It’s suicide.
We live in town, but there’s undeveloped land between Gary’s house and mine. The best part is The Hill, with a maze of bike trails and long runs down the hillsides to dirt ramps.
Gary and I sit on our bikes at the crest of The Hill, looking down at the biggest ramp we’ve ever seen. You could bury a Slug Bug in the fresh pit after the ramp. Maniacs piled busted boards and thorny mesquite branches in the hole. Clear it, or die.
We don’t want to die. We’ll find another trail. I’m just waiting for Gary to turn his bike around and take the lead.
Except he grins and sends chills up my arms with a challenge.
“You first.”
I wrote this for an exercise on a writing site. The rules: A real childhood memory in 100 words. Here, I threw the word limit out and added 19 words from the original draft.
In reality, I was with my cousin rather than my best friend, Gary. Turned out the ramp was built by brothers on another block who had dirt bikes. We didn’t try to jump it on our bicycles, which is why I’m alive to tell about it—er, to embellish about it.
The picture: My mountain bike, which won’t be jumping any Volkswagen-sized ramps—not with me riding it!
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