SCREAMING WITH THE CANNIBALS

Seven

33 Seven My nose and mouth were full of water and it tasted vaguely like shit. At least, it tasted like what I thought shit would taste like. In Crum, we would spend hours on hot afternoons messing around on the riverbank. We sucked on the sugar cane that grew on the flats, smoked corn silk and tried to hide from the heat by digging holes in the soft banks and curling up in the damp sand. The water in the river flowed so softly and slowly that we could hear insects buzzing over on the Kentucky side. We talked about where the water went, flowing out of our sight down and around the far bend in the river. Where it went and what we would do if we could go with it. We spent hours talking about that. We found an old bicycle, half buried in the sand almost at the water ’s edge. It must have been there for years. The sprocket chain was so welded together with rust we thought it would never bend and the rubber of the tires cracked like thin tree bark, large chunks of it coming off with each creaking turn as we forced the wheels around. We cleaned it up as well as we could, stripped off the broken tires and rotted innertubes, got some used motor oil from Yvonne Staley’s brother and soaked every part that was supposed to move. Eventually, they did. There were no tires to put on it so we kept it down at the river bank where the rims would cut into the sand and bury halfway to the hubs. We made a mound of hard packed sand just below a steep part of the riverbank and took turns shooting down the hill and over the jump, to land in the softer sand below, always crashing. After everyone had a turn, the winner was the guy who wasn’t bleeding. 34 And then somebody got the idea to put the jump next to the river. The idea was simple. Ride the bike down the steep riverbank, fly over the jump, and stop in the deep sand before you hit the water. If you could turn sideways, slam on the brakes, and spray sand into the water, you scored a lot of points. If you got the bike’s wheels wet, you won. I dragged the old bike higher up the bank than anybody, far up, where it was so steep that I had to turn the thing sideways just to get on before it slid down the bank under its own weight, its rear brake locked tight. So I got on, and pointed the front wheel down the bank. I got the bike’s wheels wet. In fact, I got the whole bike wet. The damn thing shot down the bank and over the jump, flying, free in the air and the sunlight. I was sailing in an empty space, a spectator , watching as the jump dropped away below me and the riverbank faded from my vision. Water appeared under the bike and I wondered what the hell it was doing there. I would have to hit the sand soon, I knew, if I were going to stop where I wanted, but the sand seemed suddenly out of reach. For some reason, the bike tilted forward, no longer really under me, but trailing slightly behind, my hands still locked to the handlebars, my ass rising from the seat. I couldn’t understand why the water was rushing up to meet my face. The water was only about two feet deep. I slammed into it nosefirst , the bike following close behind. As I hit the water my forward motion slowed and the heavy bike slammed into me, the frame driving up between my legs. My face and head plowed through the shallow water and into the mucky bottom of the river. My mouth popped open and the muck drove in, plugging my nose and throat. At the same time, the pain between my legs made me try to puke. The muck going down met the puke coming up. I thought my chest would explode from the collision. 35 Shit. The whole thing tasted like shit. My face hurt and my chest hurt and my balls hurt. But what really hurt was—somebody had hold of my hair and was dragging me out of the river...