I
have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.”
Henry David Thoreau
I
woke up early and bleary eyed. I crawled out of my tent, checked the coals on
the campfire and added a couple logs of wood to it. I placed my hands over the
new flames to warm them and looked around the campsite. The evidence of our
night of food, companionship, lies and bullshit were not as bad as I had
feared. My camp-mates were still asleep and the sounds of their snores could
barely be heard over the sounds of the sounds of the chirping birds and
scavenging creatures of the woods.
I
took my time doing the morning chores that come with camping, getting water
boiling, brushing teeth, relieving my bladder, and getting some food cooking
and coffee brewing. (Yes, I drank coffee at an early age… earlier than the age
of thirteen that’s for sure.) It wasn’t long after I had sat back down on my
log when Kevin poked his head out of his tent. “Mornin’… what time is it?” he
mumbled to me as he crawled out of his tent clumsily.
“About
eight-thirty or so.” I answered as I poured myself a cup of coffee. “You want
some coffee?”
“Coffee?
Um, no thanks.”
“Ok,
suit yourself.” I said and took a sip from my cup. The bitter, acrid taste
filled my mouth and I could feel the caffeine start to course through my body.
I
looked over at Kevin and he was fumbling through his pack of smokes and
mumbling to himself.
“Mind
if I mooch one of those from you?” I asked.
Kevin
lit the treasure he had fished out of the paper pack and tossed it to me. “Have
you seen the Pi’s?” he asked
“No.”
I said as I lit up “They seemed pretty beat when we all crashed last night and
I heard them snoring earlier when I was getting the fire stoked. How’d you
sleep?”
“Ok,
I suppose. I’m sore and the ground was pretty lumpy. I think I slept on a rock
or something.”
“Yeah,
it takes some time to get used to the ground. We get pretty spoiled by our beds,
but after three days out here you really don’t notice it. A little hint, gather
up some pine needles and scatter them under your sleeping bag.”
“What
do the pine needles do?”
“They
act as a cushion, like a pad, and keep you from feeling all the rocks you
missed when you set up your tent. You should have about an inch of needles
under your bag too.”
“Thanks,
I’ll try that. Is there anything to eat for breakfast?”
“Well,
we ate all the fish last night but I do have some canned food we can heat up as
well as a sandwich or two.” I offered.
“Anything
is good. Can’t believe how hungry I am.” And as if to confirm his statement
Kevin’s stomach let out a loud rumble and I chuckled.
“I
will start to heat up some of the canned food, in the meantime, have a
sandwich.” I said as I headed into my tent to get some food. It took a few
minutes but I managed to gather up two sandwiches, a can of ravioli, a can of
pork and beans and a couple of hot dogs I had wrapped up in tin foil. When I
emerged from my tent Big Pi and Little Pi were sitting at the campfire with
Kevin. Little Pi was poking the fire with a stick, Big Pi was trying to light a
cigarette and Kevin was putting another log on the fire.
“Morning
guys.” I said as I tried to not drop the load of groceries in my arms.
“Hey
Skip.” The brothers chimed in unison.
I
dropped one of the cans on the ground as I approached them and Little Pi got up
and picked it up for me. I placed everything on the ground at my feet by the
fire. Then I grabbed the two sandwiches that were wrapped in wax paper, handed
them to Little Pi and said “Split these in half and pass them around.” I then
took out my Swiss army knife and started to open up the canned food and placed
them in the pot of hot water. I close the can opener tool on my knife and
opened up a knife and stirred the beans and ravioli. Once the cans started to
get warm I put the hot dogs in the water and then sat back and enjoyed my half
of a bologna and cheese sandwich.
I
pulled the cans out of the water with my hand wrapped in my shirt so I would
burn my hand, opened up the spoon on my Swiss Army knife, took a bite of beans
then a bite of ravioli and passed the food and spoon on to Kevin. He repeated
what I had done and then passed the cans and spoon on to the Pi brothers. When
the cans were empty I speared the hot dogs with knife and put them in the cans
and we ate those. Our eating was done in silence with occasional interruptions
of a burp or a cough.
We
finished eating, cleaned up our dishes and I soaked the fire pit with two pots
of water. My new friends got their tents secured and their backpacks prepared
to go to their house. I prepped my back pack and as we walked to the other side
of the pond I looked back at our campsite and hoped it would be ok.
