crying. I still remember holding his hand and saying, �I�m sorry,� sixty-nine thousand times.
By midnight, the doctors had his condition stabilized, but Tommy was in a coma. The doctors found the dope in his bloodstream and his parents were shocked. They kept telling me again and again how good of a boy I was, for not using drugs and for sticking by Tommy�s side from the ambulance to the emergency room. Ironically, the only thing I got in trouble for was stealing the money from my parents. We were just thirteen, and Tommy would never play football again. He stayed in the coma for three years until his death.
