“Completely. Totally. Boneheaded. I don’t know what we were thinking. And if your bike reached the sidewalk, you were eliminated. Meaning, ride as fast as you freakin’ can, with all the momentum heading down that huge hill, reach the manhole cover to get the best time, then skid to a stop almost immediately so you don’t reach the sidewalk.”
We pass under the bare limbs of an oak tree stretching high and skeletal. The street is hushed, like everything has gone to sleep beneath the snow. And intimate, as if the world has quieted just for us. That’s how I see it, anyway.
Not so much for Trinity. I steal glances at her as we walk, as I narrate. She’s got her hair tied back, a knit hat pulled low, cheeks pink from the cold. She’s beautiful in that effortless way; my chest tightens at the thought that she’s here next to me. But her eyes are down. She is not thinking of me, at least not in the way I am thinking of her. She is listening, concentrating, strategizing how to bring my story to life.
“Here we are,” I say, pointing across the intersection.
Hilltop Elementary and Grace Middle School share a one-square-block campus. Extensive renovations have made it unrecognizable from my youth—once all-brick schools replaced with structures of recycled steel and glass—but the biggest change is the hill, the infamous hill, the one they called “Luke’s Hill” after my accident. Occupying that south area of the campus now, connected by an annex to the schools, is a multipurpose athletic facility owned by the park district, including a swimming pool and indoor courts for basketball and racket sports.
“Unfortunately for your purposes,” I say, “you’ll have to look at old photos. But trust me, that hill was basically a ski slope.”
“Kind of odd, actually.”
“Yeah, I know. Why put a school next to a slope like that? Apparently, before it was settled and became Grace Park in the 1800s, the terrain was quite hilly. The founder flattened a lot of it, but for some reason was excited about having a school on a hilltop. Some shining beacon or something? So he refused to flatten this block. When he endowed this land, he wouldn’t let it be changed. But about a decade ago, the town worked it out somehow with his ancestors and did this whole renovation. Shiny new buildings, and no more hill.”
Though I’ve passed this intersection countless times, I’ve never gotten used to the new look since the renovations. I still see that hill in my mind, still feel a small twinge every time I pass by. Most times, I remind myself of what I’ve overcome, how I turned tragedy into success,if a different kind. I’m full of rationalizations, too: The odds of making the major leagues are so infinitesimal; I probably would’ve hurt my arm like most people shooting for the bigs; focusing on the cerebral part of the game at such an early age made me the coach I am today.
But I never got to find out. I never got to see for myself, on my terms.
We reach Forest Avenue, at the southern border of the campus. “This is where it happened,” I say. “The manhole, the sewer cover, should be…here.” Not far from the sidewalk abutting Forest, the manhole still remains carved out of the lawn. I scrape away some ice.
“That’s so close to the sidewalk,” says Trinity.
“Eight yards,” I say. “Not much time to stop your bike before the sidewalk.”
“And not far from the street, generally,” says Trinity. “The sidewalk, then a small patch of grass, and then you’re in oncoming traffic.”
“Right. So anyway, you know the story. When it was my turn, I went flying down the hill, but instead of stopping at the manhole, I went into the street, and then the collision.”
Trinity shakes her head. “Pretty amazing you didn’t die. I mean, I realize you lost your ability to pitch, but you survived—”
“Both of those for the same reason,” I say. “Apparently, when I collided with the car, it was almost a head-on collision. Best we could reconstruct it, and from the accounts of the other kids, I turned my bike to the left, right into the path of the car. My front wheel collided with the left side of the fender and I was tossed forward. I flew off the bike and hit a parked car, which could have killed me. Except I stuck out my arms defensively. My right arm was fully extended when I hit the parked car. It probably saved my life, but it tore my labrum. A complete tear.”
Trinity nods solemnly. “And you were never the same pitcher.”
“Not even close. But hey, I’m lucky I lurched forward off the bike. Otherwise, I would’ve been underneath the car along with my bike.”
“Ugh.” Trinity shudders. “It’s a blessing you don’t remember the accident.”
“Yeah. Thank God.”
“How muchdoyou remember?” she asks.
It was a Tuesday in late May, the end of school nearing. Little league was coming to an end, but I was also on a travel baseball team that played through June. And in a few weeks, I was going to play in a game sponsored byBaseball Todaydown in Arlington, Texas, featuring the “15 Under 15” players from across the country.
About a half dozen of us didn’t have baseball practice after school, so we played a pickup game on the middle school field before riding the hill. One of us had to volunteer to go get the bikes off the rack and walk them over to hand to the rest of us over the fence. The “gofer,” as we called him, was supposed to be the kid with the slowest time from the previous contest, but the participants weren’t always the same, and everyone had selective memories.
That day, Finley, my best friend, the biggest of all of us, sprouting to five foot ten by age fourteen, was the gofer who handed my bike over the fence.
Betcha can’t break it, Fin said to me, meaning the record of 15.44 seconds. We shook on a five-dollar bet.
Piece of cake, I said.
It was somewhere around six in the evening. Far from dusk that time of year, but the hill was on the southeast side of the schools, so we were cast in shadow. It was warm but not hot. It had rained that morning, which gave the earth a moldy smell—and added to the challenge.
Kevin Galloway went first, with Jimmy Wilding at the bottom holding the stopwatch.On your mark, get set, go!Jimmy shouted, and Kevin raced his mountain bike down the hill. He tried to skid to a halt once past the manhole but wiped out, sliding along the ground, while his bike ended up on the sidewalk.
Sixteen and fifty-six one-hundredths!Jimmy called. Not bad, but over a second shy of the record.