On
our mile long hike to Kevins’ neighborhoods more tales of riding the dirt bikes
in the “Dunes” and jumping the “Pit of Death” were traded amongst my
compatriots. I felt a nervous tension growing in my stomach as the size of the
“Pit of Death” grew from twenty feet long, six feet deep and five feet wide to
forty feet long, twenty feet deep and fifteen feet wide and the stacks of
broken motorcycles and amputated body parts filled the pit. The guys also
filled me in on the rest of their gang; apparently Kevin had a sister named
Karen who was a year younger than him. The Pi’s had an older sister who was a
senior in high school and rarely hung out in the neighborhood. There was also
Steve whose bikes we would be riding, Steve had a sister named Teresa who was a
year older and then there was Mikey who was a kid who had a three-wheeler and a
Kawasaki KDX.
Apparently,
from what I could understand, Mikey held the record for jumping the “Pit of
Death” at the “Dunes” and him and Teresa had been going steady until Mikey got
caught kissing Karen. Of course, I could have misunderstood. By the time we got
to Kevin’s house my head was swimming with drama, bullshit and half-truths. I
had to concentrate on recalling the tips and techniques of dirt bike riding as
well as what sort of replacement food and supplies I would need for the
campsite.
We
piled our gear in Kevin’s garage and headed out to Mikey’s house. We found him eating
his way through a box of Cap’n Crunch, Crunch Berries in his parents garage as
well as the rest of the gang. Kevin introduced me around and I tried hard to
remember every ones name. My main distraction came from the motorcycles, dirt
bikes, and three wheelers parked everywhere.
Kevin
was sitting on his three-wheeler, Steve was sitting on a Honda 125, Teresa was
leaning against the workbench and Karen was standing at the entrance to the
garage smoking. Everyone agreed it would be a perfect day to head to the Dunes
and tear up the sand for the day.
Questions
were asked about my proficiency on a bike, and answered. It was decided I would
use the Suzuki 75cc bike while everyone else used 100’s or 125’s. I really
couldn’t complain, I was after all the new guy, untried and untested in the
eyes of this well rounded group.
We
headed out in single file order and I was the second to the last one in line,
Little Pi was last and he was riding the three wheeler. We rode through the
neighborhood and then made a cut through an abandon houses’ backyard and onto a
well worn trail canopied by trees and bushes. We rode for about a half a mile along
this trail and one by one we crested a ten foot mound of dirt into the late
morning sunlight.
My
fellow riders were already gunning the throttles of their machines, steering
their bikes towards whoop-de-whoops, moguls and jumps. I pulled the Suzuki off
to the side and let Little Pi blast by me, his screaming and laughter drowning
out the high pitched whine of his engine. I sat on the bike and tried to take
in the entire depth and breadth of what my pals had been calling “The Dunes”.
The
place seemed huge but it couldn’t have been more than a hundred and fifty yards
long, thirty yards wide and in the shape of an oblong bowl. Dunes, burms, pits
and moguls were scattered everywhere but there seemed to be a winding path
between each obstacle the only exception to this was a straight-a-way path in
the middle of the entire bowl. The path was about thirty yards long with a ramp
at the end. At the high end of the ramp was what appeared to be a hole about
six feet wide and at least fifteen feet long, the distances were hard for me to
tell from my perch near the entrance to the ad hoc recreational area.
I
saw Kevin heading towards me like his ass was on fire and when he was about
twenty feet from me he flipped his bike sideways and washed me down in a spray
of sand, quickly followed by laughter.
“Damn
Kev!” I yelled over the din of motors “What the hell did you do that for?”
“Just
messin’ with you man. What are you sitting up here for? All the fun is down
there?”
“I’m
trying to get a feel for things. What do you think I’m doing?”
“Didn’t
know if you were chicken? Oh, and you have to jump the Pit today. Which might
be a bit hard on that small bike.” He said with a chuckle.
“With
a run like that I shouldn’t have a problem.” I said pointing to the path up to
the ramp.
“Well,
let’s get it over with then. That way if you crash and burn we can get you to
the hospital and still ride this afternoon.” He said and throttled up his bike
and went down and parked his cycle alongside the path. The rest of the group
soon followed suit forming two lines one on the east side of the path and one
on the west side.
I
rode down to the far end of the Pit and slowly rode parallel along the entire
length, once I got to the ramp I noticed a decent size groove in the center of
it and knew the path I would have to take. At the low end of the ramp I steered
my bike into the middle of the approach path and rode past my initiators. At the
end of the line I turned my bike around and lined my bike up in the middle of the
path.
I sat
back a bit, looked at the long line of dirt in front of me, then I made eye contact
with each of my fellow riders. There was a tickle in my stomach, I could feel beads
of sweat on my forehead and I knew my shirt was soaked through at the armpits. I
shrugged my shoulders, pulled, put the bike in second gear, reved the engine up,
popped the clutch and sent a rooster tail of sand into the air.
“GERONIMO!!!”
I screamed as headed off to face my newest abyss.
